Fitness blog: Entry 10 Boxercise

When I booked the boxercise class at Queensmead I expected it to be like the energy kick and cardio kick classes - basically sparring without actually hitting anything.

But, I was gladly proved wrong. When I saw a circuit laid out with a number of different stations with pads to kick and punch I got quite excited. I think that's a definite sign that I need to go back to martial arts.

Boxercise was, without a doubt, the busiest class I've been too yet. All the other classes I've been to at Queensmead only take up half the sports hall, but in this one we needed the whole of it. There must have been about 50 people, men and women, young and old, and fit and not so fit. I think I still fall into the latter. I don't seem to be getting any fitter from these classes, which is a disappointment, but, maybe I just need to do more than one a week.

So after quite a strenuous warm up of running around the hall for a long time, we did a few stretches and got straight into the 18-station circuit.

In this class you do everything in pairs so I was quite glad when a friendly woman, who I later learned was called Christina, said I could be her partner.

We started off at a punching station, but with only one minute on each station (swapping over after 30 seconds) it really wasn't enough to really get into it. It was all a bit haphazard actually, but, I suppose that was the point.

After every few stations we had to do a group exercise like star jumps and running. That made the whole thing 10 times harder.

After completing the circuit, which also consisted of press ups, sit ups, running, skipping, weight lifting etc. we had to run around the hall again before finishing off with a bit of stretching.

Again, it was another very challenging class and it really did make me realise that I need to go back to martial arts. However, if I can't find a good club to go to by the time I have tried out all the fitness classes at the two gyms, I think I might go back to boxercise again.

My next challenge will be Total toning at Highgrove.