For those of you who know me well, and maybe even not so well, know that my nickname is Turbo. Fitting then, that I should try TurboFire as my next exercise system. Distributed by Beachbody, the same folks who bring you P90x and TurboJam, its headed up by Chalene Johnson, trainer to the stars. She's energetic, she's supportive, she's blonde.
She's kind of the complete opposite to Jillian in that she's motivating with a chipper attitude and "feels the endorphins" and loves feeling the burn, etc. Jillians Body Revolution was fantastic to start out with. It's half an hour a day, which is totally awesome, and you are always able to mod up and down (as you are, admittedly with Chalene's system too) to your fitness level. Jillians strength lies in being able to motivate someone (me) to keep going and push themselves after an extended amount of time of relative inactivity (i.e. years! Although I had been biking quite a bit, actual "working out" hadn't been done since highschool).
Her little phrases
"It's only 30 minutes a day, you can do ANYthing for 30 minutes"
"When you have a WHY, you can tolerate ANY HOW"
"Nobody likes working out, the only good thing about working out is the skinny jeans at the end!"
It was the "I totally hate to work out, I feel ya, but let's just bang this out real quick I swear you'll see changes, I'm only asking for half an hour a day, you can TOTALLY do this and change your life!" attitude that kept me going with her. After doing the Body Revolution for the full 90 days and then another half way through, I was feeling a bit bored. It wasn't that the system was no longer challenging, as I said you can always mod up, I just felt like doing something different. I had been following someone's fitness page on Facebook (Hard Work & Dedication) and she had started doing a system called TurboFire. I checked it out, and liked what I saw....a bunch of really sweaty folks having FUN while pushing their bodies to their cardio limits!
I dug a little deeper and was pleased to find out that TurboFire is based on an incredibly effective mode of exercise called HIIT, or High Intensity Interval Training. By boosting your cardio and mixing it with strength training, your body creates something called an AfterBurn effect (both Jillian and Chalene swear by it) whereby it burns 9x more calories for HOURS afterwards. Usually using plyometrics (can be a bit painful if you're a plantar fasciitis sufferer like me, but if you take care of your feet by stretching throughout the day, and icing, the results are so worth it!) and bursts of high intensity followed by a lighter recovery period. Its hardcore, and the results speak for themselves.
So TurboFire it is, and my first experience with the class was challenging, mainly because of the choreography. I'm not very coordinated so it was a huge challenge for me, and I look forward to getting better. I'll go through my impressions on TurboFire and how it measures up to Body Revolution after my first week on the program!
Also, to come, skinny jean pics!!!
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