Sleek, sexy, slender! Those are the sign off words at the end of very Piloxing class. Piloxing combines pilates and boxing moves; it’s a unique interval workout that’s gaining popularity worldwide. Viveca Jensen is the founder of Piloxing, she is a Swedish dancer and celebrity trainer who wanted women to attain a self-image that’s both powerful and sexy with piloxing. This exercise is done with gloves and uses boxing movements to tone the arms as it incorporates sculpting and flexibility using movements from pilates, it also adds playful dance moves with a challenging interval workout that makes you scream.
—Wanitha is a body transformation expert at Moving Body and is a certified piloxing instructor from Los Angeles.
How to do it
It is a 60-minute class broken into two segments, beginning with a warm up followed by a 40 minutes cardio stint to a motivating playlist alternating between two extremes, high intensity boxing moves which focuses on agility, speed, and power interspersed with a slower standing pilates moves targeting core control, balance, and strength. The last 15-20 minutes is a floor workout which focusses on glutes and abs. You can burn upto 400 calories in one session.
Footwear: Piloxing is a barefoot workout because it has a whole host of benefits including enhancing strength and stability of the foot, ankle, knee and hip. It also allows your toes to fully extend and grip appropriately which improves the balance and agility. Piloxing can also be done using sneakers, grip socks or studio footwear.
Gloves: Piloxing incorporates the use of fingerless weighted half pound gloves, which adds to the intensity of the workout. The gloves build better awareness and execution of movements. They also add resistance to increase the cardiovascular and strength benefits.
Pilates Leg Lift
A single exercise that targets your core, thighs, glutes and arms. Stand with feet shoulder width apart and slightly bend your right knee. Retract your belly to tighten your core and hold your arms straight in front of you, in line with your shoulders. Lift your left leg up, keeping it straight at a 45-degree angle. Do slow lift ups or pumps with your arms and straight leg by bringing the leg up toward 90 degrees on the lifts. Tighten your quads on the leg that’s moving. Perform 20 lifts on each leg.
Piloxing abs
A partner fun ab workout, which also works on your lower body. This can be done with two or more people. Hold your partner at the waist. Bend forward from your hip and get into a semi squat position. Toe tap your right leg forward and back continuously for 25 counts. Switch legs and repeat.
Benefits
- A good cardio exercise and a great core-focused workout
- Interval workout to burn loads of calories (about 400 calories in an hour)
- Muscle toning and sculpting without bulking which tones arms, thighs and belly
- Calorie burning through a fun fusion activity
- Increased stamina, improved endurance and flexibility
- Fine tunes skills like speed, agility and power.
