Chance is James’ quintessential workout but she has an innumerable amount of others up her sleeve. They hurt, they suck, but you can tell they work—just look at James, radically ripped, and the poster girl for her own gym.

 “I’m 37 years old and I don’t have injuries,” the former amateur boxer says. “I’ve worked hard for this body and it gets people in here, but we’re changing lives in here. To keep people going is my main purpose.”

Her goal is to train with functional movements, which she says allows athletes to train for life and have longevity to do so. “I love it when people come in here and say I have bad knees, I have a bad back, well what the hell does that mean?” she says, “You have a bad attitude. Let’s teach you to look at your body differently...let’s see what your body wants to tell you.”

Instead of putting people in machines and having them work a muscle for 8 minutes, her method is to use an open floor plan and make the body the machine. Her training style is similar to CrossFit, but according to regulars, it’s more fun, especially with the boxing element.

After total annihilation in Chance, James brings out her 100-pound logs, and had Burks and Carr flip them end over end to the road (a couple hundred yards) and back.

“She’s not going to let you take the easy way out,” Burks says, “She wants you to challenge yourself, and she wants you to step up, almost like she’s egging you on...like bring it, come on—there is no sympathy in here.”