Exercise has always been important to me. For the longest time, I ran with a friend five or six days a week at 5:45 am. The route rarely changed, which was fine because we were barely awake enough to notice. One morning, I hit a wall. I went to leave for my run and standing at the front door realized that I just couldn’t go out. It was too early, too dark, too cold. I wanted my coffee and the paper. Something had to change.
I joined a local gym. For five years, I used the gym four to five times a week. I still ran on the weekends. It was a great way to catch up with friends and get some exercise at the same time. I say “some” because there was nothing pushing me to challenge myself. I was just putting my time in. I thought about everything except what I was doing; dinner plans for the evening, work to-dos, errands to run, etc. My friends were leaving the gym to exercise at many of the new places which seemed to pop up weekly. Five months ago, I realized that I was using winter weather and work commitments as excuses for not exercising. In reality, I was bored.
Get Focused
My brother told me to check out a new exercise class, Orange Theory, that opened up near my office in Philadelphia. My colleague, Laura, and I decided to sign up for a free session. The class itself is all about interval training (treadmill, rowing machine, weights). Some statistics, both your heart rate and calories burned, get measured via a heart monitor and are shown on a screen along with everyone in the class.
On the treadmill we are taught to establish a “base” pace, a “push” pace (maybe 30% faster than your base) and then an “all out” pace (sprint). My paces will be different from the person next to me. The instructor calls out intervals, maybe base for 30 seconds then all out for 30 seconds and then back to base for 90 seconds. Then repeat the same pattern at a 2% incline, then 4% incline, then 6% incline. We spend about 20 minutes on the treadmill, 20 minutes on a rowing machine and 20 minutes with weights/floor exercises. The idea is to get your heart rate above 84% of your maximum for 12-20 minutes to induce the “after burn” (or in their technical sounding explanation, the “”Excess Post-Exercise Oxygen Consumption” or EPOC, which is an increase in your metabolic rate, so even after you stop exercising, your body is still theoretically working).
After ten weeks, Laura and I were both hooked. When I’m there, I am totally focused on what I am doing and my effort. Seeing the numbers on a screen (how many calories I was burning and my heart rate) gave me real time metrics to monitor. While I thought I would be self-conscious about seeing my own numbers next to others on a monitor, that hasn’t been the case. I found that I only look at my own data which helps me challenge myself to do more.
Get Results
I have definitely made progress. At my first workout, I expended 360 calories and now, I routinely burn 650+ calories. I respond better when I have a coach challenge us to add a little more speed on the treadmill, a little more resistance on the rowing machine, or more reps with the weights. Thirty seconds can seem like an eternity while sprinting on an incline, but it has a known end and I try hard to last that long. I can assure you that I would have never done that on my own (in all my hours on a treadmill at the gym, I never once increased the incline). Seeing how I respond to the challenges of the coach reminds me that I am limited only by myself; I see that I can do more than I ever thought possible.
I estimate that I am getting twice as much out of every hour I spend at Orange Theory compared to when I was exercising on my own. The coach and the metrics help me to set bigger goals, monitor my progress and work harder. After 10 weeks, I know I have more speed, power and endurance because the biking and running I do outside of Orange Theory have become easier. Dear husband Larry, I am ready for another bike trip.
Get Financially Fit
Why is an essay about fitness on a financial planning blog, you ask? Financial Planning is all about setting goals and the metrics that measure our efforts to achieve those goals.
Take your budget for example. We look at each expense and determine whether it is fixed or discretionary, regular or lumpy, paid for in cash or automatically deducted. This provides a “base pace”. We then figure out how to ratchet up the savings, the “push pace”, and then what to do with those savings, the “all out”. Here, rather than calories burned, we focus on the amount saved per week, per month, per year. I motivate clients to have the strength to stick to a budget and the endurance to increase their savings. It’s hard work but when you get your next credit report and realize that your score has gone from 450 to 750, you feel that “after burn”.
It’s no different with retirement planning, insurance analysis, estate planning, charitable giving or college planning. As a coach, I set the program, motivate you to put in more effort than you thought possible and help you see your numbers. The mental freedom that results from being organized is the “after burn”, enabling you to make the best use of your time and resources.
