I was driving along the San Francisco waterfront one morning when a sign on a white tent in the Marina Green parking lot caught my eye. It said Reactt: The Only Real Boot Camp in San Francisco. I was curious, so I googled it when I got home.
Originally, the term "boot camp" referred to the training program military recruits go through before they're deployed. In the mid-2000s, boot camps for rehabilitating juveniles caused a media frenzy when a boy's tragic death was caught on camera.
These days, it has become a popular title for extreme fitness programs that start really early in the morning and command lots of repetitive hard core exercise under the watch of really buff instructors. Reactt is one of them, and since I've always wondered what being at boot camp might be like, I decided to try it out.
My instructors were two really buff guys with shaved heads and heavy boots. Sergio has an impressive personal trainer pedigree and Justin served in Iraq with the Marine Corps. Shortly after sunrise on a beautifully brisk Saturday morning, I arrived at their camp, where rows of equipment were neatly laid out on a patch of grass overlooking Alcatraz.
The concept of fitness boot camps is relatively new, but the tools we used here have been around for hundreds, even thousands of years. Here's a quick overview of the tools we used that day:
The kettlebell: A cast iron weight reminiscent of a bomb or a cannonball that originated in Russia centuries ago. It was brought to the US by a Russian special forces trainer named Pavel Tsatsouline, and is now a popular strength-training tool among martial artists. We did squats while pumping the kettlebells high above our heads.
Battling ropes: Braided manila ropes adapted for strength training by John Brookfield, a Guinness Record-holding fitness guru who once pulled a 24,000-pound truck over a mile. We made giant snake-like waves with the ropes, which become heavier as your arms get more tired.
Medicine ball: A weighted ballcommonly found in gyms and rehab centers that was once used by Persian and Greek wrestlers thousands of years ago, when they were just sewn animal skins filled with sand. We partnered up and threw one back and forth. By the way, if you want to make your own medicine ball, this web site has instructions on how to make one at home using a cheap plastic basketball.
For an hour, we did paced repetitions of these exercises, gradually upping the ante and trying really hard not to give up. Not using ultra-fancy gym equipment felt refreshing and authentic — even if it was nothing close to a real army boot camp. (I drove home and showered after the session, and I even got a friendly text message from Sergio the instructor thanking me for taking the class.) Also, it was fun! (Is boot camp supposed to be fun?) It was nice to exercise outside, I got a great workout, and I pushed myself way harder than I would have had I been on my own at a gym. I definitely felt the pain for a few days afterwards, though.
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How much do those kettlebells weigh? They look heavy!!
Kettlebells weight anything from 8 through 32 kilograms - at least at my CrossFit gym they do. Some folks measure them in "Poods", but it really tends to break down to 8,12,16,24 or 32 kilos.
They're actually pretty fun to work with - fun being a relative term here of course.
Girya or kettleballs usually come in fractions and multiples of 16 kilograms. A traditional pood is 16.38kg (36.11 lbs), though it's rounded to 16 kilos even for exercise weights.
Amusingly enough, while the use of kettlebells in the US was revived by Mr. Tsatsouline, they are hardly new, nor are they exclusively Russian. They are a part of an older style of training which reached its peak a century or more ago, and included kettlebells, Indian clubs, and medicine balls. You can find fitness manuals from the 1890s on Google Books, which have instructional engravings.
What we are seeing is the other slope of a cycle which peaked in the 1980s, during which strength training, at least in its popular forms, was increasingly concerned with isolation exercises and machines, led in particular by Nautilus. As a long-time lifter, I always preferred free weights and compound exercises, and was repeatedly told that this was terribly unscientific, bordering on Neanderthal, because cool people used nice safe machines and wore Spandex instead of sweating in a squat rack.
Now the pendulum has swung back. The first signs I saw were in the early 1990's when all of a sudden everyone wanted to tell me about exercise based on the "core." Yeah, that's new, as of a couple of millennia ago (really!). It was not long before full-body workouts with kettlebells and medicine balls were suddenly new again.
A few years ago, I actually toyed with the idea of getting certified as a trainer, so I could "invent" the Indian club.
My sister-in-law does this and talked my brother into it. The ones she does seems to have more running and other cardio mixed in with the strength training. They always have funny stories about big tough dudes who think it'll be a cakewalk since there's so many women doing it, only to end up running out to puke in the hallway.
They started keeping several trashcans in the room for the newbies after a few of them didn't make it to the hallway.
I did my first boot-camp-style class maybe 5 years ago, also in SF. I've done a couple since, and it's pretty swell. I'm not a fit guy by nature, so for me the value of it is dragging me up to a much higher level of fitness than I'd normally have. Then I can maintain that on my own, because getting less fit feels icky.
If my fellow local nerds are interested, I recommend Boot Camp SF (http://www.bootcampsf.com/). Unlike most physical trainers I met, these folks always seemed pretty sharp, interested in the topic intellectually as well as practically. Also, unlike the "boot camp" name would suggest, there was no aggressive yelling; they pushed us hard, but they weren't dicks about it.
The crap thing about these 'boot camps' is that they're often held in public parks in residential neighbourhoods. It might seem cute to pretend you're a Navy SEAL for the morning. It's not. Nobody in the neighbourhood wants to listen to the boot camp screaming and hollering at 5am.
We have three local boot camps working out in the park next to our building, and the noise can be insufferable. It makes me want to go out and throw donuts at them.
Lectio, they're probably in violation of noise ordinances if they're really out there yelling at 5am. You could call the police and ask about noise ordinance specifics. Then you could call the offending organizations and give them the information and a chance to make other plans. Or I guess you could just file an official complaint with the police right away, but the first option is much more polite.
There's a similar thing going on in LA (maybe), where they're doing them in median strips in residential neighborhoods and driving the residents crazy. The police cracked down on them and their was a big foofaraw about it.
People. Forget this rubbish. Forget driving to the gym. Forget paying for exercise. Hike in the woods. Take the dog for a walk. Go for a jog with some friends. Just ride your bikes to get places you want to go. Sell the car. Live locally. Get your exercise as part of lives, not as an add-on.
This be my philosophy on exercise.
My husband was an instructor for a boot camp-type program for a while, and while I sympathize with the early morning noise issues, I love the idea of exercise programs without the expensive gewgaws. The only equipment required is the playground equipment, a set of dumbells, and your own body. The boot camp mentality is an interesting motivational tool - if you are late, your punishment is to stand and watch your comrades do 50 extra pushups.
Also, they were known for running to the local Krispy Kreme and doing pushups in the drive-thru lane.
I did two 6 week sessions at BootcampSF. I thought it was fantastic, but I had to give it up because for the first time in my life, I got shin splints. This was probably from hill running days.
I hated exercise. I viewed exercise as punishment for eating. But I liked the bootcamp program. Unfortunately, even after 10 weeks or so, I still can't seem to run much distance before my shins start hurting, so the program is out for me.
Aloisius, reframe that: eating is the reward for exercise. :) Rest is the only cure for shinsplints, and check your shoes are still good.
It amuses me that this Next Big Thing is the thing without any tech toys... when the opening describes new bits of kit to buy. Kettlebells! Medicine balls (hint: basketball + sand = medicine ball)! Battling ropes! (just don't sing playground chants). They're still new toys, just old-new.
Looks great fun though. *Nothing* wrong with new toys.
Those interested in low-tech fitness, geek style, might appreciate the Shovelglove:
http://www.shovelglove.com/
I see Boot Camps in action when I go for my runs around the park. It looks like rugby training but physically and psychologically toned down so that women can do it.
That looks a lot more like the East Beach section of Crissy Field (Golden Gate National Recreation Area, part of the National Park Service) than Marina Green (part of San Francisco Recreation and Parks department.)
Aloisius, look into thera-bands. they are cheap (about $1 a foot at a medical supply), portable, and have saved my feet from plantar fasciitis, achilles' tendonitis, and various twists and sprains. for shin and ankle flexion/dorsiflexion exercises all you need a few feet of theraband and something stable to tie it to (i.e. the leg of a heavy table).
if you have access to a trainer/physical therapist/podiatrist they can show you some exercises. if not, http://www.thera-bandacademy.com has more info but it requires you to register to access it (free). btw i am NOT a doctor or physical therapist, so don't substitute reading my posts for real medical help....
Really sounds like a Crossfit inspired program (or vice versa):
http://crossfit.com/
It doesn't take much equipment to work out. Kettlebells/dumbbells, pull up bar and /or a set of rings. And places to go on hikes and runs.
looks exactly like what my PT has me doing..the heavy ropes and kettlebells. I have ITBS and he has been conditioning me with the heavy rope techniques, and using the kettlebells for balance, stabilization, and strength. The rope techniques are endless, once you think your good at one, do it standing on a wobbleboard or bosu ball, close your eyes, stand on one foot, jump, or whatever. Always ways to make it harder. Good fun workout, and not the boring gym.
That's funny. My daughter did this boot camp thing and she said it sucked. ...um of course, she was in the US army at the time.
go figure
True. We never had a car. My husband bikes to work and we walk to do groceries. Walking while carrying several bags of groceries two or three times a week is a great workout and it naturally falls within our regular schedule. Why pay gym fees to ride a treadmill when the sidewalk is free?
A minor nit pick. Boot camp is not for deploying troops. It is a program for incoming recruits, and provides fitness training as well other military topics.