“We started this because we’re both personal trainers and had a lot of friends who were coming to us for workouts,” Lindsay Chavez says, explaining that they decided to look into holding sessions in breweries after they found that half of their friends would head to bars after their workouts. “We home brew and took an interest in maybe partnering up with some breweries for the workouts," she adds. "We had our first Brewery Boot Camp at Dry Dock Brewery in the first week of December.”
The workout focuses on body-weight exercises, although the couple also provides medicine balls, ropes, hand weights and sandbags. “The workout is set up so that anyone can do it, and we’ve had a lot of newbies who are just getting into fitness come out and join us,” Lindsay says. The last session involved sixteen stations for people to rotate through, she notes.
Though the workout space varies from brewery to brewery (at Dry Dock, they used the bottling area), Brewery Boot Camp can usually accommodate about 25 people — and many of them are becoming regulars. “Our hope is to keep doing this twice a week on Saturdays and Sundays for as long as we can and as long as people are interested,” Lindsey says, adding that they'll need to take a break during the summer because she's expecting a baby. “We’re already booked through April with breweries interested in participating. We want to give people a good workout and connect them with good Colorado beer.”
This month's series kicks off with boot camp at Sunday, March 6, at 38 State Brewing Company, 8071 South Broadway in Littleton; then moves to Declaration Brewing on Saturday, March 12 ; Elk Mountain Brewing on March 13; The Brew on Broadway on Saturday, March 19; Copper Kettle Brewery on Sunday, March 20; and wraps up at Dry Dock North Brewing on Saturday, March 26. All classes begin at 11 a.m., but participants should come fifteen minutes early to register.
The current cost of Brewery Boot Camp is $10, though Lindsey says they may eventually raise the price to $15 to sustain the program. The breweries offer discounted beers as rewards for the workout.
Find out more information about Brewery Boot Camp here.