Several teachers at Pharr Elementary are walking kind of funny these days.

Fourth-grade teacher Karen Skrine knows the odd walk well because she's shuffling at the Snellville school, too. She's one of 15 teachers who last week began Fit Camps, a program designed by Richard Camp, owner of Pro Performance Fitness.

Four days a week, Camp hauls his equipment over to the Snellville school and instructs the teachers in an intense, challenging, full-body workout. Camp uses bodyweight exercises, kettlebells, weighted balls, whatever it takes to keep the women moving for 45 minutes.

"I felt like I had been on a horse," Skrine said. "I still feel that way, but it's not a bad feeling. Walking down the hall, teachers would stop us and say, 'You're in the Fit Camp, aren't you?' They could tell just by the way we were walking. We're sore like crazy, but we're loving it."

Camp, who fulfilled his dream and opened his own gym in Lawrenceville three months ago, incorporates a lot of functional training, "anything from flipping a tire to a lot of air squats, lunges, anything that requires explosive movement," he said. "We use functional, multi-joint movement so that we recruit as many muscles as possible to burn as many calories as possible." The Fit Camps also are becoming a big hit at the gym. Training four times a week, participants will burn up to 1,000 calories per session and, with proper dieting —- can expect to lose 10 pounds, Camp said. But they have to put in the work.

"They're not just going to walk in and 30 days later be trim and slim," the trainer said. "It's a process. But as long as people are ready to dedicate the time, we're here for them."

Kim Mitchell has seen her body fat drop from 27 to 19 percent since she started doing the Fit Camps at the gym on Sugarloaf Parkway. "I've had a personal trainer, but I've seen more of a change doing this work than anything else I've ever done," Mitchell said. "It's a great workout. It changes every single day, and I'm never bored."

Camp, a former star athlete at Lithonia High School and at West Georgia College, is a competitive bodybuilder, competing in drug-free events.

His business focuses on average folks, though. Pro Performance Fitness is a 4,000-square-foot gym and currently has about 100 members. Camp says he wants to know every member's name, but he's going to have a hard time doing that as word of the Fit Camp at school is spreading.

Three days after she sent an e-mail to Pharr Elementary teachers announcing an upcoming camp, Skrine received 23 responses from interested campers. "It's just taking off," she said.

The Fit Camps, which cost $200 a month, are held Monday through Thursday at five different times: 6 and 9 a.m. and at 5, 6 and 7 p.m. Another camp is held at 8 a.m. on Saturdays. For more information, visit the Web site, www.properformancefitness.com, or call 770-236-0700.

> AJC Gwinnett News staff writer Robert Haddocks is a certified personal trainer with the National Strength and Conditioning Association. Send any comments or questions to rhaddocks@ajc.com