NerdStrong Open Gym - Battleropes

Today is Friday which means open gym at NerdStrong. I'm going to continue working on my chest and back. But I also wanted to get in some Battleropes. I know when I say the word Battleropes to fellow NerdStronger they cringe or grimace. I actually enjoy the battleropes. I really feel like you get an amazing upper body workout with them.

I teamed up with friend Ben to work on Chest and Back.. Coach Blair created a workout for the two of us.

For warm up we ran a few laps around the parking lot and did a bit of stretching.

We had to do 5 sets of 5 reps each and started the workout with Bottom Hold Bench Press'. These are like your usual bench press' but you actually hold the weight just above you chest for 3 seconds before pushing it back up. We started with a light weight and got progressively heavier. This wasn't about weight but more about form and breathing. By the fifth rep my arms were like jelly and I struggled to get that bar up and down five times.

Next up was Bar Ups Holds, I had done bar ups before, they are like pulls ups but the bar is lower to the ground but again like with bench press we hold at the top. These are horrible, bar ups alone are hard enough but holding for 3 seconds each time was extremely difficult.

We then did Dumbbell Flys which I have done the past few Fridays and these I can do fairly easy with my upper body strength.

By the time we were done with those the majority of the people were done with their workouts so Coach Blair made the entire class do TABATA Planks. This meant 8 sets of :20 second Planking, :10 resting. About half way thru these you really start to feel it.. but I'm happy to say I did not faultier once and did all eight sets... but I was happy when it was over.

We had about 10 minutes left in the class and everyone was pretty much done and just hanging out and chatting when I reminded Coach Andrew that I wanted to try some Battleropes.. so he gave me the task of doing a TABATA Battlerope, So :20 seconds of workout and then :10 seconds of rest. Coach Andrew also made me half Squat and hold it while I did said Battleropes. I only manged to do 4 sets before I got dizzy and had to stop. I think I could have done more if I hadn't done the workout beforehand and I'm sure I'll give them ago again in a future workout.

Thanks to Coach Andrew and Coach Blair for another amazing workout. And I want to thank my cheering section when I was doing the battle ropes.. Anne & Liz.. with their encouragement I was able to take it a bit farther.