Boot Camp

Whenever I hear the term "boot camp", my sister Elizabeth always comes to mind. That's because this extremely talented athlete is the first person to ever describe to me the horrors of what such an exercise program entailed, and even worse, how her body felt afterwards.

"I can't move my legs, I can't lift my arms," she complained after completing some week-long boot camp in New York City that she bravely enlisted in through Groupon. Don't think for a second that Elizabeth is a wimp, however! That same year she went on to finish first of all of the women in a Men's Health Urbanathalon (Think Tough Mudder in the middle of a city.) in Barcelona, Spain.  In fact, here is a picture of her cutting the tape at that race, which required her to leap over cars.

Last night, I participated in my first ever boot camp, technically called "Boot Camp Conditioning", at LA Fitness in Parsippany, NJ. My legs aren't trembling. . .ANYMORE.

 There were so many moments, during that one-hour class, when I was physically unable to follow my instructor's commands. One moment that stands out was when she yelled for 20 push-ups immediately following a 3-minute sprint. Then right after that, she asked us to hold a push-up position with one arm, then switch sides.

Despite my struggle, I am pumped to have gotten through a class that involved running, jumping and a variety of agility moves with minimal pain in my ankles! My experience with this class, fortunately, starkly contrasts with how I felt during an aerobics class I tried this summer.

What a sad day that was! I was at least 20 years younger than every single person in the workout studio, even the teacher; and the average age in the room was somewhere between 70 and 75. At that time, I was feeling especially frustrated about my injury (just the right ankle was bothering me then), because I had just completed two months of physical therapy (at a different place than I am currently going) and still couldn't walk for more than a quarter-mile without pain. But when I saw the demographics of the room, I thought, "at least, I should be able to handle this". (Please don't be offended if you are over 50! I had simply been noting the pathological changes that occur as we age and hoping my younger age would give me some sort of advantage.) Boy, was I wrong! Just minutes into the class, which involved a lot of one-legged hops onto a step and lateral walking with feet-crossing, my ankle felt like it had been stabbed.

But enough focusing on the negative, let's get back to the good.

Here are some of my favorite exercises from last night:

• Squat way down and touch the floor. As soon as your hands hit the floor, jump up, raising yours arms above your head. Try 20 in a row!
• Good-old push-ups, but as I mentioned before, in the middle of your 20th push-up, lift one-arm off of the ground and hold that pose for 15-30 seconds. Then do 20 more push-ups and switch sides. 
• Crunches with a weight held in arms outstretched behind you or just crunch however you please for 1 minute.
• Then do more push-ups, but get into a side-plank after completing 20. Then, you guessed it, do 20 more push-ups and side-plank to the other side.
• Dynamic squats: Do 20 squats in a row. 
• Run around for a few minutes, then repeat this routine.
• Run around one more time and try it all again!