Early Bird Workout: Bootcamp with Erin Kreitz Shirey

FitBloggin hosted a Bootcamp session on Friday, September 22nd, at 6:00 am. The class instructor, Erin Kreitz Shirey, is owner of Power Fitness PDX in Alameda, California. Erin is a trainer and has been in the fitness industry for 15 years. Her degree is in kinesiology. She has a passion for fitness because she feels that you can get through life’s problems with sports. Shirey says she loves her job because she is able to give her clients the tools and modifications to do what they need to do on their own. With regard to the Bootcamp class, she says, “If you can take one or two nuggets and do what you learn today at home, then I’ve done my job.” Shirey blogs over at Embrace Life’s Challenges, as well as at Dig Deep Play Hard.

The class began with a warm-up and introductions.

The warm-up included some of the following exercises:

• Jumping Jacks
• Squats
• Pulsing Squats
• Low Jacks (Jumping Jacks while squatting)
• Hold Squats
• Standing Mountain-Climbers
• Alternating high knees and sprinting in place
• Alternate forward arm circles and backwards arm circles, then doing upward arm presses
• Hold arms out to the sides and hold it for 20 seconds
• Arms in and out like a “W” for 20 seconds
• Roll shoulders back

After the warm-up, the workout began. Shirey wanted participants to focus on their posture throughout the class. The workout started with eight sets of the following:

• Eight Jumping Jack Squats (these were Jumping Jacks followed by a squat down, then touching the floor in front of you)
• Eight Mountain Climbers

The workout began inside and included the following:

• Plié squat (shoulders rolled back hands together), rotate to the left, lunge, plié squat, rotate to the right, lunge, together, take a step forward

• Squat in place then punch the air: center for ten seconds, to the left for ten seconds, and to the right for ten seconds
• Hands out, pulsing squats
• Run to the hotel stairs and run up and down the stairs three times

• Return to the room and do jumping jacks
• Pulsing lunges; then lunge and tap the front toe for ten seconds, then tap the back foot for ten seconds
• Ski jumps for two minutes (shuffling side-to-side)

The workout then moved outside. Participants jogged to the pier and worked with a partner. One partner did ten frog hops, then jogged to the edge of the pier and back. Concurrently, the other partner was doing burpees. Then partners switched roles a couple of times.

Participants then did triceps dips on a bench along the pier. They high-fived the person next to them on each lift (first to the left, then to the right).

Participants also did slanted planks along the pier bench, adding in leg lifts while planking.

After this, the whole group did caterpillar walks, followed by a cool-down and closings. Participants talked about new health- and fitness-related things that they have tried this week.

This article was authored by Debra, a runner and health and fitness blogger. She can be found at Miles to Run.