Boxing Day 1

New gym to visit.
New atmosphere that I have only seen on t.v.
New gym accessories.  :)

Today was the first day of boxing class and I have to say...I really enjoyed it.  The gym is located over by the Y and I have always seen the outside and was always curious what was inside this building.  There is a lot crammed in this little gym.






What I saw:

• two rings (yes, I even went in them!)
• a cage type of ring (not sure what that really is but I've seen it on tv)
• lots of free weight type of equipment
• speed bags
• several large bags
• gloves
• lockers
• Bibles  (ah...more on that)

We started with getting in the ring.  We had wraps on our hands and were all set to start.  You could tell that we were all a little bit nervous and really had no idea what we were doing.  The group is very encouraging though and the instructor and his son were very nice and helpful.  My thought of what a boxing instructor would be like changed the second I walked through the doors.  

In the ring:

We were taught how to hit with our left hand and throw a punch with our right.  The right is really saved for the big punches and to knock someone out.  Yeah...I could knock you out now.  Just kidding :)  We were supposed to visualize boxing with someone, like Ali.  Pretty sure Ali would beat me up in less than a second but it was still fun.  

Step 2: 

We got on our gloves and started hitting the bags.  Wow.  That was more than fun!  I had sweat dripping off me (no shock there) but so did pretty much everyone else.  We did a lot of intervals...hitting for a minute any way we wanted and then very fast for 30 seconds.  Who knew that intervals carried into other activities like boxing?  I learned how to hit with my left arm, right arm and also upper cuts.  There was even a bag that was shaped like a man.  Hitting that was a lot easier than a bag for some of the hits, especially the upper cut.  It was a lot easier to visualize what I was hitting too.  ;)  Ha ha...just kidding.  

Side note on the gloves:  when you have gloves on you can't do anything normal.  Open up a bottle of water...nope.  Wipe your face with a towel...nope.  Tighten your ponytail...nope.  Nothing except hit things.  Such a weird feeling to not be able to use your fingers.

Step 3:

Conditioning.  This is the part that I don't like so much and didn't think I would do very well at.  Sometimes we might shock ourselves what we are capable of doing though.  

First exercise...laying on the floor, lifting our legs up 6 inches, spreading our feet apart while having them up and bringing them back to the center.  Sometimes we were supposed to hold this for 10 seconds, 20 seconds and it felt like a lot longer too.  Brutal!  My lower back really hurt with this exercise and I had a very hard time.  After talking with some others who had trouble and pain (mostly women) we are pretty sure it has to do with our pelvis not sitting right as we lay on the floor.  I have no idea why it hurt so much but that part wasn't fun.

Second exercise:  medicine ball twists.  Do you know what these are?  You sit on the floor, put your feet up a bit after you cross your ankles and balance basically on your butt.  Someone in front of you throws you a weighted ball, you catch it and then twist to the side and then twist to the other side and then throw it back.  This is repeated and you increase the number of twists by 2 with each catch.  Honesty check:  I thought I wouldn't be able to do this at all.  Reality:  I did this with an 8 lb ball and it was not a problem at all.  I got up to 10 twists.  The guys in the group used a 15 pound ball and some could only do about 4 or 6.  The girls all used the 8 pound (I think we could do more ladies!) and there were 3 of us that got to 10 and 2 of us could have gone more.

Next week:

we were told that we will be doing push-ups also.  So, so, so glad that I can do pushups.  The instructor said that we will be doing rows with the pushups, which I can do already!  Not only can I do pushups but I do the guy pushups...oh yes, no knee pushups for me.  I do know though that I will be working on these in the gym this week to help get ready for these since I don't know how much weight we will be asked to lift.  

We are also going to be doing boxing crunches.  As we sit up we punch.  As the instructor showed us these looked pretty fun.  I haven't tried them yet but I will be trying these too before the next class.

A friend invited me to go to this class with her and I am so glad that she did.  We both had a blast.  So much so that we may even hit the bag that she has at her house once in awhile and do some sort of workout using boxing techniques.  When I can fit that in...not too sure at the moment.

Would I have enjoyed boxing as much if I hadn't already been working out?  Hmmm.  Good question.  We did take rests and breaks, took turns with others during those times and had a good sweat.  The intervals were not too difficult though for me and I am almost positive that it was because I do intervals quite a bit at the gym already.  If I hadn't been doing intervals already I am thinking that I still would like it but the degree of difficulty would be a lot higher because I would be getting tired a lot faster.  I do already have a sore forearm so who knows what tomorrow will be like for the arms.  The instructor talked a lot about us using our deltoids as we were hitting so I'm thinking those might be a bit sore in the morning too.

Oh..the Bibles that I saw.  I did notice quite a stack of Bibles sitting on some shelving in the room.  I actually assumed that these were Bibles just by their shapes and thickness.  I did overhear the instructor mention that he was going to start cleaning up before his Bible Study comes in next.  A Bible Study at a boxing gym...I like that.