First Workout(s)

It's been almost 1 week since I started the weight-loss competition, and now I have a better idea what exactly we're doing and, more importantly, what the workouts at Orange Theory Fitness are like.

On Saturday we had a meeting of sorts, the owner of the studio, the trainers/coaches, and all of the participants. It was just to go over the basics of the competition and give a little introduction of who we would be working with. It's all pretty straight forward, all of us have commited to working out at least 4 days per week, submitting daily food logs, and weighing in on Fridays. The winner is determined not by over all pounds lost, but percentage of total body weight lost. There are 5 or 6 trainers who run classes at Orange Theory, and each one is "coaching" a team of 8 or 10 contestants. We submit our daily food logs every day to our coach, and they will be giving feed back on our eating habits as we go. They also make themselves available for any other general questions. But everyone who works there is super nice and would be willing to answer anyones questions.

Now onto the more intersting part of this post, the workouts. And let me tell you, they are WORK! At the same time though, they are fun, and it really feels good to get through them. Orange Theory isn't a regular gym, you can't just go in and run on the treadmill for a while, they have 1 hour trainer led classes throughout the day. There's a maximum of about 10 or so people in a class, so it's semi-personal training I guess. And if you're curious where the "Orange Theory" comes in, here's your answer. The theory is that keeping your heart rate between 85-100% of your maximum heart rate puts you in the optimal zone to burn fat and calories and also puts your body into over-drive which helps your body continue to burn calories for 12-24 hours after each workout. Every time you go into OTF you strap a heart rate monitor to your chest which tracks your heart over the course of the class, and at the end you can see a bar graph showing how long your heart rate was in 4 different ranges. The top 2, where the over-drive/after burn kicks in, are orange and red, so you want to spend most of your time in the orange/red zone, hence Orange Theory. Anyways, every work out you do at OTF you are going to be doing the same basic things in each one. You start every workout on the treadmill. And it's not just jogging on a treadmill. OTF does interval training, I can't really give you pro's and con's of interval training, I'm sure there's plenty of available info elsewhere, but I have heard that they use interval training on the Biggest Loser. You spend 25-30 minutes on the treadmill, starting at a walk, and building to a base speed, and then the trainers get mean. They all vary day to day, but they put you through a series of sprints. Usually 60-90 second intervals where you bump the speed up to as fast as you can go. Sometimes we do a 6-minute stretch starting at your base speed and every minute you add a a little bit to your speed. That is probaly my least favorite treadmill series. Like I said, you're hooked up to a heart-rate monitor, and they have a big TV hung high, and on it there is a little box with your name and the percentage of your max heart rate youa re currently at. They do this so you can keep an eye on where you are at and push it harder or pull it back a little to keep yourself on the optimum range. The trainers also keep an eye on it and give you a little nudge if you're not reaching the right zone. So after 30-minutes of heart pounding running, you're exhausted and out of breath, and you're only half done. After the treadmill you move on to wokring on a rowing machine. The trainers tell you to row X amount of meters, or see how far you can row in 60 seconds, things like that. Similar to the treadmill with the itnervals and the trainers pushing you. After that you move on to doing various free weight exercises. Each trainer has a different routine every day. Then you do some work with whats called TRX. They're these long straps that are attached to the wall, you can do all kinds of different exercises with these, but we kinda use them like a pull up bar. After the weights and TRX, you go BACK and do more rowing, then back and do the same circuit of free weights and TRX again. Finally, we do breif ab work out, or the trainer works out abs during the free weight section, then a few minutes of stretching.

It is absolutley exhausting, and I've been totally drenched in sweat (seriosuly it looks like I've been swimming), but damn it sure does feel good to know you pushed through it and finished strong. So far I have done 5 workouts, and they're all a little different and each trainer brings their own style to it. It's kind of fun, in a wierd, sick, working out is awsome, kind of way. Every class I become more and more comfortable with all the equipment, and it becomes a little easier to find the right zone. Afer my first 2 work outs I could hardly walk, my legs hurt soooo bad. I learned that extra stretching and a hot shower are a neccesity to keeping my muscles not sore.

I've also been trying to find the best times to get my workouts in. 4:15 or 5:30 are probably when I'll do most of my work. But today I went in for a 6:30 am workout, followed imediatley by work at 8, and I can pretty safley say that I probably won't do that again. It just makes for an exhausting day. It was kind of nice having only 4 of us in class, and it was also fun to work out with Eric and Jenny Lespron, but I'm just straight up beat right now.

I know this post was a little rambling, and lacked my usual eloquence and witty comments :) and probably not the most interesting, it's kind of hard to convey the informatio about OTF this way. My future posts will be a little less long winded, more focused, and, from the couple topics I'm thinking about covering, more interesting to anyone who is looking for motivation or hints. I weigh in on Friday, I'm excited to see how much weight I've lost. I will defnitley post after weigh in, and what I've been eating this week.

Peace for now friends!