Testing Combat Camp’s Sensible Boxing Health System

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The Fight Camp Smart Boxing Fitness System.

Battle camp

Apparently, hitting a bag is good workout. And apparently, hitting this bag 353 times on your first boxing fitness workout can result in sore hands … if you’re not using the right equipment.

I tested Battle camp, a fitness program for intelligent boxing, has been running for a few months. It’s a data-based fitness program: punch trackers embedded in special boxing gloves. Fight Camp’s punch trackers fit in a small pouch on your wrist and track the movement of your hand in three-dimensional space a thousand times per second, according to the company. The result is that you can keep track of how many punches you throw, what types, what speed, and how much power is behind them.

And of course you can track your training intensity.

Fight Camp is co-founded by former US national team boxer Tommy Duquette: 136 fights, number two in the 2012 US Olympic Trials, and now executive and fitness trainer for the combination-technology company. It features the punching bag, gloves – which I didn’t use the first time around – and app-based video workouts that you follow.

At high intensity, it burns more calories than anything else.

“In a martial arts there is no margin for error. That is why these training methods are so effective,” Duquette said in one final episode of the TechFirst podcast. “When I do my burnout training … I burn about 80-100 calories per lap.”

A boxing round lasts three minutes.

That said, it burns about 30 calories a minute. Some of my most vigorous aerobic exercise, running upstairs, burns about 10 calories a minute: less than a third of Duquette’s burns.

So this is intense.

Obviously, I’m not anywhere near Duquette’s level.

I followed his training course and was – although it shouldn’t have surprised me – shocked at how difficult it was. The training kicked my butt hard … despite my regular exercise routine, which already includes several weekly fitness and strength training sessions. The punch trackers told me I punched about 350 punches in about 30 minutes, but it wasn’t all punching. The workout included setups, pushups, some squats, and a range of punching bag activities.

Overall, my Apple Watch told me I burned around 300 calories, far less than Duquette.

Smart fitness equipment grows incredibly quickly.

The Fight Camp Smart Boxing Fitness System.

The Fight Camp Smart Boxing Fitness System.

Battle camp

According to a report heavily focused on tracking equipment – the Fitbits and Apple Watches category – the global smart fitness equipment and accessories market is projected to reach nearly $ 43 billion by 2027. But the room offers more than just smartwatches. Shoes, clothing and gear are brought to the high tech level with trackers, WiFi and Bluetooth to give fitness enthusiasts data on what they are doing, how they are doing it and how it affects their fitness.

Peloton is a major player in this space, but Mirror and dozens of other companies are taking advantage of the Covid gym shutdown by selling more products in the domestic market. JAXJOX offers smart dumbbells (keyword jokes) that know how heavy they are and how often you lift them. NordicTrack and other well-known fitness manufacturers are jumping onto the market with rowing, cycling and running machines, as are several startups.

Fight Camp does the same thing but for boxing.

You will receive a punching bag with a bottom that can be filled with water, boxing gloves and trackers that fit in “hand wraps”, small gloves that essentially fit into the boxing gloves. (I only used these for my first workout without the full boxing gloves. The result: sore hands that didn’t occur after receiving the gloves.) The actual gloves work great; The punching bag moves significantly when you hit it, even if it is loaded with water. So you have to keep moving around the sack and hitting it from different angles to avoid running it around your room (or deck where I place mine). It took me a while to charge and connect the trackers. Once they are synced with your phone via bluetooth, they will show up in the app and you can follow your progress in real time.

Equipment may seem secondary to the fitness minimalist, but according to Fight Camp, 85% more people stick to their workouts with equipment plugged in than those who just watch exercise videos.

(Apple Fitness +, I’m looking at you.)

The result is a fun workout where you can pound on something … which is more therapeutic than it may seem at times like these. You can just punch the pocket or subscribe to video-based workouts and instructions through the company’s app. When you train through the app, you can follow a trainer, score points and, among other things, get ranked for doing the same training.

It’s a modern take on a very, very old sport.

“We’d like to say that boxing is a 3,000 year old sport that hasn’t changed in thousands of years,” said Duquette. “I recently saw a picture of a punching bag from ancient Greece and you’d be surprised how much it looks like the punching bag you would see today.”

Like any fitness, it is valuable. Especially now.

“I’m not going to reveal the name of this customer, but she got FightCamp in the summer, I think in early summer / late spring 2020, and then unfortunately came down and got Covid,” says Duquette. “It was an uphill battle for her, and she wrote this heartfelt thing in the ward after she got through it, where she said, ‘My doctor said if I hadn’t taken fitness at this point, I might not have made it . ‘”

Another customer, an 11 year old, was working with his father who posted a video of the kid hitting the bag. Duquette told his father that his son had talent, they found a proper gym and boxing coach, and he actually started to compete.

“He had his first amateur fight in competition about two months ago and won by knocking out the first round,” says Duquette, adding that Fight Camp is not just about fitness, it’s a life skill. “If 2020 taught us anything, it doesn’t hurt to know how to throw a good shot, does it?”

Especially not, I think, when it comes to an inanimate object and not a person.

Get a full transcript of our conversation or subscribe to the TechFirst podcast.