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Orangetheory Review: I’ve been a member at Orangetheory Mission Viejo for nearly 5 years now.
Bottom line upfront: I love this place; it’s like my second home.
The franchise owner, Scott, has been able to build a close-knit community of members and staff here. In the 5 years I’ve been here, I’ve experienced 3 head coaches (Anthony, Nick, and now Eunice–all of whom I love!!), 2 studio managers (Monica, and now Courtney–same here!) and 1 franchise owner, Scott Hamilton. What Scott has gotten right is the amazing culture he’s built with his staff. They are ALL kind, warm, and helpful humans. Period. Every time I walk into the studio, without fail, I am greeted warmly, and with smiling faces, every single time. Personally, this is VERY important to me–whether it’s a doctor’s office’s front office staff, or a fitness studio, if I don’t feel welcome or valued as a customer, I won’t come back. This is actually one of the things that turned me off to EoS. Every time I’d walk in, no one would ever greet me or even smile or acknowledge my presence. I mean, you don’t need to be up my butt and around the corner, but a simple hello would be nice.
DISCLAIMER: I am NOT sponsored by Orangetheory. I’m just obsessed…it’s fine, I’ll be fine.
Anywho…the three reasons why you should sign up today and why OTF MV has a special place in my heart is because of this:
Community-especially during COVID!
- At Orangetheory, there can be as much or as little community as you want. They have so many fun challenges and promotions planned throughout the year to keep the community together and strong, but if you aren’t into that, you also don’t feel like you have to participate. I especially love the Transformation Challenge. This year, it starts on January 22, 2024 and costs $35. You get to choose between % body fat lost or % body muscle gained for your challenge. Plus, this year, we’ll be getting lots of extra support from the coaches and nutritional education from Corporate. I’m super excited to join in this year and crush it! The Transformation Challenge is definitely my fave of the year, with Hell Week in October as a close second. Those workouts are Gnarles Barkley and just bomb—I highly recommend!
- Let me explain why I mentioned COVID…what impressed me so much about Scott, the franchise owner, and why I hold him in such high regard is that he decided to go against the grain during COVID and stay open for as long as possible, also while adhering to all the regulations that were imposed at that time. Orangetheory was quite literally the only thing that kept me sane. So many of us members wanted to keep coming because we wanted to work out and we wanted our community during those isolating times. For some people, we were all we had! Scott did everything to keep his doors open and keep the community together. As a business owner, it’s obvious he wanted to keep his doors open but we members begged him to do what he could to make it happen and he did. HUGE positive impact on my mental health at that time that I am forever grateful for. I even made the staff a Tiramisu once because I was just so grateful for all of them.
Full body transformation support.
- Anyone who has known me for the past five years has clearly seen the transformation my body has gone through. Of course, that has to do with my own discipline, but a huge part has to do with Orangetheory and specifically MV’s coaches. Because of the size of the classes, you get awesome coaches who push you to do your very best, whatever your best is that day. You get that with a personal trainer too but I’m not willing to pay the money. And I don’t ever push myself nearly as hard when I’m working out on my own. Plus, I don’t have to figure out what workout I’m going to do. That’s the sweet spot Orangetheory strikes for me: I get the personal trainer feel at an affordable price, someone tells me what to do and pushes me hard, and I’m in and out in an hour. If you want to know more about the format of the workout, you can check that out here, or just pop into a studio for your first free class! Also, if you have injuries or can’t tread or can’t row, there are other options. They do everything to accommodate! They also have flexible memberships and month-to-month so the commitment is made easy. Don’t be scurred.
- Some people may say they are afraid of getting bored of the workouts. I hear you. I get bored with pretty much ANYTHING very quickly. But the workouts change up enough that I do NOT get bored, surprisingly. In almost 5 years, I only had a short moment (4 months) where I wanted a break from Orangetheory. And that was also the time when my Mom died, so I kinda wanted a break from everything and everyone. However, in that time, I went to EoS, hot yoga once in a great while, and walked a lot. I gotta say, everything else kinda sucked. EoS was definitely NOT my jam. I realized during this 4-month break that Orangetheory is my core workout. It’s what works best for me, for my schedule, my lifestyle and my fitness and health goals. Everything else I do outside of that, be it hot yoga, Pilates, walking, jogging, or pickleball are the bonuses on top of my core workout.
- Orangetheory gets me the results I want. In the last 3 years, I’ve lost 24 lbs and 11% body fat!! Which leads me to my final point…
Awesome coaches.
- I would not have been able to reach my goals had these coaches not supported me the whole time. I’ve been lucky to have fantastic head coaches thus far. Eunice is a burst of energy that I look forward to when I come in. I love the diverse set of coaches, so whatever personality you have or whatever mood you are in, surely there’s going to be a coach that matches. Sometimes I want a really loud class with really loud hip hop music. I know whose class to book. Other times I’d rather have a quieter class with some country remixes. You know who you are. The point is, there are different coaches for different personalities, and I LOVE that Scott has hired as such. I know which coaches to pick for how I’m feeling.
- On top of having awesome coaches to choose from, ALL of them are so supportive of whatever goal you want to achieve. Just the other day, I didn’t feel like going. I really didn’t feel like working out. But I showed up. And that’s half the battle, right? And that particular coach used my own words against me (in a positive way) to boost me up! I had to laugh and thanked him so much for using my own words to keep me going.
And to Orangetheory as a brand, I’ve visited other locations when I’ve been on business trips, and I have to say that the experience for me has been very positive and consistent in terms of feeling at home when I walk in. Even the OTF@Home workouts are amazing now!! I believe they first rolled them out during COVID and they weren’t that great; I was underwhelmed. 3 years later and they are awesome. I love doing two or three back-to-back and mixing them up between body weight, resistance bands and dumbbells. I was surprised at how many calories I was burning doing these at-home workouts. And same thing: someone else tells me what to do and I get a hard workout in a perfect amount of time. BOOM!
This is my community. These are my people.
P.S. Check out my Google review of Orangetheory Mission Viejo here.
