Boot Camp Report! 04/05/2015

The May Day Holiday saw the first of this season's boot camps organised and led by our Social Secretary Karen. 

Karen demonstrates each of the different activities

On a fine spring evening in Sandbach park, 18 Striders braved the potential humiliation that only a public press-up or burpee can bring!

Mo and Mark re-enact the Mayweather - Pacquiao fight

Karen had arranged 11 stations each with a different workout. The plan is that each pair occupies each station with one person doing the activity whilst the other shuttle runs. After 30 seconds the pair swap over and when each has done the activity they move onto the next station.

Cheryl on the kettle ball swing

After a short warm-up jog around the perimeter of the park, Karen led us through a quick demonstration of the stations. 

Elaine gets camera shy whilst doing the kettle ball pull-up

Despite only running the London Marathon 8 days earlier and still nursing a niggle, Karen made short work of the demonstrations and those of us who hadn't done one of her bootcamps before may have been led to believe each activity was quite straightforward. 

Chris captured midway through a press-up

This however is not the case! After 30 seconds of hard work the relief of the whistle was palpable amongst the group.

Jason walking out

The full list of stations this time round were:

Boxing
Press-up
Kettlebell swing
Walkout
Dead bug
Kettlebell pull-up
Russian twist
Overhead extension
Kettlebell figure of eight
Bike crunch
Skipping

After two full circuits it was time for our gentle warm down. Unfortunately Karen had other ideas! We were divided into teams of two and lined up like in a queue for the bar. One team were given a kettlebell, the other team a medicine ball. The plan was then for the line to start jogging slowly whilst passing the item backwards from the front runner to the back. The Kettle bell had to be passed back under the legs whilst the medicine ball was passed back over the backs of heads. When the kettlebell or ball reached the final runner they had to run to the front and the whole exercise began once more. Mik made the mistake of leading his team over the grass and down the trench that runs through the middle of the park thus earning himself a penalty of five burpees.

After a big round of applause for everyone taking part and especially for Karen for her hard work organising the sessions, it was across the road to the Military Arms for a well-deserved drink.

Karen will be running regular bootcamp sessions throughout the summer, keep an eye open for details on your Sandbach Strider member emails.