Knock Yourself Out

Pre-Fight Jitters: Wednesday, 3 AM

Insomnia. in just a few hours I'm flying to Dallas to learn how to box. My gym-rat friends tell me that in the world of workouts, fight conditioning is the Next Big Thing. Maybe. But my mind samples a host of doubts, all of them personal: Will I get my nose hammered? Will I hammer someone else's nose? Or worse, will I really enjoy hammering someone else's nose?

I remind myself that part of the reason for my pilgrimage to Dallas is to see if a fighter's workout has a purpose besides getting walloped and getting through it, day in and day out. Like millions of other people I've dutifully worked the cardiovascular/strength-training angle for at least a decade. Every other day, I spend about an hour running and lifting or StairMastering and lifting or, if I really want to mix it up, swimming one day and lifting the next. No surprise, then, that lately I've become disenchanted with the eternal round of aerobicizing and Nordic Tracking and tread-milling -- soul crushing endeavors that all cry out, "What's the point?" I want a workout that has some kind of meaning, whether it's improving self-defense skills or boosting self-confidence or overcoming fear.

My destination is White Collar Boxing, which bills itself as "The Workout of a Fighter Without the Fight." On White Collar's Web page there's a photo of Jeff Overturf, the 41-year-old founder. He appears to be about 23: washboard stomach, wrinkle-free face. For an exercise guru, the look is unexceptional. I get off on the incongruity of the name, White Collar Boxing. As I finally begin to doze off I imagine guys in Armani suits, duking it out.

The Warm Up: Thursday, 7 PM

I show up at Goodbody's Gym, a tony health club in Dallas's Highland Park section. Overturf arrives a few moments later. A one-time world-ranked kickboxer, he's a walking contradiction: khaki clad with tortoise shell prep-boy glasses perched atop a nose that's been "done over" three times. He's got the full-on Texas accent and over-the-top enthusiasm. First impression: Jean-Claude Van Damme meets Abercrombie & Fitch, Dallas division.

First words out of Overturf's mouth: "I spent all my life getting kicked in the head, and now it's finally paying off." He's referring to his fighting years, when he was a top 10 welterweight in both the Professional Karate Association and the World Karate Association, and his subsequent success as one of the pioneers of boxing for fitness.

Overturf is among the most successful of the trainer/entrepreneurs who are capturing the spirit of the back-to-basics boxer's workout for people whose lives are anything but basic. During the past eight years he's launched five White Collar Boxing programs in gyms from Boston to Fort Worth, and he's building a roster of private clients that include models and professional hockey players, brain surgeons and socialites.

Students drift in, pluck a yellow Ace bandage from a pile at the front of the room, and begin wrapping their hands. I do the same, pretending that I know what I'm up to. The Journalist in me wonders whether the 75-minute interval training that is the heart of Overturf's program will be a revelation, or simply a species of aerobics with a boxing theme. The New Girl in Class worries that I'll wrench my shoulder by throwing a left hook that misses the bag. Or, gulp, that I'll be the only one who won't even attempt to complete the required number of crunches: 1,000.

Round I: 7:30 PM

There are about two dozen businesspeople here: a software designer, a marketing exec, a stock broker from Bear Stearns & Co. They are all, it seems, depressingly good at jumping rope, the first part of the circuit.

David Smith, the Bear Stearns guy, has mastered that effortless "I-coulda-been-a-contenda" style. His feet barely lift off the ground, just high enough for the rope to slip beneath the soles of his Nikes. The rope is a blur, propelled by a flick of his wrist.

Rope skipping is followed by toe touches and the crunches, starting with 200 each for the abdominal muscles and the external obliques (the muscles that run up your sides). This is not about buffing for the beach. The goal is to transform your torso into something approximating the heavy bag that boxers slug, so your muscles hold up when you get whacked in the gut.

The back obliques are strengthened and stretched to prepare for kick-boxing -- that pose you've seen on the posters of Korean action movies, where the fighter, turned away from his opponent, shoots his leg out backward while twisting his upper body around, his fists locked to deliver the follow-up punch. We're all curiously quiet during the minutes it takes to rack up the crunches -- no talking, but also no groaning or gasping for breath. As I pass the century mark I feel a pinch in my side -- 106, 107, 108 -- but it's not enough to drop me.

Finally, 200. As I wait for the pain to drain out of my obliques I notice one of the software guys sprawled out next to me, drenched in sweat and glorying in it. He knows I'm here to write a magazine article. "Don't forget to mention the all-important love-handles issue," he says, with just a tad too much cheer. "These side crunches are great for them." Duly noted.