TurboFire: Fire Starter Class

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How did you celebrate July 4th? I started my morning by starting my TurboFire journey!! I was so excited when my workout arrived on Wednesday evening and couldn't wait to get started. Since the weekly schedule starts on a Monday, I decided to give the Fire Starter workout a try a couple days early since I had read on a few online blogs that it helped people to do this workout a few times (some said as much as for a whole week) before officially starting the full blown routine to get a feel for the workout and how Chalene calls out each move.

I've got to be honest... I think they're right. It's a 37 minute workout... you might expect a "starter" class to be a lighter workout (or perhaps I thought that since the first workout for Brazil Butt Lift workout was very instructional and didn't even result in any sweat). This, however, was not a light workout by any means. I sweat... A LOT! I am sure you could probably go on and figure it out just doing the Starter Fire on Monday and moving onto the next workout on Tuesday as scheduled (which will be Fire 40), but I think doing this workout a few times before going too deep into the schedule will absolutely help you get the most out of TurboFire.

I do want to note that while this is a challenging workout, Chalene has someone showing modified "easier" workouts for the more challenging moves, and someone showing how you can really turn up the workout even more (imagine lots of jumping!!) I was afraid to get this workout at first, thinking it might be too "over my head", but so far, it seems to be just the amount of "push" I need. I loved Brazil Butt Lift but it wasn't challenging enough, seeing as I was working out with my favorite butt-kicking Jillian Michaels DVDs previously, but this is just awesome. The music is great too --- just as I think I'm starting to get tired, Chalene reminds you "you're not tired!" and the music gets you moving again. One thing I really liked about this workout (which I didn't realize until I did it the second time) was that the music changes as you complete each set. So after you do a certain set working your right side and you progress to the next set, the music changes, and then it will go back to the music for each set when you switch to the left side. LOVE this! The workout really flies by too.

If you've done any kind of kickboxing workout before, picking up the moves shouldn't be too difficult as she breaks them down piece by piece (and punch by punch). It may just take a few times doing the workout to keep up when you do the moves at tempo. It felt a lot easier doing the moves the second time around (the kickboxing DVDs I've recently done don't really work both sides, just the right, so I felt a little awkward working the left side at first when she reversed all the moves, but I picked them up pretty well by the time I wrapped up my second workout). 

As each day progressed completing this Fire Starter, I burned more calories and maintained a higher average heart rate in just two workouts:

Day One (Thursday):

311 calories burned 

Average heart rate: 144 

Max heart rate: 173

Day Two (Friday):

330 calories burned 

Average heart rate: 149

Max heart rate: 174

I had intended on doing this on Saturday and Sunday as well so I could start the class schedule with week one today, but I have a full blown sinus infection and can barely breathe, so I think it's going to be a couple days before I can start to workout again. Once I feel up to it, I will be doing the Fire Starter again and start week one next week --- stay tuned for more progress on this workout next week. Here's to hoping I can get moving again by Wednesday... I miss it!!

~ Aly