I Tried LA's Favorite Boxing Workout

There’s something about sparring with a bronze medal-winning Olympic boxer that takes a workout up a few notches. That realization strikes me like a swift left hook during my first visit to Box N Burn, Santa Monica’s spacious boxing-for-fitness gym. Box N Burn is consistently dubbed one of the best workout destinations in America by everyone from Yelp reviewers to fitness insiders, and I’m ready to find out what the fuss is about. It’s an overcast Friday when I walk inside the gym’s wide garage-door entrance. Inside, I quickly find myself in the ring. My heart rate, already fluttering forcefully, shoots to 177 in the minutes after Tony Jeffries—former legendary British light heavyweight and now co-owner of Box N Burn—appears and asks with a grin, “Have you boxed before?” He calls out punches—one-one-two, one-two-hook—while holding target mitts level with his broad shoulders, one inked with a portrait of a tattooed, punk Queen Elizabeth. It’s my second time boxing, and I strive to impress … or at the very least not make a total fool of myself. Some punches hit hard with a satisfying smack; others barely make a sound. All the while, Jeffries quietly coaxes me into better technique: “Fist up. Rotate the hips.”