Sweat Dreams

Four fitness formulas designed to swiftly kick your ass

By CHRISTINE LIU + RYAN ROSE WEAVER

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The Ring Boxing Club

As a gal in the big bad city, I like the idea of being able to K.O. Tekken-esque thugs should they come at me in a dark alley. I'm a short woman to boot, so I have a bit of a Napoleon complex. Rather than taking out my power issues on the nearest intern, however, I thought I'd put my low center of gravity to use at one of Boston's boxing clubs.

The Ring is a small, brightly lit space above the Paradise Rock Club, clean and pleasant except for the candid odor of sweat and rubber, which permeates everything. Notorious B.I.G. blares invigoratingly from the speakers. There is a boxing ring in the center, an array of punching bags, a weight room and a few bikes. Because members often train via a series of drills -- bouts of jumping rope followed by quick sessions with the speed bag -- an alarm regularly sounds throughout the gym.

The Ring's slick website states that 35 percent of their members are female. This appeared to check out when I joined two other women and a young guy for my lesson. I first wrapped my hands in cloth (a complicated process), then stuffed them into a pair of communal gloves. They were still sweaty and smelly from the hands of the last boxer. However, this also felt gritty and very ... legit.

The instructor, Jimmy Hattori, reviewed different types of punches from jabs to hooks, then we practiced them -- first in the air, then against punching bags and speed bags. I found that I wasn't so much floating like a butterfly or stinging like a bee as sort of scuttling like a beetle and trying not to trip over my own feet. But after about 50 punches, it began to feel natural as I happily rocked out.

We ended the session by practicing our punches against Jimmy in the ring. The feeling of squeezing between the ropes, clambering into the center of the soft, bouncy ring and putting up my fists against another person was exhilarating. I was all sloppy footwork and goofy grin, but inside the ring I really did feel like a champion in training. [RRW]

[971 Commonwealth Ave., 2nd Floor, Boston. 617.782.6946. http://ringboxingclub.com]

SmartBells Class at Healthworks

Ah, Healthworks. The women-only bastion of yougogrrl power, locker room fantasies and deceptively fierce trainers. Despite the gym's awesome-smelling soaps in the shower and An Affair to Remember and Pretty in Pink on DVD rotation, the regular group exercise classes are nothing less than hardcore. There's your punk rope (think Sex Pistols meets recess) or Forza (righteous wielding of Japanese wooden swords), but a class employing SmartBells constructs a graceful amalgam between dance and strengthtraining.

A SmartBell (relatively newfangled as a workout tool) looks remarkably like a disembodied steering wheel with slight curves and a five-pound heft. The circular form and multiple handholds encourage more curvilinear movements of the body, opting for sinuous twists, swoops and loops rather than a traditional linear dumbbell-lifting form. Channing Thigpen, Healthworks' regional group exercise director, leads this particular class in Cambridge to a rousing ethnic soundtrack spanning from bhangra beats to a world music remix of Sting's "Desert Rose." (You heard me.)

Though the weight is laughably light, after a continuous combo of swinging this thing during deep lunges, leg lifts and squats, I'm sweating veritable buckets while feeling vaguely swanlike. There's looming paranoia that this thing's going to slip from my fingers during intense moves, thereby hurling a fatal blow to a fellow exerciser or an expensively shattered mirror. Despite the fears, Thigpen confesses nothing of the sort has ever happened, especially since the surface of the SmartBell gets conveniently grippy when sweaty. Nice design touch, but ew. [CL]

[Class offered at Boston, Brookline, Cambridge and Chestnut Hill locations. 617.859.7700. http://healthworksfitness.com]

Baptiste Power Vinyasa Yoga

If you're thinking of trying yoga, you can basically break it down into two categories: yoga that even your asthmatic grandma could do, and yoga your football-playing brother considers cruel and unusual.

I first tried yoga of the former variety in college and liked it fine: I could do it while tired, hungover or crushed with finals. But eventually I moved on to Vinyasa classes at the Baptiste Power Yoga Institute, notorious for its difficulty. You're working hard for an hour and a half in a humidified room heated to about 98 degrees; by the time class is over, volunteers have to literally mop sweat from the floorboards.

Baron Baptiste, a genial guy who used to train the Philly Eagles, came up with this particular practice, and while it's been embraced by students and MILFs across Boston, it also still appeals to serious athletes -- especially those with injuries. The class kicks off with a warm-up flow; moves into a series of balancing poses, ab work and backbends; and ends with a blissful 10-minute rest. By then you're ready to collapse in the warmth of the room, gasping with bliss, as if you've had a long swim at the beach.

After my first Baptiste class, I got hooked, started volunteering to get free classes and then took a job there for a time to support my habit. (If there's one true myth about yoga, it's that it's addictive.) After a few years, I moved on to try different "crazy" methods like Bikram (also in a blindingly hot room) and other athletic activities. However, I continue to consider yoga a supersport because it teaches you to take care of your body in ways you can't learn at the gym or on the field. You learn how to stretch so you don't snap a ligament, how to align your limbs so you don't pull a muscle, how to breathe so you don't get tired, how to hydrate so you don't pass out, how to concentrate so you don't fall and how to clear your mind so that you can actually enjoy your workout. Good stuff to know for delicate grandmas and beefy bros alike. [RRW]

[Brookline and Cambridge locations. 617.661.9642. http://baronbaptiste.com]

Bootcamp Blast in Boston Common

The sadistic concept: United with a group of like-minded crazies, you run, pant and perform multiple circuits of drills under the throaty orders of a relentless trainer. A blast, as you will, to challenge the body. But the diabolical twist of doing it outside, weather notwithstanding, kept me up the night before as I writhed in my toasty bed with anticipation. Yet the morning dawned on Saturday with temperatures critically freezing with 17 degrees at 9am warming up to a balmy 23 by noon. After meticulously putting on four layers on top, the only real athletic pants I own, a wool hat, scarf and gloves, I set forth outside. My brain can only process: holy balls, it's cold.

I spot one guy at the prescribed meeting point, the corner of Beacon and Charles Streets on Boston Common. A motley of a class slowly comes together, a grand total of five brave souls -- classes can reach up to 30 participants -- under the tutelage of feisty, ponytailed leader Chrys. (She's suspiciously accompanied by a sack of resistant bands and other muscle-melting toys.) Immediately we warm up with a run around the Common, a bit over a mile, my lungs alternating freeze and thaw with each breath. We proceed to do a series of sprints and push-ups, going nose-to-nose with errant snow drifts and horse manure, and flail our limbs while nearly impaling passersby. The public element of thrashing our bodies senseless can not be underestimated.

We head to the monument, the lethal thrill of ice patches and uneven concrete keeping our spirits up. Despite the cold (to which one acclimates reasonably well), the outdoor workout captures unusual beauty with sledders, snow-dusted dogs and the frozen Frog Pond as backdrop. Though the irony palpably thickens, a passing cluster of military bootcampers barking in unison does not faze our glory. We have our own madness to attend to: hustling blindingly on Beacon Hill, or feeling abs burn while buns freeze during crunches on concrete. The 90 minutes fly by intensely with an ADHD thrill, but the moment I think it's all a piece of cake, I find my bottle of water is frozen. Mother Nature? More like Ms. Nasty. [CL]

[Next blast: Sat.1.19, Boston Common, 9:30am. 617.787.1224. http://ultimatebootcamp.com]