LITTLE ROCK — Stopwatch. Check.
Whistle. Check.
Authoritative stance. Check.
An ungodly early morning hour. Sweat. Sore muscles.
Check. Check. And check.
The drill, and some of the drills, in many an area boot camp aren't the only things these popular fitness classes have in common. The back-to-basics approach to fitness relies heavily on movements that require no equipment.
Old-school, stripped-down moves designed to make one sweat, with whimsical names that invoke fun even if the movements themselves are no walk in the park.
Such "body-weight calisthenics" are Del Chunn's calling card. The former Razorback,certified personal trainer and strength and conditioning coach at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock founded Fitness Boot Camp Inc. in 2007 and held its first boot camp in January 2008. The business runs boot camps in North Little Rock, Little Rock and Maumelle, and more are in the works.
On a recent morning along the River Trail across from Dickey-Stephens Park in North Little Rock, two of his class members did their standard warm-up, a one-mile jog, before going into hand fl exes, side and neck bends, torso and hip rotations and more.
The chirp of Chunn's whistle punctuated the air as he led the class through good mornings (toe touches) and stomping grapes (those pretty much look like they sound), Rockettes (pretty sidekicks) and leg lifts.
Such exercises use basic body movement: standing, reaching, bending, twisting.
"You don't have to worry about form," Chunn said. "It's very functional fi tness."
The moves are not only effective, but practical and portable.
"As long as you have a functional body, anybody can do it anywhere at any time," he said. "The only resistance you have is your own body weight."
The class does full-body moves, then ones that focus on the upper body, such as pushups, and lower body, such as fire hydrants (think of a dog lifting ... well, you know) and so on. Many moves are basic and familiar: lunges, jumping jacks, squats.
He likes to shake up the routine. "Pretty much the only thing that's standard is you utilize the entire body."
Before the warm-up was through, both participants, a woman who appeared to be in her 20s and a man who appeared somewhere north of that, were sweating, which Chunn said is exactly the point of a warm-up. They'd keep moving for a good 50 minutes, he said.
Although only two students showed up for this first day of a five-week program, he said most classes have 10 or 15 people.
Chunn wants his clients to take some of these moves home or on the road. He helps them tailor workouts they can do in a hotel bathroom, if need be.
"When people aren't in a weight room, they don't think about working out," something he'd like to change, Chunn said.
He also wants people to know that they don't need a weight room to stay in shape and build muscle. Body-weight calisthenics "can absolutely benefit everybody from the beginning athlete all the way up to the professional athlete," he said.
A 2008 study by the American Council on Exercise found that the average exerciser burns about 9.8 calories a minute during a typical boot camp, roughly 400 for 40 minutes or 600 in an hour-long session. It found boot camps were "an excellent way to enhance aerobic capacity and help control body weight."
ANYWHERE, ANY TIME
Shannon Mulder, exercise and sports science fitness director at the University of Utah, said that the benefits of bodyweight exercises offered in many a boot camp can be equal to those gained from using resistance. Research shows you can make benefits comparable to those made with free weights or stretch bands, she said. While sedentary people would benefit the most, because they can make bigger gains, "even elite athletes can benefit," Mulder said.
But an elite athlete would have trouble advancing his fitness without adding resistance, she said.
A major benefit of bodyweight training, particularly for the novice, she said, is economic.In other words, a pushup is free, a dumbbell will cost you.
"There's not a lot out there offered for free," Mulder said. She also praised body-weight movements for their "anywhere, any time" aspects.
Gary Hunter, an exercise physiologist at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, said body-weight exercises are "sort of a reinvention of something people were using hundreds of years ago."
Using only the weight of your own body, "you can get a great workout at home ... a nice increase in aerobic fitness," said Hunter, who does research to identify metabolic factors that predispose people to obesity and has coached Olympic weightlifters.
He suggested those looking to create their own home or on the-road workouts choose combination exercises that target different groups at once - perhaps starting with chair squats, then progressing to push-ups, sit-ups and running up and down stairs. Difficult exercises can be modified, so you build up to lifting more and more of your body.
For instance, someone may start doing bent-knee push-ups and then progress to military style push-ups and onto incline push-ups, in which the legs are elevated.
Such moves can improve cardiovascular fitness as well, but not to the same degree as running or swimming, he said. And as an individual becomes stronger, it will be "more and more difficult" to see benefits without adding weights.
HUFFING AND PUFFING
Such a benchmark is pretty distant for some of the participants in the Central Arkansas Fitness Group's boot camp run by Leotis Scott at the Jacksonville Huff'n Puff. Early one July morning, he started the fi rst class of a month-long, four-daya-week boot camp that included many a novice.
"Just do what you can do until you can do better," he said, before leading the class through a warm-up. He told class members the hardest thing they'd have to do is to show up.
He had the class begin by marching in place, then go on to fi nger flexes, arm circles, kneeups and swing kicks. Squats came a little later, and he walked around the room to check form, offering pointers and reminding people with knee problems to take it easy.
Pop hits of the last few decades - "C'mon n' Ride the Train," "Brick House" - provided background music.
"We don't try to reinvent the wheel; everything we do has been done before," Scott said, not of the music, but his routines. While balance beams, rings and mats fi lled the rooms next door, the boot camp used only mats.
"I don't believe in working just one muscle, I believe in working all of them at the same time," Scott said.
At the end-of-class group huddle many of the women looked winded.
One of those women, Tonya Nichols, 38, of Jacksonville said she learned of the class because she's a family friend of Scott's.
"I think I can do it," she said, after surviving Day One. While a boot camp sounded daunting, she said, she wanted to lose 20pounds and figured the class was a good way to start. On the fitness assessment form she ranked herself as sedentary.
"I've never really exercised. I never needed to until that third child 10 years ago," she said. Her children are 17, 15 and 10. "I think if I survive the four weeks, I'll sign up for ... regular classes. It'll get me in the habit."
That's exactly what Scott would like to see. He says the majority of the boot camp participants "haven't worked out in months or years."
He expects to change lives: "In a matter of weeks, they're feeling and sleeping better."
Body-weight exercises are better for conditioning rather than bulking up, Scott said. "It's not the same type as in the gym lifting heavy, heavy weights."
And for most people, that's just fine, he said. "When you do an isolated movement you're not burning as many calories.
You're not using the whole body. The more muscles you move, the more calories you burn."
He said he can think of more than 100 exercises one can do without lifting a weight and "they're all natural movements, your whole body moves.
"The movements are simple; they may not be easy," Scott said. There's a reason body-weight training is taught in "boot camps" and has served the U.S. military so well.
He said, "It's stuff that's worked for years and years and years."
ActiveStyle, Pages 23, 28 on 08/24/2009