MY SEARCH FOR THE BEST CARDIO EXERCISE — How Boxing Changed My Life
I love to exercise. I love the challenge of lifting heavier and heavier weights; of doing more and more reps. I love the soreness that you feel afterwards. That pulsating ache in your muscles that tells you, you had a good workout. I love the satisfaction of pushing myself past the threshold of exhaustion and pain.
I love to exercise but I hate cardio work.
Let’s face it: most cardio, especially the kind that you do indoors, is boring. Why do you think there are so many TV’s set up in a gym? You need something to take your mind off the fact that you are standing in the same spot for an hour with nothing to do but pretend to be going somewhere. And pretend is all you can do because while gym cardio equipment simulates different modes of transportation, nobody actually goes anywhere. A rowing machine is not a boat. You are not on the water and you are not moving. You can’t feel the sun on your face or taste the saltwater. Also, there are no fish around. A Stairmaster is not a staircase. If your bedroom is on the second floor of your house, you are not going to get there on the Stairmaster. Spin bikes are great but, just like the rowing machine, you don’t go anywhere. All you can do is move your legs up and down and pretend to be going somewhere. I found all this frustrating. I knew that cardio was good for me. I knew I needed to strengthen my heart, improve my stamina and burn fat. I knew that it was important to supplement my weight lifting with a strenuous, sweat inducing, fat burner exercise. I knew that the best way to do that was with a good cardio routine. I just found the typical cardio machines at a gym boring and not much fun.
It’s not like I didn’t try.
I pushed myself to add a treadmill day to my workout schedule. I had my playlist and my Bluetooth headsets. I had a full bottle of water. I had a new Lululemon outfit on that was only one size too small for me (I was trying to fit in). I was ready. I started on a slow setting; basically a fast walk. Pinball Wizard was blasting through my ears. All was good. I figured I could do this. I was wrong. Three minutes in all I could think about was getting off . I was a prisoner. I hated it. I was George Jetson walking Astro (“Jane, stop this crazy thing”). I was Dustin Hoffman in Marathon Man getting his teeth pulled by Laurence Olivier. This was real torture. I had to end it. I sought and found the least embarrassing way to get off the machine, avoiding what I suspect would have been a crowd-pleasing full-on George Jetson scenario and scratched treadmill off my list.
Determined to get that cardio work in, I decided to try the elliptical. I noticed a lot of seemingly happy people on this machine, gracefully sliding their legs back and forth and moving their arms in perfect rhythm as if a samba was being played in their heads. It looked artistic. It looked like something that even a cardio-hating, easily bored, when is this going to be over guy like me might find tolerable. I quickly learned to hate it. I learned that like all other in-gym cardio, its just another way to pretend you are going somewhere; in this case on a cross-country ski adventure without the snow or the Swiss Alps as background. Also, I just couldn’t get comfortable with the whole arm movement thing. I felt that my arms were moving faster than my legs. It reminded me of my attempts at ballroom dancing (lessons I took before my daughter’s wedding to avoid looking completely lost). I could never get the top half of my body to sync up with the bottom half. Elliptical was just not for me. As I stepped off the machine, dejected that I was destined to miss out on all the cardio benefits, I noticed something in the corner of the gym that changed my life. I noticed someone boxing. I saw a man around my age, throwing punches into the waiting mitts of a trainer. A trainer that I would soon approach and help set my life on a new and different path. A trainer named Victor Torres.
That meeting introduced me to my new passion. Boxing has become my salvation. Boxing has become my way of having fun while getting my cardio work in. Boxing has become the best exercise I have ever done.
Now let’s be clear. I’m fifty-nine years old, so when I say I am boxing, it does not mean that I am in a ring facing an opponent who is trying to hit me. In fact, the best part about my boxing is that I get to hit things without any fear that they are going to hit back. I hit focus mitts. I hit a speed bag. I hit a heavy bag. Sometimes I hit Victor — but he never hits me back (at least not hard). This workout is INSTENSE. A three minute “round” of hitting focus mitts gets my heart rate up higher than any gym equipment ever could. In fact, when I first started, the best I could do was one thirty-second round, after which I felt like I had just run a three-minute mile through the dessert wearing a winter coat while carrying a small piano on my back. Like I should have all local hospitals on stand-by for my impending arrival on a gurney. After a year of training, I am now able to do six consecutive, three-minute rounds, with one-minute rests in between. Afterwards, I not only don’t feel the need to call 911 or any other emergency service, I am ready to move on to the next part of the workout. The rapid accelerating and quick decelerating of my heart rate is something that you don’t get in most cardio and is a huge factor in fitness. But the best part of boxing is that it is FUN. I love the feeling of hitting things. I love learning about different strategies in the ring. I love trying to perfect my jabs and crosses. I love working on my footwork. Most of all, I love the way I feel when I am doing it. This is the kind of cardio that I actually look forward to doing. Instead of being tortured on a treadmill, pretending to be doing something, I am actually doing something. I am moving. I am bobbing and weaving. I am snapping my jabs. I am getting my aggression out. I am floating like a butterfly and stinging like a bee (if butterflies and bees lived to be fifty-nine and worked behind a desk all day). I have also learned to really appreciate the “Sweet Science” of boxing. Victor is awesome. One of the coolest guys I have ever met. He is a former professional UFC fighter, a warrior who has spent enough time in the ring against seriously crazy people that you trust everything he says. Underneath his tough-guy exterior, is a really great, super nice, extra caring person. He takes the time to not only work on my fitness but also to correct my boxing technique and form. In between “rounds” we talk about life and the challenges and opportunities that we both face. It’s the best hour of my week.
While I am certain that I will never step into a boxing ring against an actual opponent, I am the type of person that wants to do things the right way. If I am going to box, I am going to try to learn the correct way to stand. The proper way to punch. The importance of protecting my face. The stamina necessary to last in a ring. It all comes together for me when I am training with Victor Torres. He is my boxing guru. He encourages me and inspires me. I leave each session, drenched is sweat and already looking forward to our next meeting. I have developed a sort of quiet confidence that comes from knowing that I can hit things really hard if I have to. That’s a pretty cool feeling.
My search for the best cardio workout was almost as exhausting as the workouts themselves. I always knew that I needed to do it, but I struggled to find one that I could tolerate, much less enjoy. The one that didn’t make me feel like a laboratory rat running through a maze in search of a sliver of cheese. The one that didn’t bore me to death. I finally found it with boxing. The best cardio and the most fun I ever had exercising. I have improved my cardio fitness tremendously and have become a bad ass in the process.
If you are anything like me and find most cardio workouts hard to get through, you should find your way to a boxing gym and sign up for classes. It will be the best cardio exercise you ever did.
