If you search for a purpose for staying fit, then this might be your thing! Boxing is an all round workout that involves punches, combos, blocking, footwork as well as other cardio activities such as running and jump roping. Apart from providing you with a full body workout that is guaranteed to get your heart pumping and kilogrammes fleeing, boxing also develops you mentally.
The motivation comes as soon as you set your foot in the ring. It’s mindfulness at its best – you will not be able to think about anything else for that hour, and as your body starts to transform and your conditioning improves, you really start to feel like a prize-fighter getting ready for Vegas. Your mindset evolves into a boxer’s and your training influences everything else you do; you eat to train better, you sleep to train better, you develop discipline to train better.
And it is really not called the sweet science for nothing. Once you get over the initial steps of learning the basic combos, it’s the technical aspect that comes next that allows you to start seeing results. Feel your whole body burn and sweat as you enjoy throwing a series of intense combinations: Remembering to twist your body to the right angle when you throw the perfect hook, or ensuring you bob and weave as you duck really gets the whole body going.You can enjoy boxing with a trainer or in a group setting with a class. Body Active Gym has one of the biggest classes in Harare. Ali Phiri, the trainer, has been boxing since he was a child and trains the likes of Manyuchi and other local fighters. He trains men and women aged 18-60, so there is a programme for you as well.
We were lucky enough to be invited to a training session with Ali during his Thursday classes at Body Active Gym.
The group was split up into 3 stations; the stairs, the bags and the studio
The stairs
The bags
The studio
The full class lasted one hour. Each station had a 15-minute intense session, with the additional 15 minutes being allocated for breaks and moving between stations. The bags get you to focus on your rhythm and timing, the stairs help you improve your cardio and conditioning, and the studio helps with developing your technique and strengthening other muscle groups like your abs.
The whole experience was worth it. Out of all the stations, we enjoyed the stairs the most. The reason being they required the most mental strength to get through. Just looking at them and then hearing what we had to do was enough to put us off even trying. However, with each cycle we found them becoming easier and easier to the point where the 15 minutes flew by. In that short space of time it was easy to see how through persistence and discipline you could turn this into an art.