Maintaining a sleek, athletic figure as a varsity women's basketball player requires a high level of effort. This is what we tell ourselves when the dreaded "extra conditioning" is required. Depending on the difficulty of the workout, I use justifications ranging from "I can have a bigger dinner now" to "That strawberry cupcake I claimed was a healthy breakfast is gone," and "I'm probably burning off every calorie I ever have ingested." When one of us doesn't run up and down the court enough times during a game to maintain our heart's cardiovascular strength - that's a thing, right? - we are required to do extra conditioning.
Depending on how much mercy our weight coach has extended for the day, we can be on the court, the bike or on the luckiest days, boxing. With the recent conversion of an old storage room in University Hall to a boxing gym, we can keep our hearts strong without ruining our joints by running on the court.
Last week, I was one of the lucky ones. Even luckier still, because I had gotten into a violent screaming match earlier that day, there was aggression that needed to be taken out on a heavy bag. Oh, if you're curious, the screaming was about the effectiveness of liquid versus powder dishwashing soap. Why? Don't ask. Who won? Also, don't ask.
We donned our boxing gloves and wrist wraps in the gym, turning up the classic rock radio and prepared ourselves for the circuit workout. We would punch the heavy bags, sprint on the treadmill, hit the speed bag and do an ab exercise for a minute-and-a-half each with 30-second breaks.
For those of you who are not professional boxers and are unrelated to Muhammad Ali or have never witnessed a real boxing match on television, pay attention - that crap is hard. Hitting a bag repeatedly while dancing around it in a circle looks easy. Before we began, I threw jabs and upper cuts left and right around the gym, envisioning myself as Rocky conquering my Russian enemies. Take that. And that. How about that, punching bag? The punching bag took it, and I saw myself as a champion.
Then the circuit began.
Upon completion, my wrists were sore, my knuckles felt as if I'd been knocking on doors for prolonged amounts of time and my abs burnt like fire. Boxing was, for lack of a better word, a challenge. Respect to all of you boxers out there who not only have to hit moving targets but also have to avoid getting hit back.
The thing about boxing is, however, it's fun. I would box before running sprints on a court any day. Thus, when you are told there is a boxing workout, you can't help but smile and thank someone. Something about jamming to Aerosmith and Queen while imagining a certain someone and his lack of belief in liquid dishwasher soap in front of me while swinging violently was relaxing. It had me wondering why it hadn't been my sport to begin with. Then I remembered in a real boxing ring, they're aiming for the mug. Mm-mm, no thank you. I'll take basketball every time. At least then, a hit to the face is usually accidental.
Simone's column runs biweekly Thursdays. She can be reached at s.egwu@cavalierdaily.com.
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