There’s an old Ben Folds song that asks the question, “Has boxing been good to you?” Well, since I only punched myself in the face by accident once, (during the warm-up) you can say the short answer to that is a big YES! I’ve only been to Peter Welch’s gym in Boston, MA less than a handful of times, but I’ve taken on a strange confidence like I’ve been doing it forever. This weekend my 2 big sisters were visiting from Scranton, Pennsylvania so I decided to take them along with me.

MEET THE SISTERS

• Eldest sister

• Fitness enthusiast and a registered dietitian

• Lifts weights in her basement four times per week, and runs the local hills of Jessup, PA religiously

• She can do 15 pullups!

• Middle child

• Interior design specialist

• Loves her morning stretches followed by a hot bubble bath from her “brutal” workout

• She can do 15 pullups in her sleep!

I fall somewhere in between.  I love to workout, teach yoga, as well as attend classes, though I don’t always challenge myself the way I should. Cardio is great, but weight- lifting is pretty boring for me. I love the martial arts stuff but as I mentioned in my last boxing blog, attending a new class of any kind makes me a tad nervous.  My sisters are no different, (even Jill) and what I did NOT realize was we were about to take a class with the most challenging teacher there. With an innocent face and a combination of an Irish/Boston accent, our Sunday teacher was no nonsense. We found a spot next to each other on the mat and began the warm-ups. No jump-rope, thank God, but by the middle of this “warm up”, I would’ve welcomed a nice calm sprint or even the jump-rope!  And yes, I did punch myself in the face by mistake while mimicking punches, and when Amy saw me do that she did the same thing since I told her to just follow everything I did. Whoopsie.

The warm-up consisted of a billion jumping jacks, static lunges, 180s, push-ups, mountain climbers and a series of other sweat-inducing activities. One thing I’ve learned from my career as a nutritionist in different workout facilities, is that you should always pace yourself, especially when you don’t know what to expect.  Jill knew this, but when I looked over at Amy I noticed she was goin “allllllllllll in”. She had just had her morning coffee and is usually in chipper form until her afternoon catnap, but I decided to keep an eye on her just in case. We proceeded to the boxing portion of the class where we were paired off with punching bags and were given instructions on what to hit.  Jill and Amy were on the bag right next to me.

My favorite shots are the hooks, and it was later brought to my attention that all of the shots I take are hooks. Oh well. Form was never my strong-suit. I was still dripping with sweat like everyone else so I didn’t care, though if I had been in an actual boxing ring I would’ve been dead months ago.  Jill was plugging along nicely and our trainer talked her through ways she can improve her power while she hit. In between all of the boxing we had to do what’s called a burpee.  It’s where you jump your legs back into a plank and then spring right back up again like nothing happened. This is what keeps the heart rate up, as if the boxing wasn’t enough.

As I floated back up from burpee #27, I looked over and noticed Jill was hitting a bag with no one on the other side.  Where was Amy? I mean i did notice her face was getting a little white, I still didn’t think she’d quit. I quickly ran over towards the water fountain and noticed her chatting it up with the folks at the front desk. At the end of the class, she told her story:

“So I started the class with everything I had and when it came time to do start punching I literally felt like I was going to pass out. The trainer told me that perhaps I didn’t pace myself enough and that lots of people throw up their first time because the nervous system goes into a bit of a “shock” if you will.  It’s also partly Jills fault for drinking the other half of my protein shake. I felt better after I got water but decided to just hang back here and not be in the way.” Oh the considerate middle child!  We actually didn’t give her a hard time considering the class was challenging and she needed to build up to it a bit more. The good news was, she was inspired so much by the trainers at Peter Welsh’s gym that she now wants to find a boxing class back in Scranton so she can kill it next time she’s in Boston! Jill and I are making sure she follows through with that. What are sisters for, right?

Thank you, Peter Welsh gym. Be seeing you back in the ring soon!

This has been Nutritious Yogi reporting!

Namaste & Eat clean

~karen

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