Back to Boot Camp

My gym has been offering boot camp classes again, since mid-September, only once a week, Saturdays at 9:00 am, but that has been enough to get me going again.

I love these classes! They leave me exhausted but exhilarated, and ready to do more. So, this morning, after boot camp, I went (with Jason) down to the lake for a jog. Then I ended up just walking most of the way, excusing myself by saying I'd already been running that morning. Oh well, it's a start. (And I know that by tomorrow night I'll have aches in muscles I didn't even know I had. But that's ... okay.)


Here's what we did today:

---Warming up, first 15 minutes: Sprints up and down the gym, then 40 leg-and-arm lifts. Walking lunges up and down the gym, then pushups. More sprints up and down the gym, then something else. You get the picture. At the end of this so-called warmup, which for some (most?) people would have been 10 times more than a regular exercise session in itself, we got down to business:

---Five stations around the gym, two minutes at each station, walking lunges in between.

     ---Karate-style punches while holding 5-, 10-, or 15-pound dumbbells.

     ---Sit-ups with a 10-, 15-, or 20-pound weight disc, holding it up over your head.

     ---Jumping squats, feet together, then feet apart.

     ---Mountain-climbers.

     ---Jump-run over rungs of cloth-tape ladder on the floor, then go sideways around cones, run back to the beginning of the ladder, and repeat.

These classes are run by two fitness trainers who go around making sure we're doing the exercises correctly, and, most importantly, encouraging us. There were about 25 to 35 people there, just the right amount for each station to have not too many people, and to be competitive for the super-athletes among us and fun for the rest of us. Now if only Derek would start his weekday and evening boot camp classes again, I would be very pleased:)