Chris Clark remembers his high school guidance counselor quizzing him about his career plans.
“I want to be a professional boxer,” Mr. Clark said.
“Do you have a plan B?”
“No,” he said. “That’s all I want to do.”
Mr. Clark has indeed made boxing a career, fighting in state, regional and national tournaments, and for the past nine years as owner of ClarkFit Boxing & Fitness in Market Square. Mr. Clark, a Chicago native, runs his business from a second floor gym crowded with rubber mats, heavy punching bags, speed punching bags and weights.
“This is like my first real job,” the 31-year-old Mr. Clark said. “This isn’t a gym; it’s more of a community.”
The community includes accountants, attorneys, students and retirees — and an increasing number of women — ages 5 to 77 who climb the steps to the second-floor gym for their fitness training. New York City’s Madison Square Garden is boxing’s iconic home and the sold-out 2022 match between Katie Taylor and Amanda Serrano speaks to the rising popularity of boxing for women.
Mr. Clark said his women clients, who make up most of his clients, gain the self-confidence and skills needed for personal safety.
Attorney Chris Brodman, founding member and president of the Downtown law firm of Metz Lewis Brodman Must O’Keefe, said he has been learning to box at ClarkFit for a couple years. He said he appreciates Mr. Clark’s approach to teaching.
“He cares about you,” Mr. Brodman said. “He wants to know about your life. And when you tell him those things, he remembers.”
“He’s authentic. He’s more than a trainer; he’s part of my life now.”
Boxing traces its roots to ancient civilizations where it was a brutal spectacle before evolving into a form of competition and test of strategy and skill. The Greeks included boxing in early Olympic games.
Women’s boxing became an Olympic sport in 2012.
The art of boxing involves strategy, technique and physical conditioning — which is where Mr. Clark begins with students. Individual and group sessions are available.
About 1,000 clients train every year at the gym, he said, starting with a fitness evaluation, then drills that can include pushups, squats, and jumping jacks. What comes next is instruction in how to throw a jab, an upper cut, hook — the basics of the sweet science.
Boxing is 90% mental and 10% physical, so learning strategy and technique is the most important preparation for getting into the ring for the first time, he said. With three months of training, most people are ready to box.
The idea, Mr. Clark said, is to “get fit and not get hit.”
But for Downtown office workers on their lunch break, even a few minutes of “knuckle therapy” with a punching bag can do wonders, he said. Boxing teaches discipline and it can be humbling.
“Sometimes your ego is not your amigo,” he said.
On warm days, Mr. Clark will stand on the sidewalk outside his gym, inviting passersby to give boxing a try. He’s open seven days a week and sponsors such events as Punch & Brunch and Lunch Box to drum up business.
Mr. Clark, who comes from a family of eight children, lived in Imperial for a while before his father, who worked for a steel company, moved the family to Louisiana. Mr. Clark remembers working at a fried chicken joint there at 18 or 19 years old, before one day asking himself, “What am I doing?”
He lasted all of two weeks at the fryer before he returned to boxing full time.
“Hard work beats talent when talent doesn’t work hard,” he said. “I’m married to my business.”
First Published: February 20, 2025, 10:30 a.m.
Updated: February 21, 2025, 5:35 p.m.
