The Saturday Special- Suffer, Sweat & Smile

In some circles this type of group torture is lovingly referred to as Bootcamp. In our case it isn’t actually called anything or even scheduled, but to my surprise and delight this small group of increasingly committed ladies and young ladies started showing up a few weeks ago on Saturday mornings to sweat it out and be tortured by me! Could there be a better way to spend a Saturday morning? NO!

So, it may not be glamorous, but we begin with the basics.  When I first started at the Lab, my trainer Shawn Dunn (a former Marine, which means Bootcamp days with him are the Real Deal) made me do basic front and back “walk outs” (pictured below) every single day because they were a real struggle for me. Now I do them every day on my own just for fun and add in push ups and other variations. These ladies aren’t loving them just yet…give it time:-)

On Saturday mornings the rooms at the gym are all full with “classes” of the real and scheduled variety, so we do our thing where we can, in the open space at the top of the stairs, and we use whatever we find around the area; kettle bells, dumb bells, etc. but mostly focus on body weight exercises. Rarely does a passer-by dare to join us, like Rob pictured below, most just stare and gasp, but they might eventually come around?

This morning I introduced something new to groans from the crowd…the Human Carrousel (powered by walking lunges, of course:-) I also had fun trying to explain “What is bootcamp?” to the gym owner, Hassan.  Drop and give me 20 didn’t work as a direct translation in to Dutch? We are actually the only ladies hitting the heavy weights in that gym, and our daily devotion to strength training has earned us status as “the hard core ones”.

Our small group communicates in a surprising mix of English, Dutch and French, but language is no barrier! By the end of the first Saturday special, Rhaouda had “sweat- a- heart” on her back, just to show how much she loved the workout!

Now I just need to check one detail with the hard core “Bootcampers” at The Lab Gym. Does Justin let you to stop if you feel like you are gonna puke, or only when you taste it? I wouldn’t want to be too soft on these ladies and ruin our reputation:-)

So ’til next Saturday…practice your surrenders or prepare to die:-)

Tagged as: bootcamp, hard core workout, sweat-a-heart