Warm ups are crucial to the success of your boot camp, they help you to prepare your clients for a rigorous session, reduce the risk of injury, and they also serve as an ice breaker. A good warm up can unite your class. But what is the best warm up for boot camps?

The best warm up for boot camp is one that works both the upper and lower body. You want it to last between five and ten minutes, slowly increasing in intensity throughout. Games are preferable to drills.

In this article, we will look at what makes a good warm up and showcase one of our favourite warm ups to inspire you for your own. 

What is the Best Warm Up for Boot Camp?

A good warm up can set the tone for an entire session, so it is particularly important that you get it right. When planning your warm up, you need it to address the following:

• Preparation – the main point of a warm up is to ready your body for the workout to come, you can’t just jump straight in to a high intensity workout without warming up first. Look for ways to slowly increase your intensity from the start of the warm up.

• Injury Reduction – This goes hand in hand with preparation, warm ups can make a big difference when it comes to injury prevention. Get your class to perform warm ups that will increase mobility in the upper and lower body.

• Break the Ice – Joining a new boot camp can be a little scary for some people. Luckily, a good warm up can really help to integrate people into a group. Focussing on team building through fun warm ups can help improve the cohesion of your group.
  

How Long Should My Warm Up Last?

There are many factors that should influence exactly how long your warm up lasts, but the main one is time. How long is your boot camp session? If it is an hour, then you can dedicate ten minutes to the warm up and ten minutes to the cool down.

If your boot camp is only half an hour long, then a 5-7 minute warm up would be better. You could even incorporate your warm up into the boot camp itself.

So long as your warm up is getting progressively more intense as you go, it does not matter if the warm up is too long. Ideally, it will merge seamlessly into the session.

Common Warm Up Mistakes

How To Structure A Bootcamp Warm Up

What is a good pulse raiser warm up?

My best warm up for bootcamp usually starts with a progressive cardio drill like the one below. We are the warm up slowly then increase the intensity gradually. Give this a go.

• 20m Shuttle sprints at 20% effort for 1-minute
• 20m Shuttle sprints at 30% effort for 1-minute
• 20m Shuttle sprints at 40% effort for 1-minute
• 20m Shuttle sprints at 50% effort for 1-minute
• 20m Shuttle sprints at 75% effort for 2-minutes

A great way to continue the warm up is with a game of tag. Depending on the size of the boot camp you can either start with one or two taggers. When someone is tagged, they must perform five reps of an exercise (jumping jacks, squats, push ups etc) before they can become a tagger themselves.

You can swap exercises around to suit different abilities, or you can let the tagger decide what exercise to give.

Once the game has finished get everyone round in a circle, and you can get them to perform 2-3 mobility drills. At least one for the upper body and one for the lower body.

• Spiderman Lunge: Take a large lunge forward, place your hands on the ground as if you were about to perform a push up, then push your chest out and raise your head up. Hold the position and then return to the start, swap legs and repeat.

• Arm Swings: The simplest of mobility drills, stand upright with chest pushed out. Swing both arms up and above your head then rotate your shoulders and bring them back down to your sides so that you have performed a full rotation.

• Side to Side Squats: These are very similar to lateral lunges, but use the glutes more. Stand upright with feet together and hands held together. Take a large step to the right and then squat down, your left leg should straighten out as you do so. Return to the starting position and then repeat with your right leg.

Fun Bootcamp Workout Ideas

Once you're finished with your fun bootcamp warm up, you can move on to the main part of your session. Here's what I designed this week for my Workout Design Club members. Each week I design 12 fun group fitness ideas so you can show up to every session with a fun packed workout. 

1. Sick Sprints: Sick sprints is a 10-minute partner challenge that forces players to put in 100% effort. They have no other choice unless they want to see their partner suffer. It’s one of the best partner challenges (no touching) you’ll see this year.

2. Top Draw: Top draw is a fun 10-minute partner challenge (no touching) based around paper, rocks, scissors. Instead of winning, teams must draw their way to victory in a series of mini tasks. It’s wacky and it's fun at the same time. This can be a fun bootcamp warm up, or a cheeky finisher drill. 

3. Focus 3: Focus 3 is a very intense 35-minute full body challenge. With this one of a kind template, you can quickly design a wide variety of extremely effective workouts.

4. My Stupid Long Number: My stupid long number is a ridiculously creative running game filled with chaos and suspense. There can be only one winner, and anybody (despite their ability) can win.

5. Multi-Player: Multi-player is an inclusive 45-minute fitness challenge broken up by several different training methods. During the workout, the team as a whole choose how the challenge unfolds. It’s a really great way to get your clients involved in your session.

6. Superset Chipper: Superset chipper is a fun 30-minute team challenge that allows you to increase the intensity of your workout by overloading the muscles. You’ll love this one.

7. Full Body Hero: Full body hero is a tough 30-minute full-body workout that focuses on strength and cardio. It’s a fantastic template that lets you build full-body sessions easily.

8. Big Stack Accumulator: Big Stack Accumulator is a fun 30-minute fitness test that challenges players to build as high as they can. It’s a real test of determination.

9. Double Trouble: Double Trouble is a funky 45-minute challenge that gives partial control to each participant. The game can be played however you like, and it’s always interesting to see what players choose.

10. Shock Rounds: Shock rounds are the ultimate test of will power. Set at various tempos, the objective of this 3 phase fitness challenge is to simply survive.

11. My Crazy 147: My crazy 147 is a fun 15-minute challenge consisting of very small pockets of time. The objective is to fill each pocket and score a perfect 147. This just might be my best warm up for bootcamp. 

12. 2nd Round Acceleration: 2nd Round Acceleration is a fun 40-minute duel fitness test with a very sneaky twist. The question is. How will players respond when their most important commodity is taken away?

Best Warm Up For Bootcamp: Final Thoughts

The formula is fairly straight forward, find a fun cardio-based exercise/drill to start things off. Then go into a few mobility drills that echo what you will be doing in the regular session. Make sure that the game you are using is simple to do (no complex rules) and is not too difficult. 

If you can do that, then your sessions will improve dramatically. No injuries, well warmed-up and happy clients. Perfect! And like I said earlier, the best warm up for bootcamp are the ones packed with fun and variety. 

You can find my entire collect of group fitness ideas over in the Workout Design Club. The WDC is a group fitness search engine that lets you plan your sessions with ease.

Discover:The Group Fitness Search Engine?

I've got some exciting news. This week fitness expert Georgette Pann is celebrating 30 years in the fitness industry. What an incredible achievement.

Last month I was on a Zoom call with Georgette. I suggested putting together  bootcamp career bundle, so trainers like you can shortcut their own learning process by a few thousand hours.

This includes a ton of done for you marketing plans that will help your business recover from this pandemic. Here's the best part

To help Georgette (and the wider fitness community), I will be donating an extensive collection of my own unique training manual.

Georgettes Bootcamp Career Bundle is now live at an extremely low introductory price. So low it'll make your head spin. 

More Group Fitness Ideas And Marketing Resources Than You Can Shake A Stick At

Take A Sneak Peak - Hit Play

Georgette wanted to do something extra special to celebrate. So, she's throwing in free lifetime upgrades. Each time we add a new manual or resource, you'll see it appear in your download folder at no extra cost". 

Only trainers that purchase during this launch will get these extremely valuable upgrades. With what Georgette has planned, you'll be very happy that you purchased the Bootcamp Career Bundle as a founder member.

“Each moment you hesitate is another moment you’ll struggle with marketing your business and staying ahead of the curve with the latest workout ideas”. 

Here's what trainers are saying.

"I have run a women's outdoor and online fitness business since 2018. After 2 years in the industry, coming up with new workout ideas is a real struggle. Add 2 kids into the mix, and now am I not only hard-pressed for new ideas, but I am also short on time. Enter Georgettes Bootcamp Career Bundle!! Purchasing this bundle has been the best investment I have made in my business. I am able to sit down, late in the evening after a long day, and plan my workouts in a matter of minutes. I’m so grateful. If you’ve been on the fence about purchasing this bundle, then think no more. It’s worth its weight in gold. Thank you Leon & Georgette.

Sarah Correia – Sarahs Fitness - Perth, Western Australia

"This is just a god send. I feel like I spend my life searching the internet for fun things to do with my group. This is going to save me a tremendous amount of time. I love that you have included your marketing plans too. This is really going to help my business recover.

Paul Davis – Military Bootcamp – Sheffield UK

"I've literally purchased just about every bootcamp program out there and while they all add something of value yours is definitely the most complete in terms of how to put a camp together, exercise selection, how to market your camp, forms to use etc. Really good stuff from top to bottom.

John Gonzalez T.F. Bootcamps – US

Over the last 30 years, Georgette has invested well over $50.000 in her development as a trainer and successful business owner. Today she passes that knowledge and experience to you, for a fraction of that. 

An unbelievable offer to miss.

​

It doesn't seem that long ago (about 15 years) that I used to hit the local blockbuster on a Saturday afternoon every week with my stepson.

We would rent out movies, computer games, buy ice-cream, snacks and have a brilliant Saturday while his mum was at work.

My youngest is ten, and all the games are all online. He can stream directly from sky, amazon prime, Netflix, and I know I'm going to cave into Disney sooner or later. Only because of my guilty pleasure for superhero movies and star wars.

Blockbuster went the way of the dinosaurs, not because of a change in technology, but because they forgot what business they were in.

You see, they weren't in the business of renting out dvd's and games, or even selling horrifically priced sweets and snacks. They were in the business of entertainment.

Imagine if instead of trying to compete with online streaming services that would always undercut them, they had changed their business model.

Imagine if they had set up micro cinemas in their stores, places you could go and watch a movie with your mates, and enjoy a private cinema experience, or a venue to go to game with others.

In essence, they continued to be in the entertainment business, but changed how they delivered it. In the fitness industry over the last couple of weeks, we have seen a massive shift.

Many of us have been forced to take our 

businesses online in a heartbeat

with no time to make sure that our clients could grasp the technology or even if they wanted to work with us online.

Throw in the fact that many of our clients are also in a financial and emotional turmoil, and we have had probably one of the most stressful times I have ever witnessed.

Here's the thing, clients still want to lose weight. They still want to tone up. Some may want to build bigger muscles. Others to improve mobility or even cardiovascular fitness.

Guess what. You're still probably one of the best-placed people to help them with this. You just have to change how you deliver it. You may well have heard us talk about not selling Personal Training because people don't want that. 

They don't even want the results that Personal Training gives them. They want the feeling the results causes, the change to their identity, the way it impacts their life. We can still do this for our clients. We just can't do it face to face at the moment.

Here's What I Did For My Fitness Business