NerdStrong Gym - Going All Medieval

So this was my first early morning workout at NerdStrong Gym. I was up at 6am for a 7am class. It was cold and I was still a bit sleepy but I realized that I was in a great mood because I enjoy going to this place and hanging out with these people.

We started with warm ups, typical stuff, arms, legs, squats and something new called Plank Walk. Andrew laid down one of the Battleropes and we used the rope as a guide and proceeded to do what it sounds like. We got in a planking position and then walked on our hands and toes sideways down the rope, keeping everything in form. Once we went up and down we had to go back the opposite direction.

After warming up we did our Skill portion of the workout. Today we were working with Maces (hence the title of this blog).  A workout mace looks similar to an actual mace but has a longer arm and the solid ball on the end is a bit smaller. We had to do squats while holding the mace... first we held right up to the ball of the mace and did two squats, we then moved our hands to the middle of the bar, which meant we were fighting the weight pulling us to one side. We did 2 squats holding it like that and then the final and probably the hardest was holding the other end of the mace and the ball is all the way on the other side. Again like with the second hold you are fighting the weight to pull you over and it's even harder as the full weight of the mace is pulling you down. We had to do 4 squats like this.

We did these with a partner so when you finished your eight squats you passed the mace on to them and they did their eight, my partner Jay and I did 3 sets of 8 in 10 minutes.

Head Coach Andrew - Founder of NerdStrong Gym

Afterwards we continued the skill portion of the workout and worked on Kettlebell Cleans. We've done other Cleans but not with kettlebells. Once you got the form down it wasn't that difficult. We did sets of 5 for 10 minutes.

We then moved onto the actual workout part of the workout.. it consisted of 5 rounds of 12x Kettlebell Cleans, 12x Single Handed Kettlebell Swings, 8x Face Peelers (which is pulling the kettlebell straight up to your chest, letting go and readjusting your hands and then pushing the kettlebell up over your head), and finally Running 1 Lap around the parking lot.

Of course this was timed and if I remember correctly we had 15 minutes to complete. I think I did pretty, I didn't quite finish all 5 rounds but I did manage to do 4 rounds and get halfway through the fifth round before time ran out.

It was another great workout, I was sweating like a pig when I was done but I felt great. So much energy. The perfect way to start my day... Thanks Andrew