I was driving along the San Francisco waterfront one morning when a sign on a white tent in the Marina Green parking lot caught my eye. It said Reactt: The Only Real Boot Camp in San Francisco. I was curious, so I googled it when I got home.
Originally, the term “boot camp” referred to the training program military recruits go through before they’re deployed. In the mid-2000s, boot camps for rehabilitating juveniles caused a media frenzy when a boy’s tragic death was caught on camera.
These days, it has become a popular title for extreme fitness programs that start really early in the morning and command lots of repetitive hard core exercise under the watch of really buff instructors. Reactt is one of them, and since I’ve always wondered what being at boot camp might be like, I decided to try it out. My instructors were two really buff guys with shaved heads and heavy boots. Sergio has an impressive personal trainer pedigree and Justin served in Iraq with the Marine Corps. Shortly after sunrise on a beautifully brisk Saturday morning, I arrived at their camp, where rows of equipment were neatly laid out on a patch of grass overlooking Alcatraz.
The concept of fitness boot camps is relatively new, but the tools we used here have been around for hundreds, even thousands of years. Here’s a quick overview of the tools we used that day:
The kettlebell: A cast iron weight reminiscent of a bomb or a cannonball that originated in Russia centuries ago. It was brought to the US by a Russian special forces trainer named Pavel Tsatsouline, and is now a popular strength-training tool among martial artists. We did squats while pumping the kettlebells high above our heads.
Battling ropes: Braided manila ropes adapted for strength training by John Brookfield, a Guinness Record-holding fitness guru who once pulled a 24,000-pound truck over a mile. We made giant snake-like waves with the ropes, which become heavier as your arms get more tired.
Medicine ball: A weighted ballcommonly found in gyms and rehab centers that was once used by Persian and Greek wrestlers thousands of years ago, when they were just sewn animal skins filled with sand. We partnered up and threw one back and forth. By the way, if you want to make your own medicine ball, this web site has instructions on how to make one at home using a cheap plastic basketball.
For an hour, we did paced repetitions of these exercises, gradually upping the ante and trying really hard not to give up. Not using ultra-fancy gym equipment felt refreshing and authentic — even if it was nothing close to a real army boot camp. (I drove home and showered after the session, and I even got a friendly text message from Sergio the instructor thanking me for taking the class.) Also, it was fun! (Is boot camp supposed to be fun?) It was nice to exercise outside, I got a great workout, and I pushed myself way harder than I would have had I been on my own at a gym. I definitely felt the pain for a few days afterwards, though.