Kettlebells and Boot Camp for weight loss

I am currently in a weight loss phase for the month of July so Monday night I attended boot camp of which I plan to attend 16 sessions total, and it was a pretty brutal workout. We did 9 stations for 1 minute of work followed by 20 seconds of rest. The stations included:

• kettlebell bull horn holds with lateral steps



• agility ladder hops



• lunges



• slosh pipe overhead side bends (Saxon side bends)



• Bosu Ball standing overhead dumbbell press



• sandbag clean and squat



• lunges again



• medicine ball sit-ups and overhead press



• body weight jump squats

For those of you who don't know, a slosh pipe is a big ass pipe filled partially with water. It doesn't have to be heavy, 30 lbs will do, but the longer it is, the harder the work on the core. This was my first time using an agility ladder and it was pretty cool, my fiance wanted to know where it was going to hang from! When I finished laughing I tried it out and I think they are a nice addition to an athlete's tool chest.

As I said, this was a pretty brutal workout. We warmed up for about 10 minutes, then did three rounds of this with a one minute rest between rounds. After the workout we did a little light jog followed by some loosening movements. I liked this workout because it was challenging and we worked the entire body. Unfortunately I thought boot camp would be easy so I did a lunch time workout of body weight drills and kettlebell clean and jerks. Needless to say I was really, really beat up this morning. So much so that I decided to nap for 30 minutes during my lunch break today!

Another nice thing about doing a boot camp during the summer is that it is a social event. I brought my fiance along and she had a great time. I was really surprised at how much fun she had and impressed with how hard she worked! We met some people, got outside and got a great workout in! What could be better? I love kettlebells so I hope to see more kettlebell drills but it is nice having a coach tell me what to do for a change. I recommend joining a boot camp to anyone, especially couples looking for something active to do together!

A lot of the kettlebell drills or ideas that Crossfit does are used in boot camps. This video gives an example of the kind of drills used to lose weight and improve conditioning with a bunch of objects, including kettlebells.

Well, I am off for another punishing workout. I will post some details tomorrow and anything interesting I learned!

http://youtube.com/watch?v=sy-HNhBdi0o