What if there was a way to work out which of your friends you could beat in a fight… without actually hitting each other?
In every group of mates, there’s a question that inevitably comes up at some point: who could take who in a fight?
Most fellas tend to have that one friend, the kind of guy who genuinely matches the satire you might read in Betoota Advocate. A false confidence borne out of watching one too many Conor McGregor fights on YouTube and reading articles about how to get Zac Efron’s rig from ‘Baywatch’.
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But what if there was a way to actually test your skills against said friend, but without things turning into an all-around slugfest? A small gym on the edge of Sydney’s CBD district is doing just that. In an hour-long class, Corporate Fitness Centre is able to test the number of punches thrown, how fast you throw them and your overall intensity.
So how does it all work? Before each class, boxers place a coin-size Hykso punch tracker in their hand wraps. These sensors are capable of tracking both left hand and right hand straight punches and power punches at a hand movement rate of up to 1,000 times per second. They’re also capable of tracking six-degree hand movements and process each punch at a rate of 100 milliseconds.
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The class itself includes a warm-up and a few drills, but overall it’s a bag work heavy class focussed on combination punches. To keep boxers on their feet, scores are on display on several television screens throughout the gym providing live results and rankings as you punch. If that’s not pressure enough, instructors also dish out punishments for the lowest scoring boxer at the end of each round. If you don’t like burpees, you better get punching.
On top of that, the lights are turned off and instead, a strip of red fluros light up the room. It’s all a little fun and something different, however, unlike boxfit or body combat, the classes are run at a real boxing gym with trainers and facilities that definitely hold their own.
The real benefit of punch trackers goes well beyond live results and knowing who’s topping the class, too. Here we have the technology to track our punch habits, our rate of punching, and the velocity of our punches. With this kind of information, we can review our punching technique and method getting rid of any unwanted movement, saving energy to punch on for another round.
You can find Corporate Fitness Centre at 36-38 Wentworth Avenue, Surry Hills NSW 2010
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