Fitness Entrepreneur Anthony Geisler Discusses Latest Boxing Workout Trends

Southern California fitness entrepreneur Anthony Geisler knows a thing or two about boxing. Having previously run LA Boxing, UFC Gym, and Rumble Boxing—three iconic, boutique boxing brands—he’s recently observed an evolution in boxing as a fitness trend.

In the boxing world, there’s currently a seismic shift happening from cardio-focused workouts to high-intensity interval and weight training.“People aren't necessarily committed to learning how to fight,” Geisler said in a Zoom interview. “It's not a self-defense angle that gyms have been emphasizing—it is a cardiovascular angle. But now you're seeing a lot of weight training coming into it. And that's where Rumble has done well.”

Geisler certainly has credentials in the boxing gym world. In 2001, he purchased LA Boxing, then dove into fitness franchising. He eventually sold LA Boxing to UFC Gym before acquiring Rumble—his third boxing concept, combining boxing with strength training—in 2021.

Geisler has been passionate about boxing since childhood. His father was born and raised in Philadelphia, “and so I watched a lot of ‘Rocky’ growing up, because people in Philadelphia think Rocky's real,” Geisler said, referring to the iconic fighter from the silver screen. “I've had a bit of a Rocky complex, probably, growing up.”

As for real-life fighters, Mike Tyson and Sugar Ray Leonard fights were regular viewing in the young Geisler’s household.

His admiration for the intense, often brutal sport paid off. The Irvine-based, 48-year-old fitness enterpriser experienced financial success with operating gym concepts such as LA Boxing and Rumble while also delving into Pilates, yoga, barre, weight training and other fitness modalities.

During the pandemic, he acquired the nascent boxing brand Rumble, and he was enthusiastic about the possibilities, saying, “I was really excited to kind of get back to my roots and get back into that boxing space.”

For those who are new to boxing as a form of exercise, Geisler recommended they take care when deciding what gloves they use. For example, the gloves themselves act as weights, so if someone is wearing 16-ounce boxing gloves, they’re carrying an extra pound of weight every time they hit the bag—which is beneficial.

“The repetition with the weight is what kind of gives you that muscle definition and things like that,” he said.

Also, new boxers ought to be mindful of how their gloves contact the bag, especially heavier bags. “You’re not trying to kill the bag, you know?” Geisler said.

Since the average, ordinary person seeking out a boxing class is not doing it for self-defense but for a calorie-burning workout, what’s currently popular in boxing is pairing the hourlong workout with high-intensity training, cardio and weightlifting.

“Boxing, which has a high-intensity training aspect to it, with cardio as a part of it and weight training as a piece of it, I think that's where we're going to see boxing going in the future,” Geisler predicted.

He attributed this evolution of the fitness activity to the impact of buzzy concepts such as biohacking—a do-it-yourself approach to health where one changes their body chemistry through science and self-experimentation—and to a recent embrace of lean muscle mass as opposed to a bulky look.

While there’s a society-wide fascination with miracle weight-loss GLP-1 drugs, such as Ozempic, Geisler noted the downsides to such drugs, particularly the burning of muscle that happens alongside the burning of calories. For people to truly attain their fitness goals, he said, there are no shortcuts. And that’s as true in the boxing world as it is for any other fitness modality.

It’s all about “diet and exercise at the end of the day, and that exercise component is no longer cardio, no longer HIIT [High-Intensity Interval Training]. It is lean muscle-mass weight training. So, I think we'll see that in boxing, and I think we'll see that across modalities,” Geisler said.

Along with shedding pounds and gaining bodily definition, people are also seeking out community—and boxing studios continue to work toward providing that in spades. Now that the pandemic is mostly relegated to the past, at-home workout experiences are becoming less popular, and people are returning to the gym. A virtual workout is never going to be the same as the human experience and because we're communal animals, we like to interact with other humans.

Therefore, when someone is choosing a gym, the presence of a communal aspect, of the potential for building a supportive fitness community, factors into their decision. In a fast-changing industry where trends and fads come and go, in-person workouts will remain desirable.

And boxing continues to be a popular choice. So put on those hand-wraps—Geisler’s preference are the gauzy Mexican hand-wraps—grab a pair of gloves and step into the studio. An epic workout awaits.