Boot camp: No slackers at this early fitness workout
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Early, very early, on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday mornings, personal trainer Wendy McGannon pulls into the parking lot behind the William E. Norris Elementary School in Southampton. In the few minutes before the women who attend her crack-of-dawn exercise class arrive, McGannon opens up the gym, selects the music - including the aptly titled "I Will Survive" - and readies whatever gear they'll use that day. She untangles jump ropes, unpacks medicine balls, and, out on the field, sets up hurdles or orange cones for running drills.
The first "campers," as they're called, begin arriving, toting mats, sets of weights and bottles of water.
On this morning, there are 14, whose ages range from 30-something to 50-plus. Most of them, already fortified with coffee and something to eat such as a banana or a piece of toast with peanut butter, have been up for at least a half-hour.
McGannon, 44, a tall woman with dark, curly hair, is dressed in black athletic pants and a light-colored fleece pullover. As she greets and chats briefly with the women, she looks wide awake and ready to go.
"She kicks butt," one of the campers has told me. "But nicely."
It's 5:30 a.m. Welcome to boot camp.
No yelling
The boot-camp moniker, borrowed from the military some time back and used to describe a certain type of fitness class, generally refers to vigorous, full-body workouts that include warm-ups, strength training with weights, cardiovascular drills and stretching. Though they share a general approach - such as often being done outdoors, weather permitting - the classes reflect the particular style of the teachers.
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The name, of course, conjures an image of a barking drill instructor doling out punishment.
"That's not my style," said McGannon. "The women who show up at camp are all grownups who are paying me to train them and work them hard. I don't feel like they need to be yelled at in the process."
Even though McGannon splices her instruction with encouraging words and humor, this is boot camp. We don't dawdle. When we slack off, McGannon chides us, saying that our squats are looking pretty lame. When she tells us to take a water break, she means we should sprint over to our bottles for a swig or two and sprint back. And just when you think - hope! - that it must be about time for class to wind down, McGannon decides it's time for a jog around the school building.
Nice and tight
McGannon's classes, which were held inside the Norris School gym during the winter, now meet outside for part of the hour.
Campers say they like having their workouts finished before their routines at work and home have started.
"In all honesty, I feel better all day," said Carey Dimmit, 47, of Florence. And if she's not fully conscious when warm-ups start, that's OK too. "It doesn't require any thinking. You show up and you're told what to do."
After we trotted out to the field last Friday morning, McGannon had us form a circle for warm-ups. To loosen, we did neck rolls and hip rolls (hands on hips, rotating hips in a circle), rubbed our knees, did windmills with our arms while high-stepping in place. Still in a circle, we did a slow jog in one direction, then reversed course. We did some skipping, with McGannon reminding us to bring our knees up high. As silly as it no doubt looked, the skipping was getting our legs and hearts pumping. We did what McGannon called "lunge walking," making our way across the field in wide strides, bending our knees with each step. Dropping to the ground, and getting into pushup position, we did "inchworms," walking our feet in toward our hands, then moving our hands forward and then repeating the movements.
After a few more exercises and a water break, McGannon started handing out medicine balls. Divided into two rows facing each other, we tossed the balls back and forth from several different positions - from the chest, overhead and underhand.
Throughout the class, McGannon kept up a running banter with the women, who gave as good as they got.
"Keep that core nice and tight, nice and tight!" she said at one point.
"My core's not even here yet," one of the campers replied. "It's still in bed."
We did cardio drills in the parking lot, alternating jogging and skipping. Then, facing an outside wall of the school building, we got into squat position - knees bent, butts back - tossed a medicine ball against the wall 10 times, then jogged out to the basketball court, circled the basket, came back, and did it again. And again. And again. For an upper body segment, we grabbed our free weights, formed a circle again with McGannon at the center, and followed her through a series of arm exercises. We ended the hour inside the gym, seated on our mats to do some slow stretches.
Jump start
McGannon, who grew up in Southampton and lives there now, started her boot camps earlier this year. Participants enroll for the thrice-weekly classes in four-week blocks. Each block of 12 classes is $180, though McGannon offers a number of discounts, including, for instance, discounts for women who come back for a second month, or who bring a friend who enrolls.
Beginning July 1, McGannon will offer a boot camp at the other end of the work day, from 5:30 to 6:30 p.m. which will meet at the Southampton Congregational Church.
Though her classes are open to women of all fitness levels, McGannon says she is finding that the ones who seem to enjoy it and benefit most are those who have previously done some kind of exercise, however sporadically. Several women, she says, who decided the class would be too strenuous have opted to work with her individually instead to build their fitness level. McGannon says she varies the content every week so that the workouts don't get stale. At the second class I attended, for example, there wasn't a medicine ball in sight but there were more upper body exercises using free weights. There was no jog around the school, but the cardio drills featuring jumping jacks, jump rope and hurdles were no walk in the park. And pushups and abdominal exercises had been added to the mix.
McGannon makes the classes progressively more challenging from the beginning to the end of the four-week session, by introducing tougher exercises or increasing the degree of difficulty or length of time an exercise is done.
"The first few classes were difficult," said Susan Sachs, a boot camper from Easthampton. "I did feel really energized afterwards. But to be on the safe side, I went home and took two Advils."
Sachs, who says she's over 50, signed up for the classes because she'd been feeling sluggish during the winter and felt her fitness routine needed a jump start. Though she'd been going to a gym in Northampton off and on, Sachs says, it took only a few minutes of boot camp to realize that, by comparison, she hadn't been pushing herself very hard. "But I never knew that." After two rounds - 24 classes - of boot camp, Sachs says she has more stamina and is stronger. Though she started out using three-pound weights for the upper body exercises, she's now up to eight pounds.
"You do see yourself progress really rapidly," she said. She continues to work with McGannon every week on a one-to-one basis, and also uses a fitness ball and free weights at home.
Fixing herself first
McGannon is a former social worker who currently also works as a research manager at the Donahue Institute at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.
The countless hours she spent doing desk work - and the ongoing neck, shoulder and back pain that accompanied it - prompted her interest in fitness, she says. "I wanted to learn how to fix myself," she said, an interest that grew into wanting to help others. Her personal training work is a mid-life career change that McGannon says she hopes to make into a full-time job. "This is my passion," she said.
McGannon decided to offer the boot camps after attending a fitness conference at which one of the speakers talked about the classes she was teaching. "It just looked like so much fun," she recalled.
In locating her class in Southampton, McGannon hoped to find students who would welcome a chance to work out closer to home. While it's easy to find gyms in Northampton or Amherst that offer a wide range of classes and equipment, there isn't one in Southampton. McGannon reached out to her potential market the old-fashioned way - by going door-to-door around town with fliers.
She found one willing customer at the home of Tricia Enright, 38. With two young children, Enright says, it had become much harder for her to get to the Hampshire Regional YMCA, as she used to do. And her efforts at working out at home on the elliptical trainer down in the basement were only moderately successful, she says. Trying to get out for walks had become her main form of exercise.
"I was in OK shape, but not great shape."
Like Sachs, Enright found the first classes rough going. "I was sore and tired after the first week," she said. But she kept coming back for more and says it has paid off with increased strength and a lot more muscle. "My clothes fit totally different now," she said. McGannon's style kept her from getting discouraged, Enright says. "She's encouraging but never derogatory," she said. "Her attitude is, I know you can do this!"
This column runs monthly. To suggest a workout to be featured, contact Suzanne Wilson at swilson@gazettenet.com.