I Tried One Of Khloé Kardashian's 'Revenge Body' Workout Classes & The Result Was Shocking
You've been there before: You're scrolling through your Instagram feed when you see your favorite celeb post about their favorite new product — a face serum, vitamins that will make your skin brighter, or a specialty food service. You can't help but want to be like the stars, but are the products worth it? In Elite Daily's new series, I Tried, we put it all to the test. We're trying those products as well as celebrities' health and wellness tips, recipes, and life hacks. We'll do the leg work and tell you what living like your fave star is really like.
If your guilty pleasure happens to be celebrity fitness, you may have heard of Nicole Winhoffer and The NW™ Method. Besides being one of the featured trainers on Khloé Kardashian's show Revenge Body, Winhoffer was also Madonna's personal trainer for eight years (yes, she's responsible for how Madge got those abs), and she's since developed a workout class that combines strength training and music-video-style dancing to reach maximum levels of fitness fun. I recently gave Revenge Body trainer Nicole Winhoffer's workout class a try, and to say the least, it was freaking epic.
In case you're not yet familiar with it, The NW™ Method is a dance class and workout that not only strengthens your body, but is also about working your mind and helping you, as it says on the website, "connect with your personal power."
In an exclusive interview with Elite Daily, Winhoffer says her workout method comes from a culmination of 15 years in the professional dance and entertainment business. As a competitive athlete growing up, Winhoffer realized that dance, sports, and endurance provided her with a unique access to getting "in flow" and "in the zone." Throughout her training growing up, she noticed how she always felt in touch with her subconscious in a way that was truly freeing. "My body, mind, heart, and spirit were connected," she tells Elite Daily.
Along with drawing from her own extensive experience, Winhoffer also studied with sports and medical experts to develop her unique workout method. "I wanted to take the best of what I have experienced, learned, and studied to create a program for everyone that provided impactful results," she tells Elite Daily.
When I tried the class myself in New York City at The Standard Hotel, I arrived with absolutely no knowledge of what the next hour was going to look like. Would I be able to harness my "personal power"? I wasn't sure. But was I nervous? A little bit, yes.
The class itself was in a room that overlooked the New York Harbor, so I immediately realized this was one of the fanciest workout spaces I'd ever encountered.
It was there that I met fitness trainer Emily Diers, who would be leading the class. She was immediately very energetic, and I quickly noticed how she moved with the unmistakable bounce and grace of a dancer. When I asked Diers what to expect from the next hour, she said that it would be fun, but yes, it would definitely be hard.
Most of all, however, she told me the point of the workout, and what made it unique, was the element of expression.
Rest assured, the fitness element would no doubt be a central focus, too. "We're going to access every angle of the body, and we're going to do it all to the beat of the music," Diers told me moments before we began. "You want to tap into the music, and tap into the flow of energy in the room. You fatigue every muscle, feel super energized, and hopefully get a high. The second part of the class is basically a dance party."
While the workout aims to strengthen every last little muscle fiber in your body, it's also an opportunity to show yourself your best moves.
We did lots of rhythm-based strength training, and then we moved on to some pretty darn sexy choreography. And, by the way, we did not — I repeat did not — stop moving the whole time. According to Winhoffer, this is what makes her class especially unique, and what makes it feel so good from the inside out. She says that flow, which is the basis for how her whole class moves, is what most workout classes are missing these days. "There's a lot of stopping in between exercises [in most workouts]," she tells Elite Daily. "I like to incorporate flow because that's the way life is: it keeps going."
Winhoffer also emphasizes that the wide variety in movement makes her workout method special, too. "We pride ourselves in not dumbing down the movements. People are smart; they need challenge. I believe fitness has kept things basic, assuming that people can't do it." Winhoffer says that she's taken the opposite approach to fitness, in that she's challenging and engaging people to train how professional athletes train. "I want people to have access to the best knowledge," she explains.
And, let me tell you, during my own NW™ Method experience, while it was indeed hard and fatiguing, the fact that we kept a rhythmic flow with such unique, expressive moves made the whole thing so fun, and even empowering. TBH, it reminded me that I absolutely need to be dancing more in my life. It just does good things for the soul. That being said, don't worry if you don't identify as a dancer, my friends.
Whenever we first learned a new routine in the class, our trainer Emily and her assistant Madison always made sure to do the moves along with us each time.
Emily pointed out that it was a pretty vulnerable experience to dance in front of strangers, so she encouraged us to cheer for each other as we broke off into groups to do the dance with her. And cheer we did!
As Winhoffer says, "Having fun is needed in this world! Stress and world issues can make us feel terrible. So it was always my goal to provide a space of fun, escapism, and self-knowledge," she tells Elite Daily.
Here I am afterward, looking and feeling tired AF, but nevertheless as happy as can be.
