Why You’ve Been Lied to About Fitness: Sebastien Lagree on Midlife Strength, Fat Loss & the Real Burn

Sebastien Lagree: 00:00:00

Roxy, you're going to give me so much trouble. You're going to clip this answer, right? And you're going to put it on social media and people think I'm bashing Pilates.

Roxy: 00:00:07

Okay, what is the biggest misconception that you would love to debunk?

Sebastien Lagree: 00:00:11

There's a difference between exercise and moving. I think that people have to move more. People look at working out as this huge mountain.

What they don't understand is when I go on a hike, I don't look at the top. I look the next step, one step at a time.

Roxy: 00:00:24

Looking for, you know, aesthetic, aesthetics. They're also looking for longevity and strength and wellness and balance.

Sebastien Lagree: 00:00:31

That's me, baby. I see a big transition from fitness to wellness right now.

A lot of people do the degree workout not just for the physical benefit, but for the mental benefit. All the life skills that it takes to build a successful business are the same to build a successful body, if you want to call it that way. Right.

Roxy: 00:00:47

Everyone's saying lift heavy. Lift heavy.

Sebastien Lagree: 00:00:49

Especially women in midlife do not use heavy dumbbells. I think that for women at home who wants to get in great shapes, they don't need to have anything past 10 pounds. You can say the word change.

I prefer the word evolution. The machines, they are clearly evolving. They're not devolving.

Roxy: 00:01:09

Today on the iconic Midlife, I'm joined by a true innovator in the fitness world, Sebastian Legree, creator of the Legree method. His megaformer and evo machines have revolutionized strength training and and his method is practiced in hundreds of studios across the globe.

We're going to dive into how he built one of the most recognized names in fitness, why Legree works especially well for women in midlife, and what he sees as the future of movement, strength, and reinvention. Get ready for a conversation that might just change the way you think about working out. Welcome to the iconic midlife, Sebastian.

Sebastien Lagree: 00:01:45

Thank you, Roxy.

Roxy: 00:01:47

We're so excited to have you here. You know, we were just talking.

I came to the class that you were teaching your amazing class on Sunday, and I today is Friday and I am still sore in the best way.

Sebastien Lagree: 00:02:03

Oh, my God. You are welcome. I love this. I love this. It was a hard class. There was.

We, you know, because when I teach on Sunday, I love to experiment on new variations and, you know, because in my mind, I'm working on new machines, I knew the new tools that are coming out. It's frustrating because not all the studios, you know, should you went to didn't have the latest machine.

So it's hard for me to, to sometime teach on the, on the machines that are not up to date. Because when I teach a class, I'm not just teaching the class in my mind, I'm simulating the new change is about to come.

So sometimes I teach weird sequences or exercise and people may be like, ah.

But in my mind it makes sense because I'm like, okay, if you had that apparatus and we would be doing this sequence, I want to see what the changes are. So, you know, I'm glad you were five years or. Great, fantastic.

Roxy: 00:02:58

It was great.

Sebastien Lagree: 00:02:58

You should come this Sunday. You'll be like seven days or.

Roxy: 00:03:01

Yes, yes, I'll take it, I'll take it. I've got to get, got to get this body going again. You know, I loved, love your workout. I actually started doing it before the pandemic.

So kind of in that time, you know, the years before and was going to the West Hollywood studio and just every time I would leave it was like the endorphins were flowing and you know, being sore in a great way, you feel like it, like you're getting a great workout. But you're also thinking during this workout, which I really love, there is a total mind body connection.

You can't do it if you're not concentrating because you'll fall off the machine if you don't.

Sebastien Lagree: 00:03:39

That's exactly right. Yeah, absolutely. You need to be present into your body in the workout.

And so I think because you're present for that brief hour, you know, you're not thinking about what you just did or you need to do, you're just present. And it just hugely has a huge therapeutic effect.

Roxy: 00:03:57

Yes, very therapeutic. So let's go back to the beginning because I'm so interested in your whole metamorphosis of like your career. Because I under.

As I understand it, you actually started out doing bodybuilding, is that right?

Sebastien Lagree: 00:04:11

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, yeah. So, so, so, so my background is bodybuilding and I started to lift weight. I was 13 and I got really into it.

Started to do that when I was in France and then I moved to the US when I was 17 and in France in the 80s, you know, there's not much about bodybuilding and fitness. You know, it's a couple clubs, that's it.

But when I moved to the U.S. i didn't, I didn't realize that it was a huge phenomenon in the U.S. so there was like publications and, and you know, there's all so much information and the supplements, oh my God, you couldn't get those supplements back in the 80s, you know, you know, in France. So, you know, it kind of my, my, the, my, my, I wouldn't say I've had a career in bodybuilding because I never competed.

But my, my involvement with bodybuilding just, you know, you know, just skyrocketed because that all these, you know, gyms, there were gyms everywhere, people were into fitness, you know, so it was, I, I tremendously enjoyed that, that time. I learned a lot about exercise, you know.

Roxy: 00:05:11

Yeah. Where you could, did you come here and do the whole like Venice, Muscle Beach?

Sebastien Lagree: 00:05:15

Oh, no. So, so, so what, what happened? You know, I moved to Oregon. You know, my mom was, my mom was American, but that is French.

You know, when they split up, my mom decided to come back here in the US her family had moved to Oregon. She's originally from San Francisco and Washington. And so I, I, I, I moved with her, finished high school.

Love being here in the U.S. you know, and, and then I moved to, you know, went to University of, I went to Portland State University and then there started to get into, you know, as I was studying, I got into really bodybuilding and that's where things kind of started.

And then I did that for a few years and then I met this photographer, Julian, and then he managed to shoot a lot and I, that's where I got really interested into the whole like acting and modeling because I was doing all this like, really, I would say a fantasy type of shoot that was like, you know, had a long blonde hair, you know, going down to middleman. You know, I was like another version of Fabio essentially. You know, you know, big muscle.

So we used to do a lot of photography and I absolutely enjoy the whole creativity aspect of a, of setting up a photo shoot. You know, Julian would, would, would, was, was to art and crafts.

So that logo that I have, you know, the bow and arrow, that's a photo that we took when I was 21 and, and I just love being with him and being around this creativity. And we shot everywhere in Portland, Oregon. It would take me to all these sites and it was always like fantasy stuff.

And so I went to Seattle, finished my, my studies over there.

I got my graduates, I got my, my and, but it was always, you know, working with Julian, it was always a dream of mine to come to LA and then pursue an act, a career in acting.

So when I get, when I came here, you know, I, you know, it's, you know, I was gonna, it was gonna continue my bodybuilding, but really I came here for the acting, you know, and. And of course, nothing worked out that way. Right. Other plans for me, you know, so.

Roxy: 00:07:23

Right. I know you. You kind of have to do it, though. You have to kind of follow it if you get the bug, you know?

Sebastien Lagree: 00:07:28

Absolutely. No, there. You. You have to follow. And then, you know, sometimes, you know, the. The universe is other plans for you.

So you said other plans for me, and I'm very happy that of everything. How it worked out now, because I'm having a blast, you know?

Roxy: 00:07:41

So what was the thing about it that you were trying to solve? What was, like, the problem that you were seeing that you said, I need to make a solution? Yeah.

Sebastien Lagree: 00:07:50

Oh, boy. Roxy, you're gonna give me trouble because every single time I got a podcast, people ask me the exact same question.

So I answer the question, and then you're gonna clip it. You're gonna clip this answer, right? It's gonna. And you're gonna put it on social media, and people think I'm bashing Pilates, okay. The.

Every single time. First of all, okay? To all the people, okay? I love Pilates, Okay. I think Pilates is a wonderful method, okay?

However, Pilates is not going to give you the body that you want, because Pilates does not. Does not have the intensity. He doesn't have the exercises. It's not the reason why Joseph created Pilates.

You know, Joseph created Pilates after the First World War. He was a nurse. He recognized the healing property of movement. Okay? So that is how Pilati started. And then when he opened a studio in.

In New York City, his New York City studio was not doing well. But there was one client that came in who gave him all the business, and that was Martha Graham.

Because Martha Graham recognized the healing properties. She recognized the benefit of his equipment for her dancer. So Pilatis became almost. It's like, unofficial, you know, recovery or rehab for dancers.

And that's how it was done for many decades.

Matter of fact, when you like this today, there's a lot of ballet terminology, you know, p. First position, second position, relev point, all that stuff, right? When you study fitness and bodybuilding, you're not going to study PA first position, second position, you study time and retention, muscle fatigue.

You're talking about isometric, isokinetic, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, Right? It has nothing to do with this. So to the Pilatis industry, I'm sorry, but that is how the method started.

So I come to la, you know, I'm come here, and my big muscles everywhere, and, you know, I. You know, I'M I, I started to, you know, I realized, okay, I gotta make a living.

So I decided to become a personal trainer because everybody would ask me, hey, are you, you do great. You know, can you train me? Can you work me out? So I started to do that and that led me to teaching Pilates.

And so when I started to teach Pilates, I was basically coached by a bodybuilder ex, Martha Graham dancer. Okay. So he knew the in and out of Pilates and he taught me Pilates as a method, not as an exercise science. Okay.

And he told me, okay, this is Pilates, it's not Pilates, you know, and I got it because, you know, Pilates was very different that, you know, at the time. But the exercise, the, the exercise that we did on the machines were simply not transformative exercise. They're great exercise. You feel good.

So in Pilates. So the, so the, the method that I learned, right, the Pilates method was a, it's a good method if you're already in shape.

But if you want to get in shape and you do Pilates, you're not going to get in shape. It's, it's, it's just not going to happen. Today it's very different because I've single handedly changed the Pilates game today.

You have athletic Pilates, you know, whatever the means, right? You have high intensity Pilates, progressive Pilates, Modern Pilates, Pilates 2.0.

Every other companies out there is trying to just basically try to intensify the method because when I came in, that's what I did, you know, so these women are coming to me, you know, this, this owners giving all these clients, and those clients are doing Pilates because that's what they hire me to do.

And after a few sessions they're like, you know, were they going to the gym after the class, you know, and I asked them, I say, you know, why, why are you going to the gym? Why, you know, are you not happy with the workout? Because you know me, I'm depending on the money.

So I want to make sure that you're happy with the workout. You are hiring me to teach Pilates, but you want these other results.

I know from a scientific point of view that the results that you want cannot be achieved with this exercise program. That is not possible. Okay?

So I went to Ivan and I say, you know the owner, I say, hey, dude, you know, we're going to lose these clients because, you know, they, you know, these women want this woman. They think they're going to get this body by Doing this method, but it's not. And Ivan's like, well, do whatever you need to do.

You know, I, I, I make them happy, make them have result. Like, all right. So what I did is what I only knew because I'm a bodybuilder. To a bodybuilder, everything is a dumbbell.

So for me, the Reformer became dumbbell. The, the Cadillac, all the Pilates equipment became a dumbbell.

And I use basically bodybuilding exercises and training techniques and apply them to the Pilates apparatus. And what happened? Boom. Within, let's see, within four, six weeks, man, I was like training 60 to 80 hours a week. It just took off.

Roxy: 00:12:35

Wow.

Sebastien Lagree: 00:12:35

Started to get on tv. All that stuff. People, what is this method? This is amazing. And I'm thinking, are you kidding me? This is circuit training. I'm doing circuit training.

I, I did not take the method that I created. So the method that you do today is completely different from the method that I taught. Okay?

It's very important that people know that the Legree method is already at its 10th iteration. You cannot teach the workout today that I'm teaching on the Megaformer. The workout that you did last Sunday.

It's impossible to teach that on the Reformer. It's impossible. You will not be able to teach this method. Teach the exercise, teach the sequence on the Reformer. It's impossible.

You know, it's like comparing two cars. You know, one is EV and one is a gas car. I'm sorry, they both go to A to B.

But it's going to be different system, different processes, different, you know, that's how it is. So I, I, so the first method that I, that I, that I basically did was so degree has always been a circuit training. Circuit training.

But the tools have been, have evolved over time.

So in: 1998

I appear to be Arnold or what do Laroque does, You know, I want to get paid $20 million a movie people up on screen. You know, that's what I wanted to do, right? That's it, you know, very simple plan. Okay, then come here to overtake the, the fitness industry.

And so, so I whipped up this program because it's just like if you know fitness, it's easy if you want to lose weight, the best way to lose weight, the only the, the, the, the, the proven way to lose fat during exercise is circuit Training, you want to do a combination of, of resistance training and cardio. You're going to burn more fat during and after the workout. Weight training does not really burn fat during the workout.

It'll burn some fat after the workout. Mostly as you build muscle, the muscles will burn fat, okay? Cardio burns fat during the workout.

A little bit mix of sugar and fat, you know, but really nothing after. The best combination is cardio and resistance training.

Now, I would say to you, to your audience, that the number one, number two and the number three way of losing weight is always a permanent change in diet. But if you're too lazy to change your diet, okay, and you want to lose weight during exercise, you have to combine weight training and resistance.

That is the best way to burn both subcutaneous fat, intramuscular fat. That's the best way to do it, okay? So that's what I did. I used, used a reformer. I used a Cadillac. I did my lunges, I did my squats.

I did like the major group muscles to activate the metabolism, you know, And I recreated the exercise that you would do at the gym. I recreated in the Pilates environment.

And when I was doing this other Pilates trainer, look at me like, like the black sheep, you know, Matter of fact, I got banned.

I get banned from all the reason that I had to create my own, open my own Pilates studios because I got banned to all the Pilates studios in la, you know, and when that's what today, when people say, oh, it's Pilates, you. Okay, that is not true. You just, you, you should hear the message on my voicemail from other Pilates studio. So pissed off, really pissed off at me.

It's like Joseph Pilates would turn over six time or in his grave or whatever. And I'm just like, what? I'm, I'm, I'm just, I'm, I, I, I didn't come up with it. This is, this is what the client wanted.

I'm only doing what people wanted, you know, and that what people expected. So anyway, that's, that's how the method, you know, originally started. If I took you to that training today, you would not like it.

It has nothing to do with.

s method that I taught in, in: 1998

But the method evolved after that because I got kicked out of that studio. So the shoe got bought out by someone else. The new owner didn't like what I was doing because I was.

I wasn't teaching Pilati, so he thought I was going to injure people. So he's like, okay, you can't teach this anymore. And I couldn't. And also, my by.

By the time that I got kicked out of that Piliti studio, I couldn't use because the word had gone and out. The host is French guy Sebastian. He has people sweating on the Reformer. What? Yeah, people are standing up, they're doing the lunges.

Like, oh, my God, it's so dangerous. Oh, my God. You know, now everybody in LA is doing my workouts. Okay. So thank you very much.

You know, it is, you know, the hypocrisy, you know, of that. Of that community. I swear, you know, oh, you know, today's say, well, everything you do is Pilates. I was doing that.

Okay, all right, well, this is why I got forbidden to teach at a Pilates studio. And that's why I had to open my studio. And because I didn't have the money, I open into an apartment. So I let. I. I rented the biggest apartment.

I rented the apartment in Beverly Hills with the base living room because it was the idea to put four leg rows. So got four Legos from Balance Body. I opened on Club Drive, right behind the Ivy. In. In la, people are familiar with the Ivy. I was on Clockwrive.

The building is no longer there. It's got. It's got demolished and rebuilding. And I started to teach my classes with four people.

I open on September 11th, you know, so 911 was my opening day. That's why I never celebrate, you know, the birth of lry. Because 911, that is that. That famous Tuesday, that is my.

That's when I opened officially the first studio. And, you know, what a. What a day. And. And then. Then I stayed for about a year and a half at that location and got kicked out again.

Kicked out again because there was this actress that was living above me, probably not working actress, I. I'm sure. And she was so upset that four women were coming to my apartment every hour. And then the landlord, you know, called me one day.

So, hey, Sebastian, you know, what's. What's going on at your place? You got four women coming every hour. I'm like, oh, it's not what you think. I got four machines over here.

I told you what I was doing. And he's like, well, you can't run a business out of your apartment. So Let me give you a six months notice.

So then I moved into this, this, this commercial space in on Melrose. I moved and placed on Melrose, right? And, and now I have a bigger challenge because I'm not paying an apartment.

I'm paying actually a commercial lease. And, and I have four beds. So for me, that was it. You know, when I moved into that apartment in Beverly Hills with four beds, that was it.

I was going to teach my classes and go my auditions. This is all I wanted to do. There was no plan whatsoever for me to make a living out of this.

I'm like, okay, now I'm established, I'm situated, I got my business, now I can go my auditions, no problem. But the business kept growing and kept growing and on press on that, in that, that, that tiny little apartment in Beverly Hills.

I mean, I used to have big name celebrities coming in, in their limousine and all that stuff. It was so weird because it was like literally my little apartment and they got all these like big names.

So anyway, so now I'm opening this commercial space. I got these four machines, huge space. I could put more machines. But I had decided that I'm only going to teach to four people.

Four people is what I can safely, safely, effectively, you know, efficiently teach to. And of course the rent is more.

I'm about to have a kid, right, you know, and I'm realizing, well, if I add one more machines, this would, this would add so much more money, you know, every month. And that would actually ease a lot of the financial concern that they have, right?

Roxy: 00:20:17

Financial stress. Yeah, right.

Sebastien Lagree: 00:20:20

So I add one more machine. So I'll have five.

And then the class are always full and I always have always have one more person showing up to class, trying to get in as if the universe is telling me you're not going to be at 5. You think you are one more person. One more person. So I went to 5, to 6, to 7, to 8, to 9. At 10, the reformer became so dangerous.

I've had all the people that fell in my classes. I had one person that went to a hospital because she dislocated her shoulder. All of that nasty part in my life was in the reformer days.

So in: 2003

So decide to make the pro forma. So Legree went through different iteration, right? Iteration. The first one was like when I was teaching one on One on the Pilates equipment.

The second iteration was when I had to. Now I didn't have all this equipment, so I changed. I decided to use the Reformer. So I had a method performing for Reformer.

When I went to 10 reformers, I couldn't teach the same method anymore because you had. The machine was inadequate. The machine was not built for the workout that I was teaching. So I had to modify the.

The method a third time with the 10 people when the Pro former came in and modified the method a fourth time, because now the Pro former was able to do exercises you could never do on the Reformer.

So I was the first person ever in an entire planet to start to experiment with all the exercise done on the back of the machine, because I was the first person to ever add a platform on the front of the machine of a Reformer and the back of the Reformer. And that completely transformed the repertoire of exercise and the type of exercise you could do and so on. So I started to learn about this stuff.

So Legree 4.0 would have started with the. Basically the beginning of the Pro Forma. And the Pro forma with the Pro Forma came out. It became an instant success.

It's like I didn't know that there was essentially this itch in the Pilates industry that a lot of people and everyone who came to the studio were all Pilates go, right? They were all Pilates clients.

Today, half of my clientele, all Pilati studios, converting to Luigri or they decide, you know what, I want to add Lugri to Pilates. So I have a huge umbilical cord. I have a huge connection to the Pilates community, right? So all these people, this Pilates people.

Oh, my God, I love this workout. What do you call this? What do you call this?

Well, you know, call it Pilates plus, you know, but I'm thinking maybe I should come start to change your name, because by the time we get on the Pro Forma, while we're doing, you know, a lot less Pilates exercises, so everything is changing. So the Pro Forma started to really signify, okay, this is now a different method.

On the Pro Forma, it was already very different from what I taught on the Reformer and definitely in the one on one studio. So right now we're looking 2.0 because we have a game changer. I mean, I've had a lot of game changer, but this is.

This is the game changer coming in the new community. And that's the remote control spring change.

So we have right now, you'll have, I already have two studios in existence and they have the remote control spring change. Unfortunately, I had to pull out those machines. I had to stop production on that machine because the electronics were not perfected.

So now I have a new R D house and we're going to relaunch the technology. This is a game changer because now with this you can, you can add new training techniques that it's impossible to do unless you have this.

So when you talk about a muscle activation, when you talk about time under tension, this is it. You will not be able to do this. This is incredible. And then of course, I'm not stopping at that. We're going to continue evolution.

I already know what's coming after this one, that one and that one. You know, I'm already 20 years ahead with everything.

Roxy: 00:24:06

So you seem to be constantly changing.

Sebastien Lagree: 00:24:09

Well, you're not changing. Change is what. Change is what copycats will tell the licensee. Oh, Sebastian is always changing his machine.

You don't want to buy his machines because next year is going to have the new machines. Yeah, you can say the word change. I prefer the word evolution because if you look at the machines, they are clearly evolving. They're not devolving.

this method I created back in: 1998

It's already number one method in, in, in some places, this is number one. We have like 65 copycats, we got countless of counterfeits that I'm dealing with, you know, so the evolution is absolutely necessary.

But as much as people love the workout today and as much as you love the workout, the, the method is only at 40. Development. We're not 100. The, the method that you're doing right now is only at 40.

Roxy: 00:25:05

So you're going to continue to evolve it.

Sebastien Lagree: 00:25:07

I'm going to evolve it until I reached 100%. Right. And then once I'm at the 100, I'm going to continue, try.

I'm going to try to continue all the word, the method, but at that point it's 100, it's completed. So, you know, I'm going to continue just maintaining that and then I'm going to start. I planted a new seed already.

I'm going to grow a new degree tree and I'm going to try. I'm going to do a whole new workout that is for mental and spiritual strength. So it's going to be a workout more for wellness, less for fitness.

You know, this is going to be a transition to the wellness. And this is, this is for people, this is to help or with your mood or for your emotions. This is going to be.

Because I, I see a big transition from fitness to wellness right now. And I think that a lot of people work, a lot of people do the degree workout not just for the physical benefit, but for the mental benefits.

And I want to, I want to start to evolve a method. I want to create a new method specifically designed for mental benefits.

I think, I think it's, I think that exercise could be prescribed for someone who has depression or someone who has anxiety or someone is just, you know, feeling down on the luck and you want to feel a little boost. Exercise can absolutely be used to make you happier, to make you smarter, to, for, to, to have more confidence in yourself.

Definitely we know that, that exercise build confidence.

But what if I studied exactly what type of exercise, what type of training techniques are actually the best one to, to, to bring about more confidence?

You know, I've already done some studies and we've, we've, we've looked at the brain activity during legree and it's pretty cool what we've already found out. I'm not going to share too much with this because it's part of my trade secrets, but yeah, there's some, there's some machines that I use.

For example, the Supra, where the supervisor machine that tilt on its own.

Roxy: 00:26:54

That's one I did before. Yes, I did that one.

Sebastien Lagree: 00:26:57

Yeah, so, so, so that machine right here, when you put people on the tilt, one of the byproduct of the workout is happiness. All the participants felt happy if they were right. Yes.

So I want to understand what was about that machine, about that method, about this specific sequence of exercise, what made basically that euphoric feeling. Because that if I can bottle this, that'd be great. You know, that's the key.

That's the key because so many, you know, miserable people out there, you know, people just like, you know, just they, you know, they, they feel stuck, you know, they, whatever.

So what if exercise could help them to get off that fog, you know, to start to think, you know, to see above the clouds, you know, and so exercise is definitely a powerful tool for your. For mental benefits. You know, mental, emotional, psychological.

Roxy: 00:27:47

That is so important for the iconic midlife audience because it's a comprised of women, 40s and 50s. And yes, they're looking for, you know, aesthetics, but they're also looking for longevity and strength and wellness and balance.

I mean, the issues that come Up.

Sebastien Lagree: 00:28:03

That's me, baby. Yeah, absolutely.

That's why the method evolves, because it changes, because the more I talk to people and I try to incorporate other training techniques to bring about other result. You know, I'm probably the only person out there selling a fitness method that is engineered. This is not. It's not like I was a yogi and I.

And I started to veer off yoga and I started to develop my own style of yoga, and I'm doing yoga myself, and I've. I'm teaching those classes. I don't do my workout. I study my workouts. I try to understand fitness. You know, I knew elements based on what I witness.

You know, it's. It's a whole scientific method to this whole process, you know, and so I'm very much, you know, basically engineering and continue to engineer this.

This method. So it's. So it's a very different approach.

You know, I'm not like Billy Blank, who was like, you know, this martial artist and then you know, basically developed this whole workout. You know, if you look at every fitness guru out there, they always have the method and they do the workout with them. This is totally different.

nt, Roxy? Just like Alison in: 1998

They're all beautiful. And I'm like, what. What. What possibly can I bring to you? You're perfect. You're on tv. You look perfect. What do you want?

Ah, I want my ass to be higher. I want my waist to be inner. And I'm just like, when you work with perfection, then you have to become really very precise.

So this workout that you love is because of these women that came to me as I asked them, I say, well, how. What. What kind of results do you want to see? And I will focus on that.

And that's what I did, you know, so today people want this, but now people want more of the mental benefits. A lot of people tell me, you know, most of the emails, most of the messages that I get on Instagram are like, how I've changed people's life.

It's not have changed people's body. It's how people love their life. They feel more comfortable in the body. They feel more confident. I'm like, yeah, that's what I want.

You know, so today, what I want to do with the method, I want to level people up. I want to. I want to help humanity level up on the physical, mental, and spiritual level, because More than ever, man, we need faith.

We need faith in ourselves, you know?

Roxy: 00:30:12

Yeah.

You know, I think that the, the appeal of the workout too, because it, you know, it crosses celebrities and different cultures, is that you sort of been able to encapsulate all of those things, you know, in one package. You know, it's not just you were, you go in, you lift some weights and you walk out, you kind of come out feeling more complete.

I would say, like more, it's like more than just a physical effect, you know, it's, it's mental, it's emotional. Why do you think it resonates like that?

Sebastien Lagree: 00:30:41

the future of fitness back in: 2013

And what I realized, because: 2013

, love all that stuff. And so: 2013

I mean, you know, I'm looking at gene therapy right now. You know, I'm interested in doing it.

I have a couple clinics that I'm talking to right now, and I'm going to do gene therapy so that I can build muscle quicker and build fat faster, you know, so, yeah, I'm totally to bio hiking. So how is biohacking going to affect fitness? I'm in fitness.

I depend on, on clients, you know, like you, for example, who want to change to come to me. But what if in the future you do not have to work out?

You can go to your, your doctor, get a shot, and then over the course of next week or two, you start to lose weight, you start to gain muscle because it's your genetic responding to this therapy. So now without the need to work out, you look like a Greek goddess.

d that did his documentary in: 2013

I realized that actually in the future, more people are going to work out, but they're not going to work out for the same benefit. People are not going to work out for the physical benefit of fitness.

So having bigger muscles or being tight, there is still going to be, of course, a, a percentage of the population working for those benefit, but the majority of people are Going to work out for the mental, intellectual, psychological, emotional, social and spiritual benefit because you can exercise yourself to have a religious experience. I felt that many times, this is why I'm doing this for a living.

You know, I'm, you know, completely into the, into the emotional, spiritual benefits of fitness.

And so when I made that realization right away, I started to study about, you know, on the Supra, you know, because at the same time, you know, we had, I was doing on my student Supra. And the Supra showed that a lot of the benefits were actually mental. On the Supra, they were not just physiological, they were mental.

So that gave me the idea of start to work on basically a program. Okay, how can I grasp, how can I address the mental aspect of the workout without making drastic change to the machine? So I started again.

Alter the method today. When you do the exercise, you do them for longer, slower. There's a whole reason for that. It's not just for muscular endurance.

It's also for the mental benefit. You're more focused, you're more presence into the workout. Some of the exercises that we did on Sunday, you absolutely need to be present.

If you're not present, you're falling off the machine, right? So being present is a, is an amazing, it's, it's, it's, it's an amazing benefit to just be present.

Because when you're present, all this, when you're truly in the moment, you're not thinking about the past, you're not depressed, you're not thinking about the future, you have no anxiety. And for that brief moment that you're on the mega former, you feel at peace and you have that reset button, and that is absolutely powerful.

I'm of course going to study and I'm going to learn a lot more about this relationship, you know, between movements and mental health. And I'm going to continue developing the method in that direction.

But that's, that's, that's why you feel this way, is because I, I made the change a long time ago to start to bring about this benefit. And I'm seeing those benefits, I'm reading those benefits. I'm going to continue evolving the method in that way.

Roxy: 00:34:26

How has midlife been for you, Roxy?

Sebastien Lagree: 00:34:29

I fucking love my life. I'm 52 and I love my life more today than I did when I was 24. I would never go back to 24. I got same energy.

I, I, I, I, I, I do not feel depressed ever. I don't feel any anxiety. The what, what? So, so so, so what exercise, but also what the success of the business has done to me.

But the success of the business is directly linked to my career in bodybuilding. Because if you met me when I was 13 years old, I mean, I was shy, I wouldn't want to go out.

My mom would go, you know, to, to the shops and buy me clothes and stuff like that. I was just. I'm an introvert at heart. I'm 100 introvert. Do not like to be in public. I like to be by myself.

What I like to be in the jungle, would like to be in the mountains. I like to be in the water, in the desert. I like to be just by myself. And I love animals. Okay? I love, I'm very comfortable being by myself. Okay?

ve about what, we have almost: 1200

Bodybuilding really allow me to give me a sense of confidence and a purpose and then everything else, you know, bodybuilding really taught me about, you know, discipline and commitment and following through and believing in yourself and writing a plan and following the plan, blah, blah, blah.

All that stuff, all the, all the life skills that it takes to build a successful business are the same to, to build a, a successful body, if you want to call it that way. Right? So all of this has essentially translated into, you know, building a successful business. And now I'm going to pay.

I'm at a, I'm at a place of peace. You know, I, I'm, I'm, I'm, I, I, I don't get triggered at all. You know, I don't, I don't feel this, these negative emotions.

You know, I'm in a place where I want to grow spiritually, you know, So I, I, I, I, I'm very interested into spirituality, you know, and I'm, and I'm trying to, to grow spiritually. You know, there's, there's a lot of things that I want to do.

I want to, that I really want to take this method and potentially go even also into other segments, you know, in the wellness industry. But I feel in, I'm really in amazing place right now, and that's what I kind of want to do. I want to help other people get to that place as well.

Because then you don't stress about this, you don't stress about that you can see through the lines.

When people move forward or say this or whatever, you don't react because you have such this amazing sense of self that you had this ultimate confidence and you move at your own time and your own pace. You don't feel rushed because these two people have done this or that one person is saying that about you. Whatever. It doesn't have any effect.

And it allows you to have a purposeful life, you know, a peaceful and purposeful life, you know, and it just, it's, it's amazing, you know, that I'm, I'm there. So I'm, you know, I want to, you know, I feel I'm going to be here also forever. This is, this, this sense that I'm going to be here for a long time.

And I, you know, I, I, I, I, I love every moment of my life right now. I would say it is not, you know, this, all of it is an absolute bliss for me.

Roxy: 00:37:48

That's great.

So what if you ever do deal with obstacles, hardships, things like that, what do you say to yourself or what do you do to bring yourself out of, you know, those tough times?

Sebastien Lagree: 00:38:00

Yeah, well, first of all, everything is temporary, right? So, and then nothing exists unless you, you put attention to it.

So when you, when you have bad situation, you have to, you know what, you have to understand that all the situation are temporary. And then can you change your perspective? You know, can you gain some perspective, you know, can you try to understand why you got in that situation?

Because you have some responsibility to bear, you know, and so once you're able to, you know, to, to pivot to perspective, you realize that all the problem goes away and a solution.

I think the number one problem with people today, when something bad happens, all these think about is that they cannot just stop thinking about the bad and start to think about, okay, how am I getting out of this? People are problem oriented. I'm solution oriented. When people come to me, problem, okay, I got the problem. Let's talk about the solution.

And they want to keep talking about the problem and talking about the problem, but this happened, this going to. I, I know, I got it. I understood the first sentence. You told me what was wrong. Let's shift the narrative.

And now that we know the problem, instead of keep talking with the problem for another hour. It's a waste of my time and your time. Let's talk about the solution. If you want to talk about a solution, I'm here.

If you want to talk about the problem, I'm not here to commiserate Commiserate. Lower my frequency, okay? If all you want to do is to base and to commiserate, you know what? I am not the person for you.

You need to talk to someone else. I'm here to elevate my frequency. I'm here to help you. I'm here to solve issues. I'm here to move forward. But I'm not here to talk about what's wrong.

I. That is not me. So I never talk about. I never gossip. I never talk about what's wrong. I only focus on the possibilities that we can do.

On the positive things. There's. There's no. For me, people always think about the negative. I'm like, wow, what. What a miserable life to live.

I'm like, people can only talk about the bad shit all the time. Like, wow, I do not want to be in your body. Honestly, you just, like, it feels already just hearing you. I feel my energy went like this.

Roxy: 00:40:09

And that kind of energy manifests. It makes you sick.

Sebastien Lagree: 00:40:12

It makes you sick, you know? So for me, again, this is when I'm moving to Utah in November. I'm so happy.

I got a beautiful house in Salt Lake City, just outside the city, and then there I'm going to continue my spiritual journey. I wanted to be in the mountain and then love Salt Lake City, because I just love how it's just in that. In that bowl of the mountains over here.

I feel it's something very, very good, very spiritual, very amazing about this. You know, I'm really excited about, you know, moving to Utah. And so. And I'm going to have like a whole, you know, so I'm. I'm in the house.

I'm going to have, like, all kinds of therapies, you know, so I'm going to be experimenting on. On mixing different therapies and things like that. Because eventually I'm going to open a retreat either in Utah or in Colorado or in Wyoming.

I want to buy a ranch, and I want to. I want to buy an ultimate. I want to. I want to create the ultimate roots for each. For the mind, the body and the spirit.

So I want to have all the therapies and all the treatments and.

And everything that works, you know, to bring the mind and the body and spirit together and for people to be truly connected, you know, because I see a lot of disconnected people out there. I mean, most of us are not really truly connected, integrated, you know, physically, mentally, and spiritually. So for me, it's very important.

It's the next part that's. That's the next step for me in my, in my own personal growth.

Roxy: 00:41:30

You know, how do you teach that to somebody? Somebody? Because you said that discipline is more important than motivation, especially when it comes to health and wellness.

How do you teach somebody discipline, though?

Sebastien Lagree: 00:41:41

It's. People have to show up. You know what, what? You, you cannot teach discipline. You can help someone to create discipline for themselves, right?

So all that you can do, you cannot, you, you, you cannot give those skill to someone, but you can put someone in that situation to cultivate those skills. You know, so the discipline in degree, for example, if you want to take my classes, you have to be disciplined about. Agree.

You cannot just, you know, never do ° come to my class. And she's like, oh my God, this is an amazing workout. You're gonna hit it because you won't be able to, to do any of the stuff.

You're not going to have the endurance, you're not going to have the motor skills, you're not going to have the balance, you're not going to have the proprioception to do anything. You're going to suck. Okay? So you need discipline.

And that is, you know, that's something that I cannot tell you to do is if you're motivated to take degree, then you have to discipline yourself to go to a degree class and then just practice and, you know, confidence.

You cannot give someone confidence, but through exercise you will gain more confidence, you know, and especially with progressive overloading, because exercise itself is, is good. But what gives you the confidence?

The fact that from week to week, month to month, you see yourself getting stronger, you see yourself getting fitter. You sit on the scales, you sit on the mirror, you feel it at the gym, you lift more weight, you get tired less. That brings that confidence, right?

So that's what you need to do. You need to get those people to start that. I always tell people the hardest thing to do is to show up to class.

That is the hardest thing to do the minute you showed up. That's half the battle. Half the battle is just decided to go to the gym and whether. And then by the way I talk about the mental spiritual benefit.

It happens in degree. It happens in any, any fitness class, right? So it's not just agree.

I happen to just want to focus more on those elements and I'm trying to understand more. So I want to focus more on that stuff. But I've also got confidence from weightlifting.

You know, you can do the Barrist boot camp, you go to CrossFit, blah blah, blah. You can see yourself Getting stronger, that brings about the confidence. But you cannot give someone confidence.

All you can do is you can put them in a situation where they will get more confident. They have to go through that to themselves. For those people out there who just want to buy a bottle, it's just like, can I, can I buy confidence?

This is the wrong thing, by the way. In that scenario, when you go to, you do gene therapy, right?

And you are going to get that muscle and you are, you're not going to get the confidence, though. That's what people don't understand. The confidence is not going to come when something is giving you for you for free and you haven't worked for it.

You're not going to get the confidence. You're going to have that body, but you're not going to have the confidence.

And I think that in the future, more people are going to want to work out because they understand that confidence is key. That confidence, you take it everywhere. The confidence.

You're going to have a better job, a better relationship, a better life because you want better for yourself, because you're confident that you deserve better, right? And the minute you believe you deserve better, then you're getting better because you start to vibrate at a higher level.

That you will never get this from going under the knife, okay, or taking ozempic or, you know, taking, you know, or getting, you know, your liposuction. This, you're getting the results, but you're not getting this mental benefit. Those mental benefits, you have to work for them.

That is the best part about it. You work for them and then after that, you get to enjoy them in every other areas of your life.

This is what's best part about it, you know, because the body, the brain doesn't make a difference between you working out at the gym on your computer. You're sitting down over here, you walk in to take a piss. It's all just like, it's all connected, you know?

Roxy: 00:45:20

What do you think? Because there's so many misconceptions about fitness and, you know, working out, especially as it applies to women.

So what is the biggest misconception that you would love to debunk like, once and for all for women right now?

Sebastien Lagree: 00:45:35

You know, I want people to understand that there's a difference between exercise and moving. I think that people have to move more. Dancing is moving. Exercise is specific.

Okay, I'm going to exercise the biceps or test the shoulder or I'm exercise to. To overcome an injury in my elbow. Okay? Movement is different. And exercise is good exercise. More targeted. But I think people need to also move.

Movement is integrated. Exercise is more isolated. Right. And so I'm, I'm, I'm trying to right now to make people understand that.

Because when you do agree, you're not just, you're not just getting, you're not just doing strength training, you're doing integrated strength, which is way better. The difference between strength training and integrated strength training. Integrated strength train comes from moving strength come exercise.

Integrated strength comes from moving because it's a connection in your body. Okay. If you really want to isolate the muscle, this is what I kind of discovered between. Since I'm kind of created my own method.

If you really want to isolate a muscle, you have to literally cut that muscle off your body and then you can stimulate it with some electricity. And that would be the only way to truly isolate. But the reality, your body is not like that way because the body is infinitely strong. Okay.

Your body is always looking to do integrated movements. We have stopped doing that. Maybe 10,000 years ago, we were doing integrated movements.

Today, people are sitting, they go to the gym, they do the cardio, they do the leg press press, they do the shoulder press. They work those muscle part independently of each other. They are fragmented.

And then after a while you start having pain in your neck because probably you don't. You know how to work out really well and pay in your shoulders. And you think, I'm 35, I'm 40, maybe I'm older.

No, because you don't know how to work out, period. You're only working in isolation. You want integration, okay? To all my bodybuilding friends over there, community, you should do integrated movements.

Some of you doing it, some you don't. You want to integrate the movements because you want these movements, you want these muscles to play together. That's how the body is.

The body is already integrated. But we are moving away from the integration. Another thing that we do, we sit way too much. We sitting way too much sitting.

You know, I read 20 years ago or 30 years ago that sitting was the next cancer. And I completely agree with a sedentary lifestyle is absolutely bad for you.

Movement helps you flush out of the toxicity in your body, helps you with the lymph node, you know, it gets rid of all this toxicity. Exercise can build inflammation, movement can heal inflammation. You see what I mean?

Roxy: 00:48:17

Yeah.

Sebastien Lagree: 00:48:17

So people have to move more, you know, go on a hike, you know, great. If you like cardio, go on the hike. Fantastic. Love hiking. Hiking is so good for you. One of the.

It's free, it's on the best thing, you know, dancing, moving is great, you know, dancing is fantastic. People should be dancing, you know, even if you have no rhythm, dance, you know, doesn't matter, you know, just move, move. That body.

Body wants to freaking move, you know, so that's what I would, that would recommend. But integrated strength is probably a buzzword. Start to hear more and more and more in the future. And that's what you do in degree.

You know, when, when, when, when you do a, a leg exercise, for example, you are connected from head to toes, from fingers to toes. You know, every movement in the grid is an integrated movement. That was the mistake that I made back in.

ething I realized probably in: 2016

So from my early career, when I was doing the certification, I'm sorry, guys, I messed up, you know, I was teaching the lunch improperly, I was teaching a lot of exercise improperly because I still focus on that muscle that was responsible for the action. Today when I do degree is completely different. And that's what allow me to evolve the method.

those people got certified in: 2006

If you say there's a lot of great thing about bodybuilding, but it's also bodybuilding is really about isolation because you want to build the biggest muscles, right? And what I realized for me is that what was lacking was the integration. And that's why now I'm adding.

So all the movement that we do today are very different. When I create new movements on the machines, they're all integrated and they're absolutely beautiful.

There's not one movement right now that I have on the mega or the micro on the Mini, that is not a holistic movement. Every movement you're going to create the on demand.

We have a thousand, thirty movements on the mega, we have a thousand on the Mini, we almost have a thousand, the micro. And you know, the next few years we'll have 10,000 movements and 11,000 movements.

Because once you start to understand about moving, you're like, oh my God, it's unlimited, it's incredible. So anyway, I can talk about this Roxy, all day long. You just have to just say, sebastian, please shut the fuck up.

Roxy: 00:51:00

No, I'm cool.

I love to hear it too because I'm so curious that I love to hear the evolution of things and how things work and you know, health and wellness especially.

But for the women at home that want to apply your methods but maybe don't have the equipment, you know, they don't, maybe they don't have any equipment at home, how can they do that? Like what is the best way for them to do that?

Sebastien Lagree: 00:51:24

I have, so I have this product, I have this product that I came, that came out during the pandemic called the spring with shroud. It looks something like this and it's basically this is spring inside.

Roxy: 00:51:35

Okay.

Sebastien Lagree: 00:51:36

So you can actually snap it this under the door, around the furniture or any fixtures you're not. And you can work your whole body because it works with the springs. That will be the best thing.

But I, I cannot really, I, the, the, all the movements that I created all on the machines. I, I, I, I don't prescribe exercise without the equipment because for me the equipment really allows you to keep the proper control.

It allows you to keep the proper body alignment. I love working on the machines. I get asked all the time, hey, Sebastian, can you do ° on the floor? I'm just like, well, not really.

You know, you need the springs, you need the stability of the carriage. So if you cannot afford a micro, you know, that would be the best thing is to buy the spring or trials.

I am, you know, we have some exercise on agree on demand. I am going to do like a whole section for more at home exercises.

I haven't had time to do this because right now I've had to catch up with all the exercise. And honestly, sometime I'm just like, it's, it's, there's a lot to deal with, you know.

Roxy: 00:52:32

Right.

Sebastien Lagree: 00:52:33

But next year I will have, I will, I will basically spend more time on agree on demand and then do at home exercise for people who don't have access to the fancy machines. But they will still need to buy some accessories, you know.

And I love working on the springs because a dumbbell, if you're going to work with dumbbells, you want to use light dumbbells. Do not use heavy dumbbells. I think that for women at home who wants to get in great shapes, they don't need to have anything past 10 pounds really.

Roxy: 00:52:59

But you, everyone's saying lift heavy, lift heavy. For especially women in midlife you know.

Sebastien Lagree: 00:53:05

I do not lift heavy because heavy compromises form and range of motion. And once you compromise form and range of motion, you're fucking up your body. So do not fuck up your body. Okay?

I fucked up my body doing a wrong kind of exercise for many years. And I'm very lucky that I've been able to just undo all, all these damages. And now my posture is better, I feel better.

I mean, I'm, I have no fat, you know, but, you know, that's because I just, you know, just love to eat.

Roxy: 00:53:31

You're not that. I just saw you on Sunday. You're not fat.

Sebastien Lagree: 00:53:34

Thank you. I, I, you know, I feel great. And now even on my latest machines, we started to move away from the heavy springs.

We, I decided to start, start use lot less heavy and I prefer working with the lightest springs. Why? Because when you have the light attention, you can stay engaged in the movement longer.

You can get that cardiovascular benefit and you can get the control and you can keep the joints properly aligned and you can keep the shoulders in a socket so you can keep the proper form. When you start to go too heavy, the first thing you're going to do is to form. Do not work out at a high intensity with improper form.

You're going to fuck up your body. It's not worth it. So many people, especially in your 50s or your 60s, your 70s, right? And I know you have the best intention.

You want to change your body, you're tired, blah, blah. Okay. But there's a way to do it and work with letters. Lesser weight, strict form, better range of motion, great body alignment.

And I do it for a long time. Okay? Time and attention works that way. The more time, less tension, the less time, more tension. But I don't like that.

I prefer to go longer and slower than heavier and shorter, you know. So it's not to say that explosive movements and fast movements don't have the place in the fitness community for athletes. Absolutely.

If you're going to be a boxer, if you're going to be a skier, an NFL, NHL to the NBA, you know all this. Absolutely. You need to work on speed. So this advice is not for athletes, the advice I'm giving for people, or for people wanting to in shape.

And people will understand that the right fitness program can actually bring decades to their life. And not just decades to the life, it's also decades to the brain. Because who wants to be 70 years old and you forget your name?

You know, I, I look at my dad, My dad is 80. My dad is perfectly fine physically.

But you know, my dad repeats himself like five, six times, you know, in one hour it's like, oh, how are you like that? I literally, literally this is the fifth time you tell me this. It's sad, right? So exercise can do that.

The other things that I found out, Roxy, is this. If you go and agree on the amount, you're going to see a thousand different ways of doing the same exercise. Why?

Because you have to challenge your brain. You have to challenge your brain in moving differently. So if you do a lunge one way, there's all kinds of different ways you can do that lunge.

And I think people at home should pick the same exercise and figure out how many ways can I do this exercise? And every single time you have to think about a different way to move your brain's benefit.

There's a, there's a huge relationship between moving and brain health. And I cannot tell you, I'm not a scientist, I believe this.

I know that some, some studies have done and prove that more studies I think needs to be done on the relationship between movement and brain health and balance also as well, you know.

So if you can do any exercise, balance, but you also have to do exercise a little differently, you do like a small variation to that main movement and every day you force self to do this movement a little differently. You will. This is amazing for your brain. I think this is more powerful for your brain than trying to learn a foreign language with a cross puzzle.

I think that you force yourself to move differently. That has huge benefits for the brain. But that's what I think.

And if anyone wants to chiming on this, you know, in the comments when you put this, please, I'd like to know, you know, I'm always helping, I'm always working of university and, and doing research because that, I really believe that probably, probably if you want to live a longer life, start and then you love to exercise, don't do the same routine, Add on to that routine and every day force yourself to do a new movement, whatever it is. If you're not in Pilates, then do Pilates. If you haven't done yoga, do yoga. Or if you do yoga, do a different pause or try trx.

You know, TRX is amazing. TRX is like an unlimited amount of moves you can do on TRX is a phenomenal. That is a, that TRX is. Everybody should have a TRX at home.

It's like, it's literally. It's like it's, it's nothing. And you can do all Kinds of stuff. And you're looking for different ways to move. Okay, the bicep, biceps only.

It's a flexion of the arms. Right. You have the biceps. You can only do stimulate the biceps two way. You do an arm flexion or elbow lift. Right.

There's two ways yet how many biceps exercise we have out there. Great. It could be a thousand exercise. Then do a thousand different ways to do biceps.

You know, force your body to think differently and to adapt differently to this movement. And I think that will have a huge benefit to your brain functions.

Roxy: 00:58:08

What about for bone health? Because in perimenopause and menopause for women, you know, the bones do get affected and people are afraid of bone loss, you know.

So what would you say about that with the legree method? Does it help with bone health?

Sebastien Lagree: 00:58:20

Absolutely. So back in: 2016

You know, so what I did is hire the scientific team. They came and we did basically the, the met value, the, the metabolic equivalent. Right. And then the met value was, I think it was like at 4.9.

So something like that. So 4.6, 4.9. I think Pilates at 1. I think CrossFit is at 7 or 8. Or 8, whatever. So we're kind of right in between Pilates and, and, and CrossFit.

But we also did a bone density mineral and a bone content evaluation. Whatever. This bone density mineral and the bone content. I can't remember Ben for sure.

Every participant showed a, a positive, uh, gain, especially in the legs. Because we do a lot of leg. But absolutely. Yeah, the, uh, it's, it's, it's muscle building.

So for me, in order to, to say that, you know, publicly, you know, I have to do like a full fledged study, which I haven't done. But all the participants show an improvement in the bone density. Absolutely. And that because, because degree is a resistance program.

So a lot of people think you have to do weight bearing exercise, but if you move in the water, it's also weight bearing. You don't feel the weight.

Roxy: 00:59:34

You know, it's a resistance.

Sebastien Lagree: 00:59:36

Yeah, it's a resistance. Exactly. You know, you can work with springs, you can work with, with bungee, you can work with toilet paper. Okay. It's all resistance.

And then of course, you know, it's going to stimulate your body. So going longer, slower, harder will also stimulate bone density. Absolutely.

Roxy: 00:59:54

And what about for the women at home who feel stuck?

Like they feel like, okay, I haven't Worked out since maybe when the kids were young or before I even had kids, you know, I've been working, I'm tired. There's like, you know, every reason why they shouldn't.

Like what do you say to them that you know, to get them excited about taking care of themselves?

Sebastien Lagree: 01:00:14

Well, you know, baby steps, you know, I mean, you people look at working out as this huge mountain. What they don't understand is like when I go on a hike, I don't look at the top, I look the next step, one step at a time. Baby step.

Okay, so maybe you go around the block, you know, and then you go for 10, 15 minute walk and then when the walk becomes regularly, then you start to add to that. But don't commit to like a two hour workout every day. It's not going to work out. Baby step, start to make the time.

You don't have to make, you don't have to commit to an hour every day, 15, 20 minutes. And as you start to feel better, you know, then you start to progressively add more.

And the baby steps approach is always what I've always recommended. You know, the past 30 years I've been doing, you know, any kind of media or whatever.

I'm telling you, baby steps, you know, when you want to get back into it and then let your body tell you, you know, when it's time to, to, to, to, to push the intensity. And then for those men who want to work out and they want to lose weight again, you cannot out train a bad diet.

You know, you, you, you will have, I think that for a lot of people, make the changes at home first. What you eat, start to lose weight without exercise. I think that it's always something quite probably the best approach don't expect.

Okay, well, tomorrow I'm going to start to go for a walk and I'm going eat a salad. Now how many people have done that? And we're still, you know, look at that, we're still in obese society, okay? It just doesn't work, okay?

What works is what's practical, okay?

If you only have three hours a week where you have free time and you have quality stuff, then what you're going to do is you're going to start to try to get the most amount of result with the least amount of time and you do that with eating better at home that already if you, if you just can lose weight without working out, oh my God, you are ahead of the curve, okay, Then the little bit of exercise that you do is going to start to help and add on, but otherwise, and then do not, do not exercise without making changes to your diet because otherwise you're going to keep the same fat and then you're going to add more muscle and even more fat. Okay, so definitely a relationship with, with, with food. And first you got to master that, you know.

And you have to also understand that food can make you extremely depressed, you know, so sometimes it's just a matter of just changing the mix of food and all of a sudden you feel way better, you know, because we feed the depression, you know, so it could be salty food for some people. For me, you know, sugar, I'm not depressed guys. But say that definitely I, My sweet tooth is, no, do you have a sweet tooth? My God.

I, I, I grew up in France. My grandparents had three restaurant in Bordeaux. You know, my, my, my grandma Noel was an amazing cook. Amazing cook.

She used to make all these pastries for me. God damn it, I love you. But it was, it was, it was amazing. Yeah, she made the second.

It's a very moist cake with some strawberry jam, you know, and it's rolled up like this. Fantastic. Of course she made like the best Napoleon. And then she, she cooked just everything. And of course my mom, my mom is American.

When she met my dad, you know, she introduced my grandma. My grandma and my mom really liked each other and then she showed her how to cook.

My mom started to cook all these heavy gastronomy, this, this French gastronomy, you know, dish. I grew up around a lot of food, a lot of heavy stuff. Really appreciating, you know, wonderful meals and.

Roxy: 01:03:48

Yeah, so that does sound amazing. I mean sometimes a little bit, A little bit. Maybe here and there, just tiny bits. Oh, you know, you can have a little fun.

What advice would you give your 25.

Sebastien Lagree: 01:04:02

Year olds self to, to, to stop going for max every single time, you know, 25 years old. I love lifting heavyweight. That's the one thing that I love.

You know, the most I've done on the bench press, it was an assisted bench press with a smith. We like 700 pounds.

Roxy: 01:04:19

Oh wow.

Sebastien Lagree: 01:04:20

You know when you feel that way crushing and you, it just to me I just love it. I've always love feeling the moving heavy weight. But now I realize that, you know, you can get way better result. You have to feel the way.

Today I feel more focused more on gripping or more control. Now I'm teaching, now I'm working out a lot more the way I teach the classes, which is very different, you know.

So I focus more on the integration Versus just getting that one muscle all swollen.

And I just want to make sure that my spine is happy, that my joints are happy and, and I just feel this, this, this, this tangling sensation crowded throughout the entire body and I get so much more out of it. So that's what I would do. You know, don't go full max. Don't try to just outdo yourself every single time.

Understand that your body has ebbs and flow, you know, and you want to respect this, right? And, and then not always be stuck the same thing.

It's okay to step away from the gym for a few weeks or a couple of months, do this other kind of program. I used to think that, oh, if I don't work out, I lose muscle right away.

Now we know that it takes months and months and months and months for the body to start to waste, you know, the muscle.

Roxy: 01:05:30

How are you living iconically right now?

Sebastien Lagree: 01:05:33

Iconically? It's an interesting question because I don't think about it that much. I'm just living my life.

But I'm just like really, I'm just really in a happy place. I'm happy because, you know, this, this method that I created. Now I realize why I never succeeding in the acting world.

And I would never want to, you know, someone, you know, approached me with a, a big job or whatever. I'd say, no, I'm, I'm doing this now. I love this. I found my happy place because I get to create every day.

I get to explore, I get to understand, I get to learn. I love to learn. I, I, you know, I, I love to understand and learning. I just love that stuff.

And this business allows me to do everything that it fits, addresses every need that I want, you know, so, so I think it's important for people to have a creative outlet. I think it's, it's important for people to have all these different outlets and I get them with this business.

So that's why for me, I, I, I, I, I could never see myself selling this business or giving off to someone. This is something that will pass on to my son and my daughter and you guys are, But I, I love it.

You know, I, I love every, I love all the people that I meet, all the relationship now I get to work with like other people in other industries. I, I get to work with the, the people at the top of the A games, you know, and it's, all of that is just it, it, it feels, feels very blissful to me.

You know what I mean? I will change a thing, you know? But yeah, I don't know. I, I, I, I hope that answers that questions.

Roxy: 01:07:10

Absolutely. It sounds like you're very fulfilled. You, you found your calling.

Sebastien Lagree: 01:07:15

Yeah, there you go. I'm fulfilled. You know, I mean, if I die tomorrow, I'm going to tell you just like I have absolutely. I've had some amazing experiences.

I already felt I've had several lives, you know, you know, under the belly. But I, I, I, I feel like the best has yet to come.

I think this is why I'm like so excited about the, the future is that I'm, I, I feel like the best is yet to come. I see a lot of things that I, a lot of the goals that I set for myself.

Like when my 20s and I've, and I've met all those goals, I've realized all this stuff.

I've surpassed that and now I'm getting myself new goals out there and I already see them, you know, happening and getting manifest and it's just, it's just a very positive, very positive direction that I'm on right now. And that feels amazing.

Roxy: 01:08:00

That's amazing. What is next for Legree? Like what are we going to see in the next year?

Sebastien Lagree: 01:08:04

Oh my God. You'll see next year you'll see like new machine like the Micro X. You'll see the, the Evo Pro.

What I've been trying to do for the past 12 years is to add the electronics. Because when I was telling you that the method is only the 40 completion, the 60 come from the electronics.

There's no way for me that I can continue to evolve this method without electronics. So it's gonna happen. So now we're computerizing the whole system. We're adding sensors. We want to calculate, we want to calculate your speed.

We want to calculate your, your, your, your tension. I can calculate your time and attention. I can calculate your, your velocity. I can calculate your control. I can calculate the agitation.

Now I also want to bring the brain so I want to know with a heartbeat. I'm talking to heart math. I want to, I want to integrate the heart brain coherence.

That has to do more that, that spirituality aspect of, of the workout. We adding AI. So right now we're, we're prototyping some machines AI on it.

AI is actually the perfect application for what I want to do because the AI will actually work with each person. So there's going to be a formidable rate of, of evolution in the next five years.

I think that the machines you see today compared to machines you're going to see in 20, 30 are going to be completely different.

They're not going to, you're going to feel like there's going to be almost like a missing link between what you see today and what you're about to see. And I'm really excited because these machines will allow you to get so much more out of the training.

People will finally be able to understand what is going on. When they work out, they have the metrics, they have the data, they'll be able to analyze, you know, the performance.

I think that it's going to bring the whole community together. I think 20, I think five years from now, you'll have a lot of people read, start, you'll be, have memes about the tempo.

But these memes are not going to be just for the degree community be worldwide. People will know instantly, you know worldwide about the tempo, about this and that it agrees.

This workout is about to explode, but come out, come out of its shell in, in a major way. So the equipment that you're going to see is going to reflect that explosion, this, this, this mainstream aspect of it.

But really the, the what really, what really excites me about the future of, of these machines is the connectivity to a server. And then you're going to be able to. Yeah, and I'm changing also the, the drivetrain. You know, right now we have the springs.

I was telling you earlier that we're seeing more and more lighter springs moving away from the heavy springs. But then in the future we'll have also a hybrid system. We'll start having an electric motor.

So I'm prototyping right now a new type of electric motor that I haven't seen anywhere in the fitness industry yet. It's going to work completely different from all the conventional motors you have out there.

It's going to give you this very ultra smooth resistance, especially as you up the resistance. And I'm going to add new training techniques using that motor.

So there's going to be a hybridization of the engine, if you want to call it this way, and you'll be able to do a lot more with the same machine. So all of a sudden you'll have different modes of training. So it's really cool.

So but you know, it took me 12, 13 years of spending millions of dollars that literally seemed, that didn't go nowhere, but actually did. And now you're going to start to see all these machines, all these formidable machines coming out and you're going to be like, wow.

You know, people are going to be like, I, I think five, five years from now people will go on a Griffith anticipating the newer machines just as much as they go on Apple and anticipate the new iPhone that had, you know, it's going to become a a cultural phenomenon.

Roxy: 01:11:32

Very cool. Well, it sounds very exciting. We're excited to go back to the studio as well and work out more. So please tell everybody where they can find you.

Sebastien Lagree: 01:11:41

So very simple.

On the on social media you can find me at Sebastian Luger and make sure you spell Sebastian I E N like you have it on the on the screen over here or Lagree Fitness and otherwise you're on on the on on the Internet legree fitness.com or you know, you can email us info agree fitness.com fantastic.

Roxy: 01:12:04

Well, I'm ready for my next ass kicking, so I'm sure I'll see you very soon. You welcome Roxy Sebastian. Thank you for sharing your story and breaking down the power of the Legree method.

For anyone ready to feel stronger, leaner and more empowered at any age, this is your invitation to explore a workout that has redefined fitness for so many people around the world.

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