My Langley Bootcamps are designed for fat loss, but everyone’s different and brings different abilities to the table.

Making modifications at bootcamp is essential to letting your body move in a safe environment void of injury.

I always want my members to push through their barriers, but when those barriers are pain from that old soccer injury or car accident, we know we’ve pushed a little too hard!
Modifications, even the simple ones, will keep you injury free and get you to where you want with your body and beyond. There are many sights in the body that tend to get worn down by exercise and living. Among these, the shoulders, knees, wrists, and ankles, are primary culprits and sites of injury. Here are some quick bootcamp modification pointers so you can prevent your injuries from getting worse and still exercise like a pro:

Shoulders, once you get any pain, your number 1 priority is getting them back to a functional level. Many of the pushes and presses may present quite the challenge for you at this point. It is important that you keep this joint known for its mobility stable or you may find even the most rudimentary tasks a walk through painville! For example, if you feel a painful sensation when performing a shoulder raise, then stick with a smaller range of motion and keep your hands below your shoulders at all time during the exercise. Another shoulder modification is doing wall pushups instead of floor pushups. Once again, we have decreased the stress at the shoulder joint, but are still working the chest, triceps, and deltoids. Wall pushups function the same as the original, but you are lifting a smaller portion of your bodyweight. (Think back to your old highschool trigonometry lessons!)

If your knees have been aching, but you still want to participate in bootcamp or another fitness class, I am here to tell you that this is a possibility. If you’re not quite ready for deep squats, then simply decrease your range of motion and don’t go below a 90 degree flexion at your knee.

Your quads may be imbalanced as well, so putting a ball between your legs and squeezing will ensure your patella (kneecap) is tracking properly and getting your quadriceps balanced during the movement.

Carpal tunnel syndrome is rampant these days as many of us are on computers all the time! A modification for your wrists would be to do KNUCKLE PUSHUPS instead of the traditional flexed wrist ones. Knuckle pushups keep your wrists in a nice neutral position and will strengthen your wrists so you can fly by this problem in the future (plus it looks cool).

Shins hurting or you have a minor ankle sprain? You’ll need to add toe raises to your bootcamp regiment amd strengthen your anterior tibialis. If the rest of the group is engaged in a running exercise, you can do exercises such as squats, which wont make you feel that uncomfortable pain in the front of your shins. A little relative rest, stretching, and you’ll be back on the fast track in no time.

Cheers,

Josh Saunders