1/21/2013

Turbo Fire- A Review of my Favorite Workout Program!


Fitness has become a big part of my life since last year, and I've been wanting to share my love for it for a while now.  I figured my first fitness post would be about one of my favorite workout programs Turbo Fire! I'm going to tell you about the program, why it's effective, the workouts that are included and why I love it. I purchased this program from Beachbody.com over six months ago.

Beachbody is the company that sells this program along with other popular workout programs such as P90X, Insanity, Brazilian Butt Lift, Turbo Jam ( which is the  beginner version of Turbo Fire) and many more. This is what Beachbody has to say about Turbo Fire..

"Turbo Fire is an intense new cardio conditioning workout designed and practiced by the famous fitness trainer Chalene Johnson. Chalene will help shape your body with intense fat-burning exercises that have been proven to be 9x more affective then average cardio workout".

 


What is Turbo Fire?
Turbo Fire was released in 2010,  it's a series of videos that incorporate different activities, a little yoga and stretching, resistance/strength training, ab focused workouts, and of course a lot of cardio in the form of kickboxing and dance.


The basic 90 day program comes with the following twelve videos:
  • Four Fire videos: Fire 30, Fire 45, Fire 45EZ, Fire 55EZ
  • Three HIIT videos: HIIT 15, HIIT 20, HIIT 25
  • Two Strength Training videos: Tone 30, Sculpt 30
  • Two stretch videos: Stretch 10, Stretch 40
  • One Abs video: Core 20
You also get a full nutrion guide, the turbo class schedule, guide books to track your progress and a resistance band. 

 I will go into more detail about what Fire, EZ and HIIT stand for below..


Why it's effictive?
It's all about the HIIT. High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) is proved to burn up to 9x more fat and calories than traditional cardio. HIIT means working out at your very max in up to 1 minute intervals.

How that works?
When you exercise at your max (1 minute intervals) it improves aerobic and anaerobic energy release and cranks up your bodies metabolism to burn calories faster. This occurs because the intense intervals fatigue your muscle groups. In turn, your body works overtime to replenish the tired muscles with oxygen, creating the "Afterburn Effect" which can last up to 24 hours after you've finished the workout. By combining HIIT, general interval training and the cardio burn of kickboxing, these Turbo Fire videos are a fun, sweaty way to melt off pounds during and after the workout.



The Fire Workouts:
As stated above, Turbo Fire includes 4 fire videos in total: Fire 30, Fire 45, Fire 45EZ and Fire 55EZ. The number stands for how long the workout is (i.g Fire 30 is a 30 min workout, Fire 45 is a 45 min workout and so on). All of those workouts include about 3-4 minutes of a warm up and cool down with different combos of kickboxing routines in the middle. Many of the kickboxing routines incorporate dance movements as well and the choreography is pretty straight forward. Once you do a workout a few times you will have the moves down. Than, you can focus on your form and technique. These fire workouts also include turbo's which are the HIIT (1 minute intervals). You basically do a super fast routine that includes some plyometric moves for 1 minute than you rest (recover) for 1 minute. They really get your heart rate up and you're completely out of breath but you feel so good about yourself.

The videos that have the EZ title are supposed to stand for easy but there not, they just don't include any turbo's. There is also a modifier for people that don't like to jump and would rather have a low impact but high intensity workout.



Here is a preview of one of the Fire videos..




The HIIT Workouts:
There are 3 HIIT workouts, one is 15 minutes, one is 20 minutes and the other one is 25 minutes. These are pretty intense. You do 1 minute drills that are super fast with high impact moves and then you take a break for 1 minute and start over. For example HIIT 15 has 3 different 1 minute drills but you do them for a total of 6 times. I know it seems like a lot but before you know it the 15, 20 or 25 minutes are up and your dripping sweat and tired, but feel good because you just burned so many calories!

Here's another preview of a HIIT workout and Stretch workout:



The Strengh Training Workouts:
Both Sculpt 30 and Tone 30 use resistance bands that target every muscle in your body and are used to strengthen and tone your muscles.  I'm not a big fan of using resistance bands, I prefer free weights so I've only tried these workouts a few times. I use other strength training workouts in place of these. If you like resistance bands than you will like these workouts.

The Stretch and Core Workouts:
There are two stretch videos, one is 10 minutes long and the other is 40 minutes long. The stretch 10 are basic stretches that are good to do after any cardio workout. The stretch 40 is part yoga and part deep stretches. The Core 20 video is an intense ab workout, it uses your body and resistance bands to target your abs and includes some standing ab work. When I first tried this video I couldn't finish it because my core and lower back muscles were weak. Each time I did the video I got a little better and can now complete it.

Why I love it?
Well I've always liked cardio kickboxing and have loved dance since I was a little girl. So when you combine the two its my kind of workout. Then there's the music!!! You can tell that they took a lot of time with this. It's a bit of hip hop/dance that motivates you to move! The song selections are great and most of the time the music matches the choreography and corresponds to specific moves. It's a great idea because the songs eventually help condition your brain and body to the moves. I also really like the instructor, Chalene, she is super motivating without being obnoxious or corny.

With all that being said, I hope you guys enjoyed this review. Basically, if you're looking for a cardio challenge that has kickboxing and plyometrics you will probably love Turbo FIre. If you are looking for something that is an intro to kickboxing but still effective I would recommend Turbo Jam (the beginner version of Turbo Fire). I like both, I graduated from Turbo Jam to Turbo Fire and can honestly say I got addicted to both pretty quick.

**I was not paid or asked to do this review, I purchased the program with my own money 2 years ago and have enjoyed it so much that I wanted to share it with all of you!!**

Have you ever tried Turbo Fire?? Or if you have any questions about the program, please ask and I will try to answer as best as I can. This is my first real fitness post and I'm excited to share more!! 



Click the links below :)
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2 comments:

  1. natalie_johanna9:17 PM

    I love reading people's fitness related posts! I hadn't heard of Turbo Fire before this. I like the idea of using a DVD training programme but I am generally much more motivated to get out of the house and get into a gym class atmosphere :)

    N xoxo

    The Blonde Ethos

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thanks!! Turbo Fire is really fun, I know what you mean about going to the gym. I like to do both

    ReplyDelete

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