Do Fitness Boxing Gyms Offer a Good Workout?
If you type “Fitness Boxing” into your search engine, you will be dazzled by the array of gyms providing this type of class. But do boxing workouts work? Are they effective? Get-Fit Guy goes undercover at 9Round to find out.
Brock Armstrong
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Do Fitness Boxing Gyms Offer a Good Workout?
With all the mounting evidence of how impactful an impact to the head can be on our health and wellbeing, there is no way that I would recommend any of you put yourself in danger of getting hit. But with gyms like 9Round popping up around the world, where there is no chance of you getting into a ring, let alone taking any punches, I feel confident including boxing workouts in my fitness toolkit.
So, with that out of the way, when a listener named Morgan called the Get-Fit Guy hotline and asked about boxing workouts, I was excited to dig in. This is what Morgan said: “I have a question about boxing. Can you get fit by doing a boxing type of class? I really enjoy them but are they really enough to get me fit?” That is a great question, Morgan, let’s take a look.
Fitness Boxing
The genre known as fitness boxing is simply an adaptation of the movements from the sport most of us associate with a fellow named Rocky. Personal trainers and fitness entrepreneurs alike have taken many elements of boxing, both the punching and the general fitness, and blended them into an exercise routine that we all can do. In a nutshell, these workouts use heavy bags, boxing gloves, and other boxing and kickboxing gear, combined with aerobic and resistance training exercises to provide a full body, sweat-inducing, and somewhat cathartic workout.
Unlike traditional boxing which requires that you spar with a partner, fitness boxing involves throwing punches (sometimes kicks) at a punching bag. Generally speaking, there are two main types of classes:
- One type has you follow an instructor to perform a series of boxing movements that have been set to music, similar to aerobics, BodyPump, or SoulCycle. The class includes a mix of tight punches (jabs), large punches (hooks, uppercuts), ducks, squats, and some fancy footwork.
- The other type of fitness boxing class involves circuit training that is a combination of strength training, agility, HIIT, and punching bags. This is the style that seemed the most appealing to me. So, with the help of an internet search, I booked my first session.
Get-Fit Guy Goes Undercover at 9Round
I put on my false nose and fake glasses to attend a (free) trial session at a boxing fitness gym called 9Round.
9Round bills itself as “a specialized fitness center for people who want a unique, fun, and proven workout that guarantees results.” With workouts that are all 30 minutes long, that can be started any time you arrive (as opposed to scheduled classes). Their goal is to offer “a kickboxing themed fitness program that incorporates a functional, interval, cardiovascular, and circuit training regimens.” Sounds good, right?
When I walked into the gym, I could see how this was going to play out. There was clearly going to be a combination of heavy bag work, kickboxing work, cardio conditioning, and drills. And from what I had read on their website, this was all set to a three-minute timer which keeps you moving through the nine stations ending your workout in 30 minutes… ish.
A buzzer sounds to signify the beginning of that round, another buzzer goes off when you have 30-seconds left (and you are supposed to increase your intensity), a third buzzer signifies the end of that round, and then you have 30 seconds to let your heart rate come down or to join in the transition exercise which the trainers shout out. Then it starts all over again. It’s a pretty slick idea (in theory, anyway).
I got there pretty early (thank you Vancouver transit system) which happily turned out not to be an issue. At 9Round there is no sitting around waiting for a class to start. Whenever you show up, you can basically dive straight into the first of the three-minute stations and get punchin’.
As a franchise, every 9Round gym is set up in basically the same way but the exercises change from day to day. This is the general gist:
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Round 1 and 2 are focused on conditioning work. These involve exercises like lunge twists, jump rope, jogging with high knees, jumping jacks, burpees, and mountain climbers.
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Rounds 3 to 8 are boxing and kickboxing work. These involve speed bags, heavy bags (for punching and kicking) combined with agility work and cardio exercises.
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Round 9 is the core strength round. This involves exercises that are designed to strengthen your core and by that, I mean your hips, abs, and low back.
My Experience at 9Round
I told the 9Round trainers when I first arrived in the mostly empty gym that I was a “complete noob” so they promised to walk me through the workout. Unfortunately, this turned out to be a promise they could not keep.
After they set me up with a heart rate measuring chest strap, which fed my beats per minute onto a few TV screens around the gym, they got me set up at the first station. But by the time I was at the third station, the gym had filled up and they barely had time to tell me what I was supposed to be doing let alone hold my hand. Which is not great when you only have three minutes at each station and 30 minutes to get a decent workout done (more on that later).
Round One: Jump Rope
I was instructed to jump rope for three minutes. No warm up, nothing fancy, just grab a rope and jump. OK.
Round Two: Lunge Twists and Jumping Jacks with a Medicine Ball
Now we’re talking! This is what I enjoy—some full body, multi-joint movements. By the end of this station, I was fully warm (and a bit sweaty).
Round Three: Double End Striking Bag
The trainer, who had pretty much abandoned me at this point, ran over and put some boxing gloves on my hands and told me to punch this oval shaped bag that was suspended from both ends by a surprisingly erratic rope. I lost at least 30 seconds getting the gloves on my hands and another 30 seconds trying to figure out the physics of the bag, which left me with two minutes of very ineffective punching. I started to get frustrated.
Round Four: The Heavy Bag
After I stood there looking lost for a few seconds, one of the trainers came running over and showed me how to kick the bag 10 times from what I would call a crab-walk position (on all fours, with my belly facing upward). Then I was told to jump up and punch the bag 10 times. Again, I lost a lot of time getting instructions and then more time wrapping my head around these completely unfamiliar movements. My frustration kept growing.
Round Five: Maize Bag
This one was fun and easy to understand. Kick the bottom of the bag with each foot and then give the bag an uppercut with each hand. Now we’re talking! I finally must have been showing some aptitude for this workout since one trainer ran over and cheered me on for a few seconds. My frustration was replaced by catharsis!
Round Six: Horizontal Punching Bag
This was another station that I took to in a hurry. Still wearing the gloves, I was told to do a burpee, then with my hands on top of the bag, knee the bag from underneath with each leg and then pound on the top of the bag four times with both fists (like a caveman having a temper tantrum). I didn’t lose much time at all getting into this one and my heart rate hit an all-time high.
Round Seven: Kickboxing Bag
This is when things really went south. I was left standing for quite a while wondering what my instructions were for this station, then it took the trainer a full minute to show me how to do a front-kick and a side-kick properly. So, by the time I was able to barely execute the two movements, I didn’t have much time left at all. And with that limited time, I flailed around, ineffectively getting frustrated again by my apparent lack of Van Damme-ness.
Round Eight: Speed Bag
I don’t even know what to say about this. I have seen these bags on TV and in movies but I have never tried one. And in the three minutes that I used this one, I can easily say that I am no more proficient at it than I was when I walked in the door. And therein lies my biggest issue with 9Round (but again, more on that later).
Round Nine: Bicycle Crunches
Yes. I did bicycle crunches for the better part of three minutes straight. This not only seemed uninspired on the trainer’s part, but it was also boring as heck for me. Not a great way to end my session.
9Round Cons
Let’s go back to what I mentioned earlier about three minutes not being long enough to become proficient at any of the unfamiliar movements.
Sure, in a perfect world, where I had previously been to 9Round enough times to know the jargon and be able to throw myself immediately into each station, I would have gotten a better workout.
And again, in a perfect world where I had been trained properly in good punching and kicking form and technique, I would have maximized my time and not flailed about getting frustrated and risking injury. But in reality, even if I went to 9Round every day for a week, I would still only amass 21 minutes at the speed bag and I doubt I would have even begun to grasp the physics behind mastering the timing and hand-eye coordination necessary to exercise anything but my patience.
I understand that if they had allowed me to spend more time learning how to use each station correctly, I would have been there all morning. I also would have drastically impacted everyone else’s workouts because there was only one piece of equipment for each station. So, other than having a big warning sign on the door that says “if you don’t know what you are doing, you should probably do yoga next door” I don’t have a solution for them.
Aside from that major flaw in the structure of their workouts, my only other complaints are:
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Lack of personal attention (especially for us noobs),
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Lack of a warm-up (which I guess I would solve one my own, if I were to go again).
The Benefits of Fitness Boxing
Let me start by saying that fitness boxing isn’t vastly superior to any other types of exercise. There is nothing magical about it, but it does have a few decent health benefits.
One benefit is building strength. When you are swinging your arms around and moving muscles in ways that don’t generally happen in daily life, you will certainly gain some upper-body strength. And the same goes for your legs. My favorite exercise of the day combined burpees with kneeing a horizontal bag as hard as I could. It left me feeling strong and sore for a few days.
Punching with maximum power requires that you put your entire weight behind the punch, making your whole body (hips, arms, back, legs, shoulders, and abs) work together in one motion. This helps build overall strength because the muscles that you use in punching help support and stabilize all movement and proper alignment in your body.
Fitness boxing also provides some decent aerobic exercise. Anything that gets your heart pumping and makes you break a decent sweat is good in my book. And when I wasn’t getting frustrated or waiting for instructions, a was huffing and puffing. Plus the concentration and fun that I was having really made those three-minute stations fly by.
Boxing is also well known for improving hand-eye coordination, especially if you’re sparring with an uncooperative speed bag, or hitting padded targets. When you practice movements like these, your eyes send electrical signals to your brain providing information about the visual stimuli. Your brain sends more signals to your hands telling them how to move in response to these stimuli. Errors in the process can result in difficulties coordinating movement, difficulties with balance, trouble focusing during sports, and difficulty learning tasks such as reading and writing. So, you can see why building and maintaining good hand-eye coordination is important for all of us, not just boxers.
And one last benefit of fitness boxing is that you are constantly changing your position and challenging your balance and the more you do that, the better your balance and proprioception reaction becomes.
Proprioception is known as body awareness and spatial awareness that ties in with hand-eye coordination. Or, in scientific terms, it is kinesthetic intelligence. This obviously matters in sport and fitness, but research has shown that increasing your proprioception can also increase your working memory used for holding short-term information that allows you to do things like math, solve logic problems, and even remember that person’s name who you just met.
9Round Conclusion
9Round is a good full body workout. It is also a good and affordable option for people who only have 30 minutes and want to get a good mix of strength, agility, and coordination.
It is not good for anyone (like me) who is unfamiliar with boxing and kickboxing movements and punching bag physics mainly because in this short go-go-go style workout, there is no time for learning the nuance of a new skill.
It is also not good for anyone with mobility issues of movement limitations. People with low bone density, osteoporosis, or arthritis (especially in your hands) would also have serious issues with this workout.
But as always, the best way to determine if a particular workout style is right for you is to give it a try! But if I were to do it all again, I would first find a nice quiet boxing studio and spend some serious time getting the basics down before I threw myself into a situation where time is ticking, buzzers are buzzing, and the next round is only three minutes away.
For more boxing info, kicking tips, and to join the punchy conversation, head over to Facebook.com/GetFitGuy, twitter.com/getfitguy or BrockArmstrong.com.
Also don’t forget to subscribe to the Get-Fit Guy podcast on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Spotify, Google Play or via RSSopens XML file .
Woman boxing image courtesy of Shutterstock.
About the Author
Brock Armstrong was the host of the Get-Fit Guy podcast between 2017 and 2021. He is a certified AFLCA Group Fitness Leader with a designation in Portable Equipment, NCCP and CAC Triathlon Coach, and a TnT certified run coach. He is also on the board of advisors for the Primal Health Coach Institute and a guest faculty member of the Human Potential Institute.