   I have never been the kind of person who could go to the gym for hours and know exactly what exercises to do in order to get the results I wanted. When I was in high school, working out was easy. I could just walk into volleyball practice and my workout for the day was planned and coached by someone else. Now in college there is an entire free gym for me to use right across the street but there is nothing to motivate me to go. When I do visit the athletic center, I spend about thirty minutes on the elliptical or the treadmill with an incline and then stretch before I inevitably leave out of boredom. That all changed when I joined Orangetheory Fitness.
   Orangetheory is a gym centered around a personal training approach. Classes happen several times a day, each with the same exact workout nationwide. But when you sign up, you never know what the class is going to be so I can never avoid a day with a lot of rowing or a lot of weights. There are no more than 24 people in each regular 60 minute class, with half of the group starting on the treadmills and the other half starting on the rowing machine. The workouts are broken up into blocks and perfectly explained by the coach of the class (My favorite coach is Ally in Guilford, CT).
   So what keeps me going to Orangetheory when I have a free gym just a few minutes away from my dorm?
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By booking a class on the app, someone is depending on me to show up on time and do my best. I cannot just decide 10 minutes before that I don’t feel like going that day.
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The workouts are planned for me! I don’t have to spend hours on YouTube trying to find six or seven workout videos that I might be able to figure out in the gym.
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There are variations to every workout. If I am having a particularly bad knee or hip day, I can skip the treadmill and pick a bike or strider. If my arms are still sore from the day before, I can switch to a lighter weight or a variation of a push up instead.
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The community is so inviting! I started going to the 6 pm on Mondays and Thursdays at my local Orangetheory and instantly made friends with familiar faces that I see every week.
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Every workout is tracked by a heart rate monitor which helps me know when I need to push myself, go all out, or slow it down a little bit. The monitor is also a huge motivator when it comes to comparing my last workout to my current workout. Did I get enough minutes in the “orange zone”? I can check on the screen in the gym and on the app from anywhere!
   This is in no way sponsored by Orangetheory, these are just my genuine opinions about how much I love this gym. If your New Year resolution was to be more active, lose weight, or just try something new, let me know in the comments what you are doing to attain your goal!
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