By Taylor Reid
You want a tight butt? Yeah, we all do. Lucky for us, we live in the land of hills, bike routes, and beaches to run on, the right place for rock hard glutes. But how many of us really take advantage of what our environment offers to get the body we daydream about having (you know, the one Ciara has in her “Ride” video)? If you’re ready and willing, San Francisco’s Basic Training bootcamps will whip you into shape, and all using the urban landscape of our city.
Recently, we at The Bold Italic got a taste of what Basic Training has to offer at their bi-weekly Hayes Valley class. I would have imagined that getting half of my co-workers to lace up their sneakers, put on spandex, and go outside on their lunch break to work out would be fairly challenging. Turns out, it’s not that hard when it means a free pass away from your keyboard for an hour. It also helps that the workout meets just three blocks away, in the Proxy Project space at Hayes and Octavia.
Basic Training is a different sort of workout experience. People of various fitness and skill levels exercise together in a group. The trainers make sure everyone gets their best workout, whatever level you’re at. Although we meet at the Proxy Project it’s not unusual to sprint up and down sidewalks, do drills at the basketball courts at the Hayes Valley Playground, or run up to Alamo Square for a variety of fitness challenges. Workouts often involve pairing up with another person, which is great because it makes you more accountable and encouraged to actually complete your full two minutes of ab-burning sit ups or plank shoulder touches. It’s peer pressure at its best.
What I also love about Basic Training is that you get to run around like a kid at recess, all the while getting stronger and more fit without having to join a gym (you know, that membership you pay for and don’t use enough to make it worth it). Bonus: you have a professional trainer there to make sure you don’t hurt yourself.
The benefits of working with Basic Training go beyond a tighter booty. As a group we all felt a sense of shared pride for doing something good for our bodies, we got to know each other better (and I’m not talking about the spandex), and we came back to work an hour later feeling less stressed and more focused. Triple win.
Intrigued? Good. Because Basic Training is looking to the community to take its next step as a business. It launched an Indiegogo campaign geared towards helping the community have access to awesome (and not too complicated) workout equipment right in the Hayes Valley Proxy Project. In working with the people behind Proxy, they’re converting an entire parking lot into a workout space with an urban mat area, monkey bars, step up boxes, a free pure water dispenser, and even an outdoor movie screen!
Check out Basic Training’s campaign right here and get yourself a reward by backing the project.
