Military-Style Boot Camp and Fitness Retreat Weeks in Norfolk, the Algarve and St Tropez

The week is built around multiple training sessions a day. Mornings usually begin with a cardio or circuit session before breakfast, often outdoors — on the beach or coastal paths in Portugal and St Tropez, in the grounds and countryside around the Norfolk house. Mid-morning brings a strength or conditioning block, then a lighter session or a workshop in the afternoon. A day might include kettlebell and bodyweight circuits, hill sprints, boxing pad work, team relays and a long walk or hike. The volume is high and cumulative across the week, which is the point.

What makes this different from a generic fitness holiday is the fat-loss focus. The programme deliberately targets visceral fat — the deep abdominal fat wrapped around the organs — rather than just total body weight. Sessions are combined with nutrition teaching and, at the UK site, body composition technology for tracking changes over the week. Instructors explain why the training is structured the way it is, so guests understand what they're doing and can repeat it at home.

The Portugal retreat is the most performance-oriented of the four. Guests stay at an art deco boutique hotel minutes from Quinta do Lago, and training takes place at The Campus, a facility used by elite athletes and professional sports teams. That means proper gym equipment, sports pitches and recovery facilities rather than a converted barn. In St Tropez, the training moves around: poolside circuits, beach sessions, gym work at the Hotel Mandal, and sunrise hikes along the coast. Norfolk, the original camp, has hosted thousands of guests and is where the programme's weight-loss results are most closely tracked.

Gee Leary, No1's Chief Instructor, is an ex-Royal Marine and leads the training team across all locations. The instructors are chosen for military or elite sport backgrounds and for being able to read a group — pushing those who can take it, scaling for those who can't yet. Guests are assessed at the start and placed into appropriate intensity levels, so nobody is left behind on a run or thrown into a session beyond them.

Guests come from all sorts: people returning to fitness after a baby or an injury, gym regulars wanting a hard week, and athletes looking for a challenge. It's a mixed group, deliberately. Solo travellers do well because almost everything is done as a team, but couples and pairs of friends also book. Evenings are quieter — dinner, some downtime, an early night before the next 6am start. The Marrakesh camp adds a hot-weather option at a luxury villa; new dates for it are released periodically.

What's included

- Accommodation for the duration of your camp - All meals during the retreat - Multiple daily training sessions led by ex-military and elite-level instructors - Fitness assessment and body composition testing - Nutrition education workshops - Access to on-site training facilities (The Campus in Portugal, hotel gym in St Tropez) - Organised hikes and outdoor training sessions - Group team challenges - End-of-week results review

What's not included

- Travel to and from the retreat location - Airport transfers (arranged separately) - Travel insurance - Personal training one-to-one sessions - Spa treatments and massages - Alcohol and additional drinks - Personal expenses - Optional excursions not part of the programme