Don’t let the powder blue and baby pink gloves fool you— there’s nothing light about 30 Minute Hit in Castle Rock. Appropriately named, this woman-only kickboxing franchise takes members through a total body workout in just 30 minutes.
“You are strong! You are capable! Keep going!,” trainer Holly Spainhower shouts as members cycle through the 13 different stations of their workout. Each woman spend 2 minutes at each station with only 15 seconds of rest in between. The pace ensures that blood keeps pumping and heart rates keep jumping.
There is a rhythm of upper body punching, lower body kicking, and ab work on the mat. For the busy woman who needs an efficient workout, H.I.I.T (high intensity interval training) workouts can burn up to 500 calories a session.
Maggie Linenberg, the owner of the gym, knows how pivotal fitness is to health— both physically and mentally. After 20 years of marriage and 3 kids, a traumatic divorce left Maggie depressed and undone. “It was a lifetime of not realizing how much I had been knocked down.” Maggie says.
As someone who was always an active runner and spent several years working at recreation centers, fitness has always been an integral component of Maggie’s life. Luckily, she had people who knew that physical activity was the perfect prescription for that difficult season. Friends and family took Maggie to the gym early in the morning or later in the evening when it was at its emptiest point.
“Your self-image is broken after any kind of wounding. You have to find what helps you, and sometimes you can’t do it on your own,” Maggie says. “Fitness was the element that I needed to break the depression and the stigma I put on myself.”
Fast-forward to present day and Maggie has made it her goal to “pay it forward” and show people how to make it through the valleys of their own journeys.
“You get to know their hearts, you get to know their stories and their goals— that’s the best part,” trainer Holly said. “They get stronger inside and out,” Maggie chimed in.
Not only does the gym help women heal from the past, but there’s also a preventative component. Self-defense moves are a crucial part of the workout in order to prepare women if a real life attack ever does occur. The man who gets the brunt of this training is a life-sized dummy affectionately named Bob. For the final two minutes of the workout, women get to fight Bob using any and all of their favorite moves.
“You create muscle memory. In a real life trauma situation, normally we panic,” Maggie said. “But if you’ve been practicing self defense, the motion kicks in before your brain has the chance to tell you to freeze.”
The gym provides another kind of safety, too. The kickboxing circuit is arguably the ideal workout for the COVID conscious woman. With only one person per station at a time, 6-feet of social distancing is a guarantee. Boxing gloves are worn at all times, and the trainers wear masks and sanitize each station after use. Members now get “HIT at Home” as part of their membership which offers both live and archived workouts.
Try 30 Minute Hit completely free. It’s as easy as hopping online and booking a trial at https://www.30minutehit.com/.