If I tell you that there is a world of difference between what are the most effective training methodologies for getting you in the best possible shape, and those methodologies that make the most commercial sense for fitness business owners like myself, would you be in any way surprised?  I really hope not.

Do you know what the “big thing” in the world of hard headed, money making fitness is right now?  I’ll give you a hint, it isn’t one-to-one personal training of the kind that we do at UP. Nor is it Pilates / Yoga or anything quite so tranquil.   And my suspicion is that Bums N Tums aerobics classes have had their day.  The single best way currently to make money from fitness is Group Training and Fat Loss Boot Camps.

Get your marketing right and the commercial arguments in favour of the ever popular Fat Loss Boot Camps are pretty compelling.  The set up costs for most Fat Loss Boot Camps run into whatever a few exercise mats and tiny hand weights run to these days (peanuts), and the overheads are negligible compared to running a gym / renting space.  Fat Loss Boot Camps in the big London parks do have to pay a licence fee based on participants, but the sums involved are not onerous.  They are nice businesses, and significantly easier to profit from as a business owner than is something like my own London personal training gym.  For an exercise in commercial reality, have a guess at what the rent, rates, and service charge total will be for our new 5,000sq foot Mayfair personal training gym! (Answers in comments below if you dare!)  In fact, if you think about why there really is nothing like UP in London you may start to appreciate how difficult it is to make a commercial success of personal training.  If I am allowed to moan for a second, one of the biggest issues with running a bone fide venture like UP is VAT – you’d think the government would encourage a business owner to employ people and create stability and wealth, but oh no, every penny we make is subject to 20% VAT, whereas London is rife with freelance personal trainers who don’t “need” to pay this and can always undercut, and dare I say take cash that no one sees.   Which if I am honest is, in a way, positive, because it means we have to be THAT much better than everyone else.

I certainly didn’t go into personal training for the money, I’d have stayed in the City if that were the case.  I can truly say, for once in my life, “I did it for love!”  What I do everyday, what you read about in my rants and rambles here in this blog, is my life’s passion.  However, I also like a £ note just like the next man.  So we have been toying with the idea of a Boot Camp for a while because business is fun, and I want to lower the barriers to entry to work with UP as we are not budget trainers by any means.  My struggle has been that a Fat Loss Boot Camp concept needs to fit in with the UP ethos, in other words it really cannot be the same as what everyone else does.  It needs to be that little bit special.  You see, in comparison to the type of one-to-one personal training that we do at UP, traditional Fat Loss Boot Camps are extremely limited and lack:

1) True Effectiveness!

My biggest gripe with most military style Fat Loss Boot Camp classes is that whilst they can get you fit, they are certainly not the most effective way to get yourself in shape.  I’ve said this so many times, but you need to look at the hormonal response to exercise, not just the actual calories burned whilst doing it.  The best way by far to elevate your metabolism, and KEEP it elevated, is to use sufficient resistance for your muscles.  I picked up this analogy from the King of Analogies himself, Charles Poliquin: you can run around a room with a fly swatter trying to whack an imaginary fly until your arm burns like it’s on fire, but do you think you are burning a load of calories and creating profound changes in body composition?  Of course not.  But what if the fly swatter weighed 15lbs instead of half a lb?! Different story eh.  You’d burn a tonne of calories, develop some new muscles and coordination, and it would be exactly like using a sledgehammer…

Fat Loss Boot Camp Number 1 – A Sledgehammer is Not Quite The Same As Using a Body Blade…

So whereas jumping jacks, burpees, and prancing around in the park are all good for you and will certainly help you get fitter, it isn’t the correct exercise modality for those of you who want real results quickly.

2) “One Size Fits All” Means Too Many Are Left Meandering

Fat Loss Boot camp training is a lot cheaper than regular personal training because you don’t get the “personal” attention to the same level.  There is no way around this as it is a matter of simple economics.  This is where the traditional Fat Loss Boot Camp really falls down for me, as they just lump everybody into the same bracket and expect differing abilities, recovery levels, body types, and goals to all be matched by everyone doing the same thing at the same time!  This becomes an even more significant issue when one factors in what I call “real training”, ie lifting weights in some form, as what is challenging for a 250lb man will be radically different from what is appropriate loading for a 100lb woman!  And don’t try to tell me that two slightly different weighted kettlebells will cut it because laughing in your face is just rude, and my mother brought me up to be better than that!

The solution is simple and I think we have cracked it, but for traditional Fat Loss Boot Camps it is not always easy to do.  By the way, by “not easy to do” I mean “costs more money”, “takes much more planning”, and “significantly cuts profit margin”.

3) Results are Not Solely Training Related; Nutrition & Lifestyle Coaching is Vital

If only getting results, especially for fat loss, was so simple as dragging you into the gym three times a week, kicking your ass for an hour, and then leaving you to “eat sensibly”.  Every effective fat loss programme requires ongoing nutritional coaching, not just a generic leaflet handed out when you first start a class!  In fact it really needs to be even more tailored than that, by utilising a BioSignature Modulation assessment, but how many businesses can always provide experienced BioSignature coaches at each and every session…apart from UP of course seeing as how we now have 17 qualified BioSignature Modulation practitioners on our team if you include myself!

Charles Poliquin Personally Taking My BioSignature To Help Me Get Below 5% Body Fat!

As you have probably guessed by now I have laid out the pitfalls of the traditional London Fat Loss Boot Camp model because I’ve now figured out the right way to smash through them all, whilst still making the idea of providing them commercially viable.  It is really where economies of scale start to come into play as we are a big enough business to invest in the right manner, and to be happy making a relatively small profit off just one class because it is not just our single revenue stream, and I am confident that we can roll out this offering of our own Fat Loss Boot Camp to multiple locations very quickly.

So without further ado, let me introduce you to the first UP “class”.  You may call it a Boot Camp, to be more accurate to the training methodology you should actually call it “modified strongman / strong-girl training”, but we are going to (provisionally at least) call it “Viking Fat Loss Training” (for men, and the occasional very strong and athletic woman who likes to mix it up with the boys), and “Valkyrie Fat Loss Training” (for women, and men who like shopping, cry after sex, and who even consider for one second hyphenating with their wife’s surname after marriage).

If you have been around our London gym at all for the last few weeks you will know that Eddie Baruta and James Langley, ably assisted by Nick Daniel, Dave Lewis, and Pete Kotarski, have been working very hard on refining and developing the best group training / Fat Loss Boot Camp / modified strongman training session possible.  There has been much trial and error and experimentation, and lots of friends and UP clients have been playing their part during the tough but fun sessions in an outdoor car park just over the road from our Paul Street gym.  We have put together a high intensity workout that will incinerate fat and get you damn fit in record time by using the principles of modified strongman training and, if I put it as simply as possible, exercising via the true type of “functional training” – carrying, throwing, dragging, pulling, and hitting a variety of things such as sleds, sandbags, sledghammers, tractor tyres, ropes, half filled beer kegs, and of course the dreaded Super Yoke and the infamous Prowler!  I won’t bore you with the science of why this is so effective for fat loss (basically your body never has a chance to shift into a fuel efficient gear and just keeps burning calories for hours after each session) and coordination, suffice to say that it is a true “shredder”, and I’ll be writing articles on this in the near future and will keep you posted.

Eddie & James Showing How it is Done With the Super Yoke and Farmer’s Walk!!

Utilising modified strongman training principles takes care of one of my negatives about more traditional Fat Loss Boot Camp training, and another problem area of making sure that you get training based on your ability and strength levels has been neatly addressed by splitting things into separate groups based on strength levels with the aforementioned Viking and Valkyrie groups.  And yes, if you are not strong enough then I don’t care if you are as red-blooded a male as they come, you’re still going to have to train with the chicks until your game has been stepped up!  We are not here to massage your ego and make you feel better, we are here to get blinding results that makes everyone see how our clients are lean, mean fighting machines!  In fact what I’ll do, and I’m thinking off the top of my head as I write this (a really dangerous habit liable to get one in trouble by the way!), is give discounted / free sessions to those women who are strong and fit enough to train with the men, because that will be an achievement worth praising.  On the flip side, I am tempted to discriminate and say that the men who need to train with the girls should pay more as punishment (men after all do have numerous hormonal advantages when it comes to mindlessly lifting / carrying / dragging things), but I’m not so lacking in PC skills to really suggest that…

Strong Girl Training!

Addressing the issue of nutrition and individualising things sufficiently that we can advise on each person’s separate hormonal and metabolic needs is always going to be tricky in the context of Fat Loss Boot Camp / Group training sessions.  Most personal trainers are not even capable of individualising advice in a one-to-one format, let alone a 10 to 1.  But at UP we care far more about results than crowbarring a few extra clients into a class; to me short term business strategies are an anathema.  What I’ve come up with is a way to do a mini-BioSignature Modulation assessment in a 10 minute period before class officially starts.  We will have 2 fully qualified BioSignature practitioners on hand at all times, so together with their trusty laptops they can whip through a class in no time and give on the spot nutritional and supplementation advice.  Given the costs of the Fat Loss Boot Camp there will never be a more economical way to have ongoing BioSignature assessments!

In addition to the benefits that consistent monitoring and BioSignature assessments can have on your fat loss progress, I’ll also be getting personally involved, and every 6 weeks will be giving a free (for Vikings & Valykries!) Body Composition Seminar.  This will primarily look at nutrition, but I’ll be guided by what the audience wants so it can just as easily cover everything from supplementation to exercise protocols when not at the UP London Fat Loss Boot Camp.  Given what the normal price of hearing me talk costs this means the Fat Loss Boot Camps are a real bargain, as well as being a fantastic and fun way to get lean for the summer!

I’d better give a few details away now, as exactly of this time of writing we don’t have anything up on the website as a few structural changes are being made so nothing new can go live for another week or so.  We are going to start off with Saturday sessions (kicking off at 10am and possibly 10.55am) only, and if this takes off in the way that I think it should we will extend that to Sundays and then lunchtimes on weekdays.

Each session will be 45 minutes of HARD, INTENSE, and FUN exercise.  You will get very sweaty, out of breath, and as the screenshot below shows so superbly, your heart rate is going to SOAR to the clouds!  Whilst the lovely weather is here the Saturday Fat Loss Boot Camp sessions will take place literally over the road from our gym at Paul Street (44-48 Paul Street, London EC2A 4LB) in an empty car park.

This shot is what an ordinary woman who would not classify herself as being “sporty” can achieve with the right type of fat loss / modified strongman training!

The costs…in my excitement I almost forgot that we have to charge something for this!

Saturday Strongman Training:

4 week first timers package plus ongoing BioSignature Modulation: £99

4 week follow on package plus ongoing BioSignature Modulation: £75

4 week package for existing UP clients: £60

Drop In Session (subject to availability and no access to a BioSignature Assessment): £25

(Please email VikingFatLoss@UPFitness.co.uk to register, and please do let us know if you have posted on Facebook and if bringing a friend so we can give you your free sessions!  See below for details)

Because this is something we are launching now and I want it to go with a bang I am going to try incentivise you as much as possible to join and give it a try, as well as share it on Facebook, and press the like and share buttons on the left of this text.  The bottom line is that the more people who come along, the easier it will be to offer a bunch of unique services and keep costs right down.

So here goes with my ways to give you that extra push to come along and burn a bunch of body fat off in a fun, team oriented environment, in (touch wood!) the sunshine:

1) Your first session is free (just email VikingFatLoss@UPFitness.co.uk to register, saying you are from the blog)

2) You can bring a friend with you for free

3) If you bring along a friend, I will give you a second session for free!

4) If you go to the new facebook page (London Fat Loss Boot Camp: Vikings & Valkyries) and make a comment then I’ll give you an additional free session on top of any others, plus you will be enrolled in a competition to win a full month (4 weeks) of free training sessions!

All in all this is a possible total of 7 free Fat Loss Boot Camp and BioSignature sessions for you, and getting just 2 free sessions is as simple and quick as registering your interest and then popping across to Facebook!

I’ve rambled on a bit today, but there is a lot to cover and to be truthful this is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to our Viking & Valkyrie Fat Loss Boot Camps.  You will be reading a lot more in the coming months.  As ever, I welcome your comments, perhaps more so as this is a new venture, so I’d be really grateful for any ideas or feedback you give in the comments section below as well as sharing on Facebook with the buttons to the left!  Your support and input as ever is massively appreciated and will help me steer this in the right direction.