Sprangles

Last month Jim put me on to the bootcamp program run at Edith Cowan University. I’m far from an ideal weight and fitness, so I joined up and convinced Dunc to join us.

It turns out that was a great idea, I’m really enjoying it. There are three sessions each week from 6-7pm, and about 30 people in the class. We meet at a variety of locations around Perth such as Yokine Reserve, East Perth, Reabold Hill and Jacob’s Ladder, and sometimes at the ECU sports complex.

Our instructor Jai runs us through a variety of exercises — lots of cardio in running, skipping and burpees, and plenty of weights stuff too: push-ups, dips, lunges, both with and without weights. The sessions aren’t run like the bootcamps I’ve seen on TV — Jai doesn’t wear military fatigues and yell at us — but he does push us pretty hard. I’m exhausted at the end of every session.

For me this is working out to be a pretty optimal combination. I don’t have the time to commit to a regular sports team, but if I’m not committing to other people for my exercise then I eventually slack off and stop exercising. With bootcamp I have that commitment so I’m attending regularly, and I’m enjoying the team aspects of exercising with other people.

So far the results are mixed — I definitely feel fitter and I can do more repetitions of each activity (push-ups, crunches, etc) but I’ve also gained 3kg since I started. The real test will be the beep test: we do one of the first session of each month of bootcamp. On the first session I got 6-7, I hope I can beat that when we do the test again in a couple of weeks.