Introduction

“…knowledge of exercise physiology and an appreciation for practice based on research findings help set professionals in the field apart from mere practitioners. It is one thing to be able to lead step aerobic routines. It is another to be able to design routines based on predictable short- and long-term responses of given class members, to evaluate those responses, and then to modify the sessions as needed.” Plowman and Smith, 2011, p.2.

First of all I have to say that the benefits of any given boot camp will entirely depend upon the type of boot camp you actually go to.  There is a difference in the effect of a week-long intensive outdoor training programme in contrast to a regular one hour morning session of aerobic gym type exercises.

When conducting the research for this website it was noted, with somewhat monotonous repetition, how many fitness professionals talk up the physiological, musculoskeletal and psychological aspects of their particular fitness training programme.

There was continual mention, some even backed up by scientific research, of studies measuring the aerobic fitness, body composition, functional strength, psychological positives and sometimes blood markers; and professing that after a period following a particular training programme, that the participants’ improvement in general fitness and health risk factors was so much better than from other forms of training.

One fitness professional, in 2011, even professed a breakthrough in resistance training with the ground breaking idea of exhausting muscles using light weights, while performing high repetitions.  Sorry, but I learned that breakthrough during my British Army fitness course in 1996 and even then it had been around for about 20 years!  The British Army having utilised this training concept to great effect for at least 40 years.  This breakthrough concept takes advantage of consumers’ incomplete knowledge of the health and fitness sector.

Let us be honest, the health and fitness benefits of regular exercise are not in dispute.  Governments, newspapers, documentaries, scientists and other vested organisations go on about them enough.  The premise that different forms of exercise may expend different levels of calories is, well, again a no-brainer.  Many training providers even focus on this issue in their marketing as they believe it is a client clincher.

Therefore, before we move on to comparisons between boot camps and other forms of exercise let us look at some of the facts (in the linked pages), rather than the fiction, which underpins physical activity, exercise and training principles which some training providers misappropriate in order to reel in new clients.