"Pink Ladies" Get Fit at Clark's Esposito Park

Long before the sun rises, the recruits of Pink Ladies Fitness Boot Camp set up yoga mats and dumbbells on the damp field of Esposito Park on Madison Hill Road in Clark. Ranging in age from 18 to 60, approximately 25 ladies chat about mutual friends they’ve recently recruited until founder and drill sergeant Mike Cowen, 37, begins the day’s session.

The camp runs from 5:30 to 6:30 a.m. every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, with 12 sessions in each month’s camp. Currently in its third month, the ladies have only positive things to say about the camp; nearly everyone from the June and July camps returned for August’s first session.

Over the course of three boot camp workouts, I witnessed a variety of drills and exercises accompanied by encouragement and motivation from Cowen, currently the camp’s sole instructor. He says, “The women here want to improve their health, overall wellness, fitness, body fat percentage, confidence, and stress levels. These routines are meant to do all that.” The routines certainly delivered – on the first day the workout included jump ropes, hurdles, crunches on fitness balls, and running laps and suicides. Despite the militaristic name and early time of the boot camp, Cowen recommends it for all women. He says, “The women quickly learn that I set up the program so that they can control the intensity. Every exercise we do is adaptable.”

This adaptability was exemplified on my second day of camp, which featured a trail run around the park’s creek, intercepted with squats and core exercises. As an alternative, Cowen offered the girls the option to run several consecutive laps of the trail. He did this for all the exercises, offering ways of increasing the intensity by adding a jump to squats or doing a jog instead of a walk, for example. Michelle McTanney, 37, who has been attending camp since June, says of Cowen, “I like how he keeps us motivated. He makes me jog when I don’t want to jog. I’ve actually come to the park on days when there wasn’t camp, and I don’t know what to do with myself.”

The camp meets even during light rain, but a downpour led to a rescheduling of my third session. Cowen notifies the ladies of cancellations by both text and email in addition to sending friendly reminders to stay hydrated. At my final session we did crunches and presses on the yoga mats and jogged to the tennis courts for jump rope and lunges with dumbbells.

The park, with its baseball field, tennis courts, playground, and creek, is the perfect size for the camp. It is empty in the early morning, except for an occasional lone walker and several wild rabbits. Cowen discovered it on a random drive and as he says, “I fell in love with it. I think it’s a wonderful park and it’s a great setting. I live locally, and I love the community and thought that the community could use a boot camp.”

Boot camps have been popular for many years, and Cowen had been observing their growth for about five years when he started his. He recruited people from Clark to Rahway to Colonia with flyers, ads and the camp’s website. Cowen is a personal trainer and a coach, as well, and uses his experience to create exercises that target the entire body.

Cowen says, “It’s a full-body, fat-melting workout, and the combinations of exercises are different every day. It’s important to have some similarities, though; there’s always cardio and there’s always core. But we want to confuse your muscles; we want it to be very dynamic.”

Roxanne Genova, 50, who has been attending the camp since June, likes that “it’s a full-body workout – it’s cardio, it’s toning. I’ve increased my upper body strength, which isn’t something I typically do on my own. I also like that it’s outdoors and early enough in the morning that I can still get here and get home and shower and get to work.” When asked if there’s anything she dislikes about the camp, she says, “No. Nothing. I would like it to stay exactly the same.”

There will be one aspect of the camp changing in the near future, though – because New Jersey’s cold weather is imminent. Cowen stresses the importance of working out year-round, and has been planning an indoor move for a while. Currently, the camp will most likely be moving to the Center Circle in Rahway in time for the October camp. Five minutes from Esposito Park, the location has a 60-yard indoor turf soccer field. It has plenty of room and a sound system for the up-tempo music that accompanies the workouts. Cowen says, “It should be an exceptional location for our camp. We’re very excited about it.

In addition, Cowen is considering special yoga or Pilates camp sessions in the future, as the camp continues to grow. He also mentioned the idea of an evening camp for men, possibly starting in the fall. He welcomes anyone who would like to try the camp for a free first session and can be contacted through the camp’s website, pinkladiesfitness.com.

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