Fitness Is A Labor Of Love

Happy Labor Day! We celebrate labor day to recognize American workers who have contributed to the strength, economic health and overall well-being of our Nation. What better way to celebrate than to concentrate on our own individual strength, health and well-being? While 30 other bootcampers must have been vacationing or visiting family there were still 20 of us that showed up for bootcamp this morning. First thing we did was head out to the damp and darkened soccer field. It was the first time we'd been out there this session. We were told to pick a partner and with my usual partner-in-pain still on holiday I had to get over my social anxiety and I latched on to Sgt Laura's former Marine husband. I think it was a good choice, though Sgt Laura called out to everyone that it wasn't a race and that we should be "enjoying the movement" Mr. Marine motivated me to speed through our partner high-five pushups, high-five planks and partner squats. Then we had to do tabata sprints, 8x 20second sprints each followed by a 10 second recovery jog. I'll admit that I wasn't giving each sprint full speed but mainly because I was fully aware of how many more we had to do and I wanted to survive. When that was over we trekked back to the basketball court to find out we would only be there long enough to do sumo squats, burpees, jump squats and pendulums which we would then have to do again 4 times over at each corner of the soccerfield. As we're panting from the thick hot air on our way back down to the soccer field Sgt Laura says, "This humid air is great for detoxing and that comes free with the program!" Always the optimist.

Finally, to finish off the hour we did another tabata and partner exercises. This time, instead of tabata sprints we did tabata skips. There's nothing funnier than seeing 20 grown adults skipping around a field at 6am. As ridiculous as it was, I found that by singing, "We're off to see the wizard" it kept me at a good rhythm and speed.

You know it was a good workout when just in the two minutes sitting in your car your body deteriorates from the depletion of those endorphines and adrenaline that you get out of your car and hobble bent over double like an 80 year old. Well I had my coffee and recovered enough to then finish mowing my two-week old grass. Cheers to the labor of love going from fat to fit.