The Glowing Edge

Tag: fitness

  • Boxing Training After 40

    Boxing Training After 40

    If you’re over 40 and in the amateur ring, boxing most likely isn’t (and isn’t going to be) your career. But you can pretty much guarantee that it will change your life.

    I’m not trying to convince you of something, I’m mostly reminding myself. It helps to remind myself, because boxing will gobble up your life and body and leave you with little, if you let it. Being an amateur boxer after 40 is sort of like owning an exotic, voracious racing beast. Only weirdos like you love these things, can’t get enough of them, and are willing to put the incredible amount of time and energy into training and upkeep.

    And I’m not even really joking. Here’s what I mean…

    1. Boxing Draws the Intensely Passionate

    In my experience, there are mostly two reactions to boxing: people find it to be sheer brutality they can barely stand to think about, much less watch… Or it gives them a massive jolt of juice, and they can barely tear their eyes away.

    I fell into the first category for most of my life, but when I stumbled into boxing for fitness, then began to watch my trainer, Bonnie Mann, bring amateurs into the ring — I got my first jolt of the juice. It was bizarre, exotic, empowering. It was as if some channel in me that had been blocked up for 40 years was suddenly opened, and I was flooded with energy.

    The intense rush swept me right into competitive boxing, and suddenly the stakes changed. Not only was I a wife, mom of three boys, and full-time corporate marketing person — boxing began to take it’s first fat weekly paycheck of heart, time, and pain out of my life.

    This meant I had to do a lot of re-scripting of the way my personal universe ran.

    The life I thought I had wanted now chafed. I was no longer willing — after decades of doing it — to be at home for my family’s needs every single night of the week. I was no longer willing to give up most of who I was for other people. There was something big, something powerful, something only for me that I wanted, and to get it I had to quit giving everyone else all my time and energy.

    If I hadn’t done it, I don’t know if my marriage would have lasted, and I definitely wouldn’t be the same parent I am now.

    Some days I think I owe boxing my life.

    This is not a small change to go through at age 42. Don’t say you weren’t warned.

    2. Boxing Demands a High Standard of Training at the Lowest Levels

    Part of the reason boxing has such incredible power to change your life is because it requires an intense commitment at even the very lowest levels of the sport.

    You can’t stroll into a boxing gym one day, hop in the ring and spar with someone (any gym worth their leather would never let this happen anyway), and expect to come out well.

    There’s a fairly sizeable learning curve.

    The moves only come after months of practice. It takes time to overcome your basic “flinch” and “turn away” impluses. The tiniest moves (advancing on the jab, basic pivots, footwork) may come easily in practice, but are magically, mysteriously, painfully absent when you’re under fire.

    And basic fitness shape is nowhere near boxing shape.

    Even basic boxing shape is nowhere near boxing sparring shape. And sparring shape is related to, but not the same as, competitive fighting shape.

    If you’re over 40, you definitely want to be in good shape, and hitting the local boxing gym for some regular classes every week will be all kinds of awesome for you. But to get up to sparring level, you’ll need all that, plus serious interval training.

    To spar, you need to be training 3-4 days a week, with intervals, minimum.

    To compete, you’ll need a 6-7 week “training camp.” That means you eat right and train hard and very specifically for the opponent you expect to meet (or to increase your strengths and minimize your weaknesses) for about 2 months.

    You’ll probably be in the gym 4 or 5 days each week, although not all those days are boxing-specific; you’ll work on cardio, speed, accuracy, explosion, power, etc. in addition to hitting the bags and sparring. You have to stay mentally focused, and be extremely careful not to get injured toward the end of that period of intense training. And I don’t mean blood or bruises, I mean the kind of injury that would nix your fight.

    If you’re over 40, you’re not likely to want to maintain that level of fitness for more than just a training camp. Because, you know, you have a life outside boxing. (Sort of.)

    3. Boxing Takes a Physical Toll

    The main reason I’m not in the boxing gym more than about twice a week during regular times is that it takes a fairly large toll on your body.

    No, it isn’t about getting beat up, but yes, Virginia, boxing hurts.

    Even just hitting the speed bags and heavy bags for 10 rounds is going to cause some aches and pains and build up a cumulative pain in my joints. After several years, and plenty of minor injuries (sprained wrist, broken rib, torn rotator cuff x 2) to teach me my boundaries, I’ve learned how to create a boxing training regimen that works for me.

    Actually mixing it up in the ring during training has a lot of potential for damage, and it’s good to learn to minimize sparring damage early on.

    Interestingly, the chances for getting injured during your actual boxing match (if you are competing in the amateurs, not the pros) are far lower than your chance for getting injured during training.

    Mostly that’s because you are only there for a very short period of time. Amateur rounds are typically 2 minutes each, and you only get three of those. Even though you’re both fighting all out, looking for the knockout or at least for blood and damage, it’s over before you know it, and there isn’t really enough opportunity for someone to get seriously hurt.

    Several things to know if you’re over 40 and interested in competing in boxing…

    First, everyone you fight will be within 10 years of your age, so you’re likely to get harder ring work at your gym, where everyone is 20 years old!

    However, everyone you fight will have given up just as much as you have, and may have trained harder.

    Maybe they don’t have kids still at home. Maybe they have not avoided interval sprints like you did. Maybe they’ve been training longer than you have.

    You can get beat easily.

    But you can also win.

    And that’s pretty damn good.

    Photo Credit: OfficerGregcc

  • Trying Out a New Gym

    Trying Out a New Gym

    Walking into a new boxing gym for the first time is excruciatingly difficult for me.

    In this particular case, there had been a number of obstacles to overcome even before I walked in the door. I’d heard about them, but couldn’t find an up-to-date website. Rumor had it they had recently relocated, and I knew they were downtown, but I’d driven up and down the area where I’d heard they were to no avail. Finally I learned about a larger organization with which they were connected, and boom, found a website. With a phone number.

    After being re-routed to a different number, I finally connected with a human who was connected to the gym.

    Nice guy, very polite and helpful. He gave me the address of the gym and I googled it only to see what I remembered as an abandoned building downtown, located in an low spot beside a parking deck. In Street View (photo above) it still looked abandoned.

    Later that day I pulled into the lot and parked behind the sole other car there. A small “Open” sign hung crookedly in the front window, but otherwise there was no indication I was in the right place. I was dressed for training, but decided not to haul in my gym bag; I wasn’t ready to commit myself just yet.

    Inside, the place seemed freshly sheetrocked, and a couple of silvery, unconnected HVAC pipes hung from the exposed ceiling struts. Several desks stacked with papers and a handful of metal filing cabinets populated the vast expanse of concrete flooring, and I could see a worn but serviceable pool table just beyond the reception area.

    “You’re Lisa!” said the young man who had been riffling through a file cabinet when I arrived. He smiled and strode over to shake my hand.

    Second Round, which is affiliated with a non-profit called Haven House, serves youthful offenders and gang-involved and at-risk youth between 11-21 years old. I was deeply aware of how incongruous I would be there, but I’d twice sparred boxers from their gym, met one of the coaches, and was feeling more and more like I needed to check them out.

    I got the walk-through, signed the waiver, and worked one-on-one for about an hour in a light, checking-your-basics kind of overview with one of the coaches. I strained to hear his soft voice with its heavy island accent in the echoing gym, which with empty except for two teenagers watching surreptitiously from the nearby weight pit. A brilliant yellow canary trilled and fluttered in a tiny cage near the heavily reinforced doors.

    A coach I recognized strode past, a handful of teenagers trailing behind. “Hey, Lisa!” he called, grinning broadly, and I was thrilled that he remembered me from when I’d sparred some of his fighters.

    “Hey, Coach Massey!” I returned, waving.

    When the first coach was finished with me, we stopped, he packed up the canary into his van, and headed out. I sat in the parking lot for a while, trying to figure out what to do next. Finally I went back in and perched awkwardly on a desk in the gym, hoping to watch and learn. People were starting to drift in, wrap, and begin their own routines.

    Suddenly a familiar face entered my field of vision and I was instantly high-fived, hugged, and effusively welcomed by Reggie, one of the peer coaches I’d sparred the week before.

    “You came!” he cried. “You came to work with us! I told you you should come.” He punched me lightly on the shoulder and I found myself smiling back. Reggie’s charm is hard to resist.

    He stopped grinning and raised his eyebrows, suddenly serious. “You got a hell of a right on you. You got some power is what I’m saying. That was some good work.”

    I flushed. He turned and pointed out a young woman just coming into the gym. “There’s your girl,” he said. “Didn’t you spar her one time?”

    I had. She’d been fierce and incredibly tough; I had been on my own turf and because of that advantage, plus my height, I probably should have pulled my shots more than I had, but she never lost heart and she gave me hard game without stopping. We’d had three solid rounds.

    “So what you gonna do tonight?” Reggie asked.

    “I dunno. Watch? I’d like to train, but I’m not sure how to get going…” I trailed off lamely.

    People had been incredibly welcoming to me, but there’s still that awkwardness that can only be addressed by gearing up, training hard, and showing that you have something to bring to the ring.

    Reggie was off like a shot, had a word with Coach Massey, and suddenly I was in the flow, working in unison with the other boxers, moving from drill to drill, the sweat dripping off me to leave dark splotches on the concrete floor.

    I put my lead foot inside a tire with another boxer and we worked the inside game, circling and punching. I did a series of burnouts on the heavy bags, dropping to the concrete to slog through 50 push ups when I didn’t top 100 punches in the first 30-second burnout period. (I broke a hundred every time after that.) The coach lined up weight benches end to end and we did two-footed hops side to side over the benches all the way down the line (miserable). There were medicine ball drills that made my forearms scream for an end to it all.

    If you had asked me before I went to Second Round to train whether I was in shape, I would not have hesitated to tell you yes. Hell, yes.

    I’ve changed my position on that.

    Other than the periodic shouts of encouragement from the coach, and a few congenial shoulder bumps from Reggie, no one spoke too much; we were all working too hard. It was a wonderful place to be.

    Later that week Coach Massey spoke to me about accepting a boxing match in Memphis in a few weeks.

    I was still feeling the shock of transitioning into a new gym. “I don’t know, Coach,” I told him. “I just got here. I don’t even know if I’m ready.” I paused, watching the young men around me gear down.

    “You train with me for three weeks and you will be,” he replied, grinning and flashing his gold tooth. I nodded wryly and rubbed my aching triceps. Those burnouts had kicked my ass. “Besides,” he added, “I’ve seen you in the ring. And you’ve had two fights in the past six months. You’re ready.”

    In the end I asked him to let me try and settle in with the team for a couple of weeks, then I would decide.

    Meanwhile, I’m feeling the pain of transition dissolve slowly into the pain of getting in top-notch shape.

    Lots of ice packs are involved.

  • More Women Boxing After 40!

    More Women Boxing After 40!

    In January of 2011 I got some new comments on my post 9 Reasons to Start Boxing After 40. One of the women commenting was Jenny, who is 46 years old, living on the West coast. She had recently started taking boxing classes, lost some weight, and was excited about her next step in boxing: making the move from group fitness classes to private boxing lessons. That’s her in the picture.

    Jenny and I spoke via email about how she is choosing to spend time (and money — she’s taken some smart and creative measures to find the money to pay for her gym membership) taking care of herself.

    I wish I had learned that lesson long before I did. For most of my life I thought I could never leave the house in the evening or be unavailable to do things for my husband and sons. It was just crazy, but I know lots of women have struggled with that.

    Jenny gets it. Her story is filled with the joy of boxing and personal discovery, and she gave me permission to share some of what she’s written here. May it inspire even more women to find their own strength, passion, and confidence!

    Keep rockin’ it, Jenny.

    *    *    *    *    *    *

    I was so nervous about my first lesson. I could tell my teacher was too; we really didn’t know each other that well.

    We started from the very beginning and worked on the basics: how to stand, where to put my hands, etc. He likes a more sideways stance to your opponent. It has been hard to get used to because at first I felt that my jab needed to come from a leg twist. Now, 6 classes later I really get how I need to stay grounded and find the power through my legs. My jab is getting better.

    The first few lessons we only worked on jabs and straight rights; now I’m up to hooks and uppercuts.

    After a jump-rope warm-up, he gets me in the ring and I do some shadow boxing to start so I can loosen up and get my feet working. I feel like such a dork when I shadow box. I need to practice on my own in front of a mirror — I’m still really stiff.

    My favorite is pad work. I love it. He moves all around and makes sure that I don’t turn my back on him, that I stay loose and maintain my correct stance while moving around. It’s a lot to remember.

    And he’s also big on bopping me in the head. I’m getting better. He was only able to get me about 8 times today before I really blocked him. And that’s down from 12 last time. I made the mistake of telling him, so today he felt challenged to bop me 13 times. But he could only get in 8!! Yeah for me.

    I just absolutely love it. It’s my favorite hour of the week!

    I don’t even know where I’m heading with all of this or what my goals are. I just turned 46 and I want to keep getting fit and healthy. A still have a few bad pounds to lose and some good pounds to gain.

    I don’t know if I’ll ever make it into the ring with anyone, but I’ll see where it takes me.

  • Agility Dot Drills

    Agility Dot Drills

    Light, agile, lightning-speed footwork can make the difference in winning and losing in the ring. Great boxers have the ability to win a round on footwork alone, and if you have ever been put in the ring with a newbie and instructed to use defense only, you’ve had to power up your best footwork in order to bring the best workout to your sparring partner.

    Agility dot drills can help you increase the speed and balance of your footwork while also increasing your cardio. Try setting up a series for yourself and see how quickly you can run a set of drills. Be patient with yourself as you work; these drills might feel simple going forward, but going backward will really challenge you.

    The best thing about these drills is that you don’t need any equipment to practice them. Yes, you can shell out cash for agility dots and agility dot mats (I found both online for $50 each — I refuse to even link it, that’s insane), but you don’t need them! Use a piece of chalk or a bit of masking tape to mark your five dots and you’re up and working. You can increase the size and spacing of the layout if you are taller, or as you increase in speed and ability.

    Check out the dude in the video below, or scroll on down for a list of drills you can set up and try on your own.

    Agility Dot Drills

    X Drill. Start with feet split, one foot on dot 1 and one on dot 2. Jump to dot 3 with both feet, then to dots 4 and 5 with feet split. Repeat the steps jumping backward.

    X Drill Hopscotch. Start with feet split, one foot on dot 1 and one on dot 2. Jump to dot 3 with ONE foot, then split feet to dots 4 and 5. Repeat jumping backward with same or alternate foot landing in the middle.

    X Drill with Turn Around. This is the same as the X Drill or X Drill Hopscotch except that when you get to the top or bottom, you turn your body around to go in the other direction.

    Z Drill. Form a Z pattern (4-5-3-1-2) using one leg or both feet together.

    M Drill. Form an M pattern (4-5-3-2-1) using one leg or both feet together.

    Figure 8 Drill. Form a figure eight (4-5-3-1-2-3-4) down and back, keeping feet together or on one foot only.

    Big Arrow, Little Arrow. Keep feet together, start at 1 and jump diagonally to 5, then back to 1. Now jump 1-4-1, 1-3-1, 1-2-1. Start over with the big diagonal jump.

    Box Drill. Keep feet together and hop the perimeter of the square (1-4-5-2-1), facing the same direction at all times.

    Single-leg Triangle. Hop on your left leg to form a triangle in a counterclockwise direction (2-3-1-2). Make five triangles then switch legs and make five triangles. Repeat the drill moving in a clockwise direction (1-3-2-1).

  • 9 Reasons to Start Boxing After 40

    9 Reasons to Start Boxing After 40

    1. Street cred

    Think about the difference between saying, “Yeah, I play a little basketball,” versus “The stitches don’t bother me. I have another fight next month; you should come.” C’mon, it’s just cool. And when was the last time you had legitimate Cool Points, when you downloaded the Zippo lighter app to your iPhone? Puh-leeze.

    2. Business smarts

    If there is one thing you must do to thrive in the ring, it’s develop the ability to think clearly under massive pressure. That translates really nicely to the business world. Mergers and acquisition? Hostile takeovers? High finance? Forty-seven third graders? Bring it.

    3. Get your mind off of work

    Forget business smarts, if you’ve been racing your career motorcycle this long, you might want to ease up on that throttle and get off the bike now and then. It feels great to unsuit and pound the crap out of something. And taking a few good hits will definitely clear out the last of your desire to work 24/7, I promise.

    4. Increase your bone density

    Ok, you’re over 40 and it’s time to lay off the loaded potato skins at T.G.I. Friday’s and get under that bench press bar. Your bones aren’t going to get stronger unless you bring them some game, and weightlifting — a boxer’s primary tool for building muscle — is just the way to do it.

    5. Muscle is sexy

    All that weightlifting and other training is going to pay off in terms of the way your body looks, feels, and delivers. You’ll like what you see in the mirror, and so will whoever’s looking at you when you step out of the shower. Hubba hubba.

    6. Me time

    It wasn’t so long ago that you couldn’t take your eyes off the kids for a second or they’d eat all the buds of the neighbor’s peonies and you’d be on the phone with Poison Control. These days, they’re a little older and you only have to worry about paying the extra car insurance, who they’re dating, whether they’re texting and driving, and… whoops, sorry about that. My point was going to be that you can get away some nights and have “me time” without them. Boxing fits the bill.

    7. Mentor someone

    Ok, if you just don’t get enough with the kids, you’ll find some at the gym. They will be faster and have a higher punch count and they will bring a serious press to you in the ring, but you’ll be able to outlast and out think them. And you have the maturity to see a much bigger picture than they do. Why not be a good influence and also kick their butts (in the later rounds) too? Now that’s what I call a satisfying mentoring relationship.

    8. Get out of your comfort zone

    Let’s face it, you’ve been trying to find a place of comfort and ease for years. Stop that, it’s not good for you. Get off your butt and out of your rut and learn something new. Growing means risks, and boxing has just the right balance of risk and safety to give you a jolt and still send you home in one piece. Mostly one piece.

    9. Eat better

    Believe me, you are not going to work hard enough to go a few rounds and then sabotage yourself with crap eating. If you take to boxing, you’re going to want to support it every way you can, and that will spur you to make positive changes to the way you fuel your body. You’re sick of sports bar food anyway. This is gonna be purely delicious.

    There’s never been a better time than now.

    Original Image by savaman on Flickr
  • Fat vs. Muscle: It’s Gonna Be a Showdown

    Fat vs. Muscle: It’s Gonna Be a Showdown

    I recently learned my body fat percentage. Um, yeah. I’m officially a fitness geek, it’s okay to think it. I went to the Human Performance Lab near where I work and paid $10 to get pinched in seven places with a small pair of calipers. My numbers were entered into a computer and voilà!

    Carnie fan that I am, I made the (very professional, very smart) man who oversees the Lab guess, before he weighed me or took any measurements, what my body fat percentage was going to be. These guys are good, really good. “Seventeen,” he said, without batting an eyelash. And 17% is exactly what it was.

    As it turns out, most women who are in reasonably decent shape are in the 20’s. A female athlete who trains hard will usually be in the teens. Women who go below 12% often begin having difficulties with menstrual cycles and other things. “Essential fat levels” for women are about 10-13% and for men it’s 2-5%; that’s what you need to regulate hormonal balance and body temperature, protect internal organs, and serve as a  fuel reserve for the body. Bodybuilders get down into single digits, and there are physiological prices that you pay. You don’t want to stay down in the low singles for long.

    Body fat measurement is a much better indicator of overall fitness than body mass index because it doesn’t need to take into account your height. The BMI test has to make assumptions about what a person of a particular height should weigh, and that’s not entirely helpful, especially if you are an athlete with lots of lean muscle mass.

    I only made the trek out to this Lab because a co-worker raved so much about how this was helping him meet his goal of cutting back body fat so his abs would look good for swimsuit season (see, guys do it too). I didn’t have any such goal. My weight is exactly where I want it: I feel strong and by staying at 143 or so I can easily fight in the weight category I’m currently in or cut 4 pounds and be comfortably in the weight category below me. I just went out of curiosity.

    But once I saw my body weight percentages I began to formulate a new goal. If I could trade a few pounds of that fat weight for some muscle weight, that might be really nice. Keep my weight the same, but have more power. The more I thought about it, the better it sounded.

    SO. I’m shifting my training regimen in order to incorporate heavier weights. I’m looking at those big barbells and nodding in satisfaction. Back up, boys. They’re gonna be mine, all mine.

    Image Credit: eschipul on Flickr
  • Addicted to Pain: an Interview with Dave Minella

    Addicted to Pain: an Interview with Dave Minella

    He’s a Pittsburgh native, a PR/Advertising director for a robotics company, the bass player in a regularly-gigging metal band, and a professional bodybuilder. If you follow him online (Twitter, Facebook, his blog, MySpace, you name it — this man knows his way around the intertubes) you learn quickly that he’s a major motorcycle racing fan as well. Dave Minella seems to have endless energy, and more non-paying “night jobs” than day jobs to prove it. But one of his passions seems to outweigh all the others: bodybuilding.

    When you see him you don’t think “bodybuilder” — he looks entirely normal, if incredibly fit. He’s the kind of guy that turns heads on the beach, but not the kind that people frown and whisper about. That may be due to the fact that unlike many of the scary-looking dudes in the big-name muscle magazines, Dave practices natural bodybuilding. After talking to him recently (over a couple of the spiciest Bloody Marys I’ve ever enjoyed), I decided that he prefers this because it’s so much more difficult.

    Sacrifice and pain are words Dave knows and understands well. For nearly all of his adult years, he’s been pushing his own limits, making his way deeper into the world of power and strength. In high school he competed in powerlifting, and after a stint in the Army and then his college years (he says he was “fat” in college, but it’s hard to believe), he returned to the gym with a quiet and determined ferocity. He worked out hard for four years on his own, referring to anatomy books and studying carefully to understand how each specific muscle and muscle group worked and could be developed. He also studied nutrition, and kept journals detailing not just his workout routines, but his caloric intake, and how various combinations of proteins and carbohydrates affected fat loss and muscle development. He experimented with supplements, and learned the ins and outs of glycemic loads, carb cycling, and metabolic rates. He can tell you at any time precisely what his body fat percentage is.

    Four years in, a trainer who had been watching from the sidelines made the simple comment that Dave should do a bodybuilding show. That was all it took.

    “I did it once, and I was really good at it,” Dave relates, as if he had been caught just a little off guard by his success. “I took third place.”

    For the next four years he quietly collected win after win until finally he decided to crank things up a notch by turning pro. Those who place high may take home just enough money to cover the expense of travel, entry fees, the pre-contest polygraph (confirming the absence of illegal drugs), and posing coach. So there’s no real money in it for him, only stiffer competition. Which means more struggle, more pain, more work.

    During the months leading up to a show, he weighs all his carefully prescribed food portions. He’s in the gym at 5 am before work, and goes there again after work, sometimes driving himself so hard that he has to make a quiet detour to throw up in the bathroom before returning to finish his routine. He carries his water in a gallon container, and alcohol is strictly off the list. “It’s not so much fun going out with friends,” he comments wryly, “when you’re the only one sober.” As the date of the show gets nearer, the extreme training kills libido, causes depression, and makes him pretty cranky to be around. “Every time I have a show I lose a girlfriend,” he notes. “which pretty much sucks.”

    You might say, and he would nod and agree with you, that he takes things to an extreme. “Why not just be fit?” I asked him.

    “Because anybody can do that,” he says, pausing only a heartbeat before going on. “Not many people can do this.” We sit companionably in silence for a few moments while that sinks in like water over sand. Then he adds, “I’m not an addictive personality, but I’m addicted to the pain.” I wait to hear more. “It makes me feel alive,” he says, and his grin softens the seriousness of the moment.

    This gives him an edge over other bodybuilding competitors, he explains. “I’ll work harder regardless of the pain. Or because of it.”

    He’s driven, that much is clear, but he also seems to have an uneasy relationship with the amount of attention he attracts. He cycles through gyms like some people go through cable channels, staying at one place only until he feels the weight of too many stares and interruptions, then moving to the next place. I laugh when he tells me this, and think, but don’t say, that this is also why he’s a bass player rather than the lead in his band. There’s something about him that loves the stage, but not the spotlight. When he goes to the gym it’s with earbuds firmly in place, shutting out the world and pushing him on with rock’s relentless pounding force. If you meet him out on the town he doesn’t say anything about his training unless you specifically inquire. Even then, you may have to draw the answers out of him.

    Dave seems to inhabit a somewhat lonely place without many supporters. Trainers come and go. Girlfriends haven’t stayed. Few people know or understand what he does. But he has the resolved confidence of a man comfortable with that. And it not only shows, it gleams from every smooth plane of his body.

  • Sample workout, arms emphasis

    Sample workout, arms emphasis

    Image by KayVee.INC on Flickr

    Image by KayVee.INC on Flickr

    This is a workout I regularly do for a non-boxing day. I always start with a couple of cardio warm-ups, but I prefer not to do two high-impact exercises like jump rope AND run, for example. (trying to go easy on my knees). On a boxing day, all bets are off; those are much tougher workouts. I’ll post one of those soon.

    Aerobic

    Elliptical
    15 minutes, at least half IN max heart rate zone (for me, 180)
    Jump rope
    3 rounds, 3 minutes each, 1 minute rest between rounds
    Every minute of every round should include 15-30 seconds of sprints

    Arms

    Arm circles:
    Hold 2.5-lb weight plates in each hand
    60 out to side, 60 out to front, 60 behind
    Forward and reverse in each grouping (30/30)
    Front deltoid raises:
    Raise a 25 lb barbell to chin
    3 sets of 12 reps
    Side deltoid fly:
    Raise both arms together like wings with 5 lb weight plates
    3 sets of 12 reps
    Rear deltoid fly:
    Hang forward and raise both arms together with 5 lb weight plates
    3 sets of 12 reps
    Forearm “crunches”:
    3 sets of 12 reps with 20 lb barbell, rolling it from fingertips to wrist-up position
    Tricep extensions:
    3 sets of 12 reps with 20 lb dumbell behind head
    Bicep curls:
    4 sets of 12 reps with 35 lb curl bar
    Reverse curls:
    2 sets of 12 reps with 25 lb curl bar

    Abs & Back

    Bosu Ball crunches
    200 forward, 100 left side, 100 right side
    Back extensions
    2 sets of 25
    Planks
    Finish with a one-minute plank (it’s like a little victory lap)

    I’m no expert at any of this, and have mostly learned by watching others. I would love to hear what you do — leave me a comment!

  • The Shame Line is Open


    Three months ago I picked up a jump rope for the first time since I was eight years old. Watching me try to manage a few hops was probably like watching a drunk steer stagger around a corral, except with cursing. I couldn’t believe something so simple, so universal, so obvious could be so impossible. Elementary age girls all over the world do this!

    But that’s how it was, and there was no getting around the fact that if you are a boxer, you also will jump rope. There’s a good reason for this correlation. Jumping rope incinerates calories (up to 1000 an hour); improves your posture, timing, and coordination; powers up your heart even better than running does with less impact on your knees; and costs nearly nothing fifty dollars.

    I should say more about that I guess.

    After three or four humiliating sessions of attempting to jump rope, I did what any middle-class American woman would do. I tried to purchase my way out. I watched my trainer and several other team mates effortlessly skip their way — without misses — through round after round of jump rope drills. Their ropes had shiny silver handles and whistling clear tubes for the “rope”. I could tell something was helping the rope swivel without twisting. I decided that if I had one of those jump ropes, I would be graceful and skilled, too. Har.

    So like many others before me, I got sent to the Buddy Lee Jump Rope website, and I paid my (cough) fifty dollars, and my path to success arrived in the mail about a week later. During the intervening time I did my best to convince my husband that fifty dollars was a reasonable price to pay for a glorified string with handles. It didn’t go well.

    And I learned what everyone learns. Jumping rope skills take time and practice to build, no matter how awesome and ridiculously expensive your jump rope is.

    Eventually my drunken, cursing steer act evolved into a mildly irritated and slightly graceless steer act. Then, in the space of a week or so, I left behind the bovine analogy all together. I am now a pretty good jump roper.

    In fact, I can jump rope for half an hour straight with a few misses, throwing in the occasional twist-the-rope-in-front trick, a running sprint, and the standard pogo. I’m not yet as graceful on the “boxer shuffle” but I’m gaining ground daily.

    So. When I’m not at the boxing gym I go to a regular fitness center, and for two months or so I’ve been taking my diamond-and-ruby-encrusted jump rope with me and doing my thing.

    Until I started jumping rope at that gym, I NEVER ONCE saw anyone jumping rope. After a couple of weeks I noticed I had set off a trend of guys (and guys only) who suddenly decided to do so. And now there’s an interesting pattern that I bear witness to nearly every single time I go.

    It goes like this.

    I get to the gym and post, in ink that only guys can read, a sign that only guys can see, on the front of the huge glass-walled aerobics room where I typically jump. The sign says: “The Shame Line is Open.” This draws them in, one at a time, for a whuppin. During the 30 minutes or so that I’m calmly jumping rope and making it look easy, they come in, pick out one of the barely-used jump ropes hanging on the rack, flex their muscles a bit (neck rolls are a favorite, I’ve noticed), then proceed to whip it for about eight jumps.

    Whereupon they invariably miss, glance over to where I’m serenely running my routine, and start again. They NEVER try to Just Jump Rope. They have to throw a trick, or sprint, or double jump, and they fail. This is frustrating to them because they remember in high school how they could do this, at least a little bit. And they were cool, yes they were. And darn it, they still are.

    They never last an entire minute. And honestly, I never lasted at the beginning either. But jumping rope is absolutely nothing like riding a bike; it’s a skill you have to develop and maintain.

    I feel some sympathy, in an amused 43-year-old woman kind of way. But I’m not closing down shop or anything. Somebody’s gotta run the Shame Line. Might as well be me.

  • Runner Lisa vs. Bad Lisa

    Bad Lisa: Okay, this is freaky. Have we EVER run with Mom, Dad, and the First on the treadmills next to us?
    Runner Lisa: Uh, no, this is a first. Hit six, would you — a 10 minute mile pace should do us.
    Bad Lisa: We should walk, ’cause you know, MOM.
    Runner Lisa: Oh, she knows we can run.
    Bad Lisa: I KNOW she KNOWS, moron. I’m saying it would be RUDE to run when Mom and Dad are walking.
    Runner Lisa: It’s a treadmill, double-moron. It’s not like we’re gonna get too far ahead.

    three miles later:

    Runner Lisa: Wow, they’re still walking.
    Bad Lisa (in a snarky voice): “Hit six, would you? A 10 minute mile pace should do us.”
    Runner Lisa: Well this does present a problem. I’m not sure we’re allowed to quit.
    Bad Lisa (sighing heavily): Why don’t we set a good example of NOT OVERDOING IT at the gym?
    Runner Lisa: Of course! How wise you have grown.