Billy’s Boot Camp Day 1: Basic Training

The gym was closed today (aaargh!) so I decided to do the Basic Training portion of the Billy’s Boot Camp Box Set DVD.

Boot Camp Craze

Years ago Billy Blanks’ exercise DVDs became a huge hit in Japan. It was heavily promoted on TV and the entire nation went Billy crazy.

Promising tangible results in a month, it was an incredibly attractive proposition to all the fat people, me included. I remember a few other colleagues at work buying the DVDs.

We weren’t the only fans. My fitness freak of a sister-in-law swears by its content. She’s a working mother of two, runs full marathons as a hobby and thinks the workouts are really good. And my niece is a living proof that it works: she lost 15kgs before her wedding by faithfully doing the workouts.

Unable to Keep Up

But me, I found the boot camp to be too hard. I couldn’t keep up.

Since I have the coordination and muscle memory of a pebble I had a hard time following the steps. I was really unfit, too, so I felt like dying after a workout.

It was a punishing routine. I gave up after a couple of sessions. There were three DVDs in the box but I never went past the first one.

Giving It Another Go

Tonight, since we couldn’t go to the gym I forced my very unwilling husband to do the first workout DVD with me.

I suspect it was the two weeks we did at the gym, but tonight I wasn’t dying after the workout.

I actually enjoyed it, in a weird masochistic sort of way. I still am unable to follow the steps precisely, but I tried to constantly scrunch my abs and other muscles.

I now think that “feeling the burn” is more important than being able to gracefully follow the steps. They’re a mix of Tae Bo, yoga, aerobics, kickboxing etc, simply too complicated for me.

But I was sweating and in a good kind of pain afterward.

So I’ll call that a nice workout. I should do this everyday!