Guest: Rebecca Ruber

Podcast Release Date: 8/1/2021

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Steve Washuta:  Welcome to the Trulyfit podcast. I’m your host Steve Washuta, co-founder of Trulyfit and author of Fitness Business 101. On today’s podcast, I have the pleasure of speaking with Rebecca Ruber. Rebecca is an actress and model who has been featured in such films and TV productions as abnormal attraction limitless and billions.

She has been the face of several clothing campaigns. She is a boxing trainer, and that’s why we have her on the truly fit podcast today: to talk about boxing. She’s a boxing media interviewer she has her own boxing podcast called Inside The Ring where she chats with professional boxers. Rebecca and I are going to talk about how you can use boxing with your clients. Whether it is for hand-eye coordination, proprioception, or strength, or cardiovascular all the above, regardless of the demographic, you can use boxing with your clients. Now, some people are afraid to use boxing and they don’t understand the nuances of it.

Rebecca is on here to sort of break things down and ease you into boxing. If you have any hesitations here. In addition to that, we also talk about the actual sport of boxing towards the end of the podcast. We go into the current state of boxing, what she would change, if anything, and it’s a great conversation, I hope to have her back on in the future to talk about other boxing-related things. With no further ado, here’s Rebecca. Rebecca, thanks for joining the Trulyfit podcast, we talked a little bit on the front end, about your career and how you got into doing what you did.

And I think it was very interesting because most personal trainers, people like myself who listened to this podcast, they start out in different careers, right? It’s always a secondary or tertiary career. I was in public relations and then at a hedge fund and then work personal training part-time and then got into it. That’s how most of us have gotten into our career fields. It seems like you went through the same journey. So walk us through where you started and how you got to do what it is you do today.

Rebecca Ruber: Yes, I didn’t find Personal Training, personal training found me. So I’m just to start from the very beginning. When I was in high school, I did community theater and realized that the entertainment industry is where I felt like I was meant to be. Later down the line, I realized that on camera was more my path.

Rebecca Ruber: I went to college where I graduated with a bachelor’s in Business Administration with a concentration in marketing. But while I graduated a year early from college, I realized that working in a cubicle nine to five just was not going to work for me, I had done a couple internships that was required for my college. And I don’t know if it was just maybe the person that, I was in my heart? It just wasn’t for me.

Rebecca Ruber: While I was in college, I had stopped doing on-camera work and was focusing on my degree. But I still wanted to keep in shape because I have always been very athletic. So certain situations came about where I ended up finding boxing as an outlet just to relieve stress. And just to keep me in shape is a great full-body conditioning workout, which we’ll talk about further in this episode: was originally just supposed to be a mix, I wasn’t going to spar, I just wanted to do it as an exercise. Instead of that, I found out I loved the sport, started sparring and realized that I thought boxing was here to stay for me.

Rebecca Ruber: When I graduated college, I decided to apply to be a boxing instructor at a current gym that I work at upper Montclair Boxing Club. I’ve been working there, for now, four years, it was supposed to just be kind of like a job that was just for the year while I kind of figure myself out during the year I would have been graduating, currently still there. On that path, I found out but I can mix my knowledge of boxing and my experience of on camera and put it together where I currently have my podcast inside the ring with the bathroom.

Steve Washuta:  Yeah, that’s that’s an awesome story. And again, like a lot of other people who are in this industry in the personal training industry, we all found our ways through a different path. So I want to jump right into this here and talk about boxing because people are nervous when I first worked with clients doing a little pad work.

Now my background is more tied. My hands probably aren’t as good as yours and we do more kicking. But still, when my clients first started out, they were nervous, but they always take to it and they always like it. I also think personal trainers themselves are nervous to learn about it and use it with their clients.

Can you describe just an experience that you use one on one with your clients or your first time in a class and how it goes about to give people a little bit less trepidation about starting boxing.

Rebecca Ruber: So it’s kind of hard to everyone’s different right so when I first started like I said, I went into it with no intention of sparring because I was just super scared of getting hit in the face and you always hear horror stories of people getting knocked out cold and no one wants to get knocked out cold and it’s there’s just Always that misconception when it comes to boxing, boxing is a combat sport.

It’s also about discipline. And so I try to teach people that to be a boxer isn’t necessarily to be a fighter, boxing and fighting are two completely different things. When someone comes in new I teach them, this is just how to defend yourself.

Rebecca Ruber: My philosophy has never been to start a fight. But if someone starts something with you, you should be able to have the confidence to hold yourself to know that if you had to, you could finish that fight, and you can defend yourself if necessary. So I always get people started by just learning the four basic punches the jab, cross hook, uppercut, and teaching them how to throw the punches. I like to kind of make it fun.

Rebecca Ruber: So when I explain to someone how to throw a hook, and I’m teaching them how to use their hips because as you learn in boxing, it’s more than just using the power in your head and moving up through your body to throw the power in those punches. I always tell them that you, It’s like you’re stepping on a bug or squishing it out and your arms cross goes across as if you’re wiping your arm across dusty dining room table. And doing the little analogies kind of alleviates any tension or any nerves that people have because they’re laughing at Okay, this is fun. They’re not worried I usually just have them start shadowboxing because shadow boxing is really important.

Rebecca Ruber: So once they realize they’re not hitting anything or anybody, they’re fine, then when I put on the myth later on in their first session, and then they start hitting the myths, then they’re like, Oh, I like the feeling of hitting things. And as you progress, then you’re hitting myths, you’re hitting the bag. And then eventually, as you get more and more comfortable as I get more comfortable with my clients, and I realized that they’re starting to get comfortable with how I work folding myths. When I see their hands starting to drop, I tap them on the head, and then they start giggling, they’re like, okay, should I cut my hands up and slow.

Rebecca Ruber: So I slowly start introducing them, the idea of boxing and how to defend yourself. And it ends up progressing. And a lot of people enjoy getting hit not in the sense of they’re getting knocked out. But they like the feeling of their adrenaline-like, oh, I really like knowing that I have to keep my hands up. And they like realizing how much more aware they have to be in those three minutes. And so I think it’s more important just to slowly acclimate the client into what it is to be a boxer.

Steve Washuta:  Yeah, that’s great information. I think to add to that, you never know who’s going to take to it and who doesn’t. I’ve had clients before, large male clients, so I’m like, you’re gonna love this. And it’s just not for them. Because maybe they do things similar to that. They want yoga and Pilates and things that are different for their bodies. And then I’ve had 110-pound girls who never touched a boxing match. And then all they want to do is box, right? They don’t want to do anything else in personal training. They’re like, I don’t want to do anything else, except kickbox today, so you never know who’s going to take to it.

It’s not just like you said, it’s not about learning how to fight necessarily. It’s an exercise that’s teaching you all about your body, how to, like you said squash the bug, I use the term like, put the cigarette out, right, throw your hips into it, use your legs into the punch and all these like subtle keys and nuances that we would use in any other lifting or exercise technique. We just transfer that over into into boxing to let people make sure they’re using their body as one. So here I want to talk about specifics as far as like gloves and shoes and all of that stuff with my clients. Obviously I only use pads I don’t have they don’t have specific shoes.

They do have wraps, I let them use my gloves. But for somebody who is thinking about maybe taking it up a notch, let’s say they’re working with their trainer, they’re working with you or me and they’re like, you know what, I want to start going to some classes, I want to start sparring, I’m gonna take it up a level, do you recommend any particular gloves or shoes or, or anything equipment-wise?

Rebecca Ruber: Well, what’s awesome about boxing is the equipment that you typically use isn’t as expensive as it is to get baseball equipment or basketball equipment. But equipment is also very important too. So for starters, my first pair of boxing shoes were actually a pair of basketball shoes that I had growing up because you don’t want something with a heel just because you kind of want to feel as much the ground as possible for when you’re pivoting and moving around the brain, you want to have a better feel of the floor.

Rebecca Ruber: Um, but I always suggest if you look at boxing shoes, it’s kind of hard to find because there’s not a lot of people that look up purchasing boxing shoes. So if you go into a Dick’s or Models or whatever you have closest to you, that’s a sporting goods store. Always ask for either boxing shoes or wrestling shoes, wrestling shoes are pretty much the same. Um, the whole point is that you want something that doesn’t have a heel and has ankle support.

Rebecca Ruber: That’s the most important thing. Then in regards to gloves, you can get a For starters, Everlast Title, um, depending on how old the person is and depending on where they’re at with Their upper body, I always suggest getting 16-ounce gloves, just because that’s what USA boxing requires for sparring. What I think is good is if you get a 16-ounce pair of gloves, and you also get yourself 14-ounce gloves or 12-ounce gloves, if you start training with the 16-ounce books, once your upper body gets used to throwing with those heavier gloves once you put on a pair of 12-14 ounce gloves like oh, this is a lot easier to hold. It helps build that upper body that you’re not realizing you’re building.

Steve Washuta:  Yeah, yeah, that’s good information. I couldn’t agree more, I have 16-ounce gloves and 12-ounce gloves with my clients, I typically use the 16-ounce gloves at least to start off number one, helping them build those interior delts because I have to pull those gloves up working their shoulders, but there’s also more padding on it. So they’re maybe not as worried about, you know, throwing those punches and hurting themselves.

Rebecca Ruber: I wanted to say with the wraps, two wraps are really important, especially when you’re still learning how to throw the proper way, we have a tendency sometimes to not hold a steady wrist. When we hit the bag, we miss, we may roll our wrist or you may hit with our fingers. And that can really, really hurt. So wraps are really important. I always suggest One AD wraps. Again, you can get them from Title Everlast. The longer the wraps, the better because you can add more rap to your wrist and Knuckles for extra support.

Steve Washuta:  Yeah, I have basically a permanent injury from not wrapping up one day, I was late to my one on one like more Thai session, and I just threw my gloves on. And of course, we were throwing heavy hooks on a 120-pound bag that day, and I jacked my wrist up. So it’s it’s not worth it to have good wraps and save your hands.

And I think for people who don’t know, otherwise, they think the wraps are for their knuckles kind of but really that’s secondary to your wrist, right? We want to keep complete wrist support because like you said, as you punch, you know that that hand can move there, you know, Evert and invert and then you’re gonna hurt your, your wrist here.

So continuing this conversation concerning equipment. I think some trainers might also think, well, what can I do in boxing, like, there’s only so many things you can do, right? And that is completely the opposite, right? There’s a zillion things you can do. And part of that is you have to go to your first boxing training or your boxing class to see how they set things up. Right, all the different drills, you can run a line, a rope across the room, right and duck back and forth.

You can do your shadowboxing, you can focus on your job, you can stand on unstable surfaces, you see people standing on the tire back and forth to get that flow. I mean, there’s endless exercises you can do if you’re creative with boxing. But what I would recommend Personally, I’m going to see what you would recommend is if you’re starting out as a trainer and you’re working with someone boxing, you have Mets and you have a bag, and that’s really all you need right away, right? And you can get creative with the other things you don’t need a ring, right? You don’t need all these other special equipment. If you were starting your own, let’s say small boxing studio and you only had a few $100 What was the equipment that you would buy to start

Rebecca Ruber: To be completely honest with you, even before getting a bag. Honestly, I would start with either light dumbbells or I like to use egg weights where you can actually put the weight in your hand. Shadowboxing is really the foundation of any boxer.

Because when you’re looking at yourself in the mirror and you’re looking at your form, you’re learning how to correct your form what you do, and shadowbox and this is what I tell my clients. What you do in Chabad is what you do on myths, what you do on matches what you do in the brain. So it all really does start with working on your form in the mirror while shadowboxing.

Rebecca Ruber: That’s something that I stress my clients when a client only comes once a week, and I give them a homework assignment if I want you to do this at least three times before you come back here. I have them work on say the hook and they come back the next week and their hook is the same.

And I say did you work on this at home? No, I just you know, I don’t have the equipment. Do you have a mirror? Yes. Do you have hands? Yes. Then you could have totally you could have shadowbox at home. There’s no excuse not to be able to implement boxing into your workout whether you’re at the gym or you’re at home. So I would start with just lightweights just to build an upper body. And you can even get one of those ladders too. So you can work on footwork.

Steve Washuta:  Yeah, the agility ladder is great. And, and I echo your thoughts there on shadow boxing. I think shadow boxing is difficult but in a good way. Right? It really does correct your form because when you’re actually hitting pads, you get that reverberation backward, right? So I throw a two or whatever across and I make an impact and I know what’s going on, right? I’m like, you know what, I didn’t I didn’t feel the power there.

So I must not be driving through my hip. Or I didn’t you know, I was too close to the back or too far from the bag, right? You learn distances and all those things. But with shadowboxing, you don’t always have that sort of secondary feedback. So you have to use your sort of visual acuity and look more like does this look right, right. Am I flowing properly? So although I think it’s harder, I think it’s almost as important if not more important to continue that task.

Rebecca Ruber: I think it’s hard. shadowboxing is better For beginners, one reason why in the beginning when I started boxing I hated shadow boxing was, I didn’t open myself up to the creativity of being open to looking weird while shadow boxing, just punching air just looks awkward in general, and when you’re still learning your footwork and if the if you are in a gym and you’re doing it in front of people, you’re afraid of looking stupid.

Rebecca Ruber: But the beauty of shadowboxing is this is the time where you want to mess up where you want to figure out what fighting style is best for you because you can go to a trainer and they can teach the way they fight. But then you can go to another trainer, and they’ll teach you another way. And it’s not that it’s wrong, but it’s their way of fighting and you have to kind of make a hybrid of the two and figure out what works best for you.

Rebecca Ruber: That comes also from shadowboxing, being creative, finding different combinations. And oh, I actually like that job, cross uppercut, cross, or I don’t like how I throw that hook. And it’s just this is the time to experiment. That’s when you’re shadowboxing the mirror, it’s kind of like your own little laboratory. And I think that once you put that into perspective, you’ll learn the combinations, and you just want to let go and just let it happen. I think that’s when the fun begins. When it comes to shadowboxing,

Steve Washuta:  it’s a great warm-up exercise to because you’re moving in all planes of motion, right, you have the sagittal, the frontal, you have the transverse you’re rotating when you’re throwing the threes and the hooks. So I think it’s I call it 1234 with my clients just because it’s easier than that jab, cross hook uppercut.

But, you know, so you’re moving in all directions when you’re going through this. So it’s, it’s a fantastic warm-up, you know, just to sit in front of the mirror, even if you’re not doing boxing that day, right. And so let’s go ahead and say you’re doing an upper body or lower body workout, eight to 10 minutes of shadow boxing to sort of correct your form and keep you up to date on your boxing skills, and then going to the workout is, is really great. It’s much better than hopping on the elliptical for eight minutes and only moving in one direction. And then not also, like you said, using your mind and having that sort of creativity impacted into your workout.

Rebecca Ruber: Yeah, we have a lot of professional basketball players, professional baseball players that come in, and they use boxing just as a different full-body conditioning workout for them in the offseason, just to keep themselves. So working out still getting that full-body exercise, and working on the upper body strength, and in a way that isn’t conventional for the usual practice of whatever sport they’re in. So I think it’s really cool how boxing can be implemented in any activity that you do in your everyday life.

Steve Washuta:  Yeah, and not only any activity but any demographic. So you just mentioned, you work with athletes, right? Even professional athletes or different sports, I’m on the other end of the spectrum. So I work with people who are in their late 70s, who have movement disorders, Parkinson’s, and Ms and these sorts of things, right, that’s who I box with the majority of my clients. And it is fantastic for them, they’ve actually done a lot of studies that showed the hand-eye coordination kind of slows down some of their some of the things that they’re losing cognitively, right, they’re not there, they’re maintaining a cognitive level because of the fact that their proprioception is up.

And they have to think when I when I tell them to throw a combo 123 slip Four, three, and they have to go through that and they’re hitting the bags and they’re getting the feedback back it really helps them and they enjoy it like you said it’s a way to get you to know, blow off some steam. So it doesn’t matter the demographic. If you’re a trainer and you’re interested in boxing, whether you train 75-year-olds, or professional athletes or housewives or house dads in between.

It’s for everybody. Yeah, that is the beauty of boxing. It is for everyone. So let’s get into the last question concerning fitness and boxing. And then I’m going to actually ask you some boxing-related questions. Okay. So fitness-wise, we talked a little bit about sort of proprioception and the ability for all demographics to use it. But I want to talk about the cardiovascular component because boxing is tough. You know, if you’re just shadowboxing and maybe you’re not doing it the right way, it doesn’t look that hard, but it is quite the workout, especially because if you think about throwing a punch as hard as you can, you’re essentially chest pressing.

Every time you throw a punch, right, you’re pushing forward as hard as you can. I think people don’t get that. I have a lot of clients who were, let’s say, runners or swimmers, and I need to get them to do something different because maybe they have a lower-body injury and they can’t run that day. We put the gloves on and they are sweating profusely and their heart rate is pumping. So I want you to talk a little bit about maybe some drills that you run with clients and how you use that for like a cardiovascular component.

Rebecca Ruber: So one of the other things that I would like to tag on to what we were talking about is if I were to have a very low-budget gym, what would I add to my gym? When you say cardiovascular, I was like jump rope jump ropes, the first thing that comes to mind jump rope is so important.

Rebecca Ruber: And when I have clients come in, I always ask them, when’s the last time you jumped rope? Do you typically when they’re in their 20s 30s they like elementary school when it was in the playground? And I was like did you have fun doing it? Yeah, that was the best time I’m like, well, it’s not gonna feel like that this time coming around jump rope is very intense. And people don’t realize that because you’re used to when you’re little you’re skipping and your energy is all over the place. It doesn’t feel like anything.

Rebecca Ruber: But when you exhibit it back as an adult, and you haven’t done it in a while, jump rope, also including different footwork drills, while your jump roping, whether it’s the crossovers, the double jumps, is very demanding on the body, and not only the demanding on the body, but it’s also on the mind too. So not only are you working your cardiovascular, but just mentally it’s draining because you’re focusing on your footwork or focusing on where your hands are moving. When you’re doing a double jump.

Rebecca Ruber: You want to make sure you pick your feet up enough so that the rope can go underneath you twice. It’s very intense. So cardiovascular-wise, I always suggest going into jump rope, especially because like I mentioned, it’s very important for footwork, which again footwork is the foundation to boxing. Also, I always suggest for people that maybe they’re not the best runners, I always say just doing bad work too, because not that you’re running 100 miles per hour while you’re hitting the bag. But just the adrenaline of constantly hitting a bag that’s 80 to 120 pounds is very demanding on the body and your cardiovascular definitely increases through three-minute rounds.

Steve Washuta:  Yeah, and adding to what we said before about being creative with the shadowboxing. I think you could do that with the jumper up to at least I do so not surprising anybody I’m a terrible dancer. But when I’m jump roping, sometimes I feel like I’m dancing because I how you switch up your feet, right? So you go sort of heel-toe, and then you’re both on your toes, and then you jump high, and then you jump low and you’re all around right, you can shift your body left and right.

And the music’s on, right, you have some headphones on and you can kind of get into your own little creative zone when you’re doing cardio. And that’s very important because cardio is boring for most people, right? They don’t want to just sit on a Stairmaster or an elliptical or walk. But with the jump rope, you can start being creative, like you said, do the different footwork drills, much like you can with the shadow boxing and creative cardio is important to keep us you know, from not wanting to hate cardio,

Rebecca Ruber: Cardio and boxing are definitely mental in the sense that you can either skip rope for three rounds and not be exhausted because you’re just going slow. Or if you break that mental and push yourself past your limits can be some of the toughest three minutes of your life. So I definitely think if you can either have the self-discipline to do it yourself, or it’s really important to have a trainer pushing past the limits that you may not know you have. And just take it to that next level, take it that next level and just continue to level up in your cardio journey.

Steve Washuta:  So on top of training, boxing yourself, and working with clients in boxing as a trainer, we hinted at it before, you’re also involved in media-related boxing, you interview fighters, you have a podcast concerning interviewing fighters in the boxing world. So we’re gonna go into some boxing-specific questions right now. And the first question I always have, I’m a big mixed martial arts guy. So that’s what I follow boxing is sort of secondary for me. But Will there ever be a unified champion, One Belt champion boxing? Do you see that ever happening?

Rebecca Ruber: I really don’t. And I think that you see, a lot of people ask, Why are there so many belts? And at the end of the day, just like any score, it’s all about the money, right? Yeah, it’s, you know, if it came down to just being one belt, where you maybe had 1, 2, 4, or 5, it’d be probably about one to four fights a year, that’s like a championship fight.

Rebecca Ruber: That’s not really going to pay the bills, right? You’re right, you’d rather probably watch a boxing fight that’s for the championship of the web to have this specific weight class, rather than it just being so and so versus so. And so just to add the record, right. So it’s all about, it’s all about the marketing, it’s all about how they can get more ticket sales or pay per views. So and unfortunately, it comes down to these promotional companies having to, clean their stuff up and kind of get back into what boxing was about. It’s all you know, now, we don’t see some of the fighters that we want to fight each other because it’s all about the mandatories.

Rebecca Ruber: It gets all into this technical fine print stuff that no we want if we if the viewers want to see a fight, makeup by half and stop reading the fine print. That’s not what boxing is all about. So, um, will we ever get to that point? I don’t know. I feel like we’re kind of too far deep. But I think that it’s getting acknowledged more and more and I think more promoters that originally were fighters are starting to come out including Floyd Mayweather talking about that issue. Um, so we’ll see what happens.

Steve Washuta: Yeah, it seems like you’d have to blow the whole thing up and start over. Like you said if you’re so far down this path, and there are so many people who have power who don’t want to give it up.

For these individual belts and these individual promotions, it’s unlikely to change but I do think the one thing that could help it is, at least when I buy a UFC undercard or when I’m watching it, I know all those undercard fighters. For most of them right now, I’m a big fan. But a lot of times, I’m not even looking at the headline fight, I’m looking at the next five or six fights and I will sit down for four to six hours and watch all these fights were in boxing. Most people are casual fans looking for just the headline fight, they have no idea who’s fighting in the fight beforehand.

So I feel like promoting those undercard fights a lot more and making them really big. Like, like you mentioned, maybe you only have four cards a year, but they’re absolutely stacked. And people put that on three in the afternoon. And they don’t turn it off to 12. At night. I think that would really help sort of boxing’s issue. At least with the One Belt set you excuse me. With the multiple belt situations having a plethora of under-cards that are top-notch.

Rebecca Ruber: Yeah, I think at the end of the day, while that in a perfect world that sounds amazing and ideal. It is just so corrupted. And it’s all about the money. And these agents, these promoters, they’re blind to it all, they don’t see what the common boxing fan wants. It’s all about what are we going to get you to have to understand to. Is with all these different belts, and these different sanction fighters. When they win these fighters when they have to pay a sanction fee.

Rebecca Ruber: And so again, it comes back to the money. If it were just this one belt, we wouldn’t be having all these millions of sanctions fees. All this money is going into all these different pockets. People need to get paid. And this is how they do it. So um, it really is I mean. And I personally would rather. I like seeing on zone or on ESPN seeing fights every single week, I don’t think I would look forward to just seeing one to four big fights a year, and I like kind of how the past couple of months have been stacked up. And I know we have to make up for lost time from 2020. But I kind of I’ve been liking the lineup. Of what we’ve been seeing with fighters coming out. And getting back into the swing of things,

Steve Washuta: I hope sooner rather than later. There’s some sort of like contender series. There was a long time ago. I remember being a kid in New Jersey watching like an ESPN boxing contender series. I think it was somewhere in like, I don’t know, maybe the 150 55 pound range.

They had a bunch of these guys come on who were amateurs are just getting into their pro careers. They have fought in a tournament much like the UFC hasn’t tough. The Ultimate Fighter where they all lived in a house. And they were 16 guys, and they fought until there was one person. Then they were granted, whatever, you know, $500,000. I feel like these stories, right, that’s what pushes out anything as a personal trainer. Somebody who wrote a book, it’s you who try to build a story and craft a story about yourself. I feel like if these boxers have better stories behind them. And they all have fantastic stories. Some of the best stories ever, right? This is the route to rise. These are people who came from nothing and built their way up. But to display those stories, I think is imperative.

Rebecca Ruber: Yeah, and like you said, it’s all about representation. There are some amazing fighters out there. That we will never hear up just because they don’t have the right representation. Um, so I think I think it comes down to well, fighting style. And obviously, talent is important. It’s not everything it matters about as long as you need to have a good team too. If you don’t have the right team behind you. You’re not going to get anywhere in the boxing industry. And you’re not going to be seen and you’re not going to get the respect that you deserve. So I think that’s really important to acknowledge as well.

Steve Washuta: What are your thoughts on these exhibition fights you have, you know, Floyd Mayweather fighting Conor McGregor a few years back and then you have obviously the Paul brothers and now you have one of the Paul brothers fighting Tyron Woodley is one of my favorite UFC fighters of all time. Do you think this is good for the sport? Do you think it’s not even boxing itself? This is just purely some sort of exhibition, a kind of entertainment. How do you feel about these things?

Rebecca Ruber: So originally, I thought it was kind of a slap in the face to boxing. And I’m not going to pay for an exhibition. But I’ll tell you that I’ve never paid $1 for an exhibition. But I’ll watch the highlights after and I make a point of that. Um, but I’ve talked to other professional boxers, and they do have a point. At the end of the day exhibition fights are not professional fights. In the sense that it doesn’t go on a professional record. So I don’t think that it’s necessarily changing the boxing industry.

Rebecca Ruber: And I think especially having these tick talkers and YouTubers coming into the boxing scene. I think it is bringing a young, younger demographic. You saw the Paul birth, Mayweather fight. You looked in the stands, it was all 13, 16-year-old kids. And well, it is a little weird because you watch certain fights. And in the beginning, it says, encouraged for 18 and older. Now you have 13, 16-year-olds going through these fights. I believe that it is important to bring that awareness of boxing because boxing was kind of low-key.

Rebecca Ruber: I think that there were not a lot of fans going to the fights. And I just don’t think there were a lot of good fights happening. There weren’t a lot of great presentations. Honestly, MMA definitely kind of took the shine from boxing. And so boxing needs to kind of do a little bit of rebranding, a little bit of cleaning up. So I think that if this exhibition fights as long as they’re exhibition fights. I don’t see the harm and I think of anything it’s just helping build the word about boxing. And making more kids younger demographic curious about the sport.

Steve Washuta: Yeah, they Some people say there’s no such thing as bad coverage, right coverages coverage, it doesn’t matter how it’s coming about, and if boxing is being covered, even if it is exhibition matches, and some of them are, you know, YouTubers and tick talkers, hopefully, that’ll add to people watching this fight, being interested in boxing in general, like the young generation, which is important. And then they ask mommy and daddy to bring them to another boxing match, right? Because they’re interested in it, and then the sport grows that way. So is there a fight that you’re looking forward to? In 2021? I’m sure a lot of the people who listen to this podcast are not big fight people. If you can tell them hey, this is the fight you need to watch. What would it be?

Rebecca Ruber: More? I’m very heartbroken. That theory Wilder three isn’t happening on July 24. anymore. But it is getting pushed back to October. So I am looking forward to that fight. I would love to see if you’re a Joshua fight. Um, but it does definitely just it’s crazy how one fight. Like Matt pushes back a lot of other fights that shouldn’t be happening. Just because if fury or Wilder wins, who’s gonna fight Joshua, who’s Joshua, we’re gonna fight in the meantime.

Rebecca Ruber: So um, that definitely plays a big role in it. But I would love to see fury Wilder three happen. Definitely want to seek Bella back in the ring again as well. I think that plan is going to be the next fight. I’m pretty sure I know that they’re right now going through a contract. They’re trying to guarantee like a three. I think a three-fight deal or something. So if that doesn’t pull through, then the canal has to fight somebody else. It’s really hard to find a decent fight for the canal at this point. Because he is right now the best pound for pound in the sport. But just canola is just entertaining in general. So watching anything with him would be a great fight.

Steve Washuta: What about Pacquiao Spence, do you have any intrigue about that?

Rebecca Ruber: I do. Respect Pacquiao. Because he is one of the few fighters still out there. That will level up and will continue to fight a good fight. He just bought pick a fighter that he knows he can be. It’s this is a challenge for him. Um, I think that I think that Spence will win. But I definitely think that it will still be a very good fight. And Pacquiao will still win a couple rounds in that match.

Steve Washuta: Yeah, well, there’s a lot of boxing to be watched in 2021. Like you said, there are the heavyweights you know. I would tell everybody, also to help yourself. Learn boxing, it’s important that you watch a little bit of boxing. Because you’re going to pick up different things and techniques. Go to a class, get a one on one personal training session from someone. Like you who does it locally in your area. Watch a little bit of it.

And it’s another tool to add with your clients. But we’re always looking for tools to add to our clients.

As personal trainers, things get boring, you can always put them on machines. They don’t always want to do yoga. Any little thing that we could add to it is part of our job. But they expect us to add these things in. And there are multiple ways to use it. I want to add it’s you know, you don’t just have to use it one on one. I ran a class called mama moms in martial arts where I had seven to 10 women. There was a to two people doing bag work. People were doing network together, people were doing crunches on the floor. AB work people were running through the agility ladder. And then we switch stations kind of right in the 40 formats.

So there are more ways to use it than just teaching the perfect technique, right? You can use it in a safe way. Where they’re learning technique Little by little. But the emphasis is on exercise first, and then they eventually learn the technique. So with all that said. Why don’t you tell the listeners where they can learn more about boxing. Following you on Instagram and otherwise. And where they can maybe reach out to you personally know they can listen to your podcast.

Rebecca Ruber: Awesome. So you guys can follow my podcast page on Instagram Insidetheringofficial, you can subscribe to my YouTube channel insidetheringofficial. You can also check out my personal Instagram at Rebecca Ruber. Where I post a little bit about my boxing. As well as just kind of follow along with my general fitness journey. And you can follow me on Twitter at Rebecca Ruber. I typically when big fights happen I like to live tweet about the fights. The under-cards just so for those that aren’t watching.

Rebecca Ruber: I like to make them feel like part of the fight. And I also like to weigh in on different things going on while the fights are happening. And I like to engage with my followers. So please feel free to reach out to me if you have any questions feel free to email me: Rebeccaruber@gmail.com. And yeah, that’s pretty much all my stuff. Oh, and you can also listen to my podcast. Inside the ring with Rebecca Ruber on Apple Google Spotify and iHeartRadio

Steve Washuta: Inside the ring, give it a listen, follow Rebecca. Thank you so much for being through the podcast. And I hope to have you on another one down the road. 

Rebecca Ruber: I would love that. Thank you so much for having me on. 

Steve Washuta: Thanks for joining us on the Trulyfit podcast. Please subscribe, rate, and review on your listening platform. Feel free to email us as we’d love to hear from you.

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Thanks again!

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