Take your training to South London and it’s less chat, more action. That’s my experience anyway. I always find South London is more about the workout and the quality of the coaches, than the glitz and glamour that you get in the studios in the centre.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m a sucker for the free hairspray, ice cold towels and instagrammable interiors but at the same time it’s nice to appreciate a good session for what it is, rather than having an average instructor hidden behind fancy equipment.
Glove Up is exactly that. Straight talking coaching that throws you straight in at the deep end, into the ring ready to throw and receive punches to the body (or the boobs it seemed for me…).
Nestled around the corner from CrossFit Wandsworth, I’ve always walked past it, so finally I decided to give their lunchtime slot a go.
Starting off with 4 minutes of skipping and a few lengths of bear crawls, this was already a sweaty session (but then that could also have been the humidity (as apparently it’s summer…).
After some solo shadow boxing we took to the ring to shadow box as a three. Then, the gloves were on so we could aim for each other’s torso, as the coach, John, claimed you need to feel to learn. With one guy who clearly knew his stuff in the ring there was no hiding my clumsy footwork…
The session finished on a few sweaty bag drills with plenty of smiles. Definitely one I’ll be going back to as there’s only one way to improve.
Value: 8.5/10. £12 isn’t too bad for a London class and they don’t charge you to borrow their stinky gloves like 1Rebel do. Although be warned these are pretty smelly! As this was a shorter class, we didn’t get as much focus on technique as we would have done, but there was still a decent amount of technique correction.
Facilities: 7/10. I’m being stingy here as I’m a bit spoilt by the boutique studios, but this place has showers, hair dryers, decent bags, gloves for use and the rest. Basically everything you could need. Coaching was attentive, motivating and personable too (10/10 for that). They also do personal training for boxing in Wandsworth.
Sweat Level: 8/10 I sweat A LOT. To be fair it doesn’t take much, but once you’ve got Barry’s Bootcamp to compare to, it’s hard to get a 10/10. If my technique was more on point, this might push that score a little higher.
