Porsha Morgan Knaplund - Contributed

Porsha Morgan, a Jamaican fitness trainer turned bobsledder, has returned to her roots as fitness trainer and developed a new home-training system that is beginning to take hold in Norway, where she lives with her husband and six-year-old daughter.

"It's called OxyBox. It's 100 per cent boxing, there is no kicking," she said. "It's an art form, lots of technique work. I built upon it and modified it so that it could fit into a gym situation." She sold the concept to a couple gyms where she lives in Brandbu, about an hour's drive from the Norwegian capital of Oslo. She reports that the classes are full and the proprietors are describing it as "contagious".

She hopes to bring the system to Jamaica some time in the future.

Most people would remember Morgan as a former fitness trainer at the Spartan Gym, on Lady Musgrave Road who, inspired by the exploits of the Jamaican men of Cool Runnings fame, went on to represent Jamaica in the bobsleigh event during the 2001 Winter Olympics in Winterberg, Germany, and who won a gold medal in the World Push Championships in Monaco a year earlier.

lack of money

When the lack of money prevented her from pursuing further dreams of bobsled glory, Morgan moved to Norway in 2002 to be with her husband, Thornd Knaplund, her bobsled coach whom she had married three years earlier.

Back then, while trying to settle in Norway in a culture much different than her own, Morgan began working as a fitness instructor in a gym. A year later, she left and started her own thing, which she has been doing ever since. But boredom caused her to utilise boxing skills she learned from former heavyweight boxer, Donovan 'Razor" Ruddock, whom she had met at the height of his career in the 1990s.

Ruddock, who twice fought Mike Tyson for the heavyweight title in the 1990s, had taken her to his home in Stony Hill where he had an outdoor gym. There, he showed her how to box after making her promise that she would not take it up as a sport because he did not believe women should be hit.

She kept her promise and did not take those skills into the ring but she put them to good use. "I wanted to create something that was new, that was empowering and that could give you the workout of a lifetime, and my main target was women," she said. "I felt women are little too basic in the way they operate and I think it is a very empowering type of training. You feel strong and like you are in control."

With the help of her friend and business partner, Heidi Schoing, Morgan has made OxyBox into a brand. They have now begun to target gyms in Oslo where there are more gyms and where there is a bigger market for fitness products.

She met Schoing, a business-woman and law student, through a mutual friend. Schoing eventually became a fan of OxyBox and an even bigger fan of Morgan. "People are used to getting new things and they want more than just a workout. They want a new experience, so the combination of being an artist and a fitness person, that's genius and that's what genius. And that's what she can offer, something that's the whole package," Schoing said.

OxyBox

Together, they are planning to distribute OxyBox DVDs that come along with boxing gloves and gear that bear Morgan's autograph and in Jamaican colours across Norway by next year, and then eventually venturing into Germany and Sweden, whose citizens are crazy about fitness.

In time, she hopes OxyBox will take over the world. "At the moment it's very small compared to where it's going," Schoing said. Morgan sees a bright future. "It's on its way to being very big," she said.