By Lee Reinsch
Correspondent
HOBART – Move over Tony Little. Get lost Richard Simmons. The new kid on the block is FIRE Fitness Camp.
But this kind of camp doesn’t call for tents, sleeping bags, or raccoon-proof snack storage.
Those who brave it won’t be away from home for a week. And FIRE Fitness Camps have indoor plumbing.
But marshmallows are more than welcome to join – they even get a free V.I.P. session to see what FIRE is all about.
“We’re not just one of your conventional gyms where you buy a membership, and come in and go through the motions,” said Tyler Kabat, general fitness manager of the new FIRE Fitness Camp location that opened this month at 560 Centennial Centre Boulevard in Hobart, as well as the Grand Chute location. “We have no static exercises; there are no machines, no cardio equipment. You’re using your own body to move in a way that’s challenging and makes your body grow.”
FIRE (which stands for functional, intensive, resistance, and exercise) runs more on a bootcamp model than a summer-camp model.
“We’re using dumbbells and barbells, we flip tractor tires, we do box jumps, we do battle ropes on the ground, we climb ropes to the ceiling,” Kabat said. “You use your own body weight as an effective tool – you’re always moving in a dynamic way.”
Changing nutrition is crucial, too, he said, and to that end, FIRE offers powders and proteins for sale.
“We like to say you can’t out-train a bad diet, so we provide nutritional guidelines to make sure our clients are fueling their workouts to maximize their time here,” he said.
Waupaca native and FIRE Fitness CEO Hans Hartleben, 43, launched FIRE less than six years ago in Plover, and for the first few years, FIRE had three locations.
“Then in the last three years, we’ve gone from three to 30 camps, and we just announced that Eau Claire will be opening up soon. So we’re exploding right now,” Kabat said.
Laura Bender and Chris Polanco, vice president of FIRE Fitness Camps, own the Hobart site as well as a few others.
Sites are franchised, with local owners, but follow the same exercises and ideals.
Although it may be fun to stay at the YMCA, that’s definitely not the draw to FIRE.
In fact, some might say that the biggest plus to FIRE Fitness Camp is that camp sessions are done in half an hour.
“We do 30-minute sessions of metabolic resistance training,” Kabat said. “We’re spiking your heart rate through intense workouts, creating those sub-clinical injuries to your muscles, and accelerating muscle growth, accelerating weight loss by putting your body into overdrive as it rebuilds that muscle. It’s now got to work harder to rebuild that, so you’re losing weight at the same time.”
FIRE Fitness has locations in Howard, Seymour, De Pere and Green Bay, as well as several in the Fox Cities area, to ensure there’s no excuse for not shaping up.