I love Orangetheory Fitness!

Have you heard of Orangetheory Fitness? I have been hearing people talking about these classes for a few months now, but my aversion to boot camp style fitness classes has made me shy away from it. Yesterday I finally conjured up enough courage to go and check them out, and I’m so glad that I did. It was so much fun, challenging yet not overwhelming as I had been afraid it might be. A little background on me: I am 26 years old, active on and off but certainly not an athlete. I am slightly overweight, BMI of about 26, and have never been religious about working out. I was afraid that I would get there and be way too out of shape to keep up, but the class really is tailored for anyone. The Orangetheory next to my house offers three free classes and I was able to make an appointment to come the same I called. When I arrived the manager greeted me and explained how the classes work, handed me a heart rate monitor and introduced me to the instructor. The instructor, Kelley, then took me around to the different machines and explained how to use each one. It is important that you come about thirty minutes early your first time so you can have this instruction, otherwise you may be lost during the class. The class itself is fast paced, but if you pay attention to the instructor you will be able to follow along. Your heart rate will be shown on a screen for everyone to see so that the instructor can make sure you are getting as much out of the class as you can. This is great, as you aren’t competing with the others in your class, who will most likely be at different fitness levels, but rather you are competing with yourself. At the end of the class the instructor will look over your heart rate statistics to see if you got into the “orange zone” for at least 12 minutes, where the name Orangetheory comes from. The logic behind this is that if you are in the orange zone for 12-20 minutes of your work out that you will spike your metabolism for up to 36 hours.

Orangetheory Stats E-mail

During the class you will be on a treadmill for about 30 minutes using one of three programs: power walker, jogger or runner. The instructor will call out instructions for each level as the class progresses. The other 30 minutes is a mixture of the rowing machine, free weights and body weight exercises. The instructor at my Orangetheory was really great about paying attention to the newcomers and making sure our form was correct during the free weight and body weight exercises, which was wonderful for me as it was the first time I was doing many of these.

After the class is over Orangetheory will e-mail you a report of your heart rate, calories burned and your time in each heart rate zone. This is great for tracking your own progress. Memberships aren’t exactly cheap, but are on par with many of the comparable gyms in my area. Single classes are $25, the basic membership (4 classes per month) is $59, the elite membership (8 classes per month) is $99 and the premier membership (unlimited) is $159. Additional classes for basic are $14 and elite are $12. You can also use your membership at any Orangetheory location.

I’ve only done one class so far, but I signed up for the elite membership and am thinking about switching to the premier. I’ll keep you posted on how it’s going!