First of all I should say, The Orange Theory Program is Top Notch! It’s well designed, evidence based, and a great mix especially for those looking for a program centered around general health and wellness. The blend of isolated strength training, functional work, and usually 50% cardio is really well done. So, why did we leave?

Well, as i’ve said in previous posts it doesn’t matter if you’re talking about a personal trainer, a martial arts instructor or a group fitness coach, the person doing the training matters the most. A good coach can change your workout routine, a great coach can change your life! I’ve been fortunate enough to have experienced both 🙂

I mentioned Hannah Black in an earlier posts, one of the best trainers around, and when she left Orange the Theory, my partner (my wife) and I just didn’t enjoy it as much. Not that the other trainers were bad, they just weren’t as good as Hannah. Plus, to be honest, I was getting a little tired of the treadmill. They do a good job of mixing up a treadmill run as much as you can mix it up but lets’s face it, it’s still a treadmill every time.

I knew about F45 but didn’t’ realize exactly what it was all about. It’s very much a Tabata style HIIT workout. In fact, it’s nearly identical to what I’ve been coaching at Chandler MMA for close to 5 years now! My program has been more traditional HIIT though. I’ll change up the format of # of exercises, # of groups, work/rest ratio, etc., but recently have gone more and more Tabata. What do I mean by that? A simple format I would typically use might look like this:

• 2 groups of 5 exercises in each grouping
• Each group alternates cardio (plyo usually) with either upper body or lower body so that there is one upper body focused group and one lower but we keep the heart rate going
• Students start out in one group and rotate through the exercises 2 times, for example 45 seconds on 15 seconds off
• Then the students switch groups so the upper goes to lower and lower goes to upper and again we do 45 on 15 off
• Switch one last time so that everyone ends up going through each group 4x so a total of about 40 min of HIIT work

Contrast that to what I’ve been doing quite a bit lately, F45 inspired, Tabata

• 2 groups of 5 exercises in each grouping
• Each group alternates cardio (plyo usually) with either upper body or lower body so that there is one upper body focused group and one lower but we keep the heart rate going
• Students go through each group just one time. But at each exercise they’ll do 30 sec on 10 sec off and stay on that exercise 4x. Then a 25 second break before moving to the next exercise.
• After finishing one group, student switch sides and do the same thing on the other group

Both styles are HIIT focused obviously but my initial style spreads things out a bit more while Tabata focuses a bit more on strength endurance for the targeted muscles on each exercise. By ‘spreading things out’ I mean giving each targeted muscle group a bit more time to recover before hitting it again. Both of these styles are beneficial but are optimal when used in conjunction with each other.

For that reason I rotate traditional HIIT with Tabata quite a bit and my students, as loyal as ever, seem to enjoy it as I have pretty much the same group of folks since day 1 🙂

Back to F45. The only thing I’d like to get more of out of F45 is cardio. Although I don’t miss the Orange Theory treadmills, I do miss the 25 min of high continual heart rate. One interesting thing I found when moving from OTF to F45 was that my average heart rate, or strain as measured by my Whoop, was considerably less than a workout at OTF. I believe the root cause is switching from my previous workouts, where I did a solid hour of HIIT style work, to OTF where it’s half and half. My ability to raise my heart rate during isolated strength movements or functional, even at speed, had diminished over time. In other words I last lost the necessary strength endurance to get a solid heart rate workout without pure cardio. I’m getting it back though and it feels good!

Hope you enjoyed my thoughts on OTF and F45 and I encourage everyone to get into group fitness, it’s a way of life!

-Paul