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If you are looking for a great way to get into shape this summer, Orangetheory Fitness is the best way to achieve your goals
What is Orangetheory?
Orangetheory Fitness is unique among fitness gyms in that it offers personal training in a group setting. Using interval training that focuses on cardiovascular and core strength training, Orangetheory gives you a complete workout in just one hour.
Orangetheory offers 54 convenient classes. Each class has a maximum of 24 students, each with a heart rate monitor attached to their body. The science behind the workout is to keep your heart rate at a target zone during your one-hour workout.
Orangetheory is heart rate-based interval training utilizing rowing machines, treadmills and a variety of strength equipment. The workout is segmented into blocks of work. The ability to view your heart rate % on a screen, encourages you to do the best for your ability.
What to expect
Every Orangetheory workout is a high calorie burner. Like any workout, you get out of it what you put into it, but this is a wonderful blend of heart-pumping cardio and muscle-building strength. -When you first arrive, you receive your heart rate monitor (pod) for the day. You attach it to your chest strap and during the class, your name and heart rate zone, categorized by color, are projected onto a screen. Blue is the cool down/warm up zone, green is moderate, orange is fitness and red is the high limit. Ideally you’ll want to stay within a green or orange zone for the majority of the workout, hence the name “Orange Theory.”
Benefits of Orangetheory Fitness
The workout changes every day. This is the best method to prevent adaptation and burnout. They rotate the muscle groups that you emphasize so that you aren’t fully fatiguing the same muscles on consecutive days and can allow adequate rest.
You can adjust and modify according to your specific needs. Because the strength portion is completed in rounds, you can work on your own time and don’t have to be on the same exercise as your neighbor. This is great for beginners who want to move a little more slowly, or those who want to blast through the moves to complete more rounds. You can truly work at your own pace, and during the treadmill portion, they provide guidance for walkers, joggers and runners. You make it your workout and can easily change things up according you your unique needs.
Variety of exercises, so you never get bored. When you’re moving quickly from one exercise to the next, there’s very little time to get bored or complacent. The hour passes quickly and because the schedule changes daily, you can keep your body guessing.
The team atmosphere. I got a great vibe from the Point Loma studio; everyone was extremely friendly and helpful. It made me want to go back as soon as possible!
Mix of strength, power, balance, unilateral exercises and interval training. The best workout plan is one that combines all of these elements (in addition to flexibility training like yoga or Pilates), and Orange Theory hits all of them. You’re getting strength and cardio benefits in one workout.
Live results and encouragement. The screens can be extremely motivating during the workout and appreciated the extra guidance. When you see that you are in the green zone, you know you’re was doing ok but that you can push it up to the orange zone. If you are able to spend most of your time in the green and orange zones, you are doing great and burning a lot of calories. When you finish the workout, you’re emailed the Polar stats from the heart rate monitor, enabling you to track your long term progress.
The goal is to get your heart rate up for 12 to 20 minutes during the 60 minute workout, when we do that the typical female will burn about 700 calories and males about 900.
Orangetheory Fitness encompasses all levels of fitness; we have everything from people who haven’t worked out in a long time to elite athletes and everything in between, and they can do the exact same class because they are doing it at their pace.
