eXtreme Boot Camp South Africa

Hi there Boot Campers

Many experiences are nicer when they are shared with someone else. Meals, movies, laughs, shopping, sightseeing, travel and off course exercise are just some of the experiences that are enhanced when shared between two or more people. Sharing experiences in a group broadens the scope of your own perceptions of experiences because you witness others reactions, and hear their accounts of incidents, which mixes with your own to form broader perceptions. There are countless other benefits to sharing experiences within a group as opposed to experiencing them on your own.

Exercising as a group, through the instruction of a qualified trainer, has many health and other benefits for each individual in the group, and for the group as a whole. When you participate in group training you have a built in support system that gives you a wealth of encouragement and motivation for continuing with your fitness routines. This can be especially helpful for those “down” days when you just don’t feel like exercising. You can also return the favor by being a motivator to the others in your training group when they need a friendly nudge to continue with exercise programs. You can get into some friendly competition with the other members of your training group for even further reasons to continue with your fitness routine.

Moreover, group training lets you measure your progress against the progress being made by the other members of your training group. Measuring your progress against the progress of someone else could tell you if you are on target with everyone else or lagging behind for some reason. Your trainer will be looking at the group’s progress, among other factors, to help in evaluating your individual progress.

Group training will save you money as well. Personal training is expensive, whereas group training is a lot less costly. With group training also come the added benefits of making new friends.

Group training benefits to both your emotional and physical health. Group training fosters greater self esteem. On your own, you may “bonk” and immediately assume you can not do an exercise suggested by a personal trainer. But upon seeing the others in your training group performing the suggested exercise, you will realize that it is not as impossible as you first imagined. Realizing that if they can do it, you can too, will make you feel better about yourself and your abilities.

Just to recap, the benefits of group training include; but are not exclusive to:

Creative Stimulation
A Motivation Boost
Improved Performance
Greater Self Esteem
Expanded Social Circle

The Benefits of Body Weight Training

Bodyweight training is a form of strength training that uses one’s own body weight, rather than free weights or big pieces of gym equipment, to build muscle. Chin-ups, sit-ups, squats, push ups and crunches are examples of exercises in bodyweight training.

Bodyweight training is convenient because you don’t need to go anywhere to get results. One of the best benefits of bodyweight training is the ability to do it anywhere there is adequate room to jump, stretch and bend. One of the most popular excuses for not exercising is that there is no time. Bodyweight training erases that excuse. It can be done in a hotel room, a living room or a bedroom or in your own back garden.

Bodyweight training is an easy way to increase strength. Building strength is simply muscles contracting when resistance is applied. Adding more resistance over time leads to increased strength. Push-ups, sit ups, lunges, and leg squats are some of the many bodyweight exercises that can increase strength.

Using bodyweight training is also an effective way to lose weight. Bodyweight training uses all of the muscles of the body, and therefore burns more calories than other exercises that isolate one body part.

The muscles also gain increased flexibility as a result of bodyweight training. Lunges, squats and other core strengthening exercises often emphasize static, fluid movements of muscle groups and then holding the position for several seconds or even minutes. This increases the body’s range of motion by stretching ligaments while preventing muscle or ligament tears which can often happen with weight training.

Functional Training

Functional training is a classification of exercise which involves training the body for the activities performed in daily life.

Functional training has its origins in injury rehabilitation. Physio therapists developed exercises that mimicked what patients did at home or work in order to return to their lives or jobs after an injury or surgery.

Functional training lead to better muscular balance and joint stability, possibly decreasing the number of injuries sustained in an individual’s performance in a sport. The benefits arise from the use of training that emphasizes the body’s natural ability to move in three anatomical planes of motion. In comparison, gym machines restrict movements to a single plane of motion, which is an unnatural form of movement for the body and may potentially lead to faulty movement patterns or injury.

During a study conducted in 2009, published in the Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research which compared functional training to fixed variable training techniques. The results of the study showed incredible gains and benefits in the functional training group over fixed training equipment group. The functional users had a 58% greater increase in strength over the fixed-form group. Their improvements in balance were 196% higher over fixed and reported an overall decrease in joint pain by 30%!! These results mean fantastic things for you as a person and as an athlete!!

Many athletes equate strength training with bodybuilding; accordingly, individuals involved in endurance or flexibility-based sports do not strength train for fear of gaining too much bulk and losing flexibility, or mimic the training of bodybuilders without adapting workouts to their specific sports. As a result, training can lack the performance benefits that strength training could provide.

Over the next couple of months we will introduce you to numerous exercises and routines that will ensure that you reduce your body fat percentage; increase your lean muscle mass; increase your strength and flexibility; increase your explosive power and generally improve the functionally of your body, thereby ensuring that you perform better in your chosen sport AND your daily life – so keep watching this space!

Until next time – keep safe, stay lean, stay strong and keep trainng like a WARRIOR!!!!