NerdStrong Gym - Negative Pull Up Ladder

Surprise Coach Blair was teaching today's DEX class and he always brings a tough but good workout and this one is no exception.

We started with one of our standard warm ups with the exception of a surprise run at the beginning which coach Blair enjoying springing on us every now and then.

For the workout itself it was broken down into four mini workouts. The first was a Pull Up Negative, since the majority of us at the gym can only do a few actual pull ups we work on negatives. This is when you jump up to the bar with your chin and then slowly lower yourself down. It's extremely tough on the shoulders and arms. We were doing a Negative Ladder which meant we did 1 Negative Pull Up, then 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6 before going back down the ladder 5, 4, 3, 2 and finally 1. Needless to say after I got to six my arms were like noddles and I struggled to finish. Luckily we ran out of time around 3 so I was spared a few remaining negatives.

Next was 3 Rounds of 12x Lunges and 16x Kettlebell Deadlifts. Lunges weren't that tough but the kettlebell deadlifts were painful as your arms were already jello after the last workout.

We then did a 6 Minute AMRAP (As Many Rounds As Possible) of 5 Hand Release Push Ups and 10 Knees to Elbows. Now push ups are pretty easy for me now and I've been doing hand release push ups every once in a while because regular push ups aren't much of a challenge for me anymore. So doing 5 at a time wasn't bad. The Knees to Elbows were a bit tougher, especially since you are hanging from the bar and again your arms are dead. But I manged to do about five or six rounds before time ran out.

Our final workout was another 6 Minute AMRAP (As Many Rounds As Possible) in which we had to do 5x V-Ups and :20 Second Superman Holds. V-Ups are a major core workout and after all the work we had done today my core was hurting. Superman Holds weren't as bad though twenty seconds feels like forever. I couldn't even tell you how many rounds I did in those six minutes.. it felt like a million (but more like six or seven).

Of course we had a few minutes left in class so coach Blair had us do a TABATA Plank Hold as a finisher.

As I said it was a tough but good workout.. thanks coach Blair.