PEOPLE looking to lose weight and improve their fitness can join in a friendly ‘boot camp’ in Corbally for the next three weeks, thanks to the generosity of a local trainer.
Andrew Beatty is running the free of charge programme at St Munchin’s school, which gets under way on this Saturday September 27 at 10am and will run for three Saturday mornings.
Andrew dedicates his time to working with people who need regular exercise rather than those who play sport competitively and he is passionate about helping people to improve their health and fitness.
“The goal is to get as many people exercising as possible because some people are overweight and afraid to exercise. Everyone can do it; you’ve just got to start somewhere. We combine resistance training with cardio and nutrition. If you do something short like we do, such as high intensity cardio, it might take 10-15 minutes and you might burn 200 calories.
“The beauty of it is that because you have spiked your metabolism so much, you will continue to burn calories for 36 to 48 hours. That means you could sit down and watch TV that night and you’re burning calories.”
Andrew observed that many overweight people are “afraid” to exercise because of personal inhibitions and he maintained that overcoming a fear factor is the first significant obstacle to improving your fitness.
“People are scared of the unknown. Many people have never exercised, or haven’t done so in a long time, and they’re quite overweight so they’re afraid that they’ll come into me and there will be loads of skinny, super fit people there looking at them.
“That’s the perception, but when you actually get in the door, you realise that they’re there for themselves and doing what they can do. They won’t even notice you.”
Andrew also stressed that he is not a “drill sergeant” and he is committed to encouraging his clients, quite a few of whom form friendships under his watch.
“The term ‘boot camp’ has that drill sergeant stigma, but more often than not you find that it isn’t like that. People say to me ‘oh, you shout at people’ but I never do. The drill sergeant approach is a poor approach in my opinion,” he said.
