VALLEY — There’s a rhythmic, up-tempo baseline that can be heard coming down the halls of the Valley Community Center every Monday through Thursday night.

Inside one of the building’s rooms are a handful of community members who are going through a series of exercises to the music for boot camp.

“It’s a high-intensity interval class,” Valley fitness manager Torrance Rudd said. “What we try to do is hit a certain heart-rate target each individual. Of course, everybody has a different body type, but we do different things.”

On Mondays, the participants focus on strength and toning where there’s a lot of body weight-resistance training. On Tuesdays, the group focuses on cardio, and on Wednesdays and Thursdays, the focus shifts to abdominals.

“We try to do everything within the week,” Rudd said. “We try to cover every body part. We don’t use any weights, we only use bodyweight exercises. We don’t use any equipment, we’re just in an empty room.”

Rudd admits the name of the program may scare off a few potential participants, but he assures the public that Valley’s “boot camp” is welcoming to everyone.

“I have actually thought about a name change because we’re not ‘hit you over the head, you’ve got to do it,’ we’re not in your face screaming,” Rudd said. “Actually, anyone can do it. Anybody can modify it. We’ve had people 72-years-old who are doing it, one of our oldest members is 62-years-old, and she’s phenomenal. You can do it at your own pace, you can modify it. If there’s something that you can’t do, there is another way that you can find to do it and still get it done. The whole point of our boot camp is that we just want you to come in, get moving and get started.”

Rudd has worked in fitness training for over eight years, and has served as the Valley fitness manager for over the past year.

“Statistics show that people who exercise for one hour a week decrease their chances of death by 20%,” he said. “That’s only 20 minutes a day, and this could be walking or anything. Just being active. A lifestyle where a person pretty much doesn’t do anything can lead to premature death. I don’t mean to get too technical, but I have to explain it to people like this, a lot of people will say ‘when it’s your time to go, it’s your time to go.’ Well, if you have a car and you never get the oil changed, you never get maintenance, never tuned up or anything, eventually, that car is not going to give you what it could’ve given you.

“It’s the same thing with your body. If you take care of your body, it’ll last longer, it’ll feel better, you’ll feel better.”

Rudd went on to encourage the local high school students and college students who have returned home for the summer to take advantage of the fitness programs that are available at the community center. 

The next event that he said he’s looking forward to is the bench press competition on June 29. All contestants must be at least 21-years-old, members of the community center and register by June 20.