If you have less, simply create a couple smaller circuits with half the drills. Take them through one circuit have a rest and then do the other.

Tyre Power 2.0

Goals: Strength/Crosstraining

Duration: 1 hour

Equipment: Cones, Tyres, Ropes, Mats

Warm up

Action Tag

Set Up

Split clients into 5-6 groups (go for 3-4 people per group). In small groups clients are to pick a station to start on. Clients rotate through stations when station 1 (tyre carry) is completed.

Stations

Overhead Tyre Carry – Pretty self explanatory, as a group clients must run through a zig zag of cones a while carrying a car or 4WD tyre. Clients should carry the tyre overhead if strong enough.

Clients dump the tyres at one end and run back to grab another. Have enough tyres for around 3 runs each.

Tyre Toe Taps – Clients perform fast feet or toe taps on the edge of a large tyre while rotating around it. Once they reach 360 degrees they must all stop, do 5 pushups together and then resume in the opposite direction.

Rope Complex – Clients stand in a circle holding a large, thick battling rope. Clients work through the following exercises without rest: 10x Overhead Presses, 10x Squats, 10x Forward lunges each leg.

The rope must not touch the ground for the entire duration of the station.

Rope Sprints – Clients take it in turns sprinting with the battling rope slung out over their shoulder a distance of 20-30 metres.

Partner Abs - Clients take it in turns (when necessary) carrying out the following ab exercises: 10x partner toes to sky, 20x plank low 5′s, 20x side plank 5′s (10 each side)

The Square (bonus) – Bear crawl forward 10 metres, reverse bear crawl back. Lunge forward 10m, reverse lunge back. Repeat. If you did not use this station during the circuit, use it at the end as a finisher over a distance of 20-30 metres.

Note: If a group completes a station before the tyre carry is complete, they simply repeat the drill again.

Rounds

Round 1 – Run the entire group through the circuit above. Rest for a drink break.

Round 2 – Repeat the full circuit again. Rest for a drink break.

Round 3 – A few things are going to happen for the grand finale. Reduce the number of groups to four larger groups. Omit the ‘Partner Abs’ and ‘Rope Complex’ stations. Lend your spare rope to the ‘Rope Sprints’ station. On the ‘Tyre Carry Station’ have the group take all the tyres to one end of the zig zag and then all the way back. That station will continue to be your time keeper.

Stretch

UPDATE:

I received an email from one of the readers, Nicole, asking me what kind of ropes I use, where I got my tyres and a little more info on some of the drills in the above workout. I thought it could be useful to more so here are the answers below.

About the ropes, I use a thin Iron Edge rope just for indoor work. The outdoor ropes I purchased from ropegalore.com.au. I have a 12m and a 14m 42mm thick rope. The new 2″ rope from Iron Edge would also work.

Tyres can be a bit tricky. Have a look in the Yellow Pages under 4WD or truck/bus mechanics and just give them a call. I was lucky enough to get my 4WD tyres off a friend who’s an enthusiast. The truck tyre I got through a client who is in a car club with a guy who has a scrap yard.

I would like to get a tractor tyre but am unsure where to start looking. Like above, asking clients is a great way to find some. Usually someone will have family who have a farm or a hobby that leaves spare tyres.

Onto the workout. With the rope sprints, have clients just run the rope in one direction 20-30m. Then another person in their team will pick up the end and run it back. Have them continue to swap like this amongst the group until it’s time to change. With the partner abs, clients will pair up and do all of the exercises together except for the partner toes to sky.

To do Partner Toes to Sky, check out this video. The exercise is the one where the person on the ground puts their feet up between the other persons arms.

Image: DVIDSHUB

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Core/Cardio Workout

Goals: Core/Crosstraining

Warm Up:

Knee Taps (60 sec’s partner work with the idea being to tap your partners knees without being tapped yourself.)

Circuit One

3 Minute Challenge (1 min each)

Group 1: (Cardio)

• Half Lunge (Left)
• Half Lunge (Right)
• Half Squats

Group 2: (Core)

• Bike Crunches
• Hip Raises
• Reverse Crunches

Circuit Two

Partner Sit Up Challenge (1 min x 3)

Partner 1= Standing on Partner 2′s toes

Partner 2= Quarter to half sit up

(starting with back slightly raised from the ground going further than half way)

Circuit Three

Timed Plank/Run Challenge (4 times)

Partner 1= In Plank position

(advanced people raising a different body part each time)

Partner 2= Run 100mtrs

Both change over when Partner 2 returns, go 4 times each and give their time when complete.

Circuit Four

3 Minute Challenge (1 min each)

Group 1: (Cardio)

• Sprawls
• Grouchos (isomteric sqaut position then take one step forward each leg and then a step back)
• Cross Over Mountain Climbers

Group 2: (Core)

• Spiderman
• Worm Walks
• V Crunches

Circuit Five

Partner Sit Up Challenge (1 min x 3)

Partner 1= Standing on P2 Toes

Partner 2= Sit Up Twist

Circuit Six

Timed Plank/Run Challenge (4 times)

Partner 1= In Plank position

(advanced people raising a different body part each time)

Partner 2= Run

Try and beat previous time

Cool Down

5 mins stretching

Image: The National Guard

If you enjoyed this workout sign up for new workouts and ideas to be sent to your email address. To share your workouts head over to the community forums.

Before I continue, thank you to the nine awesome trainers who took the time out of their busy schedules to share their workouts with myself and the community. There are some awesome workouts here that I can’t wait to unleash upon my clients.

Here are the nominations (in no particular order):

• ACRONYM BC! AMRAP/EMOM/RSP by njfitmom
• Legs, Glutes and Abs by totalfit
• Partner Bootcamp Workout by Mikeh
• Timed Bootcamp Workout by shaun
• Dynamic Endurance by Rubin
• Pyramid Workout by Naomi Miller
• Total Body – High Intensity – “7″ workout by Lisa
• Climb The LADDER! by dsullivan
• The Kitchen Sink by kmoore

How to vote:

Step 1:

Try out one or more of the bootcamps linked above. They are free to use so go ahead and use them all. You have three weeks to try them out.

Step 2:

Vote on the poll below for the ones you liked.

Step 3:

Go to the forum thread and vote there too. Every little extra vote counts.

Step 4:

While you are at the forum, take a couple of minutes to comment on the threads of the workouts you liked. Go ahead and share any modifications you used too to help other trainers.

To the entrants:

Feel free to share your workouts with your colleagues and fellow trainers. Every vote you get counts!

Poll

Ask any questions you have below.

Square Bear

Goals: Crosstraining/MMA

Duration: 1 hour

Equipment:

Class Concept

Square Bear is a circuit based on MMA training moves. Mark out a square ‘boxing ring’ with cones 20m apart. Divide the group into two teams of mixed fitness levels. Team A starts in the blue corner, team B in the red corner.

Teams bear crawl (on hands and feet, knees off the ground) around the square clockwise, stopping at each corner to carry out a set of MMA exercises below. Team members try to ‘tag’ a member of the opposite team by overtaking them during the bear crawl transition and tapping them on the shoulder. No tagging is allowed at the exercise stations. When a team member is ‘caught’ they must get up and go for a 200m run before returning to where they left off. Score one point for your team for every person that you manage to tag and send for a run.

The bear crawls make this workout quite punishing. Feel free to sub them with duck walks, running, side steps or any other travelling exercise as required. You know your group, be reasonable.

Every 8 minutes, call a time-out for all players to go out for a 60 second recovery run.

3 rounds of 8 minutes = 26 mins for the main segment including recovery runs between rounds.

Exercises

Here are the recommended exercises. Distribute according to clients level.

How to do Sprawls

Start in a prone, ‘upward facing dog’ position with chest elevated and back arched. Push off hands explosively and jump back into a ‘fighting stance’. Throw yourself back down to starting position for one rep.

Cool down

Follow the below stretches:

About the author:

Garry Robinson is a Bootcamp Instructor from Australia where he runs his own unique brand of group outdoor fitness. He is an advocate of outdoor exercise and continues to research ways to make physical fitness appealing and accessible to an increasingly sedentary society.

Garry is also the author of Bootcamp Workout Ideas, a field manual of 50 complete workouts scaled for all fitness levels. It includes warm-ups and top tips for personal trainers and bootcamp business owners.

Visit www.bootcamp-workout-ideas.com to download 2 free workouts. Check out how you can win a copy in our competition!

If you enjoyed this workout sign up for new workouts and ideas to be sent to your email address.

Bootcamp Workout Competition

Who’s got the best workout up their sleeve?

We’ve decided to host a small competition on who can come up with the best workout. You can submit any of your workouts from last year or the years before or you can make up a completely new one.

Here’s how it’s going to work. Trainers who wish to participate can submit workouts via the forums over one week.

The rest of the Bootcamp Ideas readers then have 3 weeks to try out the workouts they like the look of and vote on them. The workout with the most votes wins.

Prizes

The awesome sponsors for this competition are the Bootcamp Alliance and Bootcamp Workout Ideas. Both have been very kind in arranging some great prizes for you.

First Place

First place will have their preference of ONE of the following prizes

• Internationally Accredited Bootcamp Instructor Course (value $220)

• 12 Month Bootcamp Alliance Business Support Membership (value $135)
• Voucher to Amazon.com or Iron Edge (winners choice) (value $80)

Runner Ups

The next three runner ups will receive a copy of Bootcamp Workout Ideas (value $59)

EDIT: I realised that some of you who want to enter may already own one or more of these products. Rest assured that if you win and you already own the product you will still be looked after. Most likely with a voucher of equal value to a store or program.

Dates

Workouts can be submitted from 9.00am tomorrow, (Saturday 28th January 2012) and will close 11.59pm EDT Friday 3rd February (03/02/2012).

Workouts can be voted on from 9.00am EDT Sunday 5th February (05/02/2012) until 11.59pm EDT Friday 24th February (24/02/2012).

Winners will be announced on Sunday 26th February (26/02/2012) via the website and our Facebook page.

How to Enter

1. Create an account on the community forums.
2. Share a workout in the Bootcamp Workouts forum. (Don’t use the form in the navigation above)
3. All workouts submitted within the appropriate dates will be considered.

Rules

1. Only one workout submission per trainer.
2. Workouts should take 45-60 minutes to complete. Warm ups and cooldowns should be included. Please do not submit just drills.
3. Any unknown/unusual exercises should be described or have links to websites/videos that describe them.
4. If you would like to submit a workout that you have already submitted to the site before, to keep it fair I’ve decided that you may modify this workout and submit it to the competition.

Terms & Conditions

This isn’t an official competition with pages and pages of fine print. This is something fun I thought we could all do to get the community rocking. There is however a few terms that you should agree to before submitting.

1. The winning workouts will be featured on the blog (with links back to your site).
2. Votes will be counted from three  places. A poll on the blog and a poll on the community forums will be provided. In addition, the number of replies to a workout thread will also be added, excluding replies by the author. You can vote in one or all of these places. Note: Replies sent before the voting commencement date will still be counted.
3. In the case that there is an unusually high number of workouts submitted, I will shortlist them with the help of a few impartial trainers. I will judge them by how innovative they are and how easy they are to follow.

I need you!

This is a community competition so if you feel I’ve been unfair or I’ve missed something out, please pop it in the comments below. I look forward to seeing some great workouts!

- Kyle

Here’s a workout I did with my group last week. It has plenty of high intensity and dynamic exercises that I’m sure your clients will love.

Stay tuned for tomorrow’s surprise!

MB Bonanza

Goals: Crosstraining/FUN!

Duration: 1 hour

Equipment:  Cones, Mats, Medicine Balls

Warm Up

Spend 10-15 minutes on a warm up of your choice.

Snake Time

I have access to a path that forms an ‘S’ shape on a hill near us. It is affectionatly refered to as the Snake. It takes clients 1.5 to 2.5 minutes to down and up the Snake. Try to use a run or exercise that takes roughly the same time in your workout.

Split the class into two groups. Have one group run the Snake while the other group stays and performs 45-60 seconds of the following exercises.

1. MB Switch Push Ups – do a push up with one hand on the medicine ball, switch hands and repeat
2. MB Squat to Press

Have groups swap once back from the run. Repeat 3 times.

Rest 2 minutes.

DK Ladders

Pair your clients up with someone of a similar strength level. Spread the medicine balls by weight appropriately amongst the pairs (heaviest with the strongest pairs, lightest with the weaker pairs).

Pairs will take it in turns being the exerciser and spotter. Use the ladder method for repetitions. Client A performs 10 reps while client B rests, then client B performs 10 reps while client A rests. Client A performs 8 reps while client B rests and so on decreasing the reps by 2 until both clients do a round of 2 reps.

The exercise clients are going to do are called Donkey Kong’s or Ninja Getups.

How to do Medicine Ball Donkey Kong’s (so called by functionalpatterns.com)

The Spotter starts with the ball while both clients stand facing each other 2-3 metres apart. The Spotter passes the ball to the Exerciser who catches and immediately squats down and rolls backwards. The Exerciser continues to roll back up onto their shoulder blades, keeping knees tucked and placing the ball above their head.

Using momentum the Exerciser then rolls back, bringing the medicine ball over the knees and standing up. At the top the Exerciser passes the ball back to the Spotter and the exercise repeats.

See the video below for more info care of FP.

Rest 2 minutes.

Finisher

Have clients pair up once again. One partner does 20 squats with a medicine then runs around a cone 20m away while holding the medicine ball above their head. When they return pairs swap over.

Repeat the same drill with 15 squats and then 10 squats.

Stretch

Did this workout leave your clients practicing the corpse pose with great enthusiasm? Sign up for new workouts to be sent to your email address.

Image: SobControllers

100, 200, 300

Goals: Muscular Endurance/Strength

Duration: 1 hour

Equipment:  Cones, Mats, Bands

Warm Up

Spend 1 minute on each of the following exercises:

1. Squats
2. X Squats – touch the ground at the bottom of the squat, reach for the sky at the top
3. High knees
4. Kneeling stand ups – kneel on the ground, using a lunge technique stand up, kneel down again, repeat
5. Yoga push ups – do a pushup, go into downwards dog, do another pushups, continue
6. Mountain climbers
7. Push up arm circles – start in a push up position, keep your body ridged as you life one arm and make a circle, repeat with the other side
8. Bent knee squat thursts – a squat thrust is a burpee with no jump, do not fully extend the legs at and point (keep the knees bent)
9. Side to side squats
10. Shake it all out – quite literally

Concept

Arrange clients into groups of 4 to 6 people (depending on fitness level of group/individuals – more people = lower fitness level). The goal of each group is to complete a circuit of 3 stations.

Each station is assigned two exercises. On the first round, each group must complete 100 reps (as a group) of each exercise on each station. Both exercises on a station must be completed before moving onto the next station. Clients can use any method they like to complete the rep total of both exercises.

Take a 2 minute drink break. That was the practice round.

Groups go round the circuit again this time completing a total of 300 reps on each exercise.

Exercise Stations

Station 1:

• Jump Squats
• Band Rows

Station 2:

• 1-Leg Stiff-Leg Deadlift
• Band Shoulder Presses (in a half kneeling position)

Station 3:

• Reverse Lunges
• Prone Pulldowns

Bonus Round

I call this a bonus round, but you should have time to complete it during the workout.

This round is the 200 round, perform the drill as above but with only 200 reps per group on each exercise.

Station 1:

• Push ups
• Alternating Oblique Chest Lift

Station 2:

• Plank with side toe tap
• Supine Hip Extension

Station 3:

• Alternating Mountain Climbers (200 ea. side)

Cooldown

Stretch

Image: meddygarnet

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While these exercises are great for strengthening the upper and lower body they lack focus on the posterior chain. To make up for this I like to use an exercise called Sea Turtles.

To be honest I didn’t come up with it myself, I borrowed it from Brian Devlin (of PT Explosion fame). It’s fantastic for strengthening the glutes, posterior deltoids, rhomboids and lower and middle traps and it’s much more interesting then doing supermans all the time.

Equipment needed: None

Start in a prone superman on the ground. Keeping your arms straight, move them in a circular motion parallel to the ground back by your sides.

Squeeze your scapula muscles in this position. Simultaneously while your arms are moving, move the feet apart into an inverted ‘V’ shape squeezing the glutes. Return to the superman position and repeat.

Normally we run our bootcamps in 4 week blocks which is paid up front. While this is great for retention, it makes things a little inflexible during what is a busy month for a lot of people (in Australia, kids are still on school holidays).

Having the casual classes is bringing us quite a few new clients who are looking to try things out. As a result I need to ensure that  my workouts are accessible to complete beginners and 2 year bootcamp veterans.

Below is the workout I kicked them off with this year.

Welcome Back

Goals: Muscular Endurance/Crosstraining

Duration: 1 hour

Equipment:  Cones, Mats

Warm Up

Easy 400m-500m run. Complete a mobility warm up.

Workout

Drill 1 (based on 5 x 10)

Each client completes this drill by themselves. Clients perform two exercises back to back for a certain number of sets.

Round 1: 10 sets of 5 Push ups and 5 Squats

Round 2: 8 sets of 5 Sea Turtles and 10m Walking Lunge (~5 reps ea. leg)

Round 3: 6 sets of 5 Frog Squats and 5 Plank low 5′s (5 ea. hand)

Drill 2 – Core Attack

Spend 45 seconds on each exercise with a 15 second break between exercises.

1. Russian twist
2. Bent-knee V-Sit
3. Side Plank Hold
4. Plank (on command have clients shuffle left and right)

Drill 3 – Sprints

Complete the following rounds of sprints:

1 x 50m sprint at 70-80%

2 x 50m sprint from standing start

2 x 50m sprint from crouch/sprinters start

2 x 50m sprint from lying start (have clients lie flat on stomach until you yell ‘GO!’)

Repeat drill 2

Cooldown

Another 400-500m run followed by stretching.

Image: Rameshng

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Welcome back Bootcamp Instructors of the world to more exciting workouts and drills on BootcampIdeas.com. To kick off the New Year I’ve got a great finisher drill from Leon. Enjoy

Situp plank switch

Objective:

First team to complete 100 situps.

To start:

Player one starts in the situp position whilst player two starts off in the plank position facing and holding the feet of player one. On command ‘GO!’ player one must perform as many situps as possible before the instructor shouts ‘Switch!’.

When this happens the pair simply switch what they are doing. So now player one is holding the plank and holding player twos feet and player two is doing the situps. Note: Players switch exercise on the spot, there is no need to actually switch places. Each time players switch, the number of situps is passed across and continued.

The team to complete the task first wins.

Instructor points:

• Switch frequently and randomly, even switch when teams are halfway between switching and switch again, its great fun.
• The target number of situps can be anything from 20-200 depending on class fitness.
• A torso twist can be added to the situp for increased difficulty.
• To make the plank harder, alternating rear leg raises can be incorporated. Jumping legs apart and back in also works well.
• I sometimes add in a run when teams finish. The run is usually around 400 metres and works well if the team link arms or hold hands. This will increase team bonding with members. Also before the challenge starts, try pairing people up who don’t know each other or who have never paired up before.

About the workout creator

I (Leon) run a group fitness business in Plymouth (UK). www.sound-fitness.co.uk

The workout above has been tried and tested and works a treat. I always explain what I am doing and how it will benefit the group before I start.

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Image: The U.S. Army