Hard work. Sweat. Desire. Those are some of the words associated with any good fitness routine. Kicking. Punching. Grueling. Those are some of the words associated with training alongside Matt Hughes, nine time welterweight mixed martial arts champion. When you combine the two you’ve got Cage Fitness, one of the newest fitness crazes sweeping across the United States and the world.

Taught locally at Championship Martial Arts, found throughout East Orlando, Cage Fitness is a complete fitness system for women and men designed to give participants a total body workout throughout five, five minute rounds with one minute breaks in between each round. Sound intense? Well, it is.

“If you really push yourself, it will kick your butt every single time,” says Mike Metzger, managing partner of Championship Martial Arts. “Everyone can go at their own pace which is what makes it so effective, it’s a great workout and it’s one of those things where you get out what you put into it.”

Metzger describes the 30 minute workout as exciting, challenging and rewarding. “It’s designed to be anerobic and aerobic with the different exercises in the program; so, while you’re doing cardio and you’re burning fat, you’re also building muscle with some of the other exercises,” he says. Round one is a warm up round; round two focuses on the upper body; three focuses on the lower body; round four is a combo round; and round five is the cooldown. “What’s great is that every class can be a little bit different, if the instructor wants it to be fresh,” he says. “Each round has about thirty or fourty different exercises to pull from that can be arranged in different orders for different time periods. Matt Hughes even releases new exercises every four months so there is more variety.”

Since starting the Cage Fitness classes in early January, Championship Martial Arts has expanded into multiple classes to offer more times and room for class participants. “It’s been incredibly popular so far. People love it because they can go at their own pace and do as much as they can do and still see results,” Metzger says. Thanks in part to the patented Cage Fitness bag classes are centered around, both men and women are able to use the same equipment without having to shift any weights  or share any type of machines, making it a big hit with both.

“There’s just nothing out there like it at all,” Metzger says. “There’s a lot of cardio karate or kickboxing classes where people are kind of punching the air, which is great. But this program is just so different from any of that.”

Cage Fitness classes focus on endurance, strength, power and core. “It’s one of the most complete programs I’ve seen in that time frame, and it’s a lot of fun to boot.”

Article by Corey Gehrold