Turbo Fire: Fire 30 Class

This is one of the numerous workouts included in the Turbo Fire Beachbody set, and the shortest steady state cardio workout. Per the title it does clock in at 30 (nearly 31) minutes which includes warm up and cool down. At the beginning of the workout Chalene says "since it's only 30 minutes, we're going to make it intense!" and I feel she lives up to that promise. Chalene leads on the stage of a super large workout room. She has two female background instructors and there are a bunch (maybe 50 or 60) of exercisers on the floor in front of her, facing her. Chalene and her two backgrounders face the camera. The stage and room are a very bright, clean white and give a nice aesthetic feel. There is a small countdown bar timer on the below right of the screen (difficult to see on my old and tiny TV but probably just fine for a bigger and higher def TV) and when the two fire drills come on, there is a small circular timer on the bottom left corner of the screen which counts down the seconds (:70) of the turbo. The music is super fast and has recognizable, fun songs!

Chalene starts you out with her usual warm up-nearly the exact same as all her Turbo Jams (I think even her CLXs were pretty similar) with the rolling arms, and alternating punches, circle arm with hamstring stretch, side lunges stretches, etc. There were two choreographed sequences (repeated on each side), the first fire drill, a third sequence, second fire drill, and then the finale sequence, and the cool down. There is an enjoyable mixture of high and low impact aerobics, and some new moves which I hadn't seen before in Turbo Jam (with this being my first Turbo Fire workout) such as the "fire thrower" (IIRC?) an interesting knee up while "heaving" something over your shoulder move, and a diagonal jab-jab-jab-cross into a jab-jab-jab-cross in the other direction (such as 12 o'clock and 3 o'clock), which reminded me of a move Billy often uses in his Tae Bo workouts. There were also many of the Turbo Jam exercises but at a faster speed here. This workout was mostly punch and jump themed but there was one set that incorporated roundhouse kicks. I did miss the inclusion of the Wheel (my personal favorite) but I'm sure I'll see it in other TF workouts. The two fire drills were the same (which is fine with me, it allows you to put more intensity into the second one since you know what's coming!) and included fast feet and jumps with heel click. You can really go all out because there is a built in 60 second rest afterwards.

Well everything I had read was true-TF is seriously faster paced than TJ! I was able to keep up for most of the workout with only minor stumbles, although the finale sequence was trickier to follow and I had a "huh??" moment where I just stared at the screen. There was some sort of a pivot move (I don't do pivots, I get dizzy) so I had to develop a modification. Once I finally got the groove of the sequence, it ended. LOL! It was not so much confusion that I got frustrated, and I'm hopeful that with multiple use I'll be learn how to breeze through it and focus instead on putting energy into the workout. On the whole it was a very fun workout. I don't LOVE it as much as I love Turbo Jam Cardio Party (my favorite) but I'm sure with time, as I get used to the routine, I can love it just as much. In general I think I'll do very well with Turbo Fire!

Since the exercises were very, very fast, AND I am new to learning TF, I did not bother with my weighted gloves (which I use for TF) and done as is, with the high intensity, I would say it is high intermediate. Maybe someday I can use the gloves when I've mastered all the exercises, and can up the intensity to advanced. The choreography definitely requires a learning curve and moves very, very quickly, and I think it helped tremendously that I had started with Turbo Jam. I will definitely be returning to this workout and will incorporate it into my regular routine. Overall grade A!

This workout is a 30 minute mostly steady state kickboxing workout with 2 "Fire Drills". The Fire Drills are just 70 second high intensity intervals with 60 second rests after them. They are done in between the 3 different combos of the workouts, so they help keep the intensity up. The 3 combos have 2 different sections that you do on the right side and then the left. The final combo may have only one section. Each section of the combo has it's own song, so you go back and forth between songs, so the music is kind of a mix.

The music in Turbo Fire is fantastic. That is, if you enjoy working out to the hip-hop music. It is energetic and fun, and Chalene does a great job choreographing the moves to the music.

The pace of the moves are fast, and if you are new to Chalene's kickboxing workouts, it will probably feel difficult at first. I don't feel like the choreography always flows well, but eventually you get used to how her workouts go. And for me, it was worth getting through the initial awkwardness I felt.

This was the first Turbo Fire workout I tried when I got the set, and probably remains one of my favorites. I like that it allows you to get a fairly fairly intense mostly steady state workout done in 30 minutes. It is easy to fit in when you also want to try to fit in something else, like strength work.

Some of the TF workouts run together in my mind, because there is a similarity to all of them, but I don't think I would ever get rid of this one.