How to Choose Your Orangetheory Base, Push, and All-Out Paces
What Each Pace Should Feel Like
Your base pace is your sustainable working pace. You should be able to recover there without fully falling apart. Push pace is uncomfortable but controlled, something you can hold for the assigned interval without panicking. All-out is your highest intentional effort, used for short bursts only.
If those three efforts blur together, your speeds are probably too close. Good Orangetheory pacing creates clear gears.
Starting Points for Runners, Joggers, and Walkers
A practical starting point is to make push pace about 1 to 2 mph faster than base for runners and joggers, then add another 1 to 2 mph for short all-outs if you can keep form. Power walkers usually build the effort change through incline first and speed second.
If you are brand new, pick a base pace that feels almost too easy. It is much easier to turn the dial up in class than to discover halfway through the block that your base is really a push.
Adjust for the Workout Type
Your paces should flex with the template. Endurance days usually require a more honest, sustainable base and a slightly restrained push. Power days can support faster all-outs because recovery windows are shorter but work intervals are brief. Strength days often create effort through incline, so you may hold lower speeds without reducing the challenge.
That is why checking Burn Board before class helps. If tomorrow is incline-heavy or packed with long pushes, you can set expectations before the coach ever starts the block.
Signs Your Paces Need Work
If you cannot truly recover at base, your base is too aggressive. If your push pace feels identical to your all-out, your push is too high or your all-out is too safe. If every class turns into survival mode, your ranges are too ambitious for where your fitness is right now.
The goal is not to impress the room. It is to build repeatable gears you can trust across different templates.
Use Data, Not Ego
The smartest members adjust paces based on workout type, recent fatigue, and actual results. Burn Board's daily forecast, benchmark tools, and imported workout history can help you see what you really hold on long pushes versus what you think you should hold.
That feedback loop is where improvement happens: preview the class, choose your gears, compare them to what really happened, and tweak for next time.