Fun fitness
A small group of recruits met recently at the Five Mile Grange for their third week of boot camp. The group consisted of women of all ages, shapes and sizes. Their drill instructor greeted them at the door with a warm smile and a high five.
“Welcome ladies, it’s good to see you,” he said.
This is Total Body Training’s Women’s Fitness Bootcamp. Despite its name, there’s nothing scary or intimidating about the sessions led by soft-spoken, former pastor Dave Faagau.
“Sports have always been a part of my life,” Faagau said. “My dad died at age 49 from heart disease. It affected me in a huge way.” The trim, well-muscled man shook his head and cleared his throat. “My dad was overweight and didn’t exercise. I miss him a lot. There’s so many questions I wish I could ask him.”
Faagau moved to Spokane from the Seattle area last July with his wife, Christi, and their four children and launched Total Body Fitness in September.
The certified personal trainer and fitness instructor said his kids give him great motivation to stay fit. “I want to see them grow up,” he said. “I want to be there for them.”
The boot camp concept is a four-week fitness class that mixes fun, structure and sweat – lots of sweat. The classes are for women only and limited to 14. They meet three times a week for 45 minutes.
Faagau began the class with laps around the Grange. “We have to go outside?” one member queried. “It’s a beautiful day,” he replied.
Though he wears a whistle around his neck, Faagau said he’s never had to use it. “I don’t yell. I’m more of an encourager.”
The Marines might not approve of his methods, but these boot camp recruits clearly adore him.
“We love Dave,” said Becky Bush as the class began.
After their laps around the building the women gathered indoors for a rousing game of Shakers and Stoppers, a grown-up version of tag. The women ran around the room shaking jump ropes on the floor behind them. The person who was “it” tried to step on their ropes. If the ropes were tagged that runner became “it” as well.
Bush said boot camp is “a bunch of ladies of all ages running around acting silly.” She’d already completed the class twice, but she came back for more.
As Faagau encouraged the women, “Just 30 more seconds, keep moving,” Bush grabbed her water bottle and gasped, “Thirty seconds is a lot longer in here than it is out there!”
The sessions sometimes seem like a high-spirited PE class. The women paired up and raced each other, while dribbling big, red stability balls, their tennis shoes squeaking on the wooden floor. Faagau incorporates cardio routines with strength and flexibility training. This is no Jane Fonda-esque aerobics class.
As strains of Springsteen and Green Day filled the room, Faagau kept up a steady patter of encouragement.
“Come on, you can do it! Work at your own level. Keep those abs in.”Class member Courtney Martin said, “I like the fact that there’s somebody telling me what to do. It takes the thinking out of it.”
At the conclusion of each four-week boot camp, members are given dog tags engraved with their names and the date and time of the class they completed.
Kathy Miotke has taken the class at least six times. “I’m making my dog tags into a belt,” she said with a grin.
Faagau’s fitness philosophy is simple. “Working out should be a part of life at least two times per week,” he said.
He’s been pleased with the response Total Body Training has received from the community and is quick to give credit to his wife. “She does all the background, administrative stuff,” he said. “I couldn’t do it without her.”
At the end of the class, the women stretched out slowly on the mats while the busy Five Mile traffic rushed by. They’ll soon be deployed back to their homes or businesses, stronger and healthier. And they’ll have the dog tags to prove it.