Rolling With The Punches

As of recently I have been boxing 3-4 times a week. In the beginning it was all about the workout. The "burn 1000 calories in an hour" slogan is what drew me in. But boxing to me has become so much more. While it is entirely the hardest workout I have ever had in my whole life, it has become so much more than just the workout for me. It is a tremendous amount of stress relief. Whaling at a punching bag for an hour sure does take a load of steam off. It's also more than a stress relief though. I walk out of the club feeling strong, fierce and empowered. I feel like I handle anything and like I am on top of the world.

The workout was definitely not what I had expected. The first fifteen minutes of class are the "warm up". Hah.. warm up.. I find the warm up to be possibly the hardest part of the class depending on the instructor. This first portion of the class is built up of running laps around the grid of punching bags. Throughout the running the instructor will call out exercises such as "high knees" or "walking lunges" and so on and so forth. The majority of these exercises are plyometric exercises. Occasionally they will have us stop and do push ups, mountain climbers, jumping jacks and a number of other things. Needless to say the first fifteen minutes is nonstop go go go. The second portion of the class is thirty minutes of throwing combinations at the bag. The instructor calls out strand of numbers and each number represents a specific punch to throw. There are six different punches; jab, cross, left hook, right hook, left upper cut and right upper cut. Some combinations you go for speed and some for impact. You throw punches in rounds, just like a traditional fight. Between rounds the instructor yells exercises for an "active rest" to improve footwork and fluidity, many of which are plyometric exercises. The last fifteen minutes are for core work. Some exercises incorporate a medicine ball and others are flat back exercises. I can't even explain how worn out I feel after these classes. I have worn my heart rate monitor to the classes and I have burnt anywhere between 745-950 calories depending on the instructor. As I continue to go and get better I burn more and more.

Fast forward two months from the beginning of my boxing beginning and here I am now. I have been meeting with a trainer about 2 times a week and doing one on one fighting. I love it! I never thought fighting would be something I liked to do myself but low and behold, it is. My hands have definitely taken a beating from it. It's worth it though!