The DJ dropped the beat and 70 women started throwing punches. By the time the first kickboxing combination was called out, Moon Bar, a Visakhapatnam club had shed its weekend persona to turn into a makeshift fitness floor, with women punching, kicking, squatting and burpee-ing their way through an hour of high-energy cardio.There were no opponents, no rings and no gloves to take a hit. Instead, four trainers led the women through combinations designed to raise the heart rate and work the whole body, while the music kept the tempo going. It was a part workout, part social gathering and a glimpse of how women are increasingly choosing to exercise with more intensity, more variety and with strength in mind.Hosted by The Social Wave, a women-centric community in the city, Club Cardio brought kickboxing into a club setting, combining martial arts-inspired movements with high-intensity cardio drills. The one-hour session was conducted in collaboration with Altcrew and led by four trainers.For Komal Bagrodia Saraf, who founded The Social Wave with Preksha Dugar, the format was designed to make exercise feel less like a scheduled obligation and more like something women would actively seek out. “The idea was to turn a bar into a fitness bar,” she says. “There is a trend of Gen Z turning a bar into a Pilates bar. We wanted to bring something more intense than Zumba.”The response also reinforced the value of a shared workout, she says. “There was some initial reluctance among a few participants, but once we made a circle and started, the music and community spirit helped. It became a community workout.”