 "Photo: Michael Neumann")
Walking into the large room, you immediately feel intimidated. The instructor comes in, energized and ready to go. I’m getting ready for my first ever boot camp exercise class at the UW-Oshkosh Student Recreation and Wellness Center.
On the recreation center’s Web site, it says, “Get ready to sweat and be challenged!” That description fits the class perfectly.
Kelly Beisenstein-Weiss, the coordinator of all the group exercise programs at the recreation center organizes classes, schedules them, and hires and trains all of the staff members who teach the classes. When it comes to picking which classes to hold, she has to have a balance.
“What I do is look for a variety; some cardio classes, some strength training classes and some kind of combination that have both cardio and strength,” Beisenstein-Weiss said.
She also stressed the different experience and benefits you will get from participating in a group class as opposed to working out by yourself on the other equipment provided at the recreation center.
Beisenstein-Weiss said even if you are scared to try a class for the first time, you should still try it. If you don’t like it, no one will say or do anything to stop you from leaving or trying something else.
In the end, she wants people to have a good time at the group exercise classes and get a good workout.
Getting back to class, we start off with some warm-ups, which include jogging from the right to left side. As we run along, the music is blasting through a little boom box in the corner. We change up the running on the way down, with some high kicks.
Next come lunges, which I already know I’ll be able to feel in the morning. When our instructor asks how we’re doing, we collectively groan. She responds with, “That was only the warm-up!”
For the actual workout, we move back over to where our equipment is laying on the ground. Grabbing the six-pound bright pink dumbbells, I prepare myself for the long haul that lies ahead.
She then tells us to drop down to the ground to do some push-ups. My arms are shaking and wobbly as I push up and down. I have to do them on my knees to make it a little easier. Then to make it even more challenging, after two push-ups, we have to stand up and jump onto the step block, and then jump back down and return to push-up position.
As we struggle through these exercises, she keeps motivating us and asking us how we’re doing. When we do something the correct way or do it well, she keeps us going with encouraging words and compliments.
To keep our heart rates going, after the push-ups we do about 20 jumping jacks and then move back into the push-up, jump-up combination.
The instructor doesn’t look intimidating, but when she’s leading a group class she takes charge. At this point I’m wondering how she can carry on with the exercises so easily. She shows no sign of stopping or slowing down.
Her name is Brielle Roskom, and she has been teaching classes at the fitness center since it opened its doors. She teaches multiple classes, including the popular Butts N’ Guts, core express and the challenging and difficult boot camp, which she said is her favorite.
“It gets your heart rate up and you get to strength train,” Roskom said. “I enjoy teaching a large group. I can interact and encourage them, and it reminds me when I personal train because I’m also a personal trainer.”
She also adds that boot camp is for a special group of people which I can include myself in: the less coordinated. You can go at your own pace and you don’t have to keep up with a beat.
“It’s a good workout, it doesn’t involve rhythm and you don’t have to follow a beat,” Roskom said. “If you can’t do it you can take a rest and then do a couple more.”
Returning to the workout, we are about to start the most challenging part, for me at least, the stairs.
Roskom tells us to follow her and leads us out the door and down to the other end of the second floor.
We walk to a set of stairs that are kind of secluded, away from the more busy area of the recreation center.
We walk down the stairs quickly, but not running down. Then as we get to the bottom, she tells us to jog back up the stairs and walk down quickly again.
We repeat this about three times, then, as we get back down to the bottom, she tells us to go much faster this next time on the way up and slow down on the way back.
We kept this intensity for about three times and at the bottom of the stairs she tells us to do some mountain climbers, which is where your hands are on the floor and your back is in the air and you move your legs back and forth like you are climbing a mountain.
After this, she tells us to run as fast as we can back up the stairs and then walk back to the workout room. We run up the stairs and on the way back try to catch our breath as we hobble back to the room.
We reach for our water bottles and gulp down as much as we can before we have to start up again. My water is almost gone and we’re only a little over halfway through the workout.
As I start paying attention to the class again, our next focus of the workout is abdominals. We use the medicine ball to do lunges across the back of room again, this time bouncing the ball on the opposite side of the lunge along the way.
At the end of the lunges, we do squats with the medicine balls.
Then we return to our mats and sit down and work on various exercises with the medicine ball. We lie on the mat and raise our legs to do different types of crunches with the medicine ball in our hands.
Then we sit up and move side to side with the ball, while twisting our bodies.
To end that part of the workout, we did planks, where we have our toes on the ground and our backs parallel to the ground, holding ourselves up with our forearms. We have to hold it for about 20 seconds and then rest, then do another set of 20 seconds and rest.
Finally, relief comes our way when Roskom says its time to stretch. We finish up with stretches for our legs, arms and back. This is by far the easiest part of the workout, and I am happy for it to be over.
For some, the group exercise classes are just a fun alternative to a boring workout. Amie Vosters, a junior at UW-Oshkosh, has tried out a couple different classes, but her favorite was the popular Butts N’ Guts.
Every time she went to a class she brought a friend or multiple friends with her and she definitely sees the advantage to being with friends as opposed to being by herself.
“A group makes a lot of people motivated,” Vosters said. “Usually, I am dreading going to work out, but if my friends are doing it then it seems like I should as well. But sometimes I do like running by myself and doing my own thing and not running on a schedule.”
A couple days have passed since my boot camp class, and I can still feel every exercise we did.
My muscles have never hurt so much and stairs have become a painful task to complete.
Having other people there to support me and do the work alongside me was a great motivator to keep going.
I am glad I tried it out, though, and I would be willing to try it again or even try a different class. If you’re looking for a tough but effective workout, boot camp is for you.
If you want to start off slow, something else would work better for you.
The main point the instructors and organizers want you to come away with is just to have fun and get a good workout.
The boot camp class meets Mondays at 7 p.m. and Tuesday at 5:45 p.m. at the student recreation center.
A schedule of other group exercise classes can be found on the UW-Oshkosh student recreation Web site.
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