My sports coach, Louis, reassures me: “Don’t worry. It’s not going to be a beating,” as he straps a heart rate monitor to my arm. “We work together to find the right intensity, then you set your own pace.”
Puzzled, I look at the definition of brutality on my phone – “punishment intended to humiliate, push to the limit and injure (usually military)”. What did I get myself into?
I haven’t set foot in the gym in over 35 years, put off by the garish male instructors, the harsh lighting, and the general air of body fascism at the time.
Like many middle-aged women, I love endorphin-boosting exercises, but they should be gentle and non-competitive. I walk 30 miles a week, swim three times, do Pilates. But if it’s Lycra, count on me.
Yet Orangetheory Fitness, the cult gym studio franchise founded in America and gaining popularity in the UK, where there are now nine studios, claims to offer a different kind of exercise class.
Community and inclusiveness are the watchwords. It’s for people of all ages, shapes and sizes. Michelle Obama is a fan, and if you watch the Netflix show Queer Eye, you’ll recognize it as where the Fab Five take their customers.
Could this cure my gymphobia?
Orangetheory (or “orange therapy” as fans call it) offers one-hour circuit classes split between time on the treadmill and rowing machine and core and strength exercises such as lunges and squats on the ground. It’s a group class, but you go at your own pace based on your own heart rate data.
Everyone is set up with a heart rate monitor on their arm. This tracks your beats per minute and the data is projected next to your name on digital screens in the room so you can see how many calories you’re burning and your average heart rate percentages.
The goal isn’t to go all the way, but to increase your heart rate, boost your metabolism, and improve your cardiorespiratory health.
Unfortunately, heart health is not good in my family. My father and all my grandparents died of heart attacks early in life.
A family history of heart disease is defined as having a first-degree relative who had a heart attack at age 55, or a first-degree relative at age 65. My father had his first age at 54 years old.
When I recently saw a top cardiologist, he told me bluntly to cut out the weekly crisps, adopt a Mediterranean diet, and do more fat-burning exercise. I’m fit but a little chubby – which is dangerous with my family background.
So, could heart rate-based interval training at age 60 in the dreaded gym make a difference?
I book at the Orangetheory studio in Fulham, South West London. I expect a cult dressed in orange. And, yes, the lighting makes the whole room orange and the super fit trainers have a hint of Baywatch about them, but they’re kind, enthusiastic, and make you feel like their biggest goal is to get the pig midlifers in shape. .
At first, Louis walks me through the five heart rate zones that people go through during their workout. Gray is when you are relaxed; blue is the easy warm-up zone; green – the “endurance zone” – is when you feel challenged; then there’s the orange zone where things start to get uncomfortable. The red zone – the top one – is reached at maximum effort.
“It’s like your mother-in-law’s house,” jokes Sean Johnson, regional fitness manager at Orangetheory. “It’s good to step in, but no one wants to stay too long.”
The goal is to spend a third of the training (20 minutes) in the orange zone and the rest in the green. But the level of effort required will depend on your body and your medical history.
I have never done interval training before. The session begins on the rower, where I find myself enjoying the work of the muscles, abdominals, legs.
Louis encourages us to push harder, get our heart rate up, and move from the gray zone of the warm-up to the green.
Soon, everyone’s profiles light up green, orange, and red on the leader board. Unfortunately, mine doesn’t move beyond gray (i.e. relaxed rhythm).
Then it’s Knockout style, the group sprinting across the room to try out strength exercises. While everyone is spinning weights around their heads, I’m still trying to get my feet off the rower’s Velcro straps.
I enjoy the total body resistance exercise (stretching using wall resistance bands) and it’s good to see my profile turned blue. I already lift 3 kg dumbbells at home, but combining weights with lunges is difficult. I cry on the third set of reps and am shocked at how out of shape I feel.
We move on to treadmills where you can run, jog or walk. I opt for brisk walking at four miles an hour. As we change the incline up to 10% (to increase the grade) I finally get my first green zone reading and feel triumphant.
Afterwards, Sean walks me through my results (regular members get them by application). After a high-energy, adrenaline-rushing class, I burned 308 calories in an hour and walked 3,000 steps. By comparison, I had to walk seven miles the day before (14,000 steps in five hours) to burn off that amount.
I was in the green zone for 16 minutes. My maximum heart rate was 131 beats per minute (ideally for my age it should be 80-136). Brisk walking on an incline is low impact but will strengthen my posterior chain (back muscles and glutes), Sean says tactfully.
The day after my session, my thighs are in agony – have they moved so much before? When I test my blood pressure with my Omron home monitor, it goes from grade 1 hypertension to high normal. I hate interval training, but even I see the value in getting out of your comfort zone.
Orangetheory is less about bodybuilding and more about “training for life”; improve strength and coordination so you can climb stairs, carry groceries and other things that can slip later in life.
So yes, I agree to go back every week. And really do it! I even managed to hit the orange zone once or twice and am less out of breath going up hills. I have the unpleasant impression of having been converted.
- Orangetheory Fitness studios across the UK are offering a free trial class. Membership options in London start from £109 per month or £199 for ten courses, orangetheory.com