For Traditional boot campers The drill Former marine and White House guard Joe Caballero leads 6–7am classes in Wicker Park (meet at Oakley Boulevard and Potomac Avenue) and 6–7pm classes in Old Town (meet at Lincoln Avenue and Clark Street) May through November. Jump in any week for a mix of sprints, boxing, martial arts and jump roping and occasionally yoga and meditation. While sessions run in four-week increments, you can sign up at any time without having to pay for classes you don’t attend. Check out the first two or three days for free before deciding if this one’s for you. Cost $250 for 20 sessions in four weeks; $230 each if you sign up with a buddy
Drop & give me 20!
Looking to slim down before summer? Chicago boot camps are serious about fitness
By Andrea Stanley For RedEye Published May 9 2009 It's 6 a.m. and rain is pelting down on Deidre Perez while she
huffs and puffs after a mile sprint. It's intense enough to be a
nightmare.
It's not.
Perez, 32, of Irving Park is at her
weekly fitness boot camp class, where the workout is always grueling
but never the same, ranging from obstacle courses and relay races to
sit-ups and sprints. And for her, it is something of a dream come true.
"I
was scared to go at first," Perez said. "I didn't know what to expect.
I thought the instructors were going to be really mean. It took a
couple of weeks to get used to it, but I went months without missing a
day. I kept seeing progress every day, every week, every month."
Perez,
who participated in Ground Pound Fitness Boot Camp in Wicker Park, lost
35 pounds over four months and gained the ability to run a mile when
she participated in the program last summer. But injuries are a part of
the process. Perez hurt her knee during training, she says, because she
didn't have the proper gym shoes.
With only about a month and a
half until June 21, the first official day of summer, it's time to
start thinking again of those days filled with itsy bitsy bikinis and
teeny weenie summer garb. And in an attempt to evict their winter
storage of jellyrolls, Chicagoans are flocking to exercise boot camps,
which boast slogans such as "Learn to survive like a drill sergeant"
and "Even couch potatoes will be sprinting with our SWAT team trained
classes."
Chicago boot camps are generally held outdoors, in the
early hours of the morning and can run for eight to 12 weeks, although
each one is different. The formula is simple: Combine an intense series
of various exercises with an instructor who usually possesses a
military background. Throughout the city there are a wide range of
camps from Lincoln Park to the South Loop.
But behind the
spitting, red-faced captains screaming to "drop down and give me 20"
are questions of safety and effectiveness. Are these programs safe
enough for the average Joe? Do they really work, or are they just
another ploy to lure traditional gym flunkies into working out?
"Let's
keep it real; at the gym you get on an elliptical, play around for a
few minutes and then you are bored," said Andrea Everett, owner of D3
Boot Camp, which holds classes in the South Loop, Cottage Grove and
Crete. "Boot camps are effective because you are getting an hour of
power with someone who knows what they are doing and can work you out
at your maximum capacity."
Everett says the over-the-top antics
are a little overplayed, but tough love is definitely part of the
weight loss equation. "We do take working out seriously," said Everett.
"It is not a joke." Participants in the D3 Boot Camp are assigned a
partner to act as both a support system and a workout baby-sitter,
making sure you get to class every week. Too tired to attend one rainy
Monday? Someone is "going to call you, get you up, and get you there,"
Everett said. She said participants in her program have lost up to 85
pounds in a year's time.
At Joe Caballero's Ground Pound
Fitness, which offers classes in Wicker Park and Old Town, the natural
elements of the outdoors are used to create unique workouts every day,
ranging from yoga and martial arts to core training and sprinting. Late
arrivals to the program, held in city parks, receive an additional set
of push-ups as a penalty.
"I treat people in my group like they
are part of my unit," said owner Caballero, who served in the Marine
Corps. "The spirit of our fitness program is always faithful. And
people stick with that, because it becomes life changing."
Despite
injury, days of bleak weather and an intense instructor, Perez says she
wouldn't trade her pounds lost and hard work for a stint in the gym any
day.
"I really want to keep doing boot camp," she said. "I joined a gym but just haven't gone as much. The gym totally sucks."
