If you’ve been a member of the FunFitTeam blog for awhile, you know I love (and need) variety in my life. Everything from new exercises & recipes to new bluetooth earbuds & even bath soaps.
Following that vein, a week ago today, I stopped for an iced coffee in a strip mall I pass by every day to work and saw a new business I never noticed before. It was called Title Boxing Club.
Does the heavy bag behind me make me look tough?
Looking in the windows I saw about 30 heavy boxing bags hanging in a wide open space. I have been needing a new exercise motivation lately (again!), so just for kicks, on the way home I stopped at Title Boxing to get more info.
I talked with an instructor and another worker there for a little while. As I was getting details, it turns out they are a bit expensive in my eyes, but are cheaper if you commit to 12 months. I know myself and my need for variety and have a feeling I may move on to something new again within the next 3 months.
Right then, the instructor, Eric, asked: “Want to join us for a free test class today?” I told him I happened to have my gym bag in the car, so my reply was “Why not?!”
After changing my clothes, I found the people there so helpful…from how to put handwraps on (to protect knuckles inside the boxing gloves) to finding a spot by one of the heavy bags.
The class began with some great music mixes playing loudly to pump you up. Eric was on a microphone calling out and demonstrating moves for getting warmed up. After I watched the clock tick down 15 minutes, Eric then said “ “Ok…warm up is over.” I tiredly said out loud to myself, “Are you kidding me?!” That 15 minute “warm up” was more of a workout than many others I’ve done in the past!
When I found out the class was to be 60 minutes total, I got a little scared! I honestly didn’t think I could make it through the whole thing. But looking around, there were about 7 guys of varying ages and about 6 women…one of them looking to be around 60 years old. The variety of people made me feel a lot better and more comfortable because they also looked to be at varying levels of fitness.
I had a challenging time coordinating the sets of moves…”Jab, jab, cross, hook, hook, uppercut”, but the more I did it, the better I got at keeping up…and the harder I could hit the bag.
I pushed through and made it through the whole class, sweating all over my area of the mat and taking a couple breaks during class to get a drink of water from the water fountain.
Another amusing thing was the time between rounds that they called “rest time”. In their minds r rest time was burpees and mountain climbers! What?!…maybe in Hell that’s rest time! In my little world, rest time consists of sitting on my butt for 30 seconds between sets to catch my breath and wipe the sweat off my forehead with a towel.
The so-called cool-down was very similar to the above-mentioned rest time. It was doing sit ups with a medicine ball and planks…which isn’t a cool-down in my book…that is called THE workout in the circles I run in!
Once the class was over and after I wiped the gym mat with their provided wet-wipes, Eric asked, “So what did you think?” The only thing I could exclaim through my totally exhausted body was “Holy sh*#!” We both laughed and I left to go home to shower and so I could figure out if this would be realistic to continue or a one-time thing.
That Thursday I was back…signing up for one month of torture boxing classes! (LOL) You can go as many times in a month as you want so it would be worth it to someone who could go 3 or 4 times a week. For me, twice a week would be the most I could do because of my full-time job and my weekend work. Plus, that would give me a couple days to recuperate between classes! The Thursday class was awesome too, with a newer instructor named Sara leading.
All in all, the classes are grueling, fun and I feel totally accomplished after finishing each one. It is exactly what I needed to jump-start a new type of workout. The classes switch things up too, so it satisfies my need for variety.
To give an accurate review, I would say that there are only two downsides to the club. One is that there are no locker rooms there, so I would never be able to do it before work even if I wanted to (I wouldn’t regardless because I’m just not a morning exerciser). It is pretty close to home, so that’s not the worst thing in the world for me to wait until I get home to shower. The second downside is that it is a bit steep in price. However, since I’m choosing to pay by the month and may stop after awhile, I can justify it. Especially, since it is the best workout I could ever find! I just finished class 3 and I’m still in!
Give the free class a try…I dare you! 😉
FunFitTeam 