By Howe Russ


If you were to ask one hundred people how to lose weight the chances are you'd get a lot of answers crediting fitness boot camps with the secret formula. After all, the HIIT workouts often found at these classes are great for fat loss.

Today we're going to answer the all-important question. Is there more to this training method than just being the next big fitness fad?

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.

In fact, if you stroll into any gym in your local area you will see countless fitness enthusiasts putting the foundations of a boot camp workout into their regular gym routine. Circuit classes have existed for decades. Likewise, high intensity interval training has been around for years. Both principles are widely adopted by outdoor fitness classes.

So if it's advice which has existed for years already, why are boot camps often billed as miracle weight loss solutions? Quite simply, it all comes down to marketing. By giving something a catchy name and making outrageous claims about the results you can achieve, you'll undoubtedly have something which appeals to a lot of people. This marketing tends to be misleading in a lot of cases, as it's often aimed at individuals who have never exercised before, with promises of instant results.

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.

All of the hype surrounding this type of training, which is often merely a company's attempt at competing with it's rivals, can lead to the whole thing being labelled a fitness fad. Yet the workouts themselves are proven and they tend to stick to the basic exercises such as squats and push-ups.

The biggest problem boot camp classes face is customer retention. While some of this comes down to the fact that they often target their marketing efforts at individuals who are looking for a quick fix, who therefore quit quite fast, there is also a problem with people who actually see results. It doesn't take long for an individual who is serious about his or her fitness to realize they could get just as good a workout without paying for a class. This is why boot camps begin hyping up the group atmosphere they offer, trying to get members to work together as a team in a bid to keep them coming in.
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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