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HEALTH&FITNESS
WORDS NICOLA FOLEY
BACK TO BASICS
Disillusioned with the gym and struggling to motivate yourself?
Nicola Foley tries out bootcamp – the efficient, total-body workout
t’s a fairly nondescript
drizzly Thursday evening and
I’m abandoning my scheduled
appointment with a familysized bag of Doritos and (don’t judge
me) Hollyoaks, to slog my way through a
punishing workout in a muddy park. Casting
a final wistful glance at my sofa, I pull my
trainers on and grudgingly head off into the
night. Ladies and gents, it would seem I’m
off to bootcamp.
Bootcamp is a horrible word. It sounds
humiliating, painful, undignified and
altogether not like something that I would
willingly sign myself up for. But there’s
no escaping the fact that these no-frills
fitness regimes are becoming increasingly
popular. Take a wander through parks and
green spaces up and down the country
on any given evening and you’re likely to
encounter little packs of puffed-out men
and women, gleaming with sweat and
sprinting, star jumping and press-upping
their socks off – all of them eschewing fancy
hi-tech equipment and money-guzzling gym
memberships to get back-to-basics and
back to the great outdoors.
So what’s it all about? I headed down to
Love Fit Training’s weekly bootcamp class at
Vinery Road Park to find out.
Despite some initial misgivings, things are
already looking up as I arrive for my session.
The sun has made an appearance and our
trainer, is not (as I half-expected) some
bellowing, military fatigue-bedecked sadist,
but a very nice and boundlessly enthusiastic
lady named Amber. “I want to encourage
people so that they progress and improve,
I’m not here to shout and intimidate people,”
she smiles. “It’s about having fun and
making friends, but really making sure that
you work hard too – it’s a balance.”
Amber, who left a job in investment
banking in late 2008 to pursue a career
in the fitness industry, now has her own
successful personal training company in
Waterbeach, running weekly bootcamp
sessions in addition to her one-to-one
services. She explains that the idea behind
this kind of training is to offer an efficient
total-body workout that can get results in a
short space of time.
After some light jogging and warm-up
stretches, we’re straight into the workout,
which is most easily likened to an outdoor
circuit training session, incorporating various
features of the park (steps, benches etc) into
the exercises. There are sections of hellish
bodyweight work (such as sit-ups, press ups
and squats), interspersed with short bursts
of cardio (running, jumping, hopping etc), as
well as few team-based competitive games
thrown in for good measure.
The session is designed to tone,
strengthen, improve overall fitness and keep
your body burning calories even after the
workout is finished. “The benefit of breaking
it up into short duration intervals is that
we’re doing high-intensity stuff with short
periods of rest in between which keeps it
interesting," says Amber. “But also it’s a
much more effective way of burning fat,
It's a much more effective way of burning fat,
getting leaner muscles and feeling fitter ❞
42 | Cambridge Edition | August 2011
getting leaner muscles and feeling fitter.
Obviously it varies from person to person,
but for a 50-minute session, you’ll easily
burn off a good 300 hundred calories. It’s a
pretty intense workout.”
Bootcamp-style workouts have become
one of the most dominant fitness trends of
the past couple of years and I can definitely
see the appeal. As well as the exhilaration
that naturally comes with outdoor activity,
there’s also a real sense of camaraderie that
you just don’t get in a gym, with everybody
helping to motivate one another. This
style of workout also has the advantage of
providing a level of professional supervision
without the (sometimes prohibitive) cost of
a one-to-one session with a personal trainer
– which may go some way to explaining
its explosion in popularity during our
straightened economic times.
“It just makes you feel good,” says Amber.
“Regardless of the weather, just being
outside, getting your good old Vitamin D
and being in the fresh air is good for us.
A lot of people who come are cooped up
in an office all day with the air con on and
no windows, so to come here and just get
out in the open can be really liberating.
Not to mention the fact that all sorts of
studies have shown that exercising outdoors
actually increases your performance as well.”
I end the session feeling upbeat,
invigorated and energised, in no doubt that
this is a seriously good workout (my legs
are still aching two days after the class).
I’d recommend bootcamp to anybody,
regardless of gender, age or current level of
fitness, especially if you struggle to motivate
yourself when exercising alone.
Don’t be put off by the military
connotations either, it’s no walk in the
park but then, workouts are meant to be
challenging, and I can guarantee you’ll have
more fun than you think.
Love Fit Training runs bootcamp sessions at Vinery
Road Park every Thursday night (6.30pm). For more
details, visit www.lovefittraining.co.uk
cambSedition.co.uk