Preface: What is Burn Boot Camp? I had a negative perception of it when I first learned of it. I thought that all workout places that are not a traditional gym are a cult and a scam. Burn is more than a workout. It’s a lifestyle. But for real, it is a workout class; 45 minutes long, circuit training, with weightlifting, body weight training, and speed and agility exercises.
My friend Kristen had convinced me and Louise (you guys know Louise from volleyball) to join her, and together (at 4:30 in the morning) for the next month we tried out Burn Boot Camp. We knew the experience would suck, but at least it wouldn’t suck alone, and then we could complain in our group chat (The Burn Babez) afterwards.
Day 1- After I gathered the strength and courage to work out, and after the five minute warm up, I was ready to quit, so I had to pump myself up. “Eric, you are very fat and in terrible shape, but you can’t quit after the warm up. You were an (academic) all-state football player. You are better than that!” I kept fighting for another 20 minutes, but it wasn’t pretty. After 25 minutes I was no longer fighting to stay in shape, the new goal was fighting to not puke. After a successful (in the fact that I had survived) workout, I’m packing up to leave with a defeated look on my face when the trainer comments, “Eric you don’t look too happy.”
“Yeah, no shit, Lizzie. Did you not see me dying out there?”
Day 2- Already seeing improvements, I made it 35 minutes before the goal had switched from getting into shape to “don’t puke!” A ten minute improvement. This working out thing is easy.
Day 3-It’s a good thing that I am such a feminist because most, if not all, of these women are way stronger than me and could probably beat the crap out of me. (I forgot to mention, the 4:30 am class is almost all women, and occasionally Eric, and even more occasionally another man.)
Day 4- Since I’m wearing my basketball shoes every day, do you think that the world will restore its natural order?
Day 5- It was on the fifth day that I had my terrible realization. This is just a different branded CrossFit! I’m just out here doing goofy exercises and basically in a cult. Now if you know me, you know I hate 2 things: Things that are cults but are designed to not look like cults (MLMs, Taylor Swift Fandom, essential oils, crypto bros, NDSU Bison fans, Tesla owners, and crossfitters to name a few), and hypocrites. This is a cult. I might as well start selling Plexus. I’m such a hypocritical sellout.
Day 7- Went and did my workout. Thought everything was going well. I get home, cool down, and go to take a lil nap in the chair before work. I’m sitting there for 90 seconds when my tumtum says “Hey buddy, I know I’ve been teasing you for a couple days, but it’s time.” I rushed to the bathroom and puked like I was in college, home for the weekend and had just drank a single Bud Light. (Violently, is what this useless 13 word metaphor is trying to say. Like most of my writing, it is a joke for one person.)
Day 20ish- You guys aren’t going to believe this, but after working out 5 times a week for a month, it makes you feel great. Not only physically, but mentally too. I was as strong as I’d been since the Obama administration and was starting to get this weird feeling where I was enjoying life. I haven’t been this happy since I quit my last job!
I was now at a crossroads. My one month trial has come to an end. I have a choice to make. Do I sign up full time or go back to being a fat piece of shit who also isn’t happy. I chose the former.
Day 60ish- We were having our friend group Christmas party. The topic of Burn came up, and there was some trash talking that followed. I got offended. I started defending Burn Boot Camp like it was a loved one who committed a crime but was justified for their actions. After defeating my opponent in a verbal argument, I went to take a victory sip from my beer…To my shock, I had been drinking Kool-aid the whole time (great joke Eric!)
Day 90ish: I got kicked off the best residential crew at American Electric. My new crew (the bteam, if you will) starts at 6:00 am. So I’m not trying to workout at 4:30, get done and go back home at 5:30, only to turn around and get right back in the Subaru and head to work. So I’m going to have to leave the Burn Babez and start working out by myself in the evening. I started going at 5:30 pm. This is the last class of the day, and when the class is finished we can leave, but they always ask to clean up for today and get the gym ready for tomorrow. We have no incentive to stay, we aren’t getting paid, and yet everyone usually helps so our instructor doesn’t have to do it all by themself. Now you can call it a cult, I call it dedicated people working together.
Rapid Fire
Some reasons why it’s not a cult:
– None of the instructors have tried to take advantage of me sexually.
– Just a group of like minded individuals working towards a common goal.
Some reasons why it is a cult:
– The gift after completing my trial period was a coupon for someone else to join.
– High fives. They make us high five all the time. After everything. I understand it’s to build positivity and community, but have they ever considered I don’t like either of those things.
– I can’t understand my leaders really at all and blindly follow the instructor. While we are warming up, my leaders go through all the exercises that we do in the workout. I don’t know if this is a ‘me’ problem or what, but I can’t understand a thing they say during this time. It’s just mangled gibberish followed by “Make sense? Say yes.” and a uniform “Yes.” from the campers that would make Stalin proud.
– It’s expensive as hell, and they want to take all my money and control my life (probably).
Last tangent I do have to justify that this isn’t cross fit. (Not that there’s anything wrong with crossfit, well there is, and if you do crossfit, you should feel bad.) Burn is just circuit training. All out lifts are real lifts, not made up stuff that’s not designed to hurt you. And most importantly, all our pull ups are actual pull ups, not just throwing your bodyweight around a bar.
In conclusion: I think there are three main reasons I enjoy Burn Boot Camp. First, as someone who enjoys working out but does not enjoy planning anything, especially not a workout, it’s good to just be told what to do, do it and go home. Second, the community aspect is very nice. It’s good to know there are twenty other people hating the same workout that you are hating, wondering why it feels like you are doing a middle school basketball warmup. Lastly, it’s good to have a group chat dedicated to working out. Working out itself is fine, but it doesn’t feel near as good as telling someone you just worked out.
Give me two claps, on two.
One
Two
(Clap, clap)
bteamballer 