Let's Get Ready to Rumble

Staircase Leading to the Workout Room

Lobby View

There's something thrilling about punching a bag relentlessly with no reservations or concerns, the thrill of letting go.

Rumble is a boxing-inspired workout class that combines high intensity interval training and classic boxing. The class adhere to the 6 basic boxing punching pattern and combinations: jabs, cross, front hooks, back hooks, front upper cut and back upper cut. The class is founded by Noah Neiman, who was a master trainer at Barry's Bootcamp and was one of the cast members on Bravo's reality TV show - Workout New York. Perhaps it's the appeal of traditional boxing and sweat guaranteed workout, the class was completed packed. In attendance include comedian Kevin Hart and nope we did not ask for a picture as we thought he was just someone who's looking for a good workout like the rest of us, so we shall respect that and no need for the corny opening to try to get his attention. Though we did wanted to scream out "she wasn't ready ~~".

Back to the workout, the class is split between "floor exercises" and "boxing" similar to Barry's Bootcamp (we'll soon to have a post about Barry's Bootcamp). Additionally, the class is further divided into total of 10 rounds, split between floor exercise and boxing. If you're a first timer in the world of boxing, which means you probably won't have wraps and the boxing gloves, no worries, rental for the both are available. Also, no need to worry about bruising your knuckles post boxing,, because Rumble utilizes these tear-drop shaped aqua punching bag, which helps to absorb the punching force.

Now that we told you a bit about Rumble, let us move on to the rating round:

Motivation (3.5): The class had a great playlist with mix of different music genres. Our trainer for the class was Danielle Burrell who did a good job of demonstrating the different exercises and punch combinations included in our workout prior to the class officially began. That said, between the music and sound of punching bags, it was difficult to hear the instructor's voice. Often, we had to look around and see what exercise we're currently doing, which could be distracting when we were trying to focus on the workout.

Amenities (4): Rumble gym accommodates most of your needs, including lockers area, restrooms and waiting area. The amenities felt sleek and clean, additionally, variety of rumble-themed paintings can be found all over the facility, ranging from Pulp Fiction inspired mural to a black-eyed panda portray. Perhaps it's the popularity of the class or simply New Yorker desired to burn off the boo from Saturday night, our Sunday morning class was completely booked, which made the lockers area feel like Time Square during the rush hours.

Intensity (4): The class was fast paced and the 10 rounds scheduled were tightly choreographed, which means we had very little recovery time in between rounds. The floor exercises are consisted of full body workouts (i.e. bicep curls, lateral shoulder raises, bicycle crunches, Russian twists, squat jumps, high knees, quick feet and more). The boxing rounds consisted of different combination of the 6 punching patterns (i.e. jabs, cross,  front hooks, back hooks, front upper cut and back upper cut) mentioned before the classes started.

Overall (4): The boxing component of the class definitely sets Rumble apart from most of the workout classes in NYC and it was great to try this new form of workout. Overall, we felt that Rumble had a good balance of cardio, intensity and muscle sculpting/toning. You're guaranteed to work up a good sweat (Ron's shirt was completely soaked by the end of the workout), nonetheless, it's always fun to just let go and punch something.


Class Location:
Rumble Flatiron/Chelsea:
146 W. 23rd St.
New York, NY 10011

Rumble NOHO (Coming Winter of '17):
700 Broadway
New York, NY 10003

-L&L

Our Workout Recap

Here is a quick link to the classes we have taken! Click the class for the full review

Dancing in the Shadow - Great workout that simulates a real boxing workout, try it and learn some great combinations

Barry's for Days - Enjoy our review on one of the most popular and prevalent boutique group fitness classic

Unleash Your Inner Playfulness - A great class for cardio and improving muscle flexibility, oh and did we mention you get to jump on a trampoline in whole time?

Two for One: Acro Yoga and Flywheel - Acro Yoga and Flywheel in the same post, get some! We know you'll enjoy this post

It's All About That Convict Body - A truly inspiring story and concept behind a high intensity floor workout focused class

Friday Night Date Night with F45 - A 45 minutes High-Intensity, Circuit Training workout class for its studio members to kick start their weekends

Let's Get Cyc'ed - A group fitness cycling class that guarantee you with a good sweat and beats

Bikini Body Guide - A guide that consists of variety of different exercises to help tone your body

Rumble - Boxing-inspired group workout class with some very interesting graphic arts

Dogpound - Pricey but fantastic one on one training in a fun environment

Jump Rope Intervals - NYSC class where you switch up jump rope with strength training moves. kick your ass and not your budget (no jumping experience required)

Switch Playground - Quick paced workout where you switch stations every 2 minutes. oh and they have DJ. Great for the ADD

Dog Day Afternoon

Behind the Scene - Locker Room

General Workout Facility

We're back at it again! Similar to the classic film featuring Al Pacino, before heading to The Dogpound, we had a plan and intended to follow the plan and execute the plan at all cost, needless to say, we were looking forward to this for awhile. That said, most time plans often deviate from reality and Ron paid a steep price for his action last night as he had few too many tequilas - lesson well learned.

Founded by its head trainers Kirk Myers and the Pena brothers (Dawin and Brey), The Dogpound aim to help participants to not only achieve their goal, but to "smash it". Since its first celebrity client Hugh Jackman, Mr. Wolverine himself, The Dogpound has gain a wide variety of loyal clientele in its brief history, ranging from Victoria's Secret Models and Olympians to everyday New Yorkers. When you first walk into the gym, you'll notice the sleek and modern design of the place with a very strong color preference of black, which you would expect with a name such as The Dogpound. One thing that was not expected was the boxing ring in the back corner of the gym to mix things up. The gym offers exclusive one-on-one training session, semi-training session for group of 2 - 4 people and group classes.

Onward with our ratings for the gym:

Motivation (4.5) - Our trainer for the day was KC, he's been with the gym since day one and he was great. He strike the right balance of motivating and entertaining. Throughout the whole workout, he was pumping us up and making sure we were performing each of the exercise correctly. The tune in the gym is mainly hip-hop, not the hardcore kind, but more like the ones you hear on the radio (yes, Ja Rule was featured once or twice during the workout...)

Amenities (4) - With addition of the boxing ring, we would say the gym has everything you'll need for a ass kicking class (i.e. free weights, battle ropes, cardio machines and more). The biggest amenity of them all, though paid for, is the expertise and knowledge of the trainers. However, in terms of the post-workout and pre-workout amenities such as the locker room or shower, it's pretty bare bone - the gym offers you a locker to put your stuff away, but that's about it.

Intensity (4) - Since the bread and butter of the gym is personal training session, you can customize your workout (i.e. cardio, strength, flexibility and overall). We did a semi-private training session for two and we did not have a specific objective, so we let KC design our class. Our workout consisted of mainly calisthenics and light weight training in high intensity interval training (HIIT) fashion. The workout was more so about body control and hitting the precise muscle groups that we were not aware of.

Overall (4) - We had a great training session and learned a lot about different new moves that we can incorporate into our own workouts / trainings. Factoring into the price of our training session ($100 per person per hour, so $200 total for both of us), we would categorize this as one of the  "treat ya self" situations. We would like to go back again to explore different types of training session in the near future.

Class Location:
1 Renwick St.
New York, NY10013

- L&L

Jumping into Your Weekend

Today we're going to talk about the New York Sports Club's Jump Rope Interval class, yep that's right jump rope. That said, we're here to dispel some misconceptions about this class. it is not a class where you go to just jump rope for 45 minutes. The class is filled with varieties of exercises, from kettle bell swing to farmer's walk (carrying two heavy dumbbell walking across the length of the studio, 4 times). The idea of this class is to fill the gaps between these different exercises with jump rope, which is a great way to keep your heartbeat up and the calories burning.

We personally really enjoy the jump rope aspect of the class and it has transformed our warm-up routine. Often, we ignore the warm-up or cardio mainly because warm-up and cardio can be tedious, chore-like. We're confident that you'll really enjoy adding jump rope into your repertoire of warm up/cardio to shake things up.

Before we jump into the ratings, we would just like to give a shout out to the instructor - Anwar Hafeez. She's the real deal, not only she has a great personality, but also does a great job of correcting our movements if needed.

Alright, rating time:

Motivation (4) - As mentioned before, Anwar is a great instructor and motivator. The music is good with a wide variety options. Something about the constant flow of the class also helps you to keep going.

Amenities (3) - The class take place in one of the studios inside of New York Sports Club and as you may have already suspected, there are no additional amenities. It does not have the most advanced equipments and glamorous locker room, but it's definitely sufficient. One of the advantages of going to this class is the size of the locker room, you won't feel bombarded or cramped as you may with some of the other boutique fitness gyms.

Intensity (3.5) - To be fair, this is not the most intense class you'll take. It is relatively "participant-friendly"; based on your fitness level, you can adjust the exercise and the weights you use. Most of the exercises aren't very difficult, though there are couple core-strengthening movements could be challenging (i.e. the Scorpion)

Overall (3.5) - Definitely a great class to take if you want to do something a little bit different. Especially if you factor into how much you pay, $15 (free if you're already a member of the New York Sports Club) vs. $35 you'll pay for other boutique workout classes in the city.

Class Location:
New York Sports Club
128 8th Ave. New York, NY10011

- L&L

Time For a "Switch"

Lobby View Pt. 1

Lobby View Pt. 2

First stop, Switch Playground ("Switch"). Most people have not heard of Switch, just yet. It is a new boutique fitness playground created by Steve Uria, a South African celebrity trainer who's experiences span across three decades. Our class was at 10:30AM EST, right from the beginning we knew this was going to be different; enters the 8 trainers for our class... Yep, that's right, all 8 of them. If volumenous trainers weren't different enough, cue the smoke machine and live DJ, who also happen to be one of the trainers and yoga warmup specialist.

To be honest, our initial reaction was "What have we gotten ourselves into?" Our view changed quickly once the class started. The class was very upbeat and fast tempo. There were roughly 20 stations, each station designed for a particular exercise, from your burpees to polymeric box jumps. Each station lasted precisely 2 minutes, then you "switch" to the next one.

Perhaps, now you can imagine why the place requires 8 trainers. All trainers were spread loosely around the facility to ensure the participants are performing the exercise correctly. Most of all, they keep the energy level up, way up. There were a loooot of dancing on the instructors part, but they were all very professional and the dancing was not intrusive or disruptive.

Now that we told you a bit about our experience and Switch itsef, let's talk about the ratings:

Motivation (5) - We thought this rating was appropriate and well deserved, the high energy and motivating chants were great.

Amenities (4) - The training facility itself may first seem bit cramped, but it was very well organized and was not chaotic despite 20 station-layout. The locker rooms were clean and well equipped with all things needed.

Intensity (4) - The class could be challenging given the range of exercises. If you have a weakness in your game, which most of us definitely do, the different stations will explore it. That said, due to the briefness of station (2 minutes per station), the pain was short lived (in a good way).

Overall (4) -  We enjoyed the workout, instructors were great, even Steve (the founder) himself jumped in at one point to give us pointers and warning us about the wet floor (due to our sweats). The variety of workouts will surely keep things interesting and give you that weekend workout you craved. The only thing we thought Switch could've done better was to perhaps spend couple minutes prior to the actual workout starts to briefly walkthrough the different stations and the workouts associated with them. Some of the workouts were not as intuitive and if you're confused or unsure about what to do, half of your workout for that station could be over.

Class Location:
130 East 12th St.
New York, NY 10003

- L&L

New Journey For Ron and Madisen (Li and Loo)

For this inauguration post, we would like to tell you a little about the genesis of this blog and a little bit about ourselves. 

The reason we decided to start this blog is to share with you our experience in things that we're passionate about - working out. We're not professional athletes or trainers, we're just your average couple that enjoy training bit excessively. Throughout the years, the boutique workout scene in NYC has really blossomed; from the rise of loyal Soul Cycle riders to the hardcore bootcamp loving fanatics. However, we have yet encounter a place where we can learn more about the countless boutique fitness classes. 

"That's it!" We thought to ourselves, why wait, why don't we be the tour guide, be the eyes and ears on the ground for all of you out there who wanted some honest opinions about these different workout classes. 

In our ongoing blog posts, we want to share with you our opinions on the classes we've taken in the following four broad categories - Motivation (i.e. music and instructors), Amenities (i.e. waiting area, locker rooms, juice bars and ect.), Intensity (the intensity and difficulty of the workout) and Overall (all things considered). We'll rank each of the categories from scale "1" star to "5" stars, "1" star being "this kinda sucked" and "5" stars being "wow, this is awesome". 

We want to make this as interactive and fun as possible, so please feel free to leave us  comments and places that we should try. Last but not least, enjoy the journey with us!

- L&L