Question: Twelve minutes sounds really specific and your approach is very data-driven. What exactly is the EPOC effect, why is it important, and how do you achieve it in your group sessions?
Frank: EPOC stands for excess post-exercise oxygen consumption. Basically, after accumulating twelve minutes in the orange zone, which is 84%-91% of maximum heart rate, your body has expended its reserved energy and it has to work to repay the energy. This is what we call an oxygen debt, and your body will work hard to repay this oxygen debt for 24 to 36 hours after your workout. The more energy you use during your workout the more calories you will burn during your recovery.
That being said, we don’t aim to work in the orange and red zones for the entire class, this would be too exhausting and a risk for overtraining. Essentially there are two types of training: steady-state and HIIT (High Intensity Interval Training). With steady-state training it is very difficult for your body to hit that oxygen debt; whereas with a HIIT workout when we give our bodies time to recover then we can grab a little more energy, and then recover again, and so on.
Think of it this way: steady-state is a thirty-minute jog in which your body never achieves a high level of intensity, and HIIT is a thirty-second dead sprint followed by immediate recovery, then again with the sprint, you can hit that burst for another 30 seconds then again recovery on the other side. Your metabolism is revved for hours after you leave the gym, helping you burn calories well after you have left Orange Theory. I know it is a lot of science, but that is exactly why people see such amazing results.