BOOT CAMPS EXPLAINED

How did they get here?

They arrived here from America, where boot camps were first used to reform prisoners, soldiers and defiant teens before reaching the general public in the form of holiday breaks. Camps in the US, though, are different from ours. They’ll take a single issue such as detox, weight loss or hiking and stick excusively to that – setting you back in the process over £3000 for one week. That’s 50% more than England’s most expensive boot camp!

Bringing the idea across the Atlantic, and focusing it on female weight loss through the use of British Military Training techniques, The Camp in Scotland was the very first boot camp in the United Kingdom. It opened its doors in January, 2007. Their PR girl ripped off the idea, spotting her way – through cost cutting, hefty pricing and a media blitzkrieg – to a shedload of money. Sunny Moran set up shop later in 2007 with New You Boot Camp. Just over two years later, we now have 15 boot camps. They are, in chronological order: Nubeginnings, Total Boot Camp, FitFarms, Apples & Pears, No1 Boot Camp, Tesco’s Boot Camp, Ultimate Boot Camp, Prestige Boot Camp, GI Jane, Bootylicious , Bootcamp Beach, Base Camp & Kick-Start.

In this economic climate, a boom industry certainly; but as every camp at full capacity would still only be treating fewer than 300 people at a time out of a population of 61 million( in less than award-winning health, by and large), this could well be a new industry with a lot further still to go. The arrival of predatory supermarket chain Tesco on the scene would seem to suggest this. However, without any regulatory body to control them, or trade association to promote best practice in them, boot camps can be a bit of a minefield. This First National Boot Camp Survey is here to guide you through it.

Why is their popularity growing?

Boot camps exist to answer a call from people (85%F;15%M) who need outside help. Things have gone way beyond fat-busting knickers and air-brushing holiday photos. Yet, although the UK has more obese people than any other country in Western Europe – twice that of neighbouring France for example – only around 5% actually attend a boot camp. To its increasing cost, the NHS has seen the consequences: high blood pressure, diabetes, back, hip and knee operations, stomach-stapling and gastric by-passes.

Other camp-goers are often not drastically over-weight, just stuck in a ruinously unhealthy rut and needing a kick up the backside to snap out of it. Perhaps, locked into a stressful, sedentary job, they’re never exercising – but they are forever eating fatty, fast foods in a hurry. Probably a bit of binge drinking in there too. Or, maybe, it’s just The Bridget Jones Syndrome: a blanket, a sofa, a chick-flick, a bottle of Chardonnay and something sweetly filling within a pluck.

Frankly, your issue can be with anything from cocaine to cream cakes, whisky to pizza, down through Coco Pops, Kit Kats, Subway Sandwiches, chocolates, chips and red wine – to whatever; it’s just got to be sorted out, and preferably long-term. Some camp-goers, though, are already in pretty good shape when they arrive but, as rally drivers or social marathon runners, they’ve just come in for a tune-up. Others aren’t too fussed about keeping the weight off, even if they’d never deny they’d like to, because their primary motive in going to a boot camp is fast weight loss in the sort term: it’s bikini-time again, a new boy-friend, a wedding day – perhaps all three.

And here we bump into the grandest, illogical irony of the boot camp industry. They offer to change your life for good, whilst simultaneously longing for your repeat business! The trick here, if you really want to turn your life around, is to go for camps with a strong holistic side. All boot camp-goers do, however, have one thing in common: they’ve just spent over £1000  and surrendered a week of their holiday time for a suspected kicking, largely in the company of total strangers. In other words, your fellow campers are more likely to be seriously committed than just vaguely involved.

Another reason for the boom in boot camps is that it’s not difficult to open one. In fact, it’s a simple procedure. Typically, it goes: rent premises in countryside near Exmoor/Dartmoor; hire in ex-military trainers, cook, nutritionist, camp manager and guest speakers; post up website, slicker the better; charge 1000+ for the week; invite celebs and journos for free publicity; add more dates; proceed to bank. Accordingly, boot camp owners are a very mixed bunch. They come from backgrounds anywhere between chalet girl and international corporate executive, with differing reasons for founding their camps. Some, like me, passionately believe in boot camps; others are only in it for the money. As a consequence, boot camps are going to behave differently. Some, unfortunately, are only too happy to kick off with some very misleading publicity about themselves.

Misleading publicity

Too many boot camps proclaim themselves to be the industry’s leaders - one even calls itself No1 Boot Camp! But don’t be fooled by their boasts. Ultimate Boot Camp, for example, says it was ‘ Voted No1 by More magazine’, from which you’re meant to understand it’s the best boot camp in England. Utter tosh! A reporter on the magazine tried out four different methods to lose weight, concluding that the boot camp way was the best of the four approaches. So, boiled down to reality, Ultimate Boot Camp was actually ‘ Voted No1 Slimming Method Out of the Four We Tried’. Such deceit, with a touch of desperation too, is difficult to admire.

The worst offenders – predictably – are the only two boot camps in the country who shied away from being in this survey. What’s more, both have recently been reported to The Trading Standards for peddling nonsense about themselves.

To learn more about FitFarms and New You Boot Camp, see Special Cases, below.

The website at FitFarms almost bursts with bragging about how it was voted ‘ The UK’s No.1 Weight Loss Camp’. by no lesser an authority than The Sunday Times. The pages are almost radioactive in their reflected glory. But it’s rubbish! The paper ran a short feature – little more than a flip, filler piece – on eight healthy holidays to be had in eight different destinations, anywhere from Mexico to Morocco. As no more than an example of the type, they chose a boot camp. It just happened to be FitFarms. No way does that make it ‘ The UK’s No.1′. This was no comparative survey of boot camps in England. If so, where are all the others? Once more, the Emperor turns out to have no clothes. Yet again, an entirely illegitimate conclusion is deliberately drawn in the interests of  ludicrous self-promotion over the simple basic truth. This also explains why there is no active link to the article itself, thus blocking you off from reading it – FitFarms being curiously and suspiciously content to settle for showing you just the front page of the newspaper alone!

New You Boot Camp is already known to the commercial authorities, so just what have directors, Sunny Moran and Jacqui Cleaver been getting up to?

1. Lying about their product. They were forced by The Trading Standards Board to take down untrue claims about Egyptian cotton sheets, aromatherapy candles and clients being able to exercise at their own pace, rather than endlessly harassed to keep up – on pain of being sent home.

Read the blog at http://janaadventure.blogspot.com for one unhappy client’s account of her own harrowing experiences at ‘ New You Death Camp’.

2. Faking Testimonials. Their website quotes pages of glowing recommendations – in a huge list, probably amounting to more testimonials than all the other boot camps in England put together. However, so determined are the directors to impress potential clients, they’ve faked the truth – imagining that no-one will ever notice. And, lo it came to pass, that 35 year-old Samantha Williams appears unto us on Page 3 of the ‘adoring’ female clients; only to re-appear in the men’s section as Sam Williams, 35, with praise that is, intriguingly, a word-perfect replica of Samantha’s opinion. As Harry Hill might say:’ What are the chances of that happening then?’ Higher than you might think. Katie(Leadbetter) on Page 2 of the female forum has anticipated, telepathically and to the word, what Mr. Leadbetter of Devon has to say. If only they could meet, they’d get along so well! Makes you wonder, though, just how many other vaguely-attributed-testimonials are, in fact, just false in-house fabrications too? Would you trust directors like these two?

3. Misrepresenting their status. Given Sunny Moran’s origin in the PR industry, and a lively advertising budget in the female magazine market, it’s no surprise when a features editor, where possible, puts in a good word about a valued client. But Ms.Moran has ludicrously inflated three light-hearted, light-weight and brief little mentions in print into – wait for it – ‘ Voted No1 in Europe and No.3 in The World’, a tag she then goes to employ ad nauseam. Nauseating, of course, because it’s another duplicitous load of rubbish. Closer Magazine did not vote New You  as ‘ Europe’s No1′; it merely included it in a list of seven. OK! Magazine presents six soundbite-pieces on six best bikini boot camps around the world. More likely for reasons of page lay-out,  NYBC was the third to be featured. Even assuming OK! Magazine did mean to put NYBC in third place, only the very worst of chancers would try to disguise a flippertygibbet bagatelle, of few words, as ‘ A Real World Title, Awarded in All Seriousness’. In Special Cases, below, The First National Boot Camp Survey puts them in their real place: the worst boot camp in England. P.S. Although it’s not illegal, it’s typical of Sunny Moran’s deviousness and lust for publicity that she writes into Grazia in March 2009 pretending that she’s over the moon because her new boyfriend has just given her the most wonderful present, a week at NYBC, which, natch, was fabulous in every respect.  April’s Good Housekeeping Magazine sees her popping up again, this time posing as a fitness trainer at NY. Untrue again, although an entertaining prospect.

(Note: The First National Boot Camp Survey is covering one-week residential boot camps only. The term ‘Boot Camp’ is also used to describe people meeting to train during the week in a municipal park. Run by British Military Fitness instructors though they may be, and good development though they are – they are nothing like real, residential boot camps, and little more than PT in the open-air).

Holistic Camp?

If your weight has become a major concern to you and you want far more than just weight loss in the short term – which any boot camp is going to give you anyway – then Nubeginnings is the only camp for you- but they do aim to fix you for good here. And the way they do that is to dissect and explain your emotions about food to you, show you practically how to re-structure your eating and follow up to make sure you’re sticking to it, plus – and this is the killer – through acupuncture and hypnotherapy, getting through to your subconscious mind and bringing into line the Bad Angel who’s been partying away unchallenged for years, so that all of you ends up singing from the same hymn sheet and the weight stays off permanently. Nubeginnings enjoys a high success rate.

Mixed Camp?

Only six out of the fourteen camps are always open to men: Apples & Pears , No.1 Boot Camp, Tesco, Nubeginnings , Base Camp & Bootcamp Beach, although there is a growing trend among camps that started out as women-only, now to be offering dates for mixed and men-only camps too: Prestige & Total spring to mind here. Although my personal preference is for camps with both men and women, it’s your call alone on this one. If it helps, I’ve always found that the genders mix together extremely well at camp. There’s less likelihood of closed-shop cliques developing and whilst the guys and gals do tend to hang around with their own, it’s refreshing to be able to talk to someone of the opposite sex when you’re in the mood to. Obviously, a women-only camp is going to take away that option. And rule out your chances, completely, of accidentally bumping into a guy you may actually like

Which brings me to a final rallying cry : Men of England, Wake up to Boot Camps! The women have got the point; and you, too, should be making up far more than just 15% of the market. In fact you would, guys -  if you only but tried it once.  My mind never thinks clearer, or for longer, than when I am away from the world at boot camp. And, as the body doesn’t know what’s hit it either -  with every muscle and joint historically hard at work yet fuelled by only a comparatively empty, alcohol-free stomach – the combined physical and psychological benefits to be derived in such a short time, are quite mind-blowing. I hope that doesn’t sound too much like a young vicar in his first parish. In case it does, boot camps are part of my life now – and I fall into the arms of The Good Parent, whenever I need a kick up the arse and wire-wool between my ears.

Women Only?

Unsurprisingly, as women make up 85% of the market, nine out of fifteeen boot camps are for women only. It’s common to see women who’ve roped in a friend for mutual support, sometimes so in a gang of four. There’s a strong sense of camaraderie at women-only boot camps, plenty of emotions on display and significant new friendships are often forged in the heat of it all. Apart from Fitstart and Fitfarms, the only camps in the country to field female trainers, you will always be put through your stuff by men from the military. Read on, to find out if this is your style or not.

Military Style?

Military-style means that formal, services conduct is expected of you:lining up on parade, addressing combat-geared trainers as “Staff” at all times, doing whatever you’re told to do whenever and however you’re told to do it, individual and group forfeits for infringing any rules – of which they’re plenty – with no sin more dire than pitching up late (1 minute will qualify here). You’ll be worked pretty hard, have your self-confidence boosted by your fear-conquering exploits on adventure training outings and – truth be told – you will be shouted at often. The venom with which this is done is anywhere between New You Boot Camp’s 10 on The Richter Scale of Menace……. right down to Prestige Boot Camp’s altogether more amiable 3.

It’s also true to say that, for some women, there is a certain appeal in doing things military-style, being dominated by very fit young men, in skin-tight fatigues, their bodies apparently stuffed with walnuts. And, hey you know, they’ve had years of experience at what they’re doing to you, and you’re going to get down and dirty together. Yet, be simperingly nice or crack a joke, and he’s also your toy soldier to flirt with too. He will, anyway. I don’t think it’s pure paranoia on my part in thinking that cries of ” Suck it in, girls” and “See it all the way home, girls”, might just conceivably be pandering to another agenda. However, you might  well not grow to share Staff’s enthusiasm for teaching you services slang, and the continous deal-striking of “Is that fair?” and “Is everybody happy with that?” does begin to grate.

For other women, who take the more uncharitable view of ‘Sod that for a game of soldiers’, opting instead for civilian life and being on christian name terms with everyone, there are Non-Military Style Camps.

Military Style: Prestige, No1 Boot Camp, GI Jane, Total, New You & Kick-Start.

Non-Military Style: Bootylicious, Apples&Pears, Nubeginnings, Ultimate, FitFarms/Tesco, Boot Camp Beach & Base Camp.

Suspiciously, three of England’s  fifteeen Boot Camps declined to take part in this survey, refusing to be reviewed at all – so we went undercover. You are advised to take very good note of what we found out in our final category, Special Cases.

SPECIAL CASES

* Freshstart Boot Camp

Don’t waste any time at all on this camp! It seems to be no more than a basic website, put up as a marketing exercise, to see if there was going to be sufficient interest to run a camp one day. Contact is by email only – and you’ll never get a reply! I have tried, female stooges have tried, I even warned Freshstart what I intended to write about them, to see if anybody was at home. But, still, a profound silence reigns. The only conclusion available is that Freshstart Boot Camp does not exist in the real world.

* FitFarms/Tesco

The big problem with camps at FitFarms(women only) and Tesco(mixed) is that they are both run by FitFarms Managing Director, Mr. Stephen Cole, a man from Planet Strange if ever there was one. His stated main reason for not taking part in our survey was that Fitfarms is not a boot camp – and perish the thought  that he should be associated at all with any of that crowd. Of course Fitfarms is a boot camp. You can google it as such; and once on site, you’ll find FitFarms calling itself a ‘ Fitness Boot Camp’ on almost every single page. And, boy, is he ever insulting about all the other boot camps in England!  Mr. Cole rubbishes every single one of them for “unqualified staff and unhealthy training programmes”, before climaxing his disapproval with the truly unhinged : “There are some good boot camps but you have to be willing to travel overseas”. So there we have it, then. Go abroad for a good boot camp because there are none in England, except of course for Mr.Cole’s – once he’s worked out whether he’s running one or not! This is the most surreal drivel I’ve ever read about boot camps. The man clearly has no idea what goes on at, say, Nubeginnings or Fitstart. We, however, do know what happens at FitFarms/Tesco.

Unable to decide whether FitFarms/Tesco is a holiday retreat, a holistic mission or a boot camp after all, Mr. Cole manages to end up spreadeagled across all three. Notwithstanding pretty countryside outings and an assortment of non-taxing activities strung together in an easy-paced way, this is definitely not a holiday. What holiday blasts you out of bed at dawn every day, starves you of food and keeps you on the go all day long? A boot camp actually – but one with such dainty disdain for the ethic of  hard, physical work that it doesn’t succeed, like other camps do, on that level either. FitFarms is a doddle; the Ultimate Burn Work-out is, for example, merely optional. Do not come here if you want to be propelled, in a short time into losing as much weight as possible. It’s far too leisurely for that. Finally, FitFarms, closest in theory at least to an holistic camp, just doesn’t cut it as one of those either. Two Nutrition Workshops and one Life Coaching Session is, did he but know it, standard holistic fare at just about every boot camp in the country! But I doubt that Mr.Cole is going to improve his holism by learning from Nubeginnings, the top holistic camp in the country, because I think he has an altogether different agenda in mind for FitFarms. And it is not one that puts you, the client, first.

Our first look at the FitFarms product was in 2008, when our man reported back that although the female trainers were excellent, and the French chef also – if stronger on flair than variety – the greatest disappointment was the over-crowding of clients into 2-star barn accommodation, where he was charged £1200 for a basic and tiny single room, having to queue twice a day with eight other people to use the bathroom and squeeze up for dinner every night. People were similarly cross about the 50% mark-up on any toiletries they needed. Whilst not exactly at Tesco’s prices, then, Mr. Cole has clearly understood the meaning of’ Every Little Helps’. FitFarms 2009 has moved to Knowle Riding Centre in Somerset, a manor house actually abandonned by No1.Boot Camp because training is done in a neon-lit sand-pit full of horse-hair; the ‘pool’ is no more than a small pond in a shed; the red clay outside will stain your clothes for ever and, worst of all, the water supply to the house is so chronically inadequate it’s impossible to have a proper shower.  But it is big; and Mr.Cole has seen that it will hold an awful lot of  an people at one time. Bad value prices have been hiked yet again, so that a single is now an uncompetitive  £1495  for the week. And notice that no capacity figure is given, as all other camps do, because now we are getting to the whole crux of the matter. When our man finally discovered Mr.Cole in a back office, and challenged him on the fairness, let alone the safety, of providing only two trainers for 38 people, he got the aloof and arrogant reply: ” This is a numbers game, you know”. Numbers which probably add up to Tesco realising that Mr. Cole has built up a brand – through FitFarms to FitParks, FitJuniors, and FitPooch too – with sufficient volume and profit for the supermarket to buy him out. So, if you want to be part of a numbers game you know where to go.

* New You Boot Camp

Alarm bells first started ringing about this boot camp when we received a brusque brush-off from directors, Sunny Moran & Jacqui Cleaver. No courtesy visit was allowed, no review required; they wanted to play no part at all in The First National Boot Camp Survey.

We thought this was very odd. Why on earth would a boot camp with such a high opinion of itself not be leaping at the chance to line up against all its allegedly inferior competitors? Perhaps, on reflection, they didn’t fancy the scrutiny of an objective and comparative write-up after all? Were the directors actually fearful of the outcome? If so, they were very right to be – for what these two have created with New You Boot Camp is a Frankenstein of hysterical PR froth and greed gone mad – their very own sick clone of that healthy and pioneering venue in Scotland, The Camp. And the closer we got, the sicker it looked.

The Misleading Publicity Section has already dealt with New You caught lying about its product, faking its testimonials & misrepresenting its status.

Fronting up with a name that is both slick and catchy, New You Boot Camp is driven by one core strategy: to hook in camp-goers via a highly controlled 24/7 media publicity campaign; pages of enraptured testimonials; an obesssion with shearing off in one week the maximum poundage from each client, just so that the company’s weight-loss stats. are kept looking great, only too aware of that female foible to fall for every single lb.off; slash costs to the absolute minimum; charge the maximum and resist refunds . Their tactics, however, have won Sunny Moran and Jacqui Cleaver very few friends along the way. Examples follow of the appallingly high-handed way they treat both their staff and their clients, to say nothing of their long-suffering suppliers. Hardly surprising, then, that email feedback from other boot camp owners has confirmed to me they have had to listen to more complaints about New Boot Camp than any other operator in England. Far from being ‘ No.1 in Europe’, theirs is, in fact, the worst boot camp in the country.

The website is an instructive first lesson that New You is a coldly calculating cash machine. Unique in the industry, it is a site with no staff profiles, no names, only a premium-line telephone number to ring. But you are personally invited into their Online Store beforehand – just so that they have some more of your money before you even get there e.g. 4 T-shirts, with their free advertising on, are coming in at the job lot price of a touch under £60!

Similarly, the camps they offer are over-priced and basically rotten value for money, once you start to look around.Against New  You’s rip-off £1650-a-week(single) & £1275-a-week(twin share) at what they call their luxury camp – orbiting from January 1st 2010 right up to £1725 & £1425 respectively -  contrast, for example,  Apples&Pears at only £1250(sgle) & £960 (twin share); Prestige at £1395(sgle) & £995(twin share); and the latest new national award-winner, Bootcamp Beach, where en-suite singles come in at a mere £575 & twins at just £495. ONLY A COMPLETE MUG WOULD PAY NEW YOU £1775 A WEEK!  After all, for that crazy price, you could go to Bootcamp Beach THREE TIMES – and still have £50 change in your pocket!

Not only will other camps charge you hundreds of pounds less than New You for one week; they’ re also guaranteed to give you a quality of experience so superior to anything on offer at New You as to be altogether on another planet. These camps, too, carried off all the top awards in our 15 month, in-depth survey of the nation’s boot camps as, in order of appearance, Best Mixed Camp, Best Women Only Camp & Best Budget Boot Camp – awards, moreover, fully merited after lengthy research, cast-iron in their meaning and gounded in reality, rather than the hollow and ridiculous fantasies of world domination peddled by New You. The number of extra benefits included, along with their lower prices, by the above named camps is just too long to list, frankly. Merely lay any camp’s ‘ Facts At A Glance’ section down on a table, beside what New You has on offer, for a full appreciation of how basic and meagre their tariff actually is. Their holistic side is a joke. Unwilling to afford any expensive Life Coaching or Psychotherapy, as the others do, they’re only too happy to send you on your way with just a few tips on exercise and nutrition to hold you in good stead, hoping to dazzle you instead with the huge amount of weight you lost, and reckoning, once you’ve gone and put it all back on again, to see you in the not-too-distant future, for more of the same.

FURTHER WARNINGS

* Journalists and celebs always receive preference over paying guests. In one instance, at least 12 journalists were on site, with all the best accommodation noticeably given to them, first in line for everything, and constantly having their welfare alone being checked up on by the directors. The resentment felt by the clients split the camp into two acrimonious groups , it being painfully obvious to the clients which of the two groups was more important to New You. In a worse case, one poor lady who’d booked a single room for herself way in advance and had it confirmed, rolled up to find her single room had been given to a celeb instead, and that she would now have to share. Eventually, after a fuss, she got a substandard single in the staff’s quarters, complete with all their cooking smells and noise wafting up night after night. When, afterwards and quite rightly, she broached the subject of some sort of refund she never even had the courtesy of any reply, finally giving up and getting back on with her life – doing, in fact, just what they’d no doubt always hoped she’d end up doing anyway: just getting out of their hair.

* New You is the one boot camp in England that I, personally, would never want to go to. I do not want to be hounded and shouted all day long from 5.30am-9.30pm, by trainers being paid commission for every lb. over 8lbs. they manage to get off me. I do not want to go hungry with their miserly food either: cooks are on a bonus if they bring in the week’s food bill under budget, which would have been quite an achievement at a recent Back to Basics camp where £400 was supposed to feed 20 people for a week! Hunger is a frequent sensation here, causing some women I know actually to gain weight as their bodies closed down in shock and started storing  fat instead. Nor would I enjoy feeling the suffering of my companions around me, in distress at New You’s brutal regime: I have it on good authority that to see anything up to 8 girls vomiting in one day is pretty normal. There’s continual pressure to keep going, to brush off injuries and knuckle back down again. Unable to be certain, I wouldn’t mind betting that probably more people drop out of New You than any other boot camp. I don’t know if anyone’s died on camp yet, but I fear that day will come. The directors, you see, don’t mind at all if someone goes home after two days: they’ve banked your money for the whole week, and there’s no refund. Far worse still, they’re almost inviting this to happen by being irresponsibly cavalier over medical forms. I’ve had it confirmed to me that it was not uncommon for clients to be filling out their medical history forms, for the first time, upon arrival at camp! How many nod-throughs, I wonder, completed the whole week? In fact, why would anyone want to offer up their body to a week of strident hell, just so that New You can parade the remains on the high-altar of their obsession with weight loss by statistics? One of England’s top trainers wrote to us, after visiting New You, that he felt the directors themselves “didn’t appear to understand the full implications of physical training, nutrition, rest and safety”.

But then, optimum health has never been what Sunny Moran and Jacqui Cleaver are remotely about anyway – neither the nation’s nor their own – in their fond, if chequered, pursuit of the type of £ that really matters to them: both are over-weight; rarely can be bothered to join any camp exercises; and have their premises above a pub on Poole Hill, Dorset, called The Winchester. Worthy daughters to Arthur Daley, indeed.

* The weighing procedures at New You Boot Camp have also been the subject of some curious, sideways looks. Different types and sets of scales; laid on surfaces of different density; with weigh-in readings taken just after lunch, but weigh-out readings taken just before breakfast, yet after a work-out, on the final morning. New You, once again, getting obsessed about every single, solitary lb. they can say they”ve taken off you. The full extent of quite how they do that is not a subject for further discussion – other than to say more than a few women I know have been surprised at the weight they’d put on since leaving home, having troubled to weigh themselves just before they left.

* Staff turnover at New You is alarming. Without every detail, I do know that, In the past year alone, they’ve lost their principal and probably most popular trainer, their top chef, their experienced main camp manager and their principal nutritionist. Over-demanding behaviour by the directors has just driven them away: the nutritionist for example, was loftily informed that her wages were being cut, her hours increased and she could not work for anyone else! She left. Equipment given to trainers is poor enough for them normally having to bring along their own, as well as providing all the First Aid Kits for the camp. Boot camp managers, too, seem to be in perpetual demand: new ones are hired on unpaid two-week trial periods. I don’t suppose it’s occurred to the directors that if they strung all these fortnights together, sacking as they went along, they wouldn’t need to pay for a boot camp manager at all?  Enough already.

I will stop now – but can’t resist leaving you without this latest Newsflash: our heroines, Sunny & Jacqui, have put themselves up for an award as ‘ The Female Entrepreneurs of 2009′, sending cringe-making emails to hundreds and hundreds of clients, begging for their votes. Really don’t know whether to laugh or cry at this point, but if they won it, you might as well say that Thelma & Louise were just trying to pass their driving test.

*IMPORTANT FOOTNOTE

I fully understand that, in the right mood , anyone can come back from any boot camp convinced they’ve just had the experience of a lifetime - and that many readers could , indeed, have had a fantastic time at camps of which I’ve been critical.

What this survey sets out to do is to lay before you, the consumer, an accurate picture of what each camp is really like. ‘ The Facts at a Glance’ section tells you what ’s on offer at all of England’s boot camps, and at what prices. Make your own comparisons, based just on the figures, if you like, and come up with exactly the right boot camp for you. The  ‘ Reviews ‘  are also intended to help you in making your final decision  - by providing you with  fair and honest portraits of actual life at all the different boot camps.

Put all the PR puffs to one side, and just look at three essentials. What is each  camp providing for what it charges? How much psychological work are they going to do on you? Have the evenings been planned out?

One week in an en-suite single should NOT be costing you more than £1400. And for an en-suite twin share you should be looking at around £1000 each. Be very suspicious of anyone demanding more money than that!

_________________

5 STAR RATINGS

Bootcamp Beach is going to be a huge success for one simple reason: it’s the best boot camp deal in the country by a very long way!

Suddenly someone isn’t charging four figures, and all points north, for a week at camp. What a breath of fresh air it is to see en-suite bedrooms with televisions and the use of an up-market pool, sauna & jacuzzi complex in the evenings, all being thrown in for the price at a boot camp that’ll bill you just £575 for a single (it’s actually a double), £495 for a twin & £455 for a triple room. Along with Apples & Pears, Bootcamp Beach is the only other camp in the country to win the full 5 Stars for ‘Value For Money’. Just do the maths for yourself. Would you rather pay some camps over three times as much for one stay, or pay exactly the same amount of money for three stays at Bootcamp Beach? Which option, do you reckon, would do you the more good? Which course of action would be better for your health?  Excuse my bluntness, but I would call that an absolute no-brainer.

But, you will immediately ask, is Bootcamp Beach any good? Well, to start with, it would not have won the award for Best Budget Boot Camp in The First National Boot Camp Survey, if it wasn’t. There are plenty more positives than the ones listed above.

One of them is Principal Trainer, Boris Stone. Unfortunately named, perhaps, in that he sounds like a Russian guard at a gulag when he couldn’t, in fact, be more different from one. Boris is invariably enthusiastic and amusing, really knows his subject, and has a heart of gold which he wears winningly near to the surface. Owners, Nick & Susan, assured me that ‘everyone loves Boris’; and from what I saw at my camp, I’ve no reason to believe anything else.

Boris is ex-Army, and enormously well-qualified – with a string of  certificates long enough for him to host a personal health site on the internet and run his own successful training company. Far from being ‘ a budget trainer’ – and I can vouch for this fact after all my boot camp experiences – Boris Stone will give you, both at the beginning & at the end, a comprehensive test of your fitness and an in-depth analysis of your body’s composition, only surpassed by just one other trainer I’ve met in England. So the trainer’s ‘cool’ or ‘hot’ – or whatever it is you’re meant to say these days.

Activity highlights would be the uniquely-offered chance to go paddle-boarding, hiking the coast with Bergens & the cycle ride which takes you through Sandbanks and over, on a ten-minute ferry, into the beautiful Dorset countryside around Studland Dene and the hill-top ruins of Corfe Castle. Bootcamp Beach – like all the best camps – neither starts before 7am, nor drags you out again after dinner for yet more physical work. I think you’ll soon find out that 9 hours a day with Boris is quite enough, on its own, to achieve the aim of significant weight loss in a short time.

And the old-age pensioners lined up on the front at Bournemouth Beach aren’t shy of lending an unexpected hand to the proceedings either. Rocked back into their own memories of Army life at any sight of Boris out front with his military kit on, it’s only moments before they’re off and roaring out ever-more bellicose instructions to him as to what he should really be hitting everyone with! Bored with that, they’ll then open up on any slackers in the group, exhorting them loudly to improve their performance rapidly, and roughly by a factor of ten.

Truth be told, however, that only happened twice and the beach at Bournemouth is arguably the star of the show. With more sunshine hours and less rainfall than any town in the country, training outside in the sea air and coastal panoramas along Bournemouth Beach is superby energising, right from the time you’re woken up by sea-gulls every morning. The sand is cleaned each night, all the many toilets are impeccably maintained, and there are contingency plans for when it rains – that rarest of occurrences, according to our National Office of Statistics. I should also mention that Bootcamp Beach has its own beach-hut and an another eternally cheerful asset in Hannah, Boris’s aide and Jill-of-all-trades, who is also pretty enough not to appear in the background of any photo, whatever she says.

In addition, a Life Coaching Session on the first night helpfully tunes everyone into what they’re about to do and, in Barbara Cox, they have a very bright spark of a nutritionist, deserving every bit of her media celebrity.

Finally, I should point out one thing: boot camps usually last for 6/7 nights, but Bootcamp Beach’s programme is for 5 nights. When I mentioned that adding on an extra night would bring them up to the norm, they begged to differ. Their customer research has suggested to them that people prefer a camp to run from 4pm Sunday till Friday at 1pm, so that clients can have more of the weekends to themselves. Susan & Nick have got an awful lot right in a short time and maybe, in adopting this strategy, they’ll have made a correct call once again. Time will tell with the public on that one, but I’m telling you something else: book fast and well ahead, because this is a brand new boot camp, and the secret’s just got out.

• Accommodation: Comfortable, modern & better than basic, Bonnington Beach Hotel’s bedrooms are all en-suite, with TV’s & serviced daily. Staff are delightful and the hotel is only minutes from the beach.
• Capacity: 20. Mixed M/F.
• Duration: 5 nts. (4pm Sunday – Friday 1pm). Closed July & August.
• Cost: £575(sgles), £495(twin share), £455(triple share). All en-suite.
• Price includes: All food, lodging & activities which typically include: gym-style work-outs, principally in the open air on Bournemouth Beach, plus boxing,surfing, cycling, coastal hiking with Bergens, games, battle PT, comprehensive fitness tests, flexibility sessions, military tasking, paddle boarding, 1 Life Coaching Session, 2 Nutrition Seminars with media celebrity, Barbara Cox, tailored action plans with open access to staff for future support, farewell champagne toast, certificate of achievement & a personalised photo CD of your week.
• Evening Events: Nightly access to The Marriott Hotel’s up-market pool, sauna & jacuzzi complex just around the corner. Otherwise TV’s in all bedrooms.
• Optional extras: Marriott’s in-house specialist sports masseur at £25 half, £40 full.

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Bootcamp Beach Website.

5 STAR RATINGS

Astonishingly, Prestige BC, despite being relatively new on the scene, is already the best military-style, women only boot camp in England. Although perhaps not such a surprise when you see who’s behind it and why. Head Trainer, Iain Reitze, has dedicated his life to fitness training, acquiring a host of qualifications along the way. What’s more, as co-owner and co-director of PBC, he’s also had the unusual freedom to go out and just help himself to all the best equipment. Frankie Christian’s motivation, on the other hand, is much more personal and all about her own war with yo-yo dieting. Although still a work in progress, she’s gone from 16 to 12st.in 18 months. So one of the Directors knows, from bitter experience, that until something changes in your head as well, any weight lost is going, slowly or quickly, straight back on again. As Frankie lays it down on the website: “PBC is not just a quick-fix – it is a lifestyle change”.

They complement each other well; and they’ve found an ideal place to site their camp. The location of Higher Wiscombe is nigh on perfect. Perched, with wonderful views over lovely, unspoilt Southleigh Valley, Prestige Boot Camp is set in 52 acres of woodland, orchards, pasture and streams, on the doorstep of  the Unesco World Heritage Jurassic Coast, the beaches of Beer and Branscombe, and the River Exe for canoeing; all of which they make the very most of. In fact, Prestige BC is the one-and-only camp in England to offer freshwater canoeing, which is a shame, because a Sunday afternoon along the sunny River Exe was one of the highlights of the week – though nothing beats the memory of that spectacular trek on the coast, which Prestige is only one of three bootcamps in England to offer its guests.

Accommodation in the Holiday barn is pleasingly up-market, with wide beds in carpeted bedrooms, Grohe showers in the bathroom etc.- quite unlike the cheap and basic barn bedrooms of some other boot camps. Staff exude an easy-going professionalism, whether on camp or hired in to give specialist seminars on the likes of Psychotherapy, Style Consultancy and Nutrition. Yet, amongst them, are two outstanding stars. One is Darren Martin. Prestige Boot Camp has gone way beyond providing the perfectly competent boot-camp-cook by employing a real fine dining chef. This is an excellent and innovatory idea because, believe me, every morsel of food at boot camp is always looked forward to, and cherished. Whilst his braised lamb takes some beating, I think you’ll probably remember the wild berry and champagne jelly the most! The other is Iain Reitze. This Head Trainer has gathered together the top trio of trainers on the English boot camp scene. You may have to address each formally as Staff – it’s a military-style camp – but these guys were different; they were from a caring, humorous, slightly off-the-wall regiment I’d never come across before. Suddenly, training was a laugh. Unsurprisingly, they are the Comedy Cabaret Night.

Although Prestige will take you through a wider range of activities than any other camp, I’d still like to see yoga/ pilates on the list, perhaps in place of one of the adventure playground events, but that is a small quibble in relation to an overall programme that is excellent. If you find that success is going to need more than one go, then Prestige offers a 15% discount on your second attempt. That represents excellent value for money, although Prestige Boot Camp’s first price is already one of the best value-for-money prices around in the country.

• Accommodation: Award-winning Holiday Barns, spacious & beautifully crafted with up-market furnishings & panoramic views over the East Devon countryside. Outdoor swimming pool/ summer only.
• Capacity: 24. F Only. Occasional Mixed M/F dates.
• Duration: 7 nts. ( 4pm Friday – Friday 10am).
• Cost: £1395(sgles,all en-suite) & £995(twin,en-suite)/£945(twin,shared bathroom).
• Price includes: All food, lodging & activities which typically include: gym-style work-outs plus sessions in the swimming pool,hill and coastal hiking, gorge walks,canoeing,cycling,abseiling,boxing, white water rafting, zip wire,asault course, team games, 3 workshops on Nutrition & Motivational Life Change, 1 Seminar on Healthy Cooking, a 200 picture CD of your week & a farewell goodie bag of certificate, T shirt & beauty products.
• Evening Events: nightly, e.g Film Night, Quiz Night, Camp Fire Night, Comedy Cabaret, Meditation & Relaxation, Final Gala Night Dinner with champagne.
• Optional extras: Massage/ half £20, full £40.

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• LIFE CHANGING POTENTIAL: * * *

Founded only months ago by Lee Jordan, the most knowledgeable trainer and student of the human body I’ve ever met at any boot camp, and Lesley Daley, a former client of his still in awe of him, who has a background in PR, Base Camp is a boot camp still finding its way.

Initially launched as a course for women only, and cheekily and greedily pitched at a whopping £1900 for a week in an en-suite single, Base Camp has evolved into a mixed camp only, where exactly the same room will now cost you a less rapacious £1495 for one week – a panic reaction to discovering that Prestige Boot Camp was also using their venue, as an alternative to its HQ at Higher Wiscombe in Devon, and was charging only £1395, as it still does, for a boot camp week which – dare I say it – is actually better. So far so good, if a little bit dodgy over the money there.

Where Base Camp hasn’t moved with the market place, though, is its greatest problem. Lee Jordan, who basically runs the place, told me straight out that he has no interest in what any other boot camps are up to, never read a review of any of them. In other words, he’s stone deaf to what any rivals are including for their clients – and that, uniformly, at a cheaper price too. When I did, helpfully, give him a check-list of improvements to bring him up to speed with the competition – all news to Lee, but with plenty of time in which to react – all I succeeded in securing for you, dear Reader, was the addition of green vegetables at dinner-time, so that the sad and jaundiced duet of chicken with cous-cous has now become a trio. Otherwise, zippo, nada, niente.

So frustating, because Base Camp could, and should be, a much better boot camp than it is. With a few firm strokes of change – some deft, some ruthless – it could, in fact, become one of England’s top boot camps. Unfortunately, as things stand at the moment, a squadron of low-flying pigs impersonating the Red Arrows in a fly-past on your birthday is more likely to happen than Base Camp altering its mind-set one iota.

This camp has got so much right. The back lawns at Porlock House, ringed with hilly forest and gazing  down over the Bristol Channel to Wales, provide a training location of pure delight. From the daily use of  heart monitors, the statistics you’re given about your physical performance against the national averages, right down through to their pioneering use of a new machine to assess your heart age, Base Camp will tell you more about the real state of your body than any other boot camp in the country. By getting you out of bed at 1.30 in the morning, and then making you hike at the double with loaded ruck-sacks for five hours from 2am – 7am in the dark, when you’re feeling shorn of both food and sleep, Base Camp’s nightmare surprise – well, not any more – succeeds brilliantly, by trashing your comfort zones, in revealing to you an inner psychological strength to achieve and overcome the undesirable that maybe, until tested, you never knew you had before – just the sort of fortitude, in fact, that you’re going to have to call upon in the future if you’re going to change your life around. Lee’s one-to-one nutritional analysis is spot-on and the after-camp support programme is not only phone-calls but visits too, because Lee wants to do such a job on you that he’s fixed you and does not want you to see you back again, with his fitness course being the only exception to that rule. ‘Sustainable change’  is Base Camp’s mission statement, and principal basis for referring to itself rather haughtily as a ’second generation boot camp’. But they’re really not breaking any new ground here. They might think so, and want you to believe so, but plenty of other boot camps out there value their life-changing potential too, and have developed holistic  sides often superior to what’s on offer at Base Camp itself.

The three main, and crucial weaknesses, of Base Camp are the trainers, the food and the lack of evening events. On my travels, the imaginative variety of ex-Services PT guys has impressed me mightily: we never did the same thing twice, they were ‘characters’ who chivvied you along to do stuff so as not to let them down. Music arrived occasionally, but the banter back and forth was uplifting and constant. They would rate a ten on anyone’s Richter Scale. By sad contrast at Base Camp, Louise would not score much above zero, and Rob would come in at under five. A harsh verdict on Louise I know, and it gives me no pleasure at all to give it, but the truth of the matter is that she hardly  ever uttered a word, and looked out-of-her-depth uncomfortable with people. Rob had a little bit more life about him, but his endless repetition of how to perform the same exercises was something a tape machine could have done; he almost never conversed with the group; and his generally rigid pose, stooped forward with his hands clasped behind his back, had all the dispiriting demeanour of a Headmaster who, most unusually, has been asked to inviligilate Sports Day. Hand on heart, it was the most repetitive and boring training I’ve ever done at any boot camp in England. Lee himself puts in guest appearances from time to time, but is kinda morose and mildly menacing – some way short of the inspirational figure that he, perhaps, should be. His admission, on leaving, that he ” didn’t expect people to like him, but he did want them to respect him”, suggests to me that he’s already well aware of certain shortcomings. What this camp’s training programme desperately needs is passion, humour, variety and joy. The three trainers at Prestige Boot Camp even perform a Comedy Cabaret Night for their clients; only people who’ve been there would know why, at Base Camp, that would be a complete impossibility. The website, I’m afraid to say, is being less than frank when it states, amidst its flat prose, that ” you’ll have lots of laughs”. If only.

Neither will evenings at Base Camp furnish you with those elusive laughs either. So little thought seems to have been given to after-dinner activities that you are soon only left with one thought yourself: at what point do I go upstairs and flop out in front of the bedroom telly , praying that its meagre three channels will have something on worth watching? Admittedly, there’s always a little meeting with the staff in the lounge at 7pm, but such encounters are brief, unstructured, and quickly into that old stop-gap: a questions & answers session. It would have been nice to have had, as other camps do, a couple of specialist guest speakers coming in from outside. A Style Consultant maybe? But they were having none of it, and don’t let Lee find you smoking anywhere on the premises either. He won’t be moved on his insistence that all smokers must walk 200 yards down the driveway and go out onto the public road: a unique requirement in boot camps, pointlessly confrontational and, of course, ultimately impractical because smokers are crafty buggers.

Finally, the food. Apparently Lee decides, on the basis of your calories burnt each day, how many he’s going to allow you to eat each evening. I never seemed to get enough, will confess to the odd hunger pang from this regime, and missed what other boot camps do in giving the guys 20% more than the gals. So I hit the fruit, and it did me no harm. Except for one night, when hunger did get the better of me, I actually left camp and am ending this sentence at once. Breakfast is also meagre, and worse still, is pretty much the same every day: muesli or a plainish porridge. The smoked salmon and scrambled eggs I’ve  been served as a treat elsewhere soon became a distant dream. And you can forget all about looking forward to those two snacks a day they give you at boot camp. Top venues, using their culinary imagination, never serve you the same snack twice, thus turning snack-breaks into a feature of surprise each day. At Base Camp, it’s just fruit and a cereal bar all week, if they remember at all.

In a market place with 14 boot camps, no boot camp that’s going to make it can afford to be an island. If and when Base Camp takes this on board and starts to give direct competitors like Apples & Pears Retreat and Prestige Boot Camp a real run for their money, it’ll not only fulfill its true potential, but give me the satisfaction, denied to me so far, of being able to re-write this review at the earliest possible opportunity.

Accommodation: Homely former Victorian country house hotel, with rooms styled in either C18th elegance or mock-Tudor theatrics. Grounds, & some bedrooms, look over the Bristol Channel to Wales.

Capacity: 20. Mixed M/F.

Duration: 7 nts. (4pm Saturday – Saturday 8.30am)

Cost: £1495(sgle); £995(twin); £700(triple). All rooms en-suite.

Price includes: All food, lodging & activities which typically include: gym-style work-outs plus abseiling, orienteering, cycling, kayaking, boxing, hiking, Focus Talk, one-to-one Nutrition Session, Individual Training Programme with follow-up support & Photo CD of your week.

Evening Events: Motivational Talk on first night, one-to-one Nutrition Session, Healthy Cooking Demo & Quiz Night occasionally; otherwise TV’s in all bedrooms.

Optional Extras: Massage £10 per 20 mins.

5 STAR RATINGS

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5 STAR RATINGS

Victoria Wills, with her unique and innovatory brand of boutique holism, has created at  Nubeginnings one of the best boot camps in England.  Although its holistic approach is now available elsewhere too, Nubeginnings was the first – and still is – the only proper boutique camp. No more than 10 guests at a time, who find on arrival that Westwell Hall’s interior is indeed en plein boutique: artily placed single flowers, headed notepad by the bed, Egyptian cotton sheets, memory foam mattress, plush furnishings colour-matched, Rhodes to Heaven oils in the bathroom and so on. I have to say that my bed was one of the most comfortable I’ve ever slept in -  a considerable compliment from a hotel reviewer ; but also that the dark- wood floors, the bare- bulb chandeliers and the draughts whistling through the house do tilt the ambience into ‘designer chic meets boarding school’.

Come to think of it, Victoria wouldn’t make a bad Headmistress either. She has certain non-negotiable rules, and the rest are made of iron: no radio, no TV, no newspapers no condiments, no time for make-up and a contract co-signed with you at end, which she enforces by telephoning you every weekend for the next two months. They aim to fix you here and they have a high success rate in doing so. Aided by exercise, total detox, acupuncture, hypnotherapy and deep-tissue massage, Nubeginnings targets the subconscious causes of bad habits, exorcises those demons, clears your mind and calms you down. It certainly worked for me. One hour of Frank’s massage, followed by one hour of Pete’s hypnotherapy on a couch in a darkened room, made me feel the most relaxed I’ve ever felt – they could turn Woody Allen into the Dalai Lama.

Specialist staff brought in from outside are generally excellent, from the fun local experts who take you coastal hiking right down to the cleaners who make up your room every day. There’s no military posturing or shouting at people here, just a group of friendly civilians on first-name terms. Refreshingly – because others don’t do it – the programme for the whole week is posted on the bulletin board, so we all know what we’re doing when, and heartened to see that days start at 8am (not 6am), end at 4pm (not 9.30pm), with 4-5 hrs. your daily average of physical work. The weather, too, is better than you’d expect as Ifracombe has a warm micro-climate, exemplified by a palm tree beside a pine tree outside the dining room window. A well-oiled machine, Nubeginnings is constantly on the go, through every week of the year, with only December off. Nubeginnings 2, by the way, is scheduled for Cheshire in 2010.

Not everything is perfect though. The sauna, for example, is naffly positioned in a corridor and miles away from any source of cold water afterwards. But that’s a trifle. My principal and only unease really is the commercial aspect of Nubeginngs. A two-page list of optional extras hits you in the bedroom, none cheap- yet all priced to the 99p.Me thinks someone is trying to sell me something. There’s also a link-up with a clothing company to promote the sale of sportswear to those size 14+. A  display of Camp Products dominates the entrance hall. Which all leads up to saying: why does Nubeginngs, the most expensive boot camp in England, need to be charging so much? Particularly as the camps are being run out straight out of Victoria’s own home and they are happening every week, 11 months out of 12. “We know we are expensive” and “We are not a charity” was as far as I got.

But then again, Nubeginnings could well be worth it. Provided you can afford it, this also the only boot camp in England to offer weeks in a row, if you feel you might need them. They are very serious players on the boot camp scene and genuinely dedicated to what they do – primarily because Victoria Wills once tried to dig her own grave with a knife and fork. It’s not oly to her credit that she shed 7 stone in one year, it’s the very core of her belief system. And, like her, you too will discover that the fresh-butterfly-you is going to cost a lot less to maintain than the old chrysalis from which you emerged.

• Accommodation: Designer luxury in a Victorian mansion house overlooking Ilfracombe. All rooms are en-suite. Fabulous beds, in-house sauna & gym with a
• panoramic view from the conservatory.
• Capacity: 10. Mixed M/F
• Duration: 7 nts. ( 4pm Friday – Friday 10am )
• Cost: £2065  (sgle) & £1755 (sharing)
• Price includes: All food, lodging & activities which typically include: hill & coastal path hiking, a beach session, in-house gym work-outs plus Plyometrics, Boxing, Yoga, Pilates, Qigong, Cheerleading & a Hawk Walk, 3 massages, 2 hypnotherapy sessions, 1 Group Accupuncture session, I NLP goal setting with 2 months close support, saunas   at will & a healthy picnic lunch to take away.
• Evening Events: Every night on topics like Aromatherapy, Posture, Nutrition etc. Loads of optional extras, like La-Stone Massage, at c. £50/1hr. A shop for Camp Products is also available.

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5 STAR RATINGS

Apples & Pears Retreat is one of England’s top camps because it occupies a rarely taken spot in the boot camp market: it’s always and only a mixed M/F venue; it’s great value for money; and with capacity for only 14 ‘retreaters’ at a time – one third below the national average of 20 per camp – it can afford you that more individual private attention. Duly, Apples & Pears is the only camp to include two 1:1 PT sessions, to dispense almost unheard-of celebratory champagne on the last night, to offer a slick CD of stills & movie, personalised to each guest – all of whom are invited into Katie’s home at Xmas for The A&P Annual Christmas Party. Shunning the tacky path of roping in minor celebs for publicity , hardly ever in the media or bothering to advertise much, Apples & Pears, amazingly, has grown a successful business by sheer word of mouth. Trouble is the secret’s out now, so if you like what you read, secure your place well ahead of time.

A&P’s C18th Farmhouse is its greatest asset. You feel as if you are in someone’s house, not an institution, as it rambles all comfy and homely, over three floors and a garden complete with a pool, sauna & jacuzzi complex – which they certainly make the most of. And I can tell you from experience -   there’s no better way to start the morning of a winter camp than loosening up your tired limbs and muscles in a warm swimming pool at a civilised hour. Certainly beats racing out the back door at 6am into freezing-cold darkness to join a military line-up and be shouted at. On summer camps, too, most mornings start in the pool.

Nestling peacefully in the heart of Thomas Hardy country, Apples & Pears Retreat is also right by the beaches and downs of Dorset’s Unesco World Heritage Jurassic Coast. Only three boot camps in England offer coastal treks here, which is a pity, because these stunning, memorable and uplifting hikes are amongst the nation’s finest.( And that, by the way, from a guy who’s allergic to walking and would prefer to take a taxi to the bathroom if he could).

More than any other boot camp manager I’ve met, Katie Duncan is out there in the thick of it with you nearly all the time. Consequently, she knows the mood of the group. No chance here of that alienation which can occur when trainers and guests feel that the people issuing orders from the office are completely out of touch. Principal trainer, Duncan Godfrey, is up there with the very best: an ex-Harlequins, ex-Royal Marine Commando alpha male, with a gentle manner and looks the ladies like, who somehow gets you going that extra distance because you don’t want to let him down.

Days are structured sensibly, with built-in time-off to recuperate your energy. There are too many camps that don’t do this, just rushing you from one thing into the next. What’s more, I suspect you’ll lose more weight here than elsewhere because they’re continually working on your body. Abseiling, for example, might be adventurous and character-building but it’s not shifting any pounds, is it? As a result, I lost 11lbs. and 2″ off my waist in only six days.

In common with most boot camps, the holistic aspect is not as strong as the physical side, but it still does a worthwhile job. The food is very good, with imaginative variety in the snacks and unusual things like sparkling mineral water or venison appearing at the dining table. In fact, it’s hard to find any significant criticisms of Apples & Pears Retreat – particularly when it has an ace up its sleeve with some of the best value-for-money prices in the country.

• Accommodation: Charming C18th Farmhouse, spacious & homely, with irresistible pool/ sauna/ jacuzzi complex. Feels like a country house hotel.
• Capacity: 14. Mixed M/F (Av: 85%F;15%M).
• Duration: 7 nts. ( 4pm Friday – Friday 10am).
• Cost: £1295(sgle e/s)/£1195 (sgle); £975 (twin e/s)/£945 (twin); £1045 (triple e/s)/ £845 (triple).
• Price includes: All food, lodging & activities which typically include: gym-style work-outs plus  boxing, cycling, yoga, pilates, aerobics & hypoxic training in the pool, 1:1 PT, team games, an assault course, 5 seminars on Nutrition & Life-Coaching & a personal CD of your week.
• Evening Events: Nightly, on subjects like Healthy Cooking etc. etc., plus there’s always the TV room & the pool/ sauna
• Optional extra: Massage/ £25 half, £45 full.

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Launched in June 2009, founders Siobhan Hargreaves( from marketing) & Steve Whittle( from the Navy), have put such a huge initial investment into the presentation & documentation of their company, that they clearly intend Kick-Start to stay kicking for a very long time to come. The website is a riot of colour and life – with an expensive minefield of links continually firing you off into Facebook, Twitter and everywhere else in the galaxy too. Sadly, and in contrast, the text is a crash to earth – no more than just a routine rehearsal of what everyone else is saying : ‘drop a dress size’ in a week’, ‘hard work’, ‘new path through life’ and so on. Steve & Siobhan should consider a site re-write here, stamping out a much more individual foot-print of their own onto the boot camp scene, especially as their take-home documentation is already superb – right up there with the best I’ve seen at any camp.

Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to see enough of Kick-Start yet to give it a full review, but will be able to after a second visit. It has good potential though, and if Loughborough is nearby for you I can already say you won’t go too far wrong with Kick-Start.  £1395 is acceptable for an en-suite single , as is £995 for an en-suite twin – but sharing a bathroom with three others for those prices, less so.  Work doesn’t need to start at 6am either; the best camps start off at around 7am, and still get the job done. Evenings look a bit thin and could, ideally, do with a couple more extra events like a Style Consultant or a Healthy Cooking Demo.

But Bunny Hall is charming, and the grounds of Stanford Hall Country Estate a pretty regal location for Kick-Start’s activities. Steve Whittle also comes across as being a top-flight trainer, who also runs his course in a friendly, non-military style.

Accommodation: You sleep at the delightfully named Bunny Hall, every bit as fluffy as it sounds, plus pool & jacuzzi room. Camp happens nearby, in the grounds of  Stanford Hall Country Estate, 350 acres of woods, lawns & a lake, regally spread out over rural Leicestershire.

Capacity: 20. Women only camps & men only camps.

Duration: 7 nts. (2.30pm Saturday – Saturday 2.30pm).

Cost: £1395(sgle) & £995(twin/share). No en-suites/2bedrooms share 1bathroom.

Price includes: All food, lodging & activities which typically include: gym-style work-outs plus boxing, cycling, yoga, skywalking, abseiling, self-defence, raft-building, pilates, search and rescue missions, assault courses,1 Life Coaching Session, 2 Nutrition Seminars, the T-shirt, the Team Photo & an after-camp support programme..

Evening Events: Stretch downs after dinner, remedial sports massages on call if needed and a Salsa Dance Class – otherwise it’s the pool, the jacuzzi or TV in the lounge.

Optional Extras: None

Branching out from her own successful cleaning company, Sharon Smith is new to the world of Boot Camps, enters it unshamedly as a businesswoman, brazenly cloning GIJane from the lightning-fast-weight-loss model of the dire New You Boot Camp, even down to charging an exactly identical £1650 for an en-suite single. Happily, from a commercial point of view, GI Jane does indeed have several good things going for it. No other camp is closer to London, only an hour off, whichever way you go. It tastefully, and most sensibly, limits itself to no more than 12 people at any one time. Plus – and perhaps shrewdest of all – GI Jane has come up with the novel idea of offering £70 Sampler Days – particularly appealing to Londoners -  whereby they can try out one day at boot camp to see if they like it, with the added incentive of getting their £70 back again, if they then go on to book a camp.

GI Jane’s menu for the week is designed inside 1500 calories a day, which is pretty standard, yet the variety it contains is commendable – good, too, to see little treats like beef goulash and trifle. But here the good news ends, because GI Jane has some serious drawbacks. The surrounding countryside on the Hoo Peninsular is a bit too flat and monotonous to make for decent photos, let alone an interesting trek – unless you’re into cornfields, housing estates, pylons and chimneys. I don’t know how you get round that one, other than to bus people into somewhere else for a whole-day trek. But I do know how GIJane can become a better boot camp. Basically it’s a question of Sharon Smith taking better role models ( like Prestige Boot Camp or Apples & Pears Retreat) and bringing her camp up to their standard.

On price, £1150 for a shared facilities twin is too high; and £1650 for an en-suite single is positively exorbitant. Even more so, when you see what other camps include for their lower prices. Just make a quick comparison: GI Jane’s holistic side is weak (because uncomplicated, temporary weight loss seems to be her principle reason for being ref: the website); no pool, no sauna; too much time spent on gym-style work-outs in the farmhouse garden; evening entertainment is virtually non-existent, so the evenings can drag on a bit too.

What this camp does get right is having two trainers for 12 people: that’s actually the best ratio in England! Yet the trainers keep changing, depending on which serving Navy PT instructor has his leave that week, with many of them doing this type of camp for the first time. You really do need one resident, principal trainer to take charge and bring some coherence into the programme. As it is at the moment, two guys are given a sample week’s programme, with permission to alter or embroider how they wish. On my visit, for example, the camp manager said there was going to be a trekking day; the trainers said they had no plans to do so. One professional with experience in training female civilians and knowledge of the local area is required soonest, otherwise the two guys pitched in are guaranteed to spend their week on a big learning curve, only realising at the end of the week the best way to have done things.

If GI Jane can get its product right, I will gladly re-write this review as soon as I can.

Accommodation:  Whitehall Farmhouse, closed off by trees at the end of a country lane, is an historical mish-mash of C15th beams, C18th elegance & C20th chintz . All is comfortable, homely & adequate – without ever being luxurious.

Capacity: 12. F only.

Duration:  7nts. (2.0pm Saturday – Saturday 9am).

Cost:  £1650( sgle en-suite) or £1150(twin share, none en-suite).

Price includes:  All food, lodging & activities which typically include: gym-style work-outs plus boxing, cycling, zip-wiring, walks, runs, games, unarmed combat, a half-day beach work-out, 1 Nutrition Seminar,1 Life Coaching Session & 1 Massage(30 mins.).

Evening Events: Life Coaching & Massage happen after dinner.Otherwise nothing. No radios, TV’s or newspapers either.

Optional Extras: None.

5 STAR RATINGS

LOCATION: * *

ACCOMMODATION:  * * *

FOOD: * * *

STAFF & ACTIVITIES:  * *

VALUE FOR MONEY: *

LIFE CHANGING POTENTIAL: * *

Ultimate Boot Camp is a novel, new hobby-horse for businessman Danny Watts’ charming and sweet- natured wife, Sam. Unfortunately, she has opted from the outset to saddle herself with one horribly huge problem. Why should anyone bother to book with Ultimate Boot Camp when Prestige Boot Camp is also there, sharing exactly the same premises and facilities – but offering a superior product for hundreds of pounds less per person per week? Ultimate’s £1275 en-suite twin share can be had at Prestige for only £995; similarly, you save a whopping £255 a week in the exact same single room. I was actually fair-minded enough to warn Ultimate that, as they would come badly out of any head-to-head comparison with Prestige, they should consider moving to another venue, which I would happily go out of my way to travel to, and we could start afresh. Oddly, Samantha Watts has chosen to bury her head in the sand and stay put, which can only give rise to two questions, each about as welcome as a fire-drill at midnight. Who is going to book an Ultimate Boot Camp in preference to a Prestige Boot Camp, knowingly setting fire to hundreds of pounds in the process? And what does such a price differential say to you about likely value for money at Ultimate’s other venues? They are, incidentally, an occasional Herefordshire Camp in 2009 and one projected for Norfolk in 2010.

To compound matters, at Prestige you also get many more bangs for your fewer bucks: twice the number of trainers, a chef of fine-dining pedigree, the chance to canoe on the River Exe, more personal goodies to take away with you and a superb programme of after-dinner entertainment every night – whilst Ultimate’s campers are out, yet again, on another two-hour trek. Psychologically, as well as physically, quality down-time after dinner is extremely important and is, by the way, now standard practice at the best boot camps in England.

But nothing will change at Ultimate Boot Camp unless main-trainer Jon Stratford says so. And here, alas, is another management failure. Ultimate Boot Camp is Jon Stratford’s camp. Sam on site and Danny at a distance, will always to defer to him. At camp you don’t feel that Sam is in charge at all, Jon is. He knows that he can say and do whatever he wants to do. The big problem with this managerial tail-wagging-the dog scenario at Ultimate is that Jon remains blissfully unaware of any shortcomings he may have; and no-one is ever going to tell him. Until now.

From tip to toe, Jon Stratford is the marine commando’s marine commando: the finest of warriors and a fantastic tutor for any young marine to have. Unfortunately, he hasn’t made it properly over to civvy street yet. Indeed, a journalist colleague makes a point of noting in her blog that he started off with: “Think of me as a marine first, and a PTI second” , which rather endorses my point of view and echoes my concern. What he needs to realise is that female civilians, who’ve paid well north of a thousand pounds to be there for the week, are entitled to more than a gruff and grimly one-dimensional persona from their, yes, PTI. Avoid just wrenching up the handbrake on the min-bus and, without even bothering to turn round, bark out to the occupants; “Everybody out, straight into dinner”. Don’t tell a client (incorrectly) that she’s not allowed to smoke at camp, thereby avoiding her apt reply: “I didn’t come here to give up smoking”. Just tone down the macho bit, add in humour, charm and polite deference to clients – and, in a trice, you’ll have an address at Mornington Crescent.

Then, there’s the vexed issue of Jon’s programme mix: at times, brilliant (like the pre-breakfast work-outs in the woods); at others, utterly daft ( like returning to the woods, getting into groups of three, and spending over an hour building and then discussing the construction of the perfect home for a rodent). Likewise, I found the activity balance of my clear-sky Sunday at Ultimate to be right out-of-kilter: from completing a commando assault course after breakfast, I didn’t take a deep breath again all day long as we built said home for rodent, learned how to tie knots and travelled for ages to play rounders on the beach. By contrast, my Sunday afternoon at Prestige – spent in vigorous canoeing games along the sunny River Exe – was one of the top experiences I’ve had at any boot camp. Ultimate don’t even offer it. Less adventure play-grounding, which involves a lot of dead time in travelling to get there and waiting around in a queue till it’s your turn. Re-visit the daily mix, especially the monotony of six night treks in a row. But then I’m not sure, even after nine months researching the subject of boot camps, that my opinion is going to count for much. I did once try to discuss training with Jon, in a general sort of way. He greeted my first or second observation – I don’t remember which now – with a loud cry of “Bollocks!”. I rest my case.

It gives me no pleasure at all to be writing about Ultimate Boot Camp in this way, because I feel that ultimately – if you’ll excuse the pun – both Sam’s and Jon’s hearts are in the right place. They’ve made above par efforts on their holistic side at Ultimate, with lots of personal counselling: they really don’t want their clients just to lose weight quickly and put it all back on again. I only hope that Ultimate’s management will be able to get its act together in time – releasing both the real potential of the company, and doing away with the negatives in this review. I look forward to that day

Accommodation: Award-winning Holiday Barns, spacious &
beautifully crafted with up-market furnishings
& panoramic views over the East Devon countryside.
Outdoor pool, summer only.

Capacity: 24. F only.

Duration: 7nts. (2.0pm Friday – Friday 10am).

Cost: £1650(sgles, all en-suite) & £1275(twin, en-suite).

Price includes: All food, lodging & activities which typically include gym-style
work-outs plus sessions in the swimming pool, hill & coastal
hiking, gorge walks, coasteering, cycling, climbing, Tyrolean
traversing, boxing, self-defence, marine commando assault
course, team games, 2 workshops on Nutrition & Life Coaching
plus 1/1 afterwards, a certificate & internet access to a Members
Area for future access to staff, programmes & photos of the week.
Evening Events: 2hr.trek after dinner for 6 nights, Camp Fire Night
with champagne at the end.
Optional Extras: Daytime massage at £20/40 mins.

5 STAR RATINGS

LOCATION: * * * *
ACCOMMODATION: * * * *
FOOD: * * *
STAFF & ACTIVITIES: * * *
VALUE FOR MONEY: *
LIFE CHANGING POTENTIAL: * * *