💪🏾 Zero Tolerance Camp 💪🏾

Location: Colombo Sports Centre, 34-68 Colombo Street, Southwark, SE1 8DP
Date & Time: 8 week sessions started Saturday 1st April 2017 (weekly) at 9.30am
Cost: £7 each (eventbrite booking)
Session: 60 mins (then 20/30min warm down)
Closest station: Southwark
Made of Muscle UK

Inspiration:

We are very passionate about having balanced and healthy lifestyles, therefore fitness is a MUST. Don’t get it twisted, we aren’t fanatics ….yet. But we do want to grow and become the best possible versions of ourselves in all areas. We therefore chose to dedicate the month of April to fitness through dance or exercise classes. We researched and discovered Made of Muscle UK and decided to embark on their eight week training course and try and be consistent.

Made of Muscle Boot camp

Aim: A platform for females to challenge themselves and take themselves beyond their comfort zone. It is a mix between weight training, body conditioning and sports specific training that will break barriers physically and mentally.

Target audience: Females (for this particular programme)

Event schedule: Warmup – 45 minute exercise (broken into 90 second sets) – cool down

Types of exercise: Body-weight, strength and weight training, cardio, resistance bands.

Venue: Generally indoors and only outdoor when the weather permits, which in UK is rarely ever.

Levels: All fitness levels welcome – exercises are adjusted to suit your needs.

Attitude: Go hard or go home! Well not really go home, but try and push yourself. You paid and took time to wake up early for this, might as well do your best!

Music: Variety of Afrobeats, Bashment, Grime, Funky House and R’n’B.

Our Thoughts

Week 1: Oooooo…Our muscles are sore, wow this is really challenging. Are we really going to do this for 8 weeks?!

Firstly we can say that between the two of us, out of 16 sessions, we attended 15. Hooray!!! 👏🏾 👏🏾 👌🏾 Pats on the back for remaining consistent throughout the 8 weeks. Now to the nitty gritty! The truth is………………. IT WAS HARD! All of it, neither of us can pinpoint a time when we didn’t stop or internally complain or even just want to lie on the floor and take a nap. It was hard because for approximately 8 weeks we could no longer enjoy a Saturday lie-in. We had to wake up early to make sure we arrived on time to warm up and if possible choose the exercise we wanted to start with…. that was only the beginning of the challenge. The actual exercises were intense (the programme name does not lie), it was a real push to keep going even though our legs, abs and arms (pretty much everywhere) were on fire – the urge to give up was so real! AND after all that we still had to climb up what seemed like Mount Everest (two flights of stairs) to the cool down room to stretch. By this point your body hates you, you’re hungry and questioning why you’re doing this to yourself. It is not by force!

Don’t get us wrong, we’re all about the challenge and therefore went back the following week, the week after that and the week after that. William and Eugene, the Zero Tolerance dream team, do a great job in motivating the class, which safely pushes you past your usual threshold and increases your ability in different ways. We can attest that by the third session after we finished our stretches we were often feeling pumped but also hungry, no longer hating the class or the trainers and also hoping this feeling would last till we arrived again the following week.

Week 2 & 3: For these two weeks we completed the classes outside as the weather permitted. We’re always down for some vitamin D, so fully embraced the change of scenery! To be honest, the heat made it slightly harder, as now we were sweating a lot more, but the fresh air was great. By week 3, our mantra was “mind over the matter” and are bodies were slowly adjusting to the challenges of these exercises. Don’t be mistaken, it was still difficult but we now knew what to expect and were prepared to do the work.

Week 4: HALF WAY there! We weren’t in the mood, but still tried to push through. It was an exhausting week so didn’t really achieve our best results but we kept at it.

Week 5: We could see improvements; we chose better positions to start the class (near the front) so we had enough stamina to keep up for the whole duration. We actually felt pumped after the session and were excited for the following week.

Week 6: We were offered the opportunity to order some branded t-shirts, all we had to do was provide the shirts. This was a lovely touch as it gave a nice sense of unity; we were part of the team! By this week we had definitely improved, our endurance had increased slightly which also motivated us to get back into our weekly routine of attending the gym.

Week 7 & 8: We have to commend the trainers, they remained consistent and continued to bring the same energy from week 1 all the way through to week 8! On the last week we were each blessed with a meal from Fuel Kitchen courtesy of the Made of Muscle team.

Brown rice, broccoli, baby corn and grilled chicken

We both thoroughly enjoyed the Zero Tolerance sessions! The trainers, William and Eugene did a fantastic job of consistently encouraging and motivating a room full of women week on week. Their personalities compliment each other and help to draw the best out of you. Will we do it again?? DEFINITELY!! It wasn’t easy but it was worth it!

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7UFNuhKO4uM&w=560&h=315]

Keep your eyes peeled for up and coming Made of Muscle sessions, they don’t just cater to women, there is an array of sessions available throughout the year, created to suit different fitness needs. The Made of Muscle team also offer personal training sessions. You can contact the trainers through the platforms listed below:

@madeofmuscle_uk @madeofmuscle_uk Madeofmuscleuk@gmail.com