Women's Fitness Class & Movie Night at Camp!

Today on the Camp Balcones Springs blog, we will be talking about Monday’s activities as well as highlighting our Women’s Fitness Program!

Here at Camp Balcones Springs, we are proud to be one of the only girls summer camps near Austin, Texas, that offers a Women’s Fitness activity program. This curriculum consists of five separate activities spread over the course of camp, designed to help introduce girl campers to a variety of exercise forms accessible to all skill levels and abilities. The first activity is an energy-filled salsa and rumba Zumba class taught by a local Zumba instructor. Girl campers learn the basic steps of both dance styles and practice choreographed routines to break a sweat. In class two, campers complete a circuit training class with five separate rotations – medicine ball core strength twists, lunges, jump roping, push-ups, and arm lifts. In class three, campers take a 3-mile-round-trip hike to camp’s scenic overlook, located at the rear of our property on the land that abuts local destination Lake Travis. Campers enjoy icey fruit cups at the midway point of their hike as they take in the scenery of the overlook. The fourth class is a relaxation yoga class taught by Jess Benton. Campers focus on core strength, breathing, stretching, flexibility, and meditative rest. Finally, campers finish the course with a weightlifting class in our air-conditioned fitness center, learning about different muscle groups and how to navigate weight machines for their particular shape and size as women. With our Women’s Fitness course, we aim to introduce different types of fitness activities to campers in hopes of showing them there are many ways to work out and stay active – whether it’s traditional exercises like gym classes and weightlifting, or things we may not always think of as fitness per sae - like walking or dancing – and that any of these can be used to develop lifelong fitness habits that best suit our preferences, interests, and abilities.

We kicked off Monday with a delicious breakfast in our Rio Grande Dining Hall! Campers and staff enjoyed toasted bagels with a fixin’s bar of fresh smoked salmon, capers, chopped up eggs, onion, and cucumbers in a build-your-own bagel line. For those more interested in sweet bagels rather than savory, we offered whipped strawberry cream cheese. Traditional breakfast offerings were also available as well, so all taste buds were satisfied!

After a full day of activities – including tubing, wakeboarding, swimming, horseback riding, and yoga, just to name a few – campers gathered together for one of our staple CBS events – Movie Night! After dinner, campers congregate on blankets and in bean bag chairs to watch a movie under the stars. Movie popcorn (popped in a classic movie popcorn machine), root beer and cream soda, nachos, hot tamales, and assorted movie candies are made available for campers to snack on during the evening. This year, in honor of the NBA Finals, we watched the fan-favorite Space Jam. Campers were also given the option to watch the NBA Finals game itself on another screen, cheering the Golden State Warriors to Monday night’s victory.

Stay tuned for more updates on this last week of Term 1!