Have you ever heard of Piloxing? Neither had I. Until last night, that is.
Lately, I’ve been on a mission to try as many exercise classes as possible. I just can’t get enough of the energy brought on by the high intensity, upbeat environment.
Addicted to those feel-good endorphins? Quite possibly. The post-workout happiness just can’t be beat and the feeling never gets old. Which, I suppose, is a huge part of the appeal.
So last night, I headed to my local YMCA to get my daily dose of exercise-induced endorphins. My plan was to try out a new-to-me class called Turbokick. I figured it would be similar to Turbofire (which I was absolutely love), so I was pretty pumped.
Well, it turns out that I had been looking at the wrong schedule. It was updated at the end of February and little old me didn’t think to look at the revised version.
Imagine my surprise when I realized that I was actually in a Piloxing class. What is Piloxing you ask? Simply put, it’s an interdisciplinary system of two extremes – boxing and Pilates. Say hello to a calorie torching, muscle sculpting workout.
Here’s a video that gives a little taste of the class format.
Piloxing incorporates the powerful feeling of boxing combined with the static flow of Pilates. Basically, you’re hitting both ends of the energy and emotion continuum. You move from high intensity jumping and punching to slower motion balance moves. Hello, calorie torcher.
The class is designed to empower women by incorporating femininity, control, sexiness and power.
Sleek. Sexy. Powerful. Now those are three words I like to hear.
Sleek is the Pilates move, sexy is the dance component, and the power comes from boxing.
Sounds pretty amazing, right? And it certainly was!
It’s highly recommended that the class is done barefoot, which offers a perfect opportunity for me to rock my Fila Skele-toes!
According to our instructor, barefoot training has many advantages, including, but not limited to:
- enhancing stability from the joints of the foot up through the ankle, leg, knee, and hip
- stimulating the use of the intrinsic foot and leg muscles that can become atrophied using shoes
- allowing the toes to fully extend, flex, and grip properly
- improving balance, agility, and strength
- helping with awareness of accurate foot positioning
- helping to re-align the spine (which can reduce back pain)
Since I wasn’t aware that I was taking a Piloxing class, I had on regular Nikes. However, I am definitely going to try the class wearing my Filas next time!
So how about the class itself?
It was a blast! Think Turbofire/kickboxing meets Pilates and yoga. There was also a dance component which was reminiscent of many moves from zumba.
Boxing + Pilates + Zumba equals one seriously killer class.
I’ve actually never taken a Pilates class, so I wasn’t certain what to expect from that portion of the routine. But I’ll tell you this – my buns, quads, and core were on fire. Seriously. Burn, baby, burn.
Besides for the great burn, the energy in the class was amazing. The room was full of women from all age groups and all levels of fitness.
The thing we all had in common? Excitement. We were all so happy to be there – burning calories, sculpting muscles, and working up a healthy sweat! It’s so great to feed off the energy of like-minded people.
So as you can probably guess, I am definitely going to try out the class again. If you have the opportunity to try out a class – don’t pass it up.
See you tomorrow for another Sweat it Out Saturday!
<3 Stefanie
EmoticonEmoticon