Our 5 favourite boot camp drills

19 January 2017

Here at Prestige Boot Camp, we know how vital it is that, before you undertake a workout at any of our fitness boot camps, you have a warm up.

However, sometimes, a warm up can be dull; after all, warming up by having a quick run around the area can feel repetitive pretty quickly, especially if you are taking on many workouts in fairly quick succession at a boot camp. Below are some of our favourite drills for preventing warm ups from getting stale.

Left, Right, Up, Down, Back, Forward

That's the name that Bootcamp Ideas has given this drill. It's certainly a to-the-point name, though this drill requires a lot of space for the participants. First, the trainer organises their clients into several, such as 4 or 5, ranks. Then, facing the clients, the trainer calls out Left, Right, Up, Down, Back or Forward. These orders instruct the clients in which directions to run, while Up refers to a tuck jump and Down orders the clients to do a push up.

4 Cone Drill with Direction Changes

For this drill, four cones are placed in a square, with about 10 metres left in-between each. The trainer then leads their clients, who are in single file, around the square's outside. Once the group has finished a few laps, some direction changes are introduced. This is where, when the trainer calls out "direction change", the clients take the opposite direction in moving around the circle. Other commands like "squat change" can see clients squatting before changing direction.

Huddle Shuffle

Here, the clients gather around the trainer in a huddle before jogging on the spot. The trainer then asks the huddle to shift side-to-side or back-and-forwards, or get down low - and the clients must do all of this while continuing their on-the-spot jogging. You can probably already imagine how much fun this drill would be to participate in at one of our weight loss retreats. If you have never joined one of these camps, you could try one of our one-day camps in London.

Mobilizing Warm Up

Mobility is vital to fitness, and this drill enables trainers to help their clients get to grips with it. The drill sees clients spending 30-60 seconds on each of several exercises, all of which are explained on the Bootcamp Ideas website. These exercises include what are referred to as curtsey squat; robots (windmill); downwards dog calf rocks; 1-leg walkout to push up; squat with toe touch to stand with hands in the air; T-Push ups without the push up; frog squats; and side-side squats.

Collect The Cones

For this drill, 50-100 cones are distributed around a large area. Those cones are placed to form an oval shape, before the clients, each working alone, run out and collect and return each cone one at a time. This drill stops once all of the cones have been collected. Each client is aiming to gather the most cones, and this gives the drill a pleasing element of competition.