Bootcamp in West Allis

Erin Naatz—a personal trainer certified through the National Academy of Sports Medicine—values goals and potential. As the owner of Fitness Revolution, she dedicates all the center's resources to helping individuals work toward their own fitness aspirations. Group classes meet throughout the week in the 2,000-square-foot facility, where attendees of all fitness levels hone their technique and send calories scattering under her watchful eye. In keeping with Erin's passion for interval training, her programs cycle through intense cardio blasts interspersed with full-body workouts that build muscle tone with TRX suspension systems, kettlebells, and barbells. Meal plans and occasional fitness assessments help attendees stick to their fitness goals outside of class, where they have to face the reality of readily available snacks and the constant hectoring of the Kool-Aid man.

Created by fitness trainer and life coach Dr. John Spencer Ellis and led by owner and certified fitness professional Doug Krueger, the Lake Country Adventure Boot Camp program shepherds women to physical fitness with motivational workout regimens and nutritional counseling. Before the camp starts, trainers take your measurements and body-fat percentage before hopping into a curious pod, leaping into the future, and comparing them to those of the trimmer post-camp you. In the interim, the four-week or three-day workout regimen cycles through circuit training, jogging, kickboxing, and yoga to surprise and challenge muscles. During winter months and unforeseen Renaissance festivals, sessions move to spacious indoor facilities.

Getting in shape wasn't just a good idea for Tami Haukedahl; it was the law. The state required the now-retired trooper captain to pass regular fitness exams during her 27 years of service. Today, she brings the techniques that kept her hale for three decades to her students, helping them to achieve their health and fitness goals through her boot camps and one-on-one personal training.

Patrons of all fitness levels and ages gather at her camps, where she cultivates an uplifting atmosphere of camaraderie built on positive reinforcement and respect. Using free weights and body-weight resistance exercises, Tami motivates students to increase their strength, flexibility, balance, and endurance. Her boot camps take place outdoors during the summer months, leading her students in dodging nature's obstacles while laughing in the face of minor precipitation. During the winter, boot camps move to an indoor facility, mostly to avoid all the leering snowmen, where campers work up a sweat while completing similarly varied routines.

Anchored by owner and certified personal trainer Damon Burrell, Heaven and Hell Bootcamp's staff of workout wonks help clients conquer fitness goals in group boot-camp classes and private training sessions. With a regimen of 15 boot-camp classes lasting 40–45 minutes and held every weekday—as well as three Saturday morning sessions—Heaven and Hell keeps chests heaving, heart rates thumping, and sequined leotards shimmering at a rate that suits almost any schedule. The high-octane group workouts change each day, but typically feature agility training, calisthenics, cardio exercise, and core strengthening achieved by hoisting dumbbells, jumping rope, and stealing medicine balls from the nests of predatory birds of flight. For more individualized attention, the gym plumbs the murky depths of clients' fitness capacities to craft custom training regimens for use in private personal-training sessions.

After graduating from the University of Wisconsin with a degree in kinesiology exercise science, ACE-certified trainer and Fit Fun Bootcamps founder Dustin Maher designed MamaTone Fitness to help moms vanquish weight gain after childbirth. Inspired by his own mother—who cooked his siblings and him healthful meals but rarely had enough time to exercise—Maher strives to imbue his clients with the motivation to do both. Whether training new moms, moms-to-be, dads who had moms, or curiously fast sons whose moms found them in the middle of a Kansas corn field climbing out of a spaceship, his group classes and boot camps immerse participants in a full-body workout with moral support from neighboring exercisers.