Tony Ludlow is a pillar in the Memphis fitness community. He has been running an all-levels boot camp in East Memphis for over 25 years. Through his program, he keeps his clients fit, agile, and healthy as they age.
Tony grew up playing nearly every sport and maintained a high level of fitness and athleticism throughout college and into his career in the Marine Corps, where he also served as a fitness instructor. He became a teacher and a coach in Japan before returning to Memphis to continue teaching and coaching at Memphis Catholic High School. Teaching early and coaching after school, Tony found that he had no precise time to fit in a workout. So, the lifelong athlete knew he needed to come up with a new solution. It was then that Tony began his now renowned early morning fitness boot camp based on Marine Corps-style training.
Sgt. Tony’s Bootcamp started as a renegade group at the University of Memphis and flew under the radar, eventually becoming part of their continuing education program. After the program was discontinued, Christ United Methodist Church heard about their workout group and invited them to relocate there. Since then, workouts have continued at CUMC and even transferred online via Facebook Live during the pandemic.
At Sgt. Tony’s Bootcamp has a range of participants of all fitness levels, with ages ranging from 20s to 70s. Holding a PhD with a concentration in health and human performance, Tony has used this knowledge and his background to craft a well-rounded, daily workout that has kept clients coming back for over 20 years. Tony still has clients from the early 2000s and has maintained connections with the virtual participants who stay in touch via the program’s Facebook page.
Sgt. Tony’s Bootcamp is designed to target four major aspects of fitness – muscular strength and stamina, flexibility, cardio, and balance/agility. “Many of my clients have aged along with me and stuck around,” Tony said. “As you get older, your sense of balance takes a hit, so we address agility, balance, and flexibility daily.”
Classes are offered at 5:30 and 6:45 a.m. Monday through Friday. Each hour-long class starts with stretching, a warmup, and then into that day’s workout. Every day at Sgt. Tony’s Bootcamp is different, with some days being more strength-focused, some targeted for cardio and high-intensity interval training, as well as flexibility, balance, and agility.
Tony emphasizes the importance of physical fitness, especially as you age, and accredits his well-being in his late 60s to his lifelong care for his body. “I see peers and others my age that are inactive, in poor health, and some even dying of heart attacks, and it is so sad to see,” he says. “I am so grateful that I can run, travel, hike, and continue to live the active lifestyle I have always loved.”
Tony’s advice to others in his age range looking to stay fit is to stick to the basics. “When I was in my 20s and 30s, I was really competitive and wanted to be faster and stronger. As age starts to take its toll, your body can’t take risks like that, and you have to ask yourself what you are doing it for. Once someone can define their ‘why,’ it’s easy to point them to the benefits of a balanced program,“ he says. Overall, Tony says the best way to maintain fitness is to keep moving any way you can, and he offers advice to his new clients in their 20s and 30s and his oldest clients in their 70s and 80s.
Learn more about Sgt. Tony’s Bootcamp at Facebook.com/USMCFitnessBootCamp.
By Zoe Harrison
Photo by Tindall Stephens
