CORAL GABLES, (FLORIDA), May 15: It was David Beckham himself who was gassed the first time he led a class in his new 45-minute workout routine. He pushed through the intense finisher he had insisted Gunnar Peterson add to the programming and sheepishly apologized.
“I turned to the class and said, ‘I am so sorry. So sorry. That was really difficult,’” Beckham said. “And they were like ‘No, this was great.’ So, I was obviously the only one who struggled through it.”
Beckham created DB45 with celebrity trainer Peterson, and the program debuted this week across F45 Training’s nearly 1,800 studios in 67 countries. Peterson is chief of athletics at F45, a franchise gym model backed by Mark Wahlberg.
Peterson worked with Beckham to build a workout that incorporates elements of the regimen the 47-year-old global icon uses to this day. It has been nearly a decade since Beckham last played professionally but he has maintained his physical conditioning and by all appearances has remained in peak shape.
Beckham routinely documents his fitness routine on social media and in creating DB45 offered regular athletes an opportunity to train like one of football’s biggest stars.
“It’s obviously tailored to what I used to do in my career, some of the exercises,” Beckham told The Associated Press during a demonstration of DB45 at F45 Training Coral Gables, a day after he attended Formula One’s inaugural race in Miami. “We never tailor anything to any specific sport or athlete because our community is not about athletes. Yes, there’s some people that are ex-athletes that come into F45, but this is not a workout designed only for elite athletes.”
OK, so you won’t be able to bend it like Beckham at the end of the class. But The Associated Press can attest the workout is no joke. The class in Florida is intimidating. Filled with influencers and led by popular F45 instructors Cory George and Morgan Mitchell, the fast-paced, 11-station, football-inspired cardio class is dizzying. Two DJs played in the back of the room as George and Mitchell weaved through the stations encouraging participants.
It moves fast and utilizes Beckham’s jersey numbers 32 and 23: Exercises are done in two sets at each station, the first is 32 seconds and the second is 23 seconds. After all 11 stations are complete, it repeats through a second time.
The workout is set up like a 4:4:2 football formation in the studio and, somewhere between the “defenders” functional resistance stations 2-5 and “midfield” agility-based stations 6-9, a publicist thankfully summoned me to speak with Beckham and Peterson off to the side.
“People who want to know what athletes really go through, to do that they need to do a workout that preps them not just for football, but for any and all sports and all the things that life throws at you,” Peterson told AP. He maintains that by following an elite program like Beckham’s, anyone can improve their overall wellbeing.
When Peterson thought DB45 was complete, Beckham told him “Make sure you do the finisher.” (AP)
