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I haven't been in any of those classes, but it seems to be another offshoot of Tabata/HIIT training. I would assume these classes do work, because the name of the game is keeping your heart rate up for maximum caloric burn. I'm a huge fan of workouts like these, because you're not having to spend hours upon hours in the gym, you can get in a total body workout within 30-60 minutes. And believe me, I've been able to tell a difference since I've been doing HIIT.
There is a huge % of the population who requires classes and external motivation in order to workout. For those people the Orangetheory-type class-only gyms work well. For those of us who don't want or need that, we'd never step foot inside a "gym" like that.
What is your experience with these types of classes? Are they as "life changing" as they claim?
They just opened a location two doors down from my kid's daycare. My only experience is that their clients walk right into (and attempt to walk through) the parking lot traffic without even looking.
They just opened a location two doors down from my kid's daycare. My only experience is that their clients walk right into (and attempt to walk through) the parking lot traffic without even looking.
LOL like little kids would never do that.
OK, so OP you've gotten a couple of smug replies from folks who have never actually been to the place you inquired about.
I went to an OrangeTheory for about 6 weeks before I suffered an injury unrelated to the workout and had to stop. OT was AWESOME! The most life-changing thing about the workout for me was that after I had spent time "in the orange zone" during my workout, later in the afternoon I would feel energized during that time of day when I normally felt sluggish and would reach for coffee.
It really was a different kind of workout in that respect. I also did see some weight loss and strength gains. The cardio didn't seem as bothersome because of the interval nature of the workout and because you are focused on the screen that shows your progress. You wear a heart monitor, and there are TV monitors in the room that track your effort. You're concentrating on getting in the "orange zone," and so you don't notice that you're on a treadmill or rower, etc.
It's kind of a fad and is based on some exercise science that is outdated. They are basing their workouts on High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) and Excess Post-Exercise Oxygen Consumption (EPOC ). In the past, it was thought that EPOC had a significant impact on caloric expenditure. Turns out this is not really true.
As far as life changing, not really unless it causes someone to continue to exercise over a number of years, when they wouldn't have done so otherwise.
HIIT is great, but it should only be a PART of a well rounded fitness program. HIIT should be done once a base level of fitness is already established. There also need to be adequate recovery between training sessions.
Fad programs like this generally take a specific good part of exercise training and then hype it up with marketing and make it sound like it is a magic bullet.
The main problems with this program is the potential for injury by doing too much, too soon and overtraining by doing the same thing over and over without recovery training between.
Last edited by Just A Guy; 07-22-2016 at 03:55 PM..
HIIT is a science into itself, and most promoters and teachers of it have no idea of how to actually use it to get effective training results.
If you want to see that in action, ask a trainer or HIIT instructor how to manipulate work and and recovery intervals to train the different energy systems that HIIT is designed to train. Chances are, they won't even know about energy systems of the body in the first place.
orange theory is not 'HIIT'. Most 'HIIT' is not that either.
Why pay for what you can do on your own. Build an aerobic base. Then, thrice per week, run sprints. Do 10 50's, or 10 100's... with only rest as the walk back to the starting point. Want to change it up? Run reverse sprints (big challenge).
You'll burn more calories then the body knows what to do with. Just make sure you've got the legs so you don't pull the intermedialis or a hammie.
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