A Disciplined Route Out of the Comfort Zone

While looking at yo-yos in a novelty store, I ran into an old acquaintance, Jon Jon Park, the conditioning trainer for boxing champ Oscar De La Hoya, as well as owner of a West Los Angeles gym. We chatted for a moment, then he invited me to come to his new “boot camp,” held at a nearby park every morning for two weeks--at 5:30!

Unfortunately, I had too many business commitments coming up and would be on the road more days than not during that time. My husband, Steve, however, jumped at the chance. Well, maybe “jumped” is the wrong word. Let’s just say that he was curious enough to get up at 5, arrive at the park at 5:30 for warmups, and at 5:45 begin an intense 75-minute workout that would leave him and his fellow boot campers wishing for 7 o’clock.

In truth, these fantasy-type camps have existed for years. There are firefighter camps, Navy SEAL camps, Marine camps, etc.--all of them intended to give the average person an experience of how the big boys train. The camps aren’t glitzy or glamorous, there’s no music playing, no dance steps are required, and no one coddles you. You’re there only to get an incredible workout.

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More intense, even, are the weeklong (and weekend) camps in which you’re forced through the paces resembling those of military boot camp, followed by adventurous activities like kayaking, (real) rock climbing and wilderness survival. (Outward Bound is among the better-known organizations orchestrating these experiences.)

What all of these camps do is test the limits of your endurance and ability. Those who attend them--as I have--often discover that what they’re really capable of doing is much greater than what they believed they could do. Why? Because without someone kicking you in the rear, without the camaraderie of a group dynamic and, yes, without the competitive spirit that kicks in when you see others do what you’re supposed to be doing, you tend to give in too readily to fatigue and self-doubt. It’s only human nature to create a comfort zone and stay locked up inside it until someone or something forces you out.

Which is why the whole concept of personal trainers has taken off so well. You need that other person urging you on. And yet, something can happen even with your personal trainer that defeats the purpose of why you hired him or her in the first place: While trainers may push hard at the beginning, after the routine is established, the relationship often becomes more handholding than anything else. Both you and the trainer have built a new comfort zone--and you probably don’t even know it.

Boot camps are immune from comfort zones. In fact, you can call them “uncomfort zones.” What they do is allow you to discover the outer limits of your capabilities. As Park, owner of the gym World Private Exercise, says, “People can do so much more than they ever thought possible.”

People like Steve.

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Park’s boot-camp workout incorporated strength, cardio work, stretching and relaxation. It hits all the muscle groups, working the large support groups first--legs, back and abdominals--followed by the smaller muscle groups, such as shoulders and arms. Steve thought the abs session lasted half an hour, but Park says it was only 15 minutes. Every other group of exercises took 10 minutes, and the participants moved quickly from set to set in an effort to build momentum and create the kind of energy that could carry them through the workout. They broke for water but nothing else.

When 7 o’clock finally came, Steve had been sorely tested--and he was sore. Yet he and the 15 other boot campers, who had helped each other complete the grueling session, commented to each other that the routine bordered on a spiritual experience. At the least, it was still early morning, and they’d already had an incredible workout.

As the days went on, Steve began looking forward to waking early and getting out there. And by the end of the two weeks, the camp had become something of a life-changing experience: He realized that if he was so easily able to transcend his physical comfort zone, maybe the comfort zones he’d constructed in other areas of his life were also obsolete.

That’s the sort of make-over Park intends. “Boot camp isn’t about breaking you,” he says. “It’s about making you.”

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Copyright 1999 by Kathy Smith

Kathy Smith’s fitness column appears weekly in Health. Reader questions are welcome and can be sent to Kathy Smith, Health, Los Angeles Times, Times Mirror Square, Los Angeles, CA 90053. If your question is selected, you will receive a free copy of her book “Getting Better All the Time.” Please include your name, address and a daytime phone number with your question.