I felt a lot better about my energy level and effort yesterday. But it was ROUGH!! Now, I know this program is called "bootcamp," but please allow me to assuage any and all concerns about the nature of the trainer's motivational tactics. The trainer, Eddie Lima, is not the in-your-face type of ex-marine. I have yet to hear him call anyone maggots, or otherwise scream profanity as a means to help us see the best in ourselves. There is no "left, right left" chanting as we run. Eddie simply asks that we do our best, even if we cannot complete the exercises. If we cannot do anymore push-ups due to muscle fatigue, for example, he asks us to remain in the up position until time runs out.
But on to the typical "warm-up". As a warm-up, Eddie had us doing 3 sets of push-ups at 2 minutes per set. In other words, do as many as you can for each set. The first set were regular push-ups, the second set were diamond push-ups, where we connected our thumbs and index fingers in a triangular shape, and push-up that way. The third set we did wide push-ups, where we spread our hands out as wide as possible and did as many in this way as we could for 2 minutes. The group energy was great, as I looked around observing about 6 women and 8 men struggle beyond their level of comfort to squeeze out yet another push-up before plopping on the ground in total exhaustion.
After the warm-up, my partner and I were told to take a 45lb barbell and do forearm curls with elbows close to the body. So we're lifting the bar with the backs of our hands facing us. We did decreasing sets, with me first doing 10, my partner does the same, then I did 9, and so on until we reached 1. Then we did increasing sets of curls with the bar, lifting it with our palms facing us. I did 1, my partner repeats, then I did 2, and so on until we both reached 10. This clearly is upper body day, and at this point I was sweating profusely, but motivated by the mutual encouragement my partner and I gave each other. I'm bad with names but I believe my partner's name was Anthony.
The next move was to the bench, where we did reverse dips to focus on our triceps. We had to do as many as we could in 2 minutes. We may have done 2 sets of this exercise, and were then told to head downstairs to do 3 sets of 15 pull-ups. Anthony and I were beat, spent, straight tired to the bone. But we spotted each other when needed, and did as many as we could each set, at times hitting fifteen, and maybe the last set we did 10. There was a tag team of young women down there with us as well, and it was just great seeing them struggle along with us. We all motivated each other, and my thing was making sure I and others tried one more pull-up after we decided to quit, as a reminder that we have more power in us than we think and to not let our minds play tricks on us...by convincing us that we've had enough when there's more gas in the tank.
Our next challenge was to complete 2 sets of 5 one-legged squats. While inside the boxing ring, we held one hand on the middle rope for support, and squatted such that our butts touched our heel and the other leg was straightened out, then we stood up. This exercise is crucial for me as I am still working on my right knee, where I had ACL surgery some time ago.
After this we were told to run around the block once, and complete 10 pull-ups each when we returned and we'd be done. What a way to start the day - 7am suffering through physical and mental challenges, supporting each other to be our best. I enjoyed it and am looking forward to Friday.
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