Fitness Marketing Guest Post by Craig Ballantyne

Craig is the creator of the Turbulence Training Boot Camp Workouts … I’ll let Craig take it from here…

Hey bootcamp experts, Craig Ballantyne here with another guest post. This time I want to talk about something that I believe can be another secret weapon and set your bootcamp apart from all the others in your town.

As you know, the #1 secret to a successful bootcamp session is the energy. Bringing high-energy and excitement to a class can make even the worst trainer in the world look good (not that I’m saying you’re a bad trainer…it goes without saying that if you’re reading Kickback Life then you’re several levels above even a good bootcamp trainer).

But did you know there is something you can do in your workouts that will take your bootcamp up another level to help you completely crush the competition?

There is. It’s called “The Challenge Workout”.

I first discovered the popularity power of the Challenge Workout back in University when I read about a workout called the STREND Fitness Challenge in an old NSCA Journal. I thought it was pretty cool and decided to run one in our school gym.

The STREND test requires participants to do bench press, pullups, and dips, and then finish with a 3-mile run. Your score is calculated based on the number of reps you do and your time to complete the run.

It was really cool, attracted a lot of entrants, and got people really excited to do it again the following year.

Unfortunately, I totally neglected incorporating any challenge workouts in my program again until late 2005 when I created a bodyweight Turbulence Training program. But it wasn’t until reading about the 300 workout and
watching it become a worldwide phenomenon that I realized this could be a powerful tool in personal training and bootcamp classes.

There are a number of benefits your clients will get from Challenge Workouts that go above and beyond what your competitor can offer in their generic bootcamp sessions.

First, Challenge Workouts can motivate some of your clients even more than simply training in a group environment. Second, it makes your clients work even harder and get more results. And third, it becomes another source of
natural referral marketing because your clients “just won’t stop talking about their scores and improvements”.

I call Challenge Workouts the equivalent of “Workout Golf”. I also call the challenges, “Workout Crack”. Basically, setting up a fun challenge workout will get your clients “hooked” and completely obsessed with lowering their
score from week to week (just like a golfer gets obsessed with lowering their handicap).

I first realized this addictiveness when I started receiving dozens of emails from guys asking me how many times they could do the 300 workout each week and what a good completion time for the workout would be.

(NOTE: I didn’t create the 300 workout – and never claimed to – but Men’s Health magazine asked me to film a video of the exercises from the program because they neglected to put photos of the exercises in their article aboutthe program. I ended up putting that video on Youtube as well As a result, the video has been watched over 1.1 million times and thousands of people – including Jillian Michaels from the The Biggest Loser – have attributed the workout to me – but I just want to clarify I had nothing to do with designing the workout…I just filmed the exercises.)

Anyway, as a result of that video, I ended up getting email after email from obsessed 300 workout fans…and as dumb as I am, even I couldn’t ignore the addictiveness of the Challenge Workout, so I got to work on creating my own.

That led me to my Bodyweight 500 and Bodyweight 1000 programs, and these can be altered to include in your bootcamp workouts.

Here’s how a no-equipment Challenge Workout would look for intermediate fitness clients. Insert this challenge near the middle or end of your bootcamp. All exercises are done in as few sets as possible and clients go
as fast as possible through this circuit.

(I.e. For the pushups, if a client can only do 10 in a row, they would do 10 reps, rest for 10-15 seconds, then do 5, then 3, then 2, and then move on to the next exercise.)

The TT Kickback Challenge Workout

1) Close-grip Pushups – 20 reps
2) Repeated Vertical Jumps – 10 reps
3) Mountain Climbers – 10 reps per side
4) Walking Lunges – 15 reps per side
5) Plank – 60 seconds
6) 40-yard sprint

Set this up so half of your clients go while the other half keeps time and encourages the working group (assign clients into pairs). Do this challenge for 2-4 weeks straight (once per week) and motivate everyone to do better
each time.

NOTE: If your campers are advanced, have them complete the circuit twice in a row – without rest – before switching roles.

That’s just one of an infinite number of challenges you can create, especially if you have access to bands, pull-up bars, kettlebells, etc.

However, I like to show no-equipment workouts whenever possible so that you can follow this example. Plus, I’ve put several other no-equipment Bodyweight Challenge Workouts in the Done-For-You TT Bootcamps Workout
Manual that show you amazing workouts that can be done without investing a penny in exercise equipment.

To your success,

Craig Ballantyne, CSCS, MS
Author, TTBootcamps

I highly recommend you check out Craig’s Turbulence Training Boot Camp Workouts…

Click Here To Check Out Craigs TT Boot Camp Workouts