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A funny fitness story emerged during the usual volleyball game – Michael’s pre-session warm-up at Moonee Ponds Bootcamp.

“Before each session, we play volleyball until everyone arrives,” Michael explains.

“Last night we were mucking around and a Fitmate, Paul Hammond, arrived, dropped his keys off as per usual and got ready to join in. As soon as he moved into the field of play, a volleyball accidentally deflected and hit him in on the side of the head. It swiftly rebounded to Fitmate Belinda who managed to keep the ball in play. We ended up getting the highest score for the night!”

Even a ball to the head couldn’t stop these Fitmates from achieving a win during a Fitstyler workout!

There have been some very funny incidents recorded about unusual things happening. One of my favourites was during an amateur 400m sprint.  As a school kid was running, the cap he wore  blew off, performed 2 somersaults and landed on the head of the guy behind. No body missed a beat and the kid went on to win the race.

Written by Andrew Talati

With a cold 3.5 degrees at boot camp this morning, I always say that the hardest part of getting yourself to an exercise class is putting your feet on ground from your bed.

The distance may only be 3 to 4 feet however this can present many challenges at 5.30am in the morning when hitting that snooze button for an additional 10 minutes sleep is very hard to resist.

Yet once you are all the rest is easy as at some point need to venture out into the cooler weather to either go to work or to a gym, fitness studio or outdoors if you’re doing a boot camp. The funny thing is that once your warm find that very quickly you’ll be down to a T-shirt entering a smart and it’s when you’re grabbing a drink you will find steam rising from your body.

One thing that you’ll experience is absolutely amazing sunrises and iridescent blue skies following the previous clear nights skies and cool mornings. Whilst most people are snoozing and oblivious to the most absolutely magnificent sunrises.

We’re very fortunate in Australia went by our morning temperatures rarely get below 4° unlike other countries around the world. For instance in Scandinavia if you go training outdoors you need to keep moving as your perspiration quickly freezes if you stay stationary for any given time.

While there were predictions of above average rainfall for this winter, this has been revised to average rainfall. Luckily this week has been rain free for our boot camp training so we have enjoyed being outdoors.

Also remember to stay hydrated as you are still perspiring and will need to replenish the lost fluid.

We had a funny fitness story at Boot Camp when one of our Fitmates, Paul C brought his dog along to the morning session.

As dogs can get very excited doing dog stuff,. Tim (Paul’s dog) got confused and ran to the other boot camp that was running in the park trying to find his owner. This went on for some time before Paul realised that his dog was missing and getting involved with another group.

We encourage our clients to bring along the dogs to our boot camp sessions provided that they are restrained and do not present a risk to other participants. Tim is often joined by Maggie, another dog and together they follow their owners around our exercise course and stay by the by the side during exercise.

I often say why leave your four legged friend at home, all alone and bored when you can bring them along to exercise class and everybody is kept happy.

A very funny fit the story about how a Fitmate placed the bottle of wine into the fridge before boot camp.

While this may appear to be hard-core, getting home after the boot camp session and having a couple glasses of wine, the weather was predicted at 32°, so she was looking forward to enjoying a nice glass of chilled white wine after work.

It’s great to indulge with the wine or beer however you just have to watch your level of consumption as nowadays a lot of people will have one to two glasses of alcohol, which can get a little bit worrying if you become dependent on this level of consumption on a daily basis.

The recommended drinking guidelines for what constitutes a standard drink is actually quite small relative to the glass size and the quantity being 100ml for a standard drink of wine based on an alcohol content of 13.5%.

Next time you’re looking at enjoying a lovely glass of red or white just remember to monitor your consumption, it’s great to enjoy a glass here and there but be careful it doesn’t turn into a situation of dependency.

With summer just around the corner, and Christmas parties only a few weeks away for some people it’s easy to get carried away and over indulge.

Often when we are exercising, fitness trainers use the perceived level of exertion scale to determine at what intensity a client is working at.

While not a scientific means of evaluating a person’s heart rate all VO2 max, a it allows the use of the meaningful scale to determine how hard person is working.

The scale is rated from 1 to 10, with one being minimal effort being exerted and 10 being maximal exertion, to the point of falling over and collapsing as there is nothing left in the tank.

The perceived level of exertion is based on the physical indicators of how hard you’re working such as your heart rate, level of breathing, muscle fatigue and increased sweating.

We have created our own perceived level of exertion which gives it we are at in terms of your exercise intensity.

1.The equivalent of the energy required to lay on the couch and eating a block of chocolate
2.The amount of discomfort I feel to get up and change the TV channel without a remote
3.Feeling great but notice a difference in my breathing
4.Starting to sweat but I can still chat non stop
5.Getting out of my comfort zone, more sweat starting to appear
6.I can still talk but it’s a bit more effort
7. Body starting to feel heavier, totally focused on the exercise, rapid breathing
8.Talking isn’t an option, I’m sweating like a pig
9.I cannot think of anything else but when will this end
10.It’s all over, I cannot think clearly, total exhaustion, I need to collapse in a heap and have a sleep

Ideally when performing any exercise for weight loss or improving our fitness level, we should be aiming to be between level 6 & 8, where is your comfort zone?