Boxing at Elite Fitness Eastwood
Boxing has always been a sport I enjoyed and not just because I remember the glory days of Pacquiao when the country’s crime rate would drop to 0% every time he had a match!
To be clear, in this feature, I’ll write about boxing as a workout and not as a competitive sport. I personally don’t enjoy competing in sports because I do a lot of things for fun. Once I start thinking about it as a competition, it sort of takes the magic away and it feels like a chore.
That being said, boxing has also never been a consistent workout for me. I’ve been doing on and off boxing workouts since my time in Ateneo at Elorde and when I was working at Globe at Flyweight never really committed to getting consistently better. It’s largely why my form is so bad even if I’m not a first timer. I hope to change that and start going more regularly now that I have a lot of options with ClassPass!
I count myself lucky that there’s an Elite Fitness branch right at Eastwood City, so I can quickly go from my workout to work at Tipsy Tales. Elite Fitness has been around since 2016 with coaches that specialise in Boxing, Muay Thai and Cross Fit at their three branches: Makati (Esteban cor. Rufio), Ortigas (Padilla Building) and of course, Eastwood (One Orchard Condo).
While I’ve been working in Eastwood since we started construction early this year, I’ve never actually seen their branch for myself. Even as I was actively looking for it, it was actually quite a challenge finding the place and required me to ask several security guards before finding my way there!
Located at the One Orchard Condo, infront of Eastwood Mall’s Mango, you can’t actually pass through the condo itself to get there. Facing the condo, you have to go to the left until you reach a road between the building and St. John Paul II Parish.
From that road, on your right, you can see the parking entrance. You have to walk through there and keep moving forward until you find the Elite Fitness sign on the right side.
After you go through the hallway, you can find the entrance to the gym on the left side. I only found out that they also have CrossFit Equipment!
There you have to log in at the reception, where you either pay for your class as normal walk-in/member, or verify your code from their partners such as MetroDeal or ClassPass. The staff were very pleasant and accommodating when I arrived and I quickly found out that I was the only customer in the whole gym because I came at a dead time as it was during most people’s work hours.
After that they ask if you have your own wraps and gloves, or you would like to rent from them. For the duration of your workout, gloves can be rented at Php 50, while wraps cost Php 25. If you’re a seasonal boxer like me and would like to keep going to similar gyms who rent out equipment, I would suggest to still get your own wraps, which go for as low as Php 100 at Lazada plus shipping. It will be more hygienic and will pay itself after 5 sessions. While gloves are a bit trickier, because the cheapest gloves are around Php 400+ and will take 8 session to make it worth it.
While other studios like Flyweight now offer their gloves and wraps for free with their classes, they also charge three times higher with standard walk in rates at around Php 1000 and offer a very different experience.
The Elite Eastwood branch, as of this moment, only has two trainers. The trainer I was assigned to, Sir Ron, has been with the company for two years and was very professional. He spotted my wrong form right away and was able to correct it quickly and consistently throughout the experience.
I also liked how he didn’t push me too hard, knowing that it was my first time back in a long time. It was a personalised experience and he let me pace how long I could go, instead of forcing me to follow the stop clock before taking breaks. The session consisted of a warm up run, one-on-one mitt work, punching bag, conditioning and a quick massage. The area was quite spacious, well-lit and had a lot of fans to keep cool.
While admittedly, I do miss the party-like vibe in a group setting like Ride Revolution, FlyWeight and other studios, I do think that Elite Fitness personal boxing training is great value for money and a good way to start out your boxing journey. Having someone keep a close eye and not have a dozen other people they need to take note of make it easier to correct bad habits or bad form.
All in all, I thought the coach and staff were very professional, the place was well lit and everything was well-maintained. Definitely a good place to jumpstart boxing as a hobby again! Looking forward to sneaking in a session or two every few weeks.
If you haven’t already, sign up to ClassPass with my link for Php 1500 Off your first month and for more classes like this!
