The main difference between a military boot camp and a fitness boot camp
If you haven’t seen the movie Full Metal Jacket, then what rock have you been living under? It is full of awesome in the form of real-life Marine Corps drill instructor R. Lee Ermey.In that movie, the asses of new recruits are severely kicked for several weeks to get them ready for war. Certain fitness classes promise to transform you into a warrior, or at least make you more badass, or something, but there are some differences between the military boot camp and the fitness kind.
“Well, duh,” you say.
You don’t live in a fitness boot camp 24/7 for several weeks.
In a fitness boot camp, they don’t shave your head.
In a fitness boot camp, they don’t care about how polished your boots are.
In a fitness boot camp, rather than enlist, you pay money.
You don’t learn how to use rifles and other manufactured lethal weaponry in a fitness boot camp.
Fitness boot camps aren’t training you to go off to a real war where people shoot at you and/or try to blow you up.
The list goes on.
But there is one difference that stands out much more than these. Yes, it stands out even more than the “go to war” one. Can you guess what it is?
In a fitness boot camp, the instructor doesn’t want you to graduate.
After several punishing weeks of training, Gunnery Sergeant Hartman in Full Metal Jacket told his men: “Today, you people are no longer maggots. Today, you are Marines.”
They had graduated, and it was time to GTFO and make room for the next bunch of recruits.
As a guy with an MBA, I can tell you there is an adage in business that it is five times harder to find a new customer than resell a current customer. Fitness boot camps don’t want you to ever graduate out of needing them, because they want to keep selling you more. They most definitely don’t want to train you in such a way that you’re ready to leave and face other forms of fitness combat after 13 weeks.
Here is a quote from Full Metal Jacket’s narrator, Private Joker: “Graduation is only a few days away, and the recruits of Platoon 3092 are salty. They are ready to eat their own guts and ask for seconds. The drill instructors are proud to see that we are growing beyond their control. The Marine Corps does not want robots. The Marine Corps wants killers. The Marine Corps wants to build indestructible men, men without fear.”
The bold emphasis is mine.
When you pay for a fitness boot camp, you’re paying to be told what to do, and you’re paying to be motivated. There is nothing inherently wrong with this, if you can afford it. If your boat is worth more than my house, and you like forking out a constant stream of cash to never learn how to go it alone and be beholden to an exercise babysitter, then that’s fine. You go.
It’s easier for rich people to get and stay fit. They can have a trainer for every session that motivates them to show up and go hard. Be it a yoga class, boot camp, or personal training session, I know people who never work out without some well-paid person telling them precisely what to do.
The not-so-rich don’t have this option, and development of self-efficacy and intrinsic motivation is therefore critical.
If in the latest economic meltdown you were one of the financially destroyed rather than one of the destroyers (and seriously, screw those guys), then you need to learn how to go it alone as well as be motivated to do so. You need to reach towards that day when you are no longer a maggot, but a Marine, or something.
Self-efficacy is scientist speak for having your shit together. I go into extensive detail on what it is and how to use it in my Mission: Motivation book, and since it’s only like four bucks, you should totally buy it (see links at end of this post). It is a situation specific form of self-confidence. It means that you’ve progressed past needing someone to tell you what to do with your workouts, and you have gained independence. You have graduated and have the education and experience to handle things on your own. You’re a big boy now.
Note that this doesn’t mean you can’t go back for occasional coaching to take you to a new level. I never would have qualified for the Boston Marathon without my coach.
Trainers offer extrinsic motivation. Extrinsic means it comes from an external source. Intrinsic means internal. Internal means you. It means you yelling at you to keep going; push harder, don’t quit. Not some other guy you paid to yell at you.
A lot of trainers don’t want you to learn either self-efficacy or intrinsic motivation, because these skills interfere with their paycheck. Instead, they’d rather teach you learned helplessness so that you never stop needing them. They don’t have a fresh line of recruits ready to take your place on graduation day the way the Marine Corps does.
There’s nothing wrong with using a trainer or coach or class instructor to push you, but realize that they may not have your best interests at heart when it comes to developing independence and going it alone.
If you want to be born again hard, you need to learn how to become your own drill sergeant.
James S. Fell, CSCS, is the co-founder of www.SixPackAbs.com and owns www.BodyForWife.com. James is a nationally syndicated fitness columnist for the Chicago Tribune and Los Angeles Times. His book, Lose It Right: A Brutally Honest 3-Stage Program to Get Fit and Lose Weight Without Losing Your Mind is coming from Random House in early 2014. Follow him on Facebook and Twitter.
He is also the author of the ebook Mission: Motivation – A Realistic Guide to Getting and Staying Fit published by AskMen and available for Kindle, Kobo, Nook and iTunes.
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