To paraphrase a quote from the wise Dan John, “The one that you stick with” 🙂 OK, first for those what haven’t heard the acronym, GPT stands for Group Personal Training. I discovered it first many years ago when I was dumped into a local gym when my real gym (World’s) closed down and sold us all to Fitness Works – a kind of crummy local gym but it served it’s purpose. I was involved in some MMA bootcamp classes before but GPT was special. It wasn’t about an instructor telling 30 people what to do and doing it along with them on stage. If that does it for you great, if it doesn’t check out a place that does GPT.

With GPT you get a qualified Personal Trainer (or CSCS like me) and a small, usually 8-16, group of people together in a workout room and do a whatever the pbgroam is designed for (strength, agility, HIIT, core, etc). The difference is that the coach is right there with everyone (if they’re good) helping make sure everyone is using proper form and is motivated. You get excellent coaching, a sense of community, and if the atmosphere matches your personality a whole lot of fun.

So here are 3 key things to a good GPT program. Then I’ll talk a little about my fave – Orange Theory Fitness.

1. The Program: A well designed program should be focused on the theme of the class. I’m not a big fan of boot camp classes that seem to randomly throw things at people with really no specific goals in mind. The human body is a remarkable machine and to get the most out of your 60 minute workout, your coach should know how to design a laser focused efficient workout. For example, I teach a HIIT class at Chandler MMA and I put a great deal of thought into every workout that I write-up. I have an excellent boxing timer available to me so I run the whole class usally on 60 sec work / 20 sec rest ratio for about 40 rounds. I advertise my class as “full body with a heavy dose of core and lower body focus.” That’s a lot of stuff but the idea is to burn fat, build lean muscle, and for my fighters to get those hips and glutes fired up with power. You’ll see a wide range of exercises in my classes but I’ll always line up the work to really hammer one or more muscle groups before moving to the next while always throwing in some mean plyo to keep the average heart rate up. If you’re looking for general fitness and your program never does any isolated strength work (or if it does it’s not balanced), never does any plyo or other high heart rate work, or constantly throws exercises our there that are simply too complex… keep looking.
2. The Coach: You can have the best program on the planet but if the coach doesn’t have both the knowledge and desire to keep your form honest, keep looking. I always tell my new students “If you do these exercises incorrectly, best case you’ll get a good stretch and worst case you’ll get hurt and you didn’t come here for either of those things. Besides knowing how to keep your forms honest, they also need to know how to create a motivating and fun environment. I like to throw in little educational tidbits on fitness or engage in some good music trivia as I’ve always got a killer play list going. These are the little things that create that sense of community that is so important. It not only makes people feel like they’re part of something special, because they are, it gives them a sense of accountability. Nobody wants to let the others down by being a no-show. I am right at the 2 year mark and I’m very proud of the fact that I have pretty much the same group of 8-10 since I started. In fact I think the only people I’ve lost are those who have moved out of town!
3. You! Your attitude is as important as anything else. If the first 2 items are met, you should actually look forward to class. An opportunity to see friends, listen to some killer music, have fun, and attack your goals. The owner of our MMA school loves to tell his students “You only get out of it what you put into it.” and that is so true. Just showing up is, of course, better than sitting on the couch, but if you’re going to be there give it all you’ve got. If you’re gonna be a bear, be a grizzly!

Now I just want to say a few words about Orange Theory. IT’S FANTASTIC! I won’t ramble on about the program, you can read about it on the website but I can tell you it’s very well designed for cardio and full body. In any 60 min session you should expect about 28 minutes on the treadmill, then generally a 50/50 split of 28 minutes on either the water rower or on a bench with dumb bells and your own TRX. The last 5 minutes or so are for stretching. You’re never alone though, your coach is blasting killer music and always providing motivation and direction. The treadmill workouts are anything but boring (and I hate treadmills) – lots of interval work and hill climb work, it’s always changing.

My Orange Theory has lots of great trainers but I’ve got to say, Hannah Black, is the best. Not only at my club but one of the best coaches I’ve ever worked with. Combined with a killer program and a bunch of other like-minded regulars I’ve found my new home!