Why I’m Not a Fan of Orangetheory Fitness
To watch the full video, click here: https://youtu.be/Lt6HrTlPpXU
What if I told you that orange feeder is a dying breed? Believe me, what do you think I’m crazy? Well, if I told you that the only reason why orange theory is surviving and growing is because they actually thoughtfully designed and understood the core human motivators behind people and fitness. But the future fitness I can tell you right now is not with the orange theories of the world. And before I get into that, and why I’m not a fan of orange theories, or most boutique franchise brands, and I believe why you shouldn’t be either and be wary of them, make sure to like and subscribe to our channel for innovative perspectives about the future of the fitness industry and how you can stay ahead of the curve. My name is Michael Hughes, CEO of Gymnazo Edu. And as someone who have been in the industry for the last 15 plus years, I’ve seen my fair share of trends come and go. It’s just a matter of time before the orange theory of the world of the industry becomes a trend for for big, big reasons. The first one of them all is that Orangetheory isn’t is unsustainable for its clients. There’s too much repetition. There’s no creativity in the movements or very little creativity in the movements and in the program, and a variety of motions simply overtrained joints. With all that being said, the warm up and the cool down or the mobility in preparation for tissue motion is not present. But cool down if any at the end only leaves muscles to want more flexibility, more motion, and the joints to own become tighter and less movement capable. As progression goes. Along with that the sagittal plane focus on the rower and the treadmill will slowly increase injury and wear and tear of those joints in those patterns. It’s only 1/3 of the program that actually breaks away from dominant sagittal plane pounding or repetitive stresses on the same joints in the same angulations at the same intensity. It’s just a matter of time when the joints start to decay to the point where they just don’t want to do that activity anymore. It’s a burnout phase, but not through mentality through physicality. Also, the workouts are prone to be harder, not smarter. The fact that the heartrate monitor is there is pretty lame because it only focuses on calories burnt or the perception of calories burnt. It’s not focused on quality movement at all. Really at all. It’s how can we perceive this fact of more burn means more better. And that has a timestamp on it. Beyond that fact, the lacking of movement education for their trainers. Providing education that teaches trainers on how to program for sustainability in movement and longevity of their clients in themselves is lacking the fact that the understanding of chain reaction biomechanics three dimensional movement patterns fascial lines of how to connect from one part about to the other part of part of the body is not present, we need to understand from a training and conditioning spectrum, especially as trainers who are managing mass populations and group training of the body is a unique piece per in individual people and how people walk into the door. That movement quality will only be amplified in that workout, if it’s about intensity, and making sure you get into that orange zone to burn calories. or understanding as trainers must be on a huge responsibility that the more we progress people through through different variations of intensity only projects their body to destroy itself a little faster. I hate to use the word destroy, but it’s a true term, our joints will have miles on on them that cannot be put back on. And that is a problem with high intensity interval training, especially in dominant patterns as running on a treadmill and being on a rower. Nothing wrong with those drills independently. But two thirds of every single workout being exactly the same without any movement preparation or movement design to provide more range of motion, more tissue adaptation in the proper quality. It’s a problem to be had. The second point the model is profit driven, not product driven. It’s about making money first and offering a product that says that’s good enough. That’s why some of the first investors or the vast majority of the first investors were clients of the brand, not trainers, well educated in Movement Science. So it is possible actually though to create something that is great and mass produce it. I’m a big fan of Tesla. I don’t know if you are but they’re doing it. So in fitness, why can’t we do it? What you can also that is our entire Focus, it’s our mission to drive forward to produce product driven workouts, education that also produces profit. But I said that the opposite way. Orangetheory is about profit first product. Second, there’s many other brands out there focusing on the methodology of quality training, will produce quality results, therefore will produce quality, essentially career paths for the trainers. This is the model that we’re projecting this is the model that we’re going to say is the future of fitness. And it’s coming the wave, you can smell it, it’s in the air. There’s so many people dialing in being innovators being those people who are pioneers and saying, really women, it’s not that I just work out hard. It’s not that I break a sweat, it’s not that I get a calorie burn or an effect of of intensity at a certain level, that’s going to make me fit. Now, that is a measurement of fitness. But it’s actually one of the least important in terms of the sustainability and longevity of that machine that this athlete is in. Which leads me to my third point, it’s actually an outdated system. The theory is something that we’ve all learned. Because orange theory is based on a theory, and they call it unnecessarily if you get a heart rate at a high enough level, and that level will sustain itself hours after the workout. We’ve all learned this, anyone going through a Kinesiology degree, anyone who’s taken a physiology class understands that this is across all workouts, all spectrums, if you work out hard enough, you’re gonna be able to get that effect. Orangetheory has done a great job of taking that and just marketing it when every trainer in every cardiovascular workout will accomplish the exact same thing. When a program is based upon simply maximizing the utilization of calories, then again, I’ll say it over and over again. The sustainability of movement suffers, anybody can work harder. Yes, you need the motivation to do so. But how long can the machine handle it before the weakest link starts to break. And that’s the problem. We need to base fitness programs on principles of movement, not theories based upon a conglomerate of physiological principles. Physics has to be at the core, the root of all of our programming for the next level of training, I get it, where we are in our current state of fitness and where we’ve been for the past decade is not what I’m talking about. I’m talking about the next 10 years. And that’s why those trainers out there are those listening those clients who are part of training and conditioning programs that put movement physics at its principle, and core understanding of its programming will be the ones who rise to the top. And hence why this video is coming out. And hence why I’m kind of getting on this soapbox. Here’s my last point. And this is for the trainers out there Orangetheory. And the models such as they are do not provide a sustainable career path for the movement coach, they made for the manager, they may for the owner. But those are not the people on the floor. It’s not the people actually putting in the blue collar, what I call a tradesman ship type job. We are like tradesmen, we get physical with our work, we have to be in the trenches moving through stuff to actually make a product come out. So if you’re passionate about fitness, if you’re passionate about performance, if you’re passionate about movement quality, and solving musculoskeletal disorders that prevent your clients from gaining the long term results that you want, then you’re not going to find it in these boutique type franchise setups. The workouts come come from a corporate office, there’s no real coaching. It’s about again, performance only. It’s no one’s learning about how to take programming to modify to tweak it for that person with plantar fasciitis, that person was knee pain or that person was shoulder pain of that person who has a fuse disc there l five.
Just not happening there. Basically, to such trainers at such boutique franchise spots are their cheerleaders. Nothing wrong with a cheerleader. But don’t think that is going to be the solve for that client’s ability to sustain their movement quality over the long term. And that’s a hard place to be at. So a quick little video. No one’s been saying I searched YouTube all the place. No one’s saying this. But I know that the trainers who are listening to this understand it, believe it and actually kind of rooting for the same cause. Thank you very much for all those boutique franchise out there who are bringing people off couches in into the game of fitness. No joke, thank you. But the time has come where we will have to go to the next level. And that next level is, is principle based biomechanically smart, focused training and conditioning that solves root problems of musculoskeletal dysfunctions. And the same person can do this perform the sustainability performance, physique, power, and athleticism for the rest of athlete’s life. Hope you liked this video. It’s a short little rant. I know I don’t like to pick on brands, but this is this one got to me. This one got to me. So, here I am speaking out to you. If you want to learn more about what we do how we think, check out the description below. We’re here to innovate and to rise up. We’re pioneers in this space, trying to push all trainers and those clients of those trainers into a spot saying none, there’s better out there. There’s more that can be had for my physical body, which is the biggest asset in anybody’s life. And this is worth investing in and it’s worth investing in a coach who has that education. That’s it. I’m out. Thanks for being part of this channel. And I’ll talk to you soon.
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