Rumble in the Jungle
So today I started cardio boxing at the RI Boxing School in Warwick. My brother Tyler has been going for a few weeks and told me that I should try it. I didn't really know what to expect, but I thought it couldn't be worse than wrestling practices in high school or the free workout I had with a personal trainer at Bally's a year ago. I soon discovered I was wrong. Dead wrong, in fact.
When I got there, I was told that I didn't have to pay for the first lesson. Immediately following that, they taped up my hands in order to prevent any knuckles or your hand breaking from punching. I got wrapped and then we had to run 2 miles. I made it one mile in solid fashion, but as the start of the second mile came, I wore down. I ended up splitting jogging and walking the rest of it. After that, we had to do stand-ups, which involve you standing up onto the ring mat and stepping down. You would think it would be easy, but after a while of doing it rapidly, your feet feel like dead weight. After the start of that, all hell broke loose for my body.
We had to do those for about 2 minutes, followed by 25 pushups, then another 2 minutes of stand-ups, 25 more pushups, and another 2 minutes of stand-ups. You would think after that a water break would be following. Not with this lady. Yes, I said lady. The instructor was a chick, but her biceps were reminiscent of Hulk Hogan. I was pretty scared needless to say. So she made us then jump rope for about 5 minutes, followed by this weird exercise involving squatting, jumping straight chest down onto the floor, then doing a push up. We had to do 25 of those, followed by another 5 minutes of jumping rope and then 25 squat jumps(self explanatory). We were then told to grab free weights.
I was advised to use the 1 pound pink ones, because otherwise I'd be killing myself. I did as followed. We had to punch straight ahead with weights in our hand, then hold our arms out to the side palms up for like 2 minutes. After that we had to do a left jab with the weights in our hands. Then, 2 minutes of holding your arms straight up towards the ceiling occurred. We then learned a 1-2 combo: a left jab followed by a right hook. Then we had to do another combo: a left jab, a right hook, then a left hook. It was pretty intense. We then had to do twice the amount of holding our arms in each position with the weights. We proceeded to put on gloves.
It came time to hit the punching bags with our newly learned combos and straight forward punches. We did that for about 10-20 minutes. Each person during it was pulled aside into the ring. In the ring, we had to do the whole hit the mitt on the person's hand drill. I had to do it last and I was told I have a nice right punch. So that's good. We then did stretching and abs to finish. I have never sweat that much in my life and I haven't felt that sore after anything in my life before. I give boxers tons of credit.
When I got there, I was told that I didn't have to pay for the first lesson. Immediately following that, they taped up my hands in order to prevent any knuckles or your hand breaking from punching. I got wrapped and then we had to run 2 miles. I made it one mile in solid fashion, but as the start of the second mile came, I wore down. I ended up splitting jogging and walking the rest of it. After that, we had to do stand-ups, which involve you standing up onto the ring mat and stepping down. You would think it would be easy, but after a while of doing it rapidly, your feet feel like dead weight. After the start of that, all hell broke loose for my body.
We had to do those for about 2 minutes, followed by 25 pushups, then another 2 minutes of stand-ups, 25 more pushups, and another 2 minutes of stand-ups. You would think after that a water break would be following. Not with this lady. Yes, I said lady. The instructor was a chick, but her biceps were reminiscent of Hulk Hogan. I was pretty scared needless to say. So she made us then jump rope for about 5 minutes, followed by this weird exercise involving squatting, jumping straight chest down onto the floor, then doing a push up. We had to do 25 of those, followed by another 5 minutes of jumping rope and then 25 squat jumps(self explanatory). We were then told to grab free weights.
I was advised to use the 1 pound pink ones, because otherwise I'd be killing myself. I did as followed. We had to punch straight ahead with weights in our hand, then hold our arms out to the side palms up for like 2 minutes. After that we had to do a left jab with the weights in our hands. Then, 2 minutes of holding your arms straight up towards the ceiling occurred. We then learned a 1-2 combo: a left jab followed by a right hook. Then we had to do another combo: a left jab, a right hook, then a left hook. It was pretty intense. We then had to do twice the amount of holding our arms in each position with the weights. We proceeded to put on gloves.
It came time to hit the punching bags with our newly learned combos and straight forward punches. We did that for about 10-20 minutes. Each person during it was pulled aside into the ring. In the ring, we had to do the whole hit the mitt on the person's hand drill. I had to do it last and I was told I have a nice right punch. So that's good. We then did stretching and abs to finish. I have never sweat that much in my life and I haven't felt that sore after anything in my life before. I give boxers tons of credit.