Tuesday, October 29, 2013

Is There Any Science To Say Weight Loss Boot Camps Actually Work?

By Howe Russ


Over the last few years there has been a rapid growth in the popularity of fitness boot camps. In fact, if you walk into any gym it is likely you'll meet at least one customer who likes to tell people how to lose weight with the type of HIIT style workouts associated with a boot camp.

Is this method safe and effective? Are you really able to generate quicker results and, more importantly, retain them into the future?

In short, yes. Once you get past all of the marketing hype and sales talk behind the product, a boot camp is merely offering advice which has existed in gyms worldwide for over twenty five years. Simply put, it's nothing new or ground-breaking.

If you walk into any well established gym these days you will see countless people applying the basic science of a boot camp workout to their gym session. High intensity circuits which incorporate both cardiovascular exercise and resistance training will cover all the bases you could hit at a boot camp.

The reason this phenomenon has become so popular is the marketing behind it. Sadly, this often leads to rival companies saying more outrageous statements in a bid to try to get more members than their main competitors and it can lead to people expecting miracle results. It's not rare to see advertisements for this type of class associated with statements about getting extremely fast weight loss in ten minutes per day, while eating whatever you want for the rest of the day.

While the general marketing behind boot camps tend to be quite misleading, the theories the style of training is built upon are actually very solid. Any high intensity interval training workout is going to get your blood pumping and your heart reaching the upper scales of it's ability. This will lead to weight loss and will improve your fitness. If you incorporate resistance training into the routine, which most trainers do, then you will also notice an increase in strength, too.

Make no mistake about it, there is no miracle formula at it's root. Despite all of the claims about instant fat loss and promises of increasing your fitness by 200%, the workouts themselves are basic, primal affairs which often stick to the old classic moves. In most cases you don't need any equipment at all.

The one area which still stands in the boot camp's advantage, of course, is the group atmosphere it promotes. There are many people who find it difficult to push themselves without others around them doing the same thing. This is where boot camps and fitness classes are first rate. However, those looking to join purely because of the fitness benefits are quick to notice that the actual workouts are very basic. Because of this realization, the whole boot camp phenomenon is now dying off and people are beginning to get the same effective workouts at home without the need for memberships.
See the top 5 types of hiit sessions and what they are designed for.


While it is often unfairly billed as the latest health and fitness fad, the truth is the science behind the boot camp theory stacks up nicely. By performing regular HIIT sessions and incorporating the basic, classic strength moves you will indeed see results. If you've been trying to learn how to lose weight and have seen an advert for one of these type of classes, however, you should base your final decision on how much you think you need a group atmosphere in order to succeed, because there is nothing stopping you from performing a boot camp workout right now without spending any money.




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