Fight Club packs powerful punch, drops extra pounds on the canvas

Enlarge Image

Above, some members of Pan Am's Fight Club (including Kirbyson, in red shirt) with heavy bags representing 360 pounds, the amount of collective weight the group was able to shed. (DAVID LIPNOWSKI / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS)

Upon the completion of some competitions, every participant is high-fived, patted on the rear end and proclaimed to be a winner.

Fight Club is not one of those competitions.

After seven gruelling weeks, the final bell has rung on Pan Am Boxing Club's first-ever (but certainly not the last) Fight Club. All 33 "contenders" have put in an unprecedented amount of time in the gym, hitting heavy bags, running stairs, skipping rope, doing thousands of push-ups and abdominal crunches, and plenty of time on the road or treadmill. We even did a half-hour of hot yoga at Moksha Yoga Winnipeg.

Even though the name is a bit of a misnomer -- there were no actual fights in Fight Club, although we did do a fair amount of body sparring (actual contact below the shoulders) -- but make no mistake, it was a fight. A fight to find the time to go to the gym, a fight to drag our tired butts through another (seemingly) never-ending workout and a fight with the knife and fork to make sure we were fuelling our bodies properly for the next session.

And we did great. Combined, we lost 360 pounds -- that's the equivalent of six heavy bags -- and 144 inches off our hips and waists.

The idea behind Fight Club was to get in the best shape in your life and the carrot being dangled in front of us all was a trip to Las Vegas for the winner.

We were judged on four criteria -- weight loss (10 per cent), reduction in resting heart rate (20 per cent), drop in body mass index (30 per cent) and reduction in our hip-to-waist ratio.

Some of us did really well in individual categories. For example, Jordan Blahnik lost seven inches from around his waist while I was the biggest loser weight-wise, shedding 32.5 pounds. But the one with his arm raised at the end was Jeff Bond, who did well in all four metrics but blew us all out of the water with a resting heart rate that dropped from 85 beats per minute seven weeks ago to 48 beats per minute last weekend. If he keeps that up, he might just live forever.

But for many of us, it wasn't about a prize; it was about changing our outlook on fitness and nutrition. The difference we see now is how our clothes are hanging off our bodies, how virtually every physical task -- even walking up the stairs or getting out of a chair -- seems so much easier now and how the shadows we cast are a lot smaller than they were in mid-September.

"I don't think there's another program out there that has delivered these kind of results in that short a period but that can be sustained (for the long term). There was no craziness to the program in terms of boot-camp style workouts. It wasn't about seven weeks, it was about the rest of their lives," says Sue Scott, one of Fight Club's ringleaders.

"The contenders busted their butts every single day, whether they were sick, healthy or exhausted. Whatever commitments there were, everybody showed up. What an amazing spirit behind this club. That spirit was competitive but so healthy and positive; I'm so impressed by that."

Pan Am's 15 or so leaders rode us every step of the way, but they also showed us a thing or two about commitment, motivation and not quitting until the bell. So much so that we were all asked -- OK, we were ordered -- to form a group of three or four to run a Fight Club workout from start to finish during the last week.

Harry Black, the former Canadian middleweight champion who heads up Pan Am, says the contenders were put through the same kind of paces that professional boxers go through prior to a fight. Weekly workouts started at four but ramped up to 10 during Week 6.

Black says Fight Club wasn't about dieting but changing to a healthier way of life. And just because Fight Club is over, it doesn't mean the contenders have heard the last of his not-so-subtle barbs.

"We have a post-Fight Club social together next Friday and guess what I'll be bringing with me. I'll have a scale under one arm and a measuring tape under the other. When you come up to get your handshake, we'll throw you on the scale. It will be interesting to see how people hung in there," he says.

He says once all the leaders have had a chance to catch their breath, he'll start planning another Fight Club, which will likely run in the spring, right before Speedo and bikini season. He's also working on developing an even more challenging Fight Club for the veterans, one that involves less time on the gym floor and more rounds in the ring.

geoff.kirbyson@freepress.mb.ca

Call it Light Club

AFTER seven weeks, the 33 contenders

lost 360 pounds, ranging from single

digits up to 32. That's equal to eight

45-pound weight plates, the ones used

primarily on the bench press.

They also lost a total of 144 inches, or

12 feet, off their hips and waists, and

several hundred beats off their resting

heart rates.

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition November 16, 2009 D3