Orangetheory Fitness Seattle – Page 6

January 30, 2015

Get Faster, Get Leaner, and Burn more Fat, Yes you CAN burn the fat

Are you benefiting currently from effective treadmill interval workouts?

A lot of people take classes at Orangetheory Fitness in Seattle nowadays. Some people say they can’t run any faster. They say that their legs won’t move faster. Is it true that they have hit a physical plateau?

Drive elbows and resist rotation at the core

Of course we all enjoy to witness feats of great athleticism from those we admire. Here’s some secrets about it…

I don’t care if you have short legs or longs legs

There are ways you can run faster and it’s not just about “believing you can do it” even though I know that’s a part of it.

Conquer it

It’s not just about believing in yourself. Running faster is not just about many steps you take on the ground. There’s more to running than that.

Your speed on the treadmill, at a variety of inclines, can improve progressively. And here’s how…

Be Stronger, get FASTER

It’s not about how many strides per minute you have.

Technique-wise, you must focus on applying more forward driving force into the ground from your feet up through your entire body. This is how you get faster. Then you keep training to get faster.

You must focus on generating more full body power. You can generate more power by driving the elbows explosively and focusing on resisting rotation in the core. Additionally, strength training is beneficial.

You can gain full body strength with the Dumbbell Goblet Squat exercise

You also can gain full body strength with the Dumbbell Goblet Squat exercise as an example

In terms of progression, over time you will be able to generate more power from performing regular full body strength training workouts to supplement the running and promote a healthy metabolism. The strength gained from resistance training has beneficial carryover into running and many many other areas of life and activities.

Hope you love running and training as much as I do… stay tuned for more

January 14, 2015

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Have a goal for every workout: Fat Cells respond to progressive resistance by getting smaller!

What is the goal of this workout today?

We all come into the workout room with different needs, strengths, and expectations. To some, not having a specific goal for every workout is actually unfathomable.

My goal for this workout

Keep track of specific exercises that have been done in the past and perform in more progressively challenging ways. These techniques help you to burn more fat:

Perform the exercise faster on the concentric, and slower on the eccentric
Use more resistance than before
Greater amount of reps using the same weight
Decrease rest intervals without sacrificing heavy weight
Using heavy weights in a larger range of motion
Improving your form and technique with weights that you struggled with before
Combination of the above

Time constraints can be motivating, as is some healthy Orangetheory Fitness competition

I don’t often speak to these accomplishments even if it is noticeable it helps me stay motivated in fitness.

Examples of a good goal to have

Let’s talk about a treadmill goal to begin with. Of course we’re following a HIIT program and the ideal length for a treadmill workout is between 20-30 minutes.

You can try to improve your times in the following ways:

Your one-mile time
Your half-mile time
Your quarter mile time
Your tenth of a mile time

Kyle Anderson from Seattle on the right running hard

You can further improve fat loss by:

Your .25 mile run at 3% incline
Your .25 mile run at 5% incline
Your .25 mile run at 7% incline

Then on a later workout once you have recovered, do your .25 mile run at 1% incline and you will likely be able to run faster than you did before at that particular incline!

Thus progress! Fat cells should get smaller due to this physical and neural progression in muscular contraction.

Once you have accomplished it, nobody can take that away from you!

It’s yours.

Now believe in it and go with it

Orangetheory Fitness Seattle Orangetheory Seattle Physical Fitness by Dre Weightloss Now

January 9, 2015

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Maximizing your Treadmill Intervals for Fat Loss, Performance and Unlimited Benefit

Will this blog help you get unlimited benefits? Maybe that’s a big statement

I’ve spent years now testing various treadmill interval blocks. Being native to the Pacific Northwest, I can run outdoors whenever I want but there are many times when I prefer to run indoors on a treadmill.

Treadmill intervals, if you go to OTFSeattle you’ll recognize a face or two from this special Ft. Lauderdale workout

The benefit of running on a treadmill:

Since it is a machine, you can find it easier to quantitatively track, record and achieve parameters of progression.
Increase resistance by simply increasing the incline
There is never a need to go downhill, so there may be less stress on the knees and the quads will be subjected to less stress and therefore less soreness.
Typically, less soreness means you can up your training frequency, thus getting faster results (so long as you stay healthy).

Designing effective treadmill interval blocks

Treadmill intervals are more a mental game than anything else. Almost every healthy person who uses a treadmill regularly can run faster than the maximum speed they’ve ever used on a treadmill. People just need a little encouragement! That’s why HIIT classes like Orangetheory Fitness in Seattle (my home studio Capitol Hill!!) are so popular and effective.

Example of a progressive HIIT block on the treadmill

Since teaching exercise classes to over a thousand people in Seattle, I’ve started focusing on how to coach these treadmill blocks even more effectively than before. Example of a recent All-Out block I coached my classes on.

30 second all out at 1% (exerciser chooses their most intense speed possible for 30 sceonds)
45 second walking recovery
30 second all out using the same speed as last time, but at 3% incline
45 second walking recovery
30 second all out at 1% incline, starts off as an aggressive push, and halfway through exercisers are coached to peak at their maximum speed (even if only for seconds at a time)

After the block was over and people were walking for recovery on the treadmills, I asked people to raise their hand if that was the fastest they have ever gone on the treadmill. More than a quarter of people raised their hands, knowing they have achieved something they never achieved before and thus breaking another mental barrier which could have held them back from their fitness goals.

Kyle Anderson in the teal from Seattle, Washington. He's our fitness and business inspiration

Kyle Anderson in the teal from Seattle, Washington. He is one our fitness and business inspirations and a leader for the local team here

HIIT is here to stay

Exercise science tells us this. Workouts only need to be between 20-60 minutes long and the intensity can vary from minute to minute throughout the training. There is no better way to release that cocktail of beneficial fat-burning hormones in the hours after your workout. Good recovery from high intensity training guarantees the accelerated decrease in fat-cell size.

Stay tuned my people

Orangetheory Fitness Seattle Orangetheory Seattle Physical Fitness by Dre Weightloss Now

January 7, 2015

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Progressive Resistance and the importance for Fat Loss and Results

The science of exercise suggests that Progressive Resistance is key to strength and progress

I’ll add that progressive resistance is also how you’ll end up burning more fat.

Progressive resistance on the WaterRower would be to achieve faster times than your previous best

Why is progressive resistance important for me?

By progressively…

Using heavier weights than before
Doing more work in less time (decreasing rest intervals)
Increasing volume (doing more sets)
Adding reps (example, if you did 8 reps of chest press and failed at 9 reps, then on a future workout, you achieve 9 reps then it counts as progress)
Running faster on the treadmill (which means higher intensity)
Greater incline at various speeds on the treadmill (akin to “going heavier” and will help develop the glutes and legs)

… then you will get more results.

Achieve more

All that fitness success comes down to the similar principles as other domains for advancement and progress. If you keep doing the same thing, then you will keep looking and feeling the same way.

May you achieve together

So make fat loss progress by using the exercise science techniques of progressive resistance. There’s something for everyone here. You don’t always have to go heavier, you can also go faster. Get it!!

Orangetheory Fitness Seattle Orangetheory Seattle Physical Fitness by Dre

January 2, 2015

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In Response to Criticism of the Orangetheory Orange Bike Campaign

You may have driven, walked, or bused around Seattle and seen the orange bikes before

This campaign was not unique to Seattle as it has happened all over the country and even in Canada as well. Many communities would describe the orange bikes as nothing more than curious which is why the campaign continue to spur interest all over. Yet we heard from many people who were not too fond of the orange bikes.

Curious

Orange bikes vs. launching your career

At the time, the orange bikes were just another bright orange marketing tool to get people asking about Orangetheory. The goal is that everybody knows about Orangetheory. More and more people in Seattle have learned about the benefits of Orangetheory and our awesome local team.

Fleet Feet Seattle Capitol Hill running store, so we did a run together and it was enjoyable

We had other tools as well. It’s not that I claim pride in the fact, but wearing orange spandex was quite a comfortable running suit in the fall and winter of the previous year. So anyway, we had many more tools than the Orange bikes, but it was the orange bikes that caused the most intense response.

The franchise felt like, and still does feel like a local team

We were all over Seattle on foot, bike, rower and orange wrapped Volkswagen. We were on the ground everyday before the studios even existed. There we were, forming our identity, finding out who had the character to add value under the toughest of circumstances. We were on the streets everyday. To us, the marketing campaign was about helping to launch our careers in our desired field in the most growing city in America.

Before we had a studio, we had OT Fit Club. We hit the pavement, and we persisted

I had just come from working at an athletic club in Tacoma, and instead of being in a cozy gym talking to all kinds of current guests and customers… now I was on the streets of Seattle wearing four layers on the bottom and adopting ear warmers in an effort to invite you to become a Founding Member of our first-to-market franchise.

We should honor everybody involved

I appreciate the criticism of the orange bike campaign as it helped me understand the raw passion and spirit of Seattle. We must fight for our cause. That’s something I always felt about being a man is having a cause and standing behind it no matter what. Apply passion to your vision and execute daily.

Because excitement about fitness is what I have for the world. This is how I connect with people and this is what draws me to go beyond barriers and explore the uncomfortable zones of life. My fitness takes me forward and I’m bringing as many of you along with me as I can.