Jannell Hickman likes punching her boyfriend. And she doesn’t mind it when he, Desi Kirby, punches right back. The 4-year-old couple doesn’t argue much, but lately they’ve been duking it out — in the ring.
Kirby, 32, and Hickman, 26, aren’t serial domestic abusers, they’re part of a mini-trend of daters who use strenuous workouts to do more than just stay in shape. They box (and more) at Work gym in SoHo under a new workout regime, Agape, founded by trainer Mike Brown, who is Giants wide receiver Victor Cruz’s personal fitness guru.
“We usually go out to eat, go to a movie, the usual stuff couples do to spend time together,” says Kirby, who has participated in the five-week program. “But this is different because Mike’s program bonds us in a way those other things don’t.”
Brown goes beyond encouraging sweethearts to work out together, showing them instead how to work as a team, even when they are occasionally facing off against one another.
“Most of the sessions are boxing-infused workouts,” says Brown, who begins the next session of his $2,000 program on Nov. 12. “I’m creating parity between the couple. When they box, it doesn’t matter who can lift more weight.”
In the past, Kirby and Hickman have kept their fitness regimens largely to themselves. Kirby keeps in shape bike riding from his Brooklyn apartment to his job in Midtown, where he works as an art fabricator. Hickman, a beauty editor, practices yoga.
Agape “balances things out,” says Hickman, who has occasionally brought Kirby to her yoga sessions in the past. “We can do things he enjoys, too.”
Another couple has turned to yoga as a path to fine tune their bodies and their relationship. Back in May, Lisa Pozarowski, 37, started bringing her boyfriend, Joe, to the couples yoga sessions at the Reflections Center for Conscious Living in Midtown.
A yoga novice, Joe had a lot to learn. “The first day, he walked on the yoga mat with his shoes on,” Pozarowski recalls.
They worked with Paula Tursi, a yogi who helps couples get in touch with their inner downward dog at “spiritual couples counseling sessions” for $125 per hour.
Pozarowski says Joe’s come along way since the they started, acquiring things like his own yoga mat so he can practice at home. “He’s still not a yogi by any stretch, and not very flexible,” she says. “But we understand each other better than ever.”
And now that Joe has shown himself willing to strike a pose, Pozarowski has started training for one of his favorite activities, distance running. Currently, she is training to run the city’s Jingle Bell Jog with him next month.
Togetherness aside, Hickman says one of the key benefits of sparring and throwing medicine balls back and forth with Kirby is seeing him get into fighting trim.
“My boyfriend’s hot,” she says. “So it’s never a bad thing when I see him get hotter.”