The Tracy Anderson method is a unique dance-inspired workout that’s captured the hearts and chiseled the bodies of top celebs from Gwyneth Paltrow to Lena Dunham (and just about every hot Hollywood bod in between). It’s fun but it’s fierce, and can be done in one of Tracy’s studios or online with her streaming platform — but does the workout live up to its hype?

You bet. We recently met up with fitness pioneer and total babe, Tracy Anderson, and got to chat with her about her namesake fitness method — and sweat through a TA class first-hand. To celebrate Minnie Mouse’s 90th birthday, our friends at Pressed Juicery teamed up with Disney for two limited-edition juices and a fitness-fueled party — outfitted by led by female-founded athleisurewear brand Terez, and led by Tracy herself — on a gorgeous rooftop in LA. Watch our post-class interview with Tracy above.

Tracy did years of scientific research to perfect her protocol and make sure that every move is designed to create balance within the body — the opposite effect many trendy workouts tend to have. After just a few minutes of The Tracy Anderson Method, we were burning up and shaking in the best way. We left the class feeling strong, empowered and perfectly aligned — not to mention incredibly sweaty. Here’s how it works so well, and how you can amp up whatever fitness routine you love with a few key principals in mind…

5 Keys To A Killer Workout

Create Balance | There is not one move that can do anything result-oriented for anyone. If you do one move over and over again you’re going to end up creating imbalance in your body. I’m about the opposite — I’m about creating balance where there is imbalance in your body, which is why every single week in my studios and in my online studio I deliver a new sequence of 9 – 13 different moves. Every week.

Dynamic Movement | Over 20 years of doing this, to ask me to pick my one move is actually impossible.  But I would say that if there was only one move that you could do, I’d say pick one of my moves that is multi-dimensional, meaning there is different muscle coupling in it and it’s really dynamic. You might move from a plant to a side-plant to a butt lift all in one move, it’ll have three or four different components to it to target a variety of muscles. But because I’ve developed the largest bank of content in fitness, to name all of my moves would be virtually impossible.

Involve Intuition | Beyond fitness, my most important health habit is the way I fight for nature in myself and don’t allow myself to be denatured, meaning I listen to my gut as a mom, I listen to my gut with food — you know, it doesn’t take a genius to know that processed foods are probably bad for us and whole organic foods are probably good for us. I lean into nature when it comes to relationships; good love not bad love (if you’re in bad love, you leave). It’s a principle in life. I lean towards what my gut tells me.

Lean Into Self Love | You first start to see results by way of how you feel and how you connect with yourself even after the first class. When you do the first class with me, because I don’t speak — which is all scientific-based research I’ve done on why I don’t speak to you during the class — things come up in you, whether it’s self-judgement or recognizing how it feels to move a certain way, or the actual enjoyment you feel after realizing you just did something, even if you didn’t do it all perfectly the first time it’s enjoyable because you actually showed up, you did it, you tried something new and you tried your best.

Use Toys | In 2019 I have a lot of very exciting, innovative things that I am creating. I am developing a new machine for my studios which is really exciting for me because I have invented a lot of things like my band system and the first hyper body reformer many years ago. I’m inventing a new machine this year which will be released to my studios. I am re-doing my entire online platform and online community. I am just about to launch, in early 2019, a thing called the performance program online which is a deep dive into the totality of your health and wellness and how exactly to fight for your nature.