NerdStrong Gym - Hang Cleans & Hero Makers

Today's workout looked easy on the board.. and after yesterday's workout I was looking forward to easy... but as they say looks can be deceiving.

We started with some mobility warm up for the shoulders and wrists and we also did some slow tempo squats. Today we had the coaching team of David and Christy. For our Skill today we worked on our "One Rep Max" Hang Clean. We were split into two groups, those that felt comfortable with doing an hang clean and those that did not. I feel into the latter group. Of all the bar workouts we do at NerdStrong I feel like I just can't get the movements down for a hang clean. Technically I understand what needs to be done but I just can't get my body to do it. So I went with coach Christy who was going to break down each movement and take us through each one slowly.

After 20 minutes or so of work I felt that I had a better understanding of the "hang clean" but still couldn't quite make my body do it properly. But as they say, practice makes perfect... I'll keep at it.

We then moved on to this little workout that would kick our butts. It doesn't look like much at first glance but then you notice that they want you do to 5 rounds. So what we had to do was 5x Hero (Man) Makers. I had never done this movement before and OMG it's crazy. You hold on to two dumbbells and then go down to the ground like you're about to do a burpee with the dumbbells in your hand. You then do a renegade row with each weight, stand up, clean the dumbbells to your chest and then do a thrust press up with the dumbbells... that's one Hero Maker. After the 5x hero makers we then had to do 7x Dumbbell Front Squats and then 9x Hang Knee Raises.

So we wound up doing a total of 25 Hero Makers, 35 Dumbbell Front Squats and 45 Hang Knee Raises. The dumbbell front squats were fine and the hang knee raises were a bit rough but I got them them.. it was the hero makers that almost killed me. Though it's just one thing there are actually five movements with in that one and you start to feel it halfway through.

Overall it was a great workout, I got to work on my hang clean and then do a nice little workout that made me sweat like crazy. Thanks coach David and coach Christy for another awesome NerdStrong workout.