Bootcamp, Round 2


1210866283As you may recall, Bostonista suffered through Healthworks’ bootcamp a couple of months ago. It was great, but—alas—met only twice a week. Meanwhile, we hit the managing editor’s candy bowl approximately twice an hour.

With summer fast approaching, we decided to up the ante by enrolling in the four-day-a-week Ultimate Bootcamp. The program is nothing new—if you walk to work through the Common, you’ve no doubt been regularly annoyed by big groups of bootcampers doing suicides and high-knee kicks in the middle of the sidewalk—and, in fact, we’re not the first Bostonista to try it out. But, we were curious to see how it compared to our all-girl gym class.

The verdict? Healthworks is definitely harder…but Ultimate Bootcamp is way more fun.

The difference, we admit, is mostly due to the indoor/outdoor factor. The Healthworks class was inside and consisted of only 12 people—which made it far easier for the trainer to correct our form or hand us heavier free weights if we didn’t seem sufficiently close to passing out. And everyone was working too hard to get to know one another.

Ultimate, meanwhile, is pretty much gym class: There’s 30 people, and we run around the Common (while chatting). We actually did the crab walk once.

The key, though, is that while Ultimate may not leave us begging for mercy each day, it does make us want to come back for more. We’re outside; we’re making new friends; we’re only in marginal amounts of pain…what more can we ask for?

Ultimate also gets extra points because of its cofounder, Peter. A red-haired Irishman with a lilting brogue, he’ll instruct us to stretch to the left…then burst into Beyonce-esque song.

We’ve decided that we’ll play outside with Ultimate this summer before dutifully dragging ourselves back to Healthworks for wintertime training. (Note to Healthworks’ staff: We’d appreciate it if you could brush up on Top 40 hits before October.)

Ultimate Bootcamp, $269 per session; less for returning campers. Weekend and single-day classes also available. Locations in Boston, JP, Southie, Charlestown, Quincy, and Watertown; 617-787-1224.