I’ve been looking around at exercise classes lately, as a way of making my workout more interesting. I’m quite happy with my weight training and jogging, but I’d like to add another bit of cardio on the days in which I don’t run. So my curiosity was piqued when I saw an advertisement for TurboFire on TV. Ironically, I saw this advertisement while I was jogging at the gym but it seemed interesting, and I’m not just saying that because the 30 minute ad was essentially filled from end to end with pretty women in skimpy clothing (sorry, I’m a guy, I tend to pay attention to these things). what really drew me to the ad is how much fun this workout seemed to be. It essentially looked like a combination of high intensity dance, martial arts and aerobics, all of which I tend to enjoy (yes, I like dancing).
Now let me clarify something. I am not affiliated in any way with TurboFire or its creators. I don’t receive a commission from them, nor did they approach me to review their product. They didn’t even send me a free sample, which would have been nice since these DVD’s aren’t cheap. If you want a TurboFire workout DVD, you’ll need to shell out upwards of $100, which isn’t cheap for a working guy like me trying to save up for a wedding and a honeymoon. However, lack of money has never stopped me which is why I went out and found a friend’s DVD to borrow. I took it home, popped it in the DVD player, stripped down to my shorts (what?!?! I was home! Besides, I look good!) and started working out. The following is my summary of the workout.
The Good
TurboFire kicked my ass all over the place. Seriously, I thought I should play this thing on slow motion at some points because I was having a hard time keeping up. I was breathing hard by minute 5 and pouring sweat by minute 10. I honestly didn’t think I could make it through the whole workout and I was grateful when the session wound to a close. As a cardio workout, this was awesome! It was even better because it was relatively low impact, unless you count almost falling on my face while trying to execute some of the moves.
The best part was, I felt like this was a good entire body workout and not just cardio. There were a lot of moves which challenged my leg, thigh and back muscles and the repeated arm movements were certainly giving me a good bicep/tricep workout. This is one of my issues with most aerobics classes by the way. I feel like they emphasize the cardio to the exclusion of all else. Sure, getting your heart beating fast is a good thing, but so is challenging your muscles and working on your flexibility. TurboFire definitely did that and, while not as good as a true weight workout, all parts of my body felt like they were exercised during this session.
By the way, if it sounds intimidating, there’s apparently some low intensity version of each workout that you can do if you’re out of shape, but my ego wouldn’t let me take that option.
Overall, I’d give TurboFire very high marks for the quality of the workout.
The Bad
Honestly, there wasn’t much in the way of bad here. My main issue were some of the over promises which are prevalent in this kind of a workout program. They promise you the world on a plate if only you’ll hand them your credit card number and that’s simply not true. Sure, if you do this routine every day and eat healthy you’ll probably lose a lot of weight really fast, but that’s not realistic for most people. Will exercise help you? Of course. Is this good exercise? Yes, absolutely. However, it’s not a magic bullet of some sort, guaranteed to lose 30lbs in 4 weeks. Nor will it tone your abs without you doing some serious work of your own and losing some of the extra fat that’s covering up those abs.
I guess these workout programs have to promise these things if they want to compete with the other offering out there. Still, I wish they wouldn’t. I’d love to hear them be a bit more honest about the results you can expect and the timeline required to see those results.
The Ugly
No ugly here. In fact, as I mentioned before, there was an over abundance of exceedingly fit and attractive women in tight clothing. Not that I’m complaining mind you. If you ever hear me complaining about spending 30 minutes watching pretty women workout, please shoot me as I have obviously been replaced by a pod person. Honestly though, if seeing attractive women workout will make you more motivated to move your butt then by all means. I’m a great believer in doing what works even if other people think it’s a bit shallow.
The one slightly ugly fact that I should mention is the price. As I said before, TurboFire is not cheap. I believe it’s around $130 for the DVD and $200+ for the whole set. That’s a significant amount of money for most people so think hard before ordering this DVD set. If you think that a good workout at home is what you need to get you in shape then this program is perfect for you. It will help you lose weight AND tone those muscles which I think is great. It’s a short program that you can easily do in your living room, which means it’s perfect for busy adults who have little time for standard gym workout. However, if you’re just looking for a silver bullet, I think you need to move on. There’s no magic formula here, just a kickass workout that you’ll need to combine with a healthy eating plan if you want to see results.
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By the way, my current plan is to try another TurboFire workout, but this time with some weights. I figure, if I survive, this should be an amazing cardio workout with some incredible weight training mixed in. So if I don’t out out any new blog posts in the next week or two, it probably means I hurt myself really bad
