We like to put journalists through their paces, so when Exeter University found out about New Body Bootcamp, we were more than happy to offer them a session at our wednesday assault course. But who would be put through their paces? Find out and read what Expose had to say…

Review Taken from Expose Issue 26/10/2009

Simon Lovell’s ITV Boot Camp

A very early morning start for an exciting and fun-filled way to keep fit and tone up. The alternative way to exercise, run by internationally famous
personal trainer Simon Lovell, led to a national breakfast TV exclusive featuring your very own Lifestyle editors…

Tom says:

5:30 am (no it is not a typo, I do mean am). Mornings are famously not my forte and let’s be perfectly fair, 5:30 shouldn’t even be classed as morning, it’s more of a noman’s- land of a time. It’s not really nightime, not really morning, just this terrible quantum in time that I hadn’t witnessed in a good number of months. Aching, yawning and making up every excuse under the sun, I struggled out of bed on Francesca’s strict yet reluctant orders. 7:20 am. Knackered. Not quite sure what day it is still, two circuits of the assault course down, pretty sure that this is all a terrible dream and looking like a cross between Worzel Gummidge and Russell Brand (both having bad hair days). The last thing I want is to be on national television. Enter ITV cameramen filming a blog for ‘alternative ways to keep fit’, to be shown on Friday morning ITV Southwest breakfast TV. So the whole of the South West would see me attempting to straddle foam mats in the early hours. Classic. 8am. Revitalised. I’ve been up and down, in and out, shaken all about. Simon Lovell’s army-style assault course is potentially the most tiresome yet invigorating hour of fitness that I have ever experienced. Not only can you visibly see yourself toning up in the form of gallons of sweat dismounting from your body, but with the swinging ropes and foam barriers to negotiate, you get to impersonate James Bond and Robin Hood at the same time. It’s 8:30 am. I’m at one of those surreal stages in your life, akin to the first stages of puberty or realising for the first time that your younger brother is far cooler than you. I have burnt my week’s worth of calories, squeezed onto national TV half asleep, temporarily lost my manhood in the freezing cold outdoor run, am up before 10:00 and feel absolutely fantastic. What’s going on? Struggling to get fit for the Safer Sex Ball? Of course you are – not really sure why I asked that. Well, we have just discovered the shortcut! And, unlike the majority of our ‘Exe-periences’ you can uncover the secret within our very own city walls. Located just behind Hotel Barcelona, Simon Lovell’s Boot Camp offers an easily accessible alternative to sculpt your body into a temple.

Fran says:

While you were curled into the foetal position at 7am last Tuesday, I was on a trampoline, having just leapt over three ‘horses’, clambered up a climbing frame, removed and re-removed my trainers three times to run three circuits round a twilight park before repeating this assault course. I had also made a neat puddle of sweat on the gym floor, my t-shirt was inside out and I was being filmed. Simon Lovell is a name fast becoming known in the fitness world. He is a celebrity fitness
instructor and has tutored the likes of Cameron Diaz in nutrition (who has used his famous Lunch Box Diet.) Simon’s unique fitness coaching has featured on The Wright Stuff, Sky Slimming and Fitness Channel, and now ITV Southwest has covered him. He also agreed to be shut in a sow stall with celebrity chef Jamie Oliver on the Channel 4 programme Jamie Saves Our Bacon in which he supported the British Pig Industry. Simon’s unique fitness coaching tones every limb in our body by combining a rigorous assault course in an indoor gym (behind Hotel Barcelona in Exeter) with merciless outdoor sprinting. And you get to lunge into a pile of foam. Once joined up to Simon’s sessions, you are offered a free hair-cut, a free massage, regular nutritional coaching as well as the regular morning routine for a mere £40. This will be the third year I cough up £235 to use the facilities at Streatham Campus Gym but I find myself searching for something more invigorating, more supportive than panting on a cross-trainer like a caged hamster after lectures. Of course I want to lose six pounds before I decide to bare all for The Safer Sex Ball but something tells me that Simon’s regular ‘motivation texts’ are a lot more likely to rip me from the couch. Yes the fitness sessions start at 7am, so you can complete your excercise on dead time. This dawned on me walking home at 8.15am that morning, I realised I had burned over 600 calories and I was still early for a 9am lecture! This is my incentive to visit www.newbodycamp.co.uk and sign up.