Lately boot camp work outs have become all the rage in small towns, fitness centers, and even anywhere outside where a group of fitness buffs can get together and work out. I'm not talking about enlisting and joining the Army to get a boot camp workout. I'm talking about structured classes ran by a teacher that puts you through a full body exercise session.

It differs greatly from traditional aerobics workouts because the exercises are more demanding working the upper and lower body muscles giving a complete workout and abdominal workout. The fast pace of a boot camp work out allows for a great cardio workout and super fast fat burning.

So why are these catching on so speedily? I'll tell you why. It's because they are super effective and people see results. The drawback with traditional aerobics workouts are that the body gets very efficient at the exercises and through the constant repetition and same workouts it learns to burn much less energy. It's nearly impossible for the body to adapt to boot camp style workouts because of the endless exercise selection stressing multiple muscle groups and stabilizers.

I know the power of fat loss boot camp work outs first hand by actually spending 13 weeks on Paris Island training to be a United States Marine. We had short bursts of activity through the day that supercharge your metabolic rate for muscle toning, muscle building, and fat burning. How do you think they get Marines in shape so quickly? They definitely do some running during that 13 weeks but the majority of the exercise is in the form of calisthenics. When the drill instructors wanted to really crush us this would be a typical 10 minute session.

"Jumping Jacks - I said do jumping jacks now - faster, faster, get your biceps up there."

"No No, I think I actually said push ups, do push ups, get down there now and start pushing the floor!"

After about 15 seconds of pushups -

"Run in place now, get your knees up, I said higher!"

Squat thrusts, mountain climbers, back to pushups, running in place, etc etc etc. This could go on for anywhere from 5 to 15 minutes and would leave us exhausted. The worst part is we sometimes were doing it in a sandpit for added comfort and fun.

Boot Camp Workouts ran by instructors aren't quite the intensity of this. You typically won't find them yelling at you and you actually have the benefit of stopping and leaving if you have had enough (no contract to keep you there - LOL)

Do them at home by yourself if you want -

Structured classes have a variety of exercises and can be run at different paces for all levels of fitness. You don't have to join a boot camp class for this type of workout routine These work outs are also similar to the structure found in some of today's top home workout plans.

You can learn more about Boot Camp Exercises and get it incredible shape at home today!