Submitted by Schwinners, added 15th September 2007
I have to admit, I have never been a good writer. At school, I was always good with numbers, but never too creative when it came to writing. Knowing this, I thought the best way for me to add an article to this site would be to basically copy and paste the workouts we undertook at our two bootcamps, and just add a few words of my own!
So far, we have had two warriortraining.co.uk bootcamps. What is a "bootcamp"? Well, we took it to mean a lot of tough training, as you will see below. I have a feeling we will only know the true meaning of a bootcamp when our resident prison officer Vanders hosts the next bootcamp on October 20th 2007!
The first bootcamp was in the summer of 2006 (July 15th to be precise). It was a lovely sunny summer's day, which was probably not the best idea given the amount of training we had planned. We had a total of six members turn up: Schwinners, Mister C, Gubernatrix, Cafers, Fatty and Vanders. Once all our members arrived, we began:
Warm up
Throwing med ball to each other, and performing a med ball exercise when you have the ball (e.g. assisted one legged squat, slam, woodchopper, thunder roll, press up, burpee, etc)
Vanders' Circuit
(10 stations)
5 press ups, 3 med ball squats at each station
5 touch the floor star jumps, 3 med ball squats at each station
10 mountain climbers, 3 BW squats at each station
5 burpees, 3 BW squats at 5 of the stations
Gubernatrix's Circuit
(working in pairs)
Forwards hand walk with partner holding legs (a la wheelbarrow)
Backwards hand walk with partner holding legs
Bear Crawl, jog back
Crab Walk, jog back
Bunny Hop, jog back
Schwinners' Circuit
(SBs weighed around 35kg)
SB RH shoulder lunge walk, jog back with SB
Burpee long jump, jog back
SB LH shoulder lunge walk, jog back with SB
Burpee long jump, jog back
Then, we spent about 15-20 minutes in teams carrying the SB along the course in different holds, in a relay stylee.
Mister C's Circuit
2 burpees, run up hill
4 burpees, run up hill
6 burpees, run up hill
8 burpees, run up hill
10 burpees, run up hill
8 burpees, run up hill
6 burpees, run up hill
4 burpees, run up hill
2 burpees, run up hill
Run up hill to finish
Park Stuff
By this time, we were all pretty tired and wanted to go back for some lunch! But we went to the park and tried some pull up variations, and had a kick about.
Our second bootcamp was planned for early summer 2007. Due to various circumstances, we ended up with only 3 members in attendance - Markt, Mister C and Schwinners. That did not stop a great days training though, as described below:
Circuit 1
30 seconds KB swings
30 seconds med ball thruster throw & catch
30 seconds sledgehammer swings
30 seconds lateral jumps over Reebok step
30 seconds rest, 4 rounds.
We all did this at the same time, moving round the stations.
Circuit 2
Player 1 - 50 yards Farmer's Walk/run with KBs (change hands halfway)
Player 2 - burpees while player 1 does Farmer's Walk
Player 3 - ball slams while player 1 does Farmer's Walk
Once each player has done each exercise, that's one round. 3 rounds with 30 seconds between rounds.
Circuit 3
Player 1 - 50 sled drag
Player 2 - med ball woodchoppers while player 1 does sled drag
Player 3 - sledge swings while player 1 does sled drag
Once each player has done each exercise, that's one round. 3 rounds with 60-90 seconds between rounds.
Carrying stuff
Took it in turns to travel 50 yards while carrying various objects, or in various fashions. This included: Sandbag overhead walk, KB farmer's walk, KB O/H walk, KB crosswalk, run with KBs in "racked" position, run with shouldered SB, run with shouldered SB and holding KB, lunge walk, SB lunge walk, KB overhead lunge walk, bear crawl, crab walk, flying burpee.
This was done for a whopping 33 minutes, then it was time for a spot of lunch. After lunch, Markt had to depart, but Mister C and I went off to the park for the following:
Hill Sprints
6 x hill sprints, walk back down
Car Pushing
Pushed a VW Polo around a car park!
Bring on the next bootcamp!
Submitted by Flash, added 28th August 2007
In order to make the most of having no equipment whilst on holiday in Guernsey I have spent a couple of days going through different sites and logs and adapting workouts to incorporate bodyweight exercises only in order to maintain some level of fitness. The following ideas can be used if your budget is a bit tight or you are new to bodyweight training. All circuits have a small amount of background information with links to more articles.
“Thirty of Everything”
First up is a routine from the Gym Jones website. The routine is called "Thirty of Everything" and is a Progression circuit, which is described by the man himself Mark Twight as:
'An "open-circuit," meaning that a Progression is composed of non-repeating movements executed at low to moderate loads and high repetitions with emphasis placed on metabolic stress over muscular stress. A typical Progression will last 15-25 minutes'
If you look on the Gym Jones Site you will also find that no two "Thirty of Everything" circuits (or indeed any circuit) are the same so the body never adapts. Below is the adaptation I used. The only equipment needed was an open space which, for me is a field about a mile away. Gym Jones workouts have a tendency of making you really nervous before the workout making it as much a psychological challenge as it is physical. It felt like I was walking the Green Mile and I was bricking it all the way there. Well here is the circuit anyway; this version of the circuit really blasts every muscle in the legs especially the quads, glutes and hamstrings.
30 metre sprint
30 burpees
30 metre sprint
30 metres walking lunges
30 metre sprint
30 reps pike press
30 metre sprint
30 metre bear crawl
30 metre sprint
30 reps tuck jumps
30 metre sprint
30 metre flying burpees
Well I said it felt like walking the Green Mile and the workout was just as bad afterwards. I felt like I'd been pardoned from execution but they gave me the chair anyway. I just lay on the floor for five minutes after that lot. But saying that I felt great mentally because all the way through I felt like quitting, constantly thinking about the burpees at the end, I just kept pushing and pushing and I did it. There isn't a part of me that doesn't ache but I bloody did it.
“Tabata Football”
Tabata protocols are widely used by many athletes and training sites. The idea originates from a study by Dr. Izumi Tabata. The study involved testing athletes using timed intervals of 20 seconds intense exercise followed by 10 seconds of rest. This was then repeated eight times. After six weeks of testing there was a 28% increase in anaerobic capacity and greatly improved aerobic energy systems (Tabata et al, 1996 cited in Enamait, 2004). Although originally used for cycling Tabata protocols can be used for any sport. Ross Enamait of RossTraining.com is a big advocate of the Tabata intervals and commonly uses the protocols for sprinting, jumping rope, heavy bag work and much more. More writing on the subject can be found in this article.
This Tabata circuit with a twist was found on Crossfit. You basically do Tabatas as normal but you use a point system to grade your performance. When performing an exercise whichever round had your lowest repetitions is your score for that round. For example, my score was;
Push-ups 10pts
Knee Hugs 9pts
Squats 17pts
Bench Dips 12pts
The idea is to improve your score each time you perform Tabata intervals.
"Mini V"
Ok the latest workout to be "pimped" bodyweight style is one of Vanders’ circuits. Vanders’ workouts are legendary and I have been stealing many ideas from his workout log for a long time now. The only difference between this workout and the others is that I don’t really know the thinking behind the circuits. The circuits are very similar to ones found on Gym Jones using Interval Weight Training a concept developed by Pat O’Shea.
“Typically an IWT session involves a set of 8-12 reps of an "athletic lift" immediately chased with two minutes of free exercise @ 90-95% of capacity, followed by two minutes of rest. This is repeated for a total of three sets after which the athlete is rewarded with a 5-minute break. The first phase is repeated though the lift and the free exercise are changed. Recovery periods are the same. Phase three involves a circuit of complementary movements, often using bodyweight, with 4-12 reps and 3-10 rounds” (Gym Jones, 2007)
Maybe Vanders can shed some light on why he uses this approach? Knowing Vanders though his response will be the same as his first post in his workout log: "Train hard or dont f****ng bother"
Well here’s my version anyway.
2 lengths of football pitch
10 chin-ups
2 lengths of football pitch
10 hanging knee raises
2 lengths of football pitch
10 divebombers
2 lengths of football pitch
15 push-ups
2 lengths of football pitch
20 crunches
2 lengths of football pitch
10 divebombers
2 lengths of football pitch
20 pike press
2 lengths of football pitch
20 crunches
2 lengths of football pitch
10 divebombers
2 lengths of football pitch
15 burpees
2 lengths of football pitch
30 side twists
2 lengths of football pitch
10 divebombers
2 lengths of football pitch
20 kneeling gundrills
2 lengths of football pitch
10 hanging knee raises
2 lengths of football pitch
15 push-ups
This is a brilliant circuit and it left me feeling absolutely obliterated, especially my upper body.
Submitted by Criz92, added 28th August 2007
People always ask me why I box. They see me with a black eye or a bruised wrist and always think “what’s the point?” This annoys me to the fullest. In my eyes, boxing is no different to football, rugby, tennis or any other sport. Sure, there may be a few more dangers involved but ask a football player, rugby player or tennis player why they play their sport, they will always reply "because I enjoy it". I am no different with boxing. I enjoy getting hurt at one point in the match and then showing my skill, determination, courage and everything else to fight my way back into the match and win. It is not the bloodiness or brutalness I enjoy - it’s the fact that it’s a sport just like any other, it requires a blend of attributes like any other, it requires hard training like any other. I love it when I’m in the ring and I pull off a combination or move I’ve been working on for a while just like when football players reach 100 kick-ups for the first time or something.
Sure, I may get a few nicks and bruises while boxing, but don’t we all accept the risk that comes with our sport. Rugby players do not think “what if I get hurt in this tackle, should I quit?” They accept they might get knocked about. Why should boxing be any different?
People cannot understand the thrill of getting up in the ring in front of a few hundred people and showing what they’ve been training for. It is one of the best feelings in the world in my opinion. When you're up in the ring waiting for the bell to go and you think “these people have just paid to come and see me fight” you want to give them full money's worth. It’s even better when you pull off a combination and the crowd acknowledges they just witnessed a superb amount of skill with a cheer. When your hand is then raised at the end and you have a few hundred people cheering for your victory, you just want to train even harder and get in there and win again for the people no matter what injuries or niggles you may pick up on the way.
That’s why I box.
Submitted by Mister C, added 12th August 2007
Why do we do what we do here? Let's start with the obvious: the improved health, the greater energy levels, the reduction of body fat, the gain of functional (can't stress that word enough) muscle, the enhanced mental toughness, the greater self-confidence, the improved endurance, the plain old looking better, the ability to spend more time in the park playing with your kids. Of course, these are all great motives to start and continue training, and you'll read them all in most magazines that want you to adopt a healthy lifestyle so that you can improve their circulation. But I suspect that if you ask most people here, that's not the reason they do what they put in their training logs week in, week out.
Once you've been training for a while, you get to the point when the only answer you can give to the question "why do you train?" is "err…because I do." The most obvious, and ironically perverse, parallel I can draw is when you ask a smoker "why do you smoke?" As an ex-smoker myself I always used to be stumped by that question: it didn't taste good, it didn't benefit my health, appearance, breath or bank balance, so why did I do it? I just smoked, and now that I've adopted an infinitely more beneficial habit, I struggle to explain that too. I train because…err...because I do.
At this point it's important to reinforce that this isn't "typical" training put about by the modern fitness industry with all its related money-making spin-offs; it's not "3 sets of 10 reps per individual muscle on calibrated machines twice a week, and then 30 minutes of cardio on a machine, again twice per week." This is about sweat, tears, snot and occasionally blood. It's about training the body as a unit, it's about training to "do" things better, faster, for longer and more explosively. It's about using the body as a machine and training as one unit. It's about doing "cardio" and "weights" at the same time, fitting in as much work as possible in a given time, or doing a certain amount of work in as short a time as possible. The whole looking better thing comes as a result of all this, not as its intention. Contrast this with the fitness industry's focus on the appearance of fitness rather than fitness for its own sake.
Mark Twight, owner of the legendary "Gym Jones" in Utah, who trained many of the actors for the film "300," expressed one aspect of the psychology of training brilliantly:
"getting into the workout, having it be as hard as you thought it was going to be, maybe even a bit harder, coming out the other side and realising, 'Man - I made it!'"
That describes the sense of challenge, of personal achievement that this type of training presents. I have been training for over ten years now, and only in the last two years, doing this type of training, have I got to the stage where I get nervous before a workout, and am in fact afraid of performing certain routines. I know how hard they're going to be, and therefore how good it's going to be to have it done. And THAT, perhaps, is why I train.
