Boxing Takes Fitness to a New Level

"I was kind of laid back when I first started to spar, but once you get hit, you can get mean," she says. "It's fun. It's like, 'Ouch, that kind of hurt, I'm going to have to kill her now."

November 30, 2008

Dom Arioli walks across the rubber-padded floor, his ever-present stopwatch in hand. Oh, how people love Coach Dom but hate that stopwatch.

"Everyone all right? You doing good?" Arioli asks. "We're almost halfway there. A minute 30 left. This is the championship round."

It's a Friday lunch hour but eight students enrolled in Arioli's Level 1 boxing class at Roc Boxing & Fitness Center on Atlantic Avenue are taking off the calories, not putting them on.

Chef Dom has written "Lunch Menu" on a grease marker board hanging from a wall. The selections include jumping jacks, pushups, air squats, toe touches, split jumps, Russian twists and — for dessert — "burpees."

That's a pet name given a squat-thrust-jump exercise, a real killer.

"We do a lot of those," Arioli, 53, says with an evil grin. "When I mention the 'B' word, people run and hide."

In truth, people run to Arioli to get in the best shape of their lives.

As a fitness routine, boxing has long been recognized for its ability to turn flab into fabulous. If one so desires, he or she can even climb into the ring eventually for some competitive, supervised "white collar" sparring with 18-ounce gloves and safety headgear.

But not all trainers and coaches are the same.

Arioli — director and head coach of the famed Aquinas Mission Bouts for the past 28 years who has been honored many times for his dedicated service to youth — is among that rare breed that can get people to levels of fitness they didn't believe possible for themselves.

Professionals and professors. High school athletes and housewives. Law enforcement officials and military personnel. They've all been aided by Arioli's expertise, motivated by his enthusiastic urging or gentle nudging.

They've been on his clock.

"I'm big into fundamentals," he says. "I teach the old, classic style of boxing and bring them from the ground up. I'm big with conditioning. It's hard to teach skills if you're not in shape and you can't keep your hands up. So I run some pretty tough conditioning drills to start."

Watching the sweat pour from this Lunch Bunch as they skip ropes, hoist medicine balls and slam their fists into heavy bags surrounded by fight posters of Ali and Frazier, one gets the feeling his pupils don't want to let him down. So they push harder and harder.

People such as Joe LoTemple, 24, a security guard from Greece and 2002 Aquinas graduate where he competed in the Mission Bouts. After high school, LoTemple saw his weight balloon to 350 pounds. But with a goal of becoming a New York state trooper where applicants must pass a fitness test, he sought out his old coach. In four months, he has shed 77 pounds.

"There was no way I could pass the test before," LoTemple says. "It's actually fun here. Other gyms I've been to, it gets boring lifting weights. Dom is always changing things up, adding something different. He keeps it fresh and he really cares about each person."

People like Bridgete Massaro of Rochester.

After years of working out at the big chain fitness clubs in town, she came to The Roc at the urging of girlfriends and family members. She instantly liked the intimacy of what is a modern facility with old boxing gym charm.

And Arioli's philosophy of "train hard but smart" made a lot of sense. Instead of spending two hours at the gym where people do more talking than working, clients here feel their muscles burn for an intense 30 minutes to an hour then crawl home.

Old-fashioned calisthenics, combined with shadow boxing and bag work can knock you out.

"I swear I've never had this many aches and pains in all my workouts and I've taken kickboxing, cardio-kick, circuit training, weight lifting, everything," said Massaro, who works in professional sales. "Nothing is like this."

People such as Tim Decker, 28, of Irondequoit.

The Monroe County Sheriff's Office deputy is training for his second "Josh Bouts," an annual fundraiser for the Joshua Rojas Foundation. While many Roc Boxing members never actually box someone, Decker has plenty of sheriff colleagues lining up.

"I don't have a lot of skill," he says. "I survived my bout last year and walked out on my own two feet, which was my goal. The longest minute and a half (rounds) of my life."

A men's league hockey player, Decker said a boxing workout "is as tough as it comes. And Coach Dom, he really knows how to work you."

He learned from the best. His mentors — Ossie Sussman, Al Brocutto, John Denaro, Frankie Verna — were some of the top trainers and coaches from Rochester's boxing glory days of the 1960s and '70s.

Arioli himself was a Mission Bouts kid, and over the years, he has passed on his love for the sweet science — and all it can teach someone about life — to hundreds of boys and girls. Now adults are benefiting.

In September 2007, after a year of managing Roc Boxing for founder and promoter Ron Resnick, Arioli was given the chance to own the business. After 33 years as a Kodak project manager, Arioli didn't have to be asked twice.

While Resnick had ingeniously transformed half of a transmission shop into a hardcore boxer's paradise, complete with two pro rings, Arioli tweaked it into a fitness club to attract mainstream customers and pay the bills.

Clients obtain core strength and cardio training through Russian kettlebell classes and muscling about rudimentary but effective training tools like sand bags and giant truck tires. There is also an ample bank of treadmills, free weights and resistance apparatus.

Arioli is like a mad scientist thinking of ways to train his customers. Something as simple as throwing a rope over a ceiling girder and having people do leg and arm lifts can achieve amazing results.

His rule? He won't have anybody do something he doesn't try first.

"I show the exercises, let them do them, and I encourage them," he says. "If I'm a drill sergeant, they're not going to do it — they've got to want to do it."

His business is an extension of the successful Mission Bouts.

"I didn't want a cardio boxing thing, I wanted old-school boxing," he says. "The kids at Aquinas always told me, 'I was always in the best shape when I did the Mission Bouts.' The guys would come back later and ask, 'Coach, why don't you do that?' Ron gave me the opportunity and I use the same philosophy when it comes to the training."

It's called the "HIIT" principle: high intensity interval training.

Conditioning is achieved while performing boxing skills and drills — a balanced stance, footwork, leverage on punches, bag work, ring endurance — building in five progression levels. By Level 5, someone would have the skills and fitness required to take part in full-contact sparring.

Friends Jen Alfieri of Greece and Kate Green of Honeoye Falls are regular sparring partners.

Alfieri, an office supervisor at Highland Hospital whose two sons, Michael 12, and Nicholas 15, box, decided to sign up for classes herself.

"There's nothing like it and I've taught dance for 20 years," Alfieri says. "And I feel we learn more from the sparring sessions."

Green, a program executive who has been boxing two years, never aspired to be like Mike (Tyson, that is). But throwing punches can be therapeutic.

"I was kind of laid back when I first started to spar, but once you get hit, you can get mean," she says. "It's fun. It's like, 'Ouch, that kind of hurt, I'm going to have to kill her now.' You want to get right back in there and throw punches."

While training professional boxers can be gratifying for Arioli, there is nothing like teaching everyday folks. Helping them reach a place physically and mentally where they just feel good about themselves.

"I can't wait to get to work in the morning," he says. "I have a nice core group of people here. It's like a little family."

They all love Coach Dom. They hate his stopwatch.

Source:  Rochester Democrat and Chronicle