Full disclosure: I loathe team sports and organized group activities. I resent being told what to do. I consider waking up before 8am torturous and mostly impossible. I am not an ideal candidate for a fitness bootcamp program.

And yet, throughout the month of darkest January, I dragged my ass out of bed at 6:30am three times a week so that I could make it to Best Body Bootcamp (www.bestbodybootcamp.com) for 7:15am. I waited at the Dufferin bus stop in the early, beautifully quiet, cold mornings (who knew the buses ran so regularly at the crack of dawn?) come windstorm, come blizzard, come freezing rain. For a solid month, I showed up at the BMO soccer field to crunch, squat, run laps, squeeze resistance bands and push up (I really hate push-ups) with more than a dozen strangers. And I freaking loved it; I only missed one class, and I was running a 104-degree temperature at the time.

Conceived and run by husband-and-wife team Roger Nahas and Daniela Nahas, both professional trainers, the four-week program started in June 2007 in Trinity Bellwoods Park and has rapidly expanded to seven new Toronto locations, with plans to add more in Etobicoke, Burlington, Pickering, Scarborough and Oakville. Roger (who was my instructor when I tried the classes in January) credits their success to the fact that the atmosphere is more fun than intimidating. “We have had great experience with word-of-mouth testimonials,” he says. They avoid the yelly-sergeant stereotype, pay attention to form and emphasize health over aesthetics.

Roger became a personal trainer about eight years ago after his own life was transformed by fitness. “I was an overweight child and I was always a husky, chubby kid,” he says. In 1999, he signed up for the Body-for-Life Challenge, a three-month intensive makeover program during which he lost 30 pounds of fat and gained 10 pounds of muscle. “It changed my life,” he says. “It changed the way I felt about myself and my whole approach to life.”

Fitness bootcamps are increasingly popular and they are popping up everywhere. Roger says he and Daniela started their business because they wanted to make the benefits of personal training accessible to a greater number of people. “The response we’ve gotten is fantastic,” he says.

While they’re looking for another trainer to help teach at their growing number of locations, Roger is wary of getting too big too fast; it’s important to him to maintain the integrity of the program itself, referencing the care and attention he and Daniela put into building and maintaining its core principles. “I think we’re the most dynamic bootcamp in the city,” he says. “And I want to keep it that way.”