Hot Workout: Boot Camp

Rolling Stone Magazine: The HOT Issue

Words: TIM DUGGAN

In matching grey t-shirts stained with rain and sweat - 40 odd Recruits are huddled together on the beach huffing and panting. With the super-fit lead-instructor Chief breathing down their necks, they have to hatch a plan to attack their opposition's bunker. Given that they have already spent the last hour building their own bunker by filling 15kg sandbags and hauling them across the beach, they are understandably exhausted.

This is not a military exercise; it's Boot Camp.

Every morning across Australia, at beaches, parks and wherever else there is open land, recruits are lined up to be pushed to their limits in the name of fitness.

The original, and arguably the best Boot Camp program is run by a man known to his Recruits and Drill Instructors simply as CHIEF.  

Chief's real name is James Brabon, and each morning before the sun rises, he orders Recruits to run, crawl, jump, carry and roll their way to peak fitness. Beware though, one taste of this intensive routine that boasts "no excuses, no apologies, just serious results" and you'll be hooked. "It's like a cult," says first-timer 26-year-old Sarah Dart, "but I'm so addicted I just can't miss it."