I did my first ever boot camp class at Pearland Crossfit last night. I met with one of the owners, John, and we discussed the classes they offered, what boot camp actually looked like, what the trainers did, looking at form etc. He was really nice, and so was the trainer Sarah, who led our boot camp that night.

It started out with us warming up on the rowing machine, rowing for 400 meters. Then we did 20 squats, 20 push ups and 20 lunges.

After warm up, we grabbed the necessary items we would need for the workout–a weighted ball and something to jump onto–we were doing box jumps. Since it was my first time doing box jumps, I was given two 45 pound plates to jump onto. That was as comfortable as I was for jumping. Sarah was very patient, explained everything, the technique and what to be looking for when working out. She expressed that speed wasn’t the goal, that doing the exercise well, in good form was the goal.

Everyone started at the same time–we were timed for our workout. The workout was 5 rounds of the following:

100 Singles (which is jumping rope)

15 box jumps

15 wall balls

When I saw the workout, I thought to myself “that should be easy, I am not too concerned”. Then I got into it. First round, not too shabby. The box jumps were the worst, as I wasn’t used to them and I wasn’t so great at jumping right back up after jumping down, which is the point of box jumps. By the end of the second round I was exceptionally winded and having to stop in-between sets. By the fourth round I was stopping in the middle of the 100 singles and box jumps as I was so winded. I finished the workout in 21 minutes and 20 seconds. I didn’t come in last and I felt accomplished at the end of it.

I liked how Sarah would correct our form during the workout, it made my workout more intense and it gave me something to strive towards. She would tell me to get going if I paused too long. The women (and one guy) who have been doing the boot camp for a bit were all very nice. I was impressed at how strong they were, how well they could do things. They weren’t skinny mini’s and they all worked very hard. At the end of my workout a woman came up to me to tell me how impressed she was of me doing the box jumps right away. She had always stepped up and never jumped up, and just recently had started jumping. It was nice to feel like I was doing something others didn’t have the courage to do, or aspired to.

Now let’s discuss aftermath–I am even more surprised that for a 21 minute workout (plus warm up) I was so sore the next day. My quads are so mad!!! It hurts to sit, squat, anything! Good lord! Plus, when I was falling asleep last night my internal furnace was on high from the workout. I am impressed at how much that workout kicked my ass. I look forward to Saturday’s class (I had planned to go tonight but customer issues at work prevented me from leaving on time).

Tomorrow: I go to 24 Hour Fitness and try out their boot camp class. Interested to see what they do, what the class is like, if it pushes me like the crossfit class did.