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Treadmill be gone
12:00 am Aug 18 - by Elizabeth Lardizabal – buzz Writer
Pushing a pick-up truck may seem a bit too much for some, but for Manda Crawford, it’s just another day at the park.
Crawford, 31, is one of the many women who’ve conquered the unconventional fitness regimen that defines Fit Camps 4 Chicks in Champaign. The boot camp style workout, which takes place at Centennial Park on Kirby Avenue, runs from Aug. 18th to Sep. 12th, with sessions at 6:30 a.m. and 6:30 p.m. every Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. The registration price is $125 and the entry age is 18.
“The camp is designed to be something different,” said Bobbi Johnson, camp trainer. Johnson, who first started the camp in Austin, Texas, said that the camp, which incorporates cardio, resistance, and strength training, is a lot more fun than going to the gym.
“The gym can get boring if you just get on the same machine every day,” she said. The camp sessions include activities that range from relay races to obstacle courses, said Johnson. “We also incorporate the hill a lot at Centennial.”
The setting is something else you benefit from when you join Fit Camps 4 Chicks said campers. “I did the gym thing but it’s nice to be able to exercise outside. It’s a better environment,” said Mary Herges, a camper from Paxton, Ill.
Herges, who joined the camp last May, said that she joined without knowing what it would be like. “When I think of a boot camp, I think of a drill sergeant—[Bobbi] is not that kind of person,” she said. “But she knows her stuff. She watches you if you’re not doing something correctly and she’ll tell you what you need to do so you don’t hurt yourself.”
What’s Herges’ favorite activity at the camp? Pushing the pick-up truck with team mates, she said. “You really don’t know what Bobbi is going to have under her sleeves.”
One thing the camp offers that the gym doesn’t, said Johnson, is comradery. “The women work together,” she said. “You don’t finish until your team mate finishes.”
Crawford, a camper from Champaign, said that Johnson and the women around her provide the motivation she needs to get through the camp. “I’m being held accountable by Bobbi and the women around me. But they’re encouraging,” she said. “It’s exciting. I never had a work out that you’d get excited for.”
Crawford said that her favorite memory of the camp is coming in first for the obstacle course. “So far I’ve gotten first place out of two. That’s really been satisfying.”
Johnson enjoys knowing that that she’s helping the women, she said. “They come up to me with stories all the time.” One story includes a woman finally being able to carry her grandson, she said.
Overall, the camp gives you a healthy lifestyle that shrinks clothes sizes and garners compliments, campers say. It’s also made for both the young and the young at heart.
“It’s a camp that anybody at any level could get in”, said Herges. “I’m 47. I feel better today than I did when I was in my twenties.”
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