September's Great Fitness Experiment: Boot Camp

Oh this? Just a one-handed bar push up. No biggie. Couple more reps and you can go back to hanging by your knees. Pansies.

"Kettlebells..." That right there would have been enough to grab my attention but then he added, "IN THE POOL." It was as if someone had shouted "Fox just un-cancelled Firefly!" at Comic-Con. Awestruck silence filled the gym. I love kettlebells. I don't not love pools. (How's that for a ringing endorsement? It's the best you'll get out of me.) But whoever thought of kettlebells in the pool? Our boot camp instructor - who busts all drill-sergeant stereotypes by being super smiley and routinely saying things like "Isn't it a great day for planks?!" - was telling us about a new high-intensity boot camp class he was starting up.

The spell was shattered when Gym Buddy Allison asked, "Would we be in the deep end?" and Gym Buddy Megan answered her with, "Yeah but if you drop the 'bell, you have to dive down and bring it back up in your teeth." Man, I love those girls.

The Gym Buddies and I have been attending a boot camp class once a week for several years. Cycling through several different instructors, we thought we'd seen all permutations of the boot camp format. I dare you to find a type of push-up that we haven't tried (and yes I'm including the Victoria's Secret variety - when you've had as many children as we have, the girls need all the fluffing they can get). But one sample of the new HIIT boot camp - that's high intensity interval training, the latest and greatest of cardio fitness trends - and we were hooked. He made us sprint on the treadmill. WITHOUT TURNING IT ON. Try it - it's hard! (Unless you happen to own a manual treadmill and then I suppose you're used to it. You warrior.)

Normally I don't do classes for Experiments. For one thing it gets pricey; when you do a new fitness program every month, costs can really add up. For another, it makes it hard for any of you to follow along if you love pain as much as I do. But despite being a pretty solid self motivator - you don't do three years of fitness Experiments without being a little fanatical - sometimes even I need someone else to kick my butt for me. So for September's Great Fitness Experiment the Gym Buddies and I will be paying someone to get all Jillian up in our business. That is if Jillian said things like, "Don't high knees just feel awesome?! What a great day for high knees!"

Have you ever done a boot camp style class? HIIT workouts - love 'em or hate 'em (or just love to hate 'em)? Lastly, do you have a novel push up idea for us to try? We're putting together our next Gym Buddies video and we'd love to give you a shout-out on camera!