Boot Camp

At the end of December, one fat member of my family reached out to another fat member of the family and suggested a bet. My brother and I agreed to see who, starting Jan 9^th, could lose more weight by a week before my August wedding. (Thank you, Eric.)

With money on the line, I decided I should make more of an effort to go to my gym, Marketplace Fitness in downtown Burlington. It was here that I discovered Boot Camp.

With all due respect to my cousins Brian and Frank, who served in the Army, my great friend Will Walters (Air Force), and my cousin Nick who is currently a Marine (Oorah!), Boot Camp is the hardest thing I have ever done.

The only thing I can compare it to is basketball conditioning. But at least every basketball coach I ever worked out for had the decency to cut me; the boot camp instructor keeps saying “see you next week” after each session.

Where else can you lift while surrounded by the building's stone foundation?

Marketplace Fitness, is a small gym located in downtown Burlington, in the basement of the old Border’s building. My alma mater, Hiram College, used to have this tiny, tiny workout room in basically the attic of their field house. For some reason, MpFit reminds me of that gym, but I say that with a sense of nostalgia. The gym isn’t huge, but it is located in a cool area, off the beaten path and almost hidden, and it has everything you need.

The new ownership and management has realized, though, that the gym is a bit too small and have begun to take steps to rectify that. Since I started coming regularly, they have added TVs and modern equipment and have begun expanding. But I digress.

“Burn fat and build metabolism-boosting muscle with alternating segments of cardio and toning,” reads the class description. It should read, “Come feel like you are going to throw up for an hour.”

Allison descending into the basement.

The instructor Allison changes the class every week, claiming it is better for our bodies. I think she just likes to come up with creative new ways to watch us suffer. When I walk into class this particular week, Allison greets me and tells me to go grab a 35 and 25lb plate.

Not knowing what is coming, we each stand around our plates, nervously I might add, as she turns on a mix of upbeat current pop music (who knew that it was effective to work out to Britney Spears???) and throws on a head set so that she can yell at us through the same speakers the music blasts from.

Notice how NOT low I am?

After a brief warm up, we are told to grab our heaviest plate and hug it to our chest. We then did low, fast shuffles around the room, changing directions whenever she yelled at us to do so.

So much for easing into the workout. I quickly ditched that 35 pounder for the 25. Who does she think I am, the hulk?

We then placed a weight on a towel and pushed the towel across the floor. Do you have any idea how hard it is to mop up your own sweat with a 25 pound weight slowing you down?

The reward for getting across the room? Put your feet on the towel and drag it back to the other side. Repeat this set.

I REALLY hate burpies...

Feel like throwing up yet? Good. Just getting started. We move into “burpies”. Start standing up, jump into a pushup position, bring your feet back up and explode into the air. We jumped forward until we reach the wall, then had to do them backwards.

Next up, grab that plate again. This part was really fun, but terrible. She led us in doing lunges and scull crushers at the same time, all the while talking/yelling at us through the speakers.

Speaking of Allison, she cracks me up. You can definitely tell she is a mom.

One second, she is yelling: “Every second counts! This is supposed to be hard! Is this a workout? NO! It’s BOOT CAMP!” The next, “is everyone okay? Does anyone need a modification? If you are tired, you are taking a break, GOT IT?” It cracks me up; even when she’s telling you to feel free to take a break, she’s still yelling. I love it.

I debated posting this, but most of my friends don't read this blog, so why not?

So after my triceps were screaming and my knees where crying, came wall-sits. But no ordinary wall-sits, she had us doing curls at the same time. At the point of exhaustion, Allison mercifully tells us we’re done… with one set. Back to the plates, back to the shuffle, it’s time for round two.

You never think you’d be happy to hear the word “Stairs” until you’re doing a second set of wall-sit curls.

I happily obliged, I can do stairs. For the majority of my life, I have been battling weight issues. The one positive (other than enjoying a hell of a lot of CiCi’s and Chinese buffets) that has come out of me taking turns between carrying lots of weight and being a runner is that it has left me with strong legs.

However, “stairs” didn’t mean “stairs” to Allison; there was, of course, a twist.  She pointed to a rack of weights and told us we were done with running the stairs once we took every weight off the rack and placed them at the fourth floor landing, then brought them back down. As it turns out, I excelled at this task and loved every second of it, which is good because, as Allison yells, “if you HATE what you are doing, it only gets HARDER! If you LOVE what you are doing, it’s EASY!”

Still, love gives way to exhaustion, and at the end of this, I was done. Or so I thought. Allison then led us through one more set of forward and backward burpies and a final set of scull-crushers with lunges.

Then, finally, arms and legs shaking away, Allison tells us we were done. All we have to do iss take all of our weights out of the room and put them back where we found them.

I don’t know if it was because I was exhausted or if it was because, amazingly and sickeningly, I was sad class was over, but this strangely turned out to be one of the harder tasks. What is I do know, though, is that on my way to the shower Allison said “thank you, I will see you next week,” and I knew she was right.

Until Next Time,

A Stranger Observing Burlington, Vermont – Elek