He loves himself; he wants you to love him! Monkey Nutrition will launch Brutal Workouts on Sunday 22nd September at 6pm, starring PT and Royal Marines Commando, Sam Clarke.
Also known as ‘Man Cannon’ the energetic,
narcissistic and dare we say… loveable Sam, will deliver a series of
five videos on the Monkey Nutrition YouTube channel. Actually, scratch loveable.
Simple yet effective, each workout is designed to last between 10-20
minutes making them perfect for lunch breaks, before work and all those
times when you just don’t think you have enough time to train.
Combining compound lifts with plyometric exercises and lots of
Burpees, Sam has created against the clock workouts that will hit a
number of fitness markers in a short space of time. Be warned, they are
absolutely brutal!
“Having no time to train is the most boring excuse I hear. You can easily destroy yourself in no time at all.” Sam Clarke<–Click to Tweet
Sam explained: “Having no time to train is the most boring excuse I
hear. You can easily destroy yourself in no time at all. Some people
might say that these workouts aren’t structured enough or part of a
plan. Keep your plan – these will slot in nicely for those times when
you don’t have time, thus taking away your biggest excuse of not having
time – just throw one of these bad boys into the mix.
“They obviously work, I mean look at me! Massive and shredded I can
beast any challenge that is set before my mighty frame…” – this quote
goes on forever so we’ll just stop it there.
You can get a taste for what’s to come here #StayMassive
Don’t miss the action; subscribe to Monkey Nutrition’s YouTube channel here.
The first series will air every Sunday at 6pm and will run for five episodes.
Multipower Sportsfood ambassador Ben Foden takes on a gruelling CrossFit inspired workout in this new YouTube video.
The England and Northampton Saints Rugby player rises to the tough challenge set by Multipower’s personal trainer.
“Rugby is a sport that involves short, sharp periods of
whole body movements, such as sprinting, tackling, lifting, pushing and
pulling. All of these actions are full body compound movements and
CrossFit uses functional movements with various objects as key features
within your training.”
Robin Sowden-Taylor – Dragon CrossFit
Ben Fodens CrossFit Video
Can you beat Ben’s time of 5 minutes 6 seconds :
Exercise 1 — The Tyre Flip
Exercise 2 — Sledge Hammer
Exercise 3 — Keg walk
Exercise 4 — Knees to elbow
Exercise 5 — Battle Ropes Hip Toss
Exercise 6 — Olympic rings press ups
Exercise 1 – The Tyre Flip
The tyre flip is a movement that works almost the entire body and builds
strength and power, especially though the legs, torso and shoulders.
It’s a great conditioning exercise due to the high workload.

Standing about 10-12 inches behind the tyre, squat down keeping your
back straight and grip underneath the tyre. Keeping your arms straight,
lean into the tyre pressing your forearms and, depending on the width of
the tyre, your biceps and shoulders firmly into the tyre.
Lift the tyre off the floor by leaning into it and keeping your arms
and back straight and braced, working purely from the legs and hips.
Once the tyre is at about 45 degrees or more you can then consider using
your upper body and palms to help drive it over, but the heavier the
tyre the later in the movement and the more upright you should be before
trying to use your arms.
Once the tyre is upright, flip it over by powering through on the
top. Remember to keep your feet and ankles away from the tyre as it hits
the ground as there may be some movement.
Exercise 2 – Sledge Hammer
Hammer strikes are a great movement for working large muscle groups and
developing explosive power. Due to the high work load and the way they
lend themselves to rapid reps they’re also a great conditioning tool.
Stand
in a slightly staggered boxing type stance about 1 foot in front of the
tyre and hold the hammer in both hands so that the top hand – the one
closest to the hammers head – is the same side as the front foot.
Raise the hammer above your head and leading shoulder, at this point
your hands may be about a foot apart on the handle. Try to keep your
feet flat on the floor, knees soft and back in a natural position, not
too arched.
Using your abs, lats and shoulders, forcefully strike the tyre. You
should also bend your knees slightly driving down onto the tyre with
your whole body. As the hammer goes from above the head and shoulder
bring your hands together on the handle.
Try to aim for the same spot on the tyre, one that gives a controlled
small rebound, this is usually 1/3 of the way from the outside edge to
the inner rim. Keep control of the hammer at all times being careful not
to bring the hammer anywhere near the lower legs or feet.
Exercise 3 – Keg walk
The keg walk involves moving an object that’s an awkward shape and
contains an unstable water load, this means that it is hard work and
requires a lot of effort from the body.
Squat down and take hold of the keg with both hands (note: you may
require gloves for this depending upon the design of the keg). Keep a
natural curve in the spine as you would for any lifting movement.
Lift the keg up by keeping your torso and shoulders firm and working
from the legs and hips. In order to get the keg out of the way of the
thighs so you can easily walk, use a slight hip thrust and pull with the
shoulders and arms to raise the keg up to waist level.
Begin walking using slightly smaller steps than your normal stride and
being sure to keep the keg as steady as possible at the waist. Pay close
attention to you balance as the load moves. Try not to lean over but
rather keep you back straight against the load.
Exercise 4 – Knees to elbow
The knees to elbows exercise, whilst resembling an abs exercise,
actually utilises the whole of the torso integrating the use of the
abdominal muscles, muscle of the front of the rib cage, the shoulders
and the upper and lower back.
Hang relaxed from a pull up bar with your hands at a width slightly
wider than your shoulders where you feel most comfortable through your
arms and upper back.
Curling up from the waist, draw your knees up bending your legs
slightly and trying to keep them as close to the body as possible.
Stabilising with your lats, draw your knees up until they touch your
elbows. At that point you may find it helps to pull slightly with the
arms but try to minimise this movement as this is not a pull up.
Once you have touched your knees to elbows drive the
legs deliberately straight back down and point your toes to the floor.
Don’t let them just fall and keep them close to the body, all these
actions – as well as keeping the knees close to the torso on the way up –
stop the swinging motion that messes up your rhythm and makes quick
reps impossible.
Exercise 5 – Battle Ropes Hip Toss
Battle ropes are an ideal conditioning exercise as they
don’t overly fatigue one set of muscles but instead work the whole body
meaning you’re able to do a lot of work and test the heart and lungs
before becoming fatigued in any one muscle group.
Standing face on to the ropes, grab the handle and lean back slightly
against the weight of the ropes. Start the ‘hip toss’ or ‘hip throw’
movement by shifting your weight onto your right hand side, bending the
right knee more, turning and leaning the torso slightly to the right and
passing the hands to the right hand side and down.
Once in the coiled ‘set’ position, explode
off driving with the right foot and twisting with the hips and torso to
the left hand side. Towards the end of the movement, power the arms over
to the left hand side and go up onto the ball of the right foot and
twist the leg so you can twist the hips further
.
You will now be in a similar ‘set position’ but on the left hand
side. Repeat the movement, driving off the left foot, twisting to your
right driving over with the arms and twisting on the ball of the left
foot to allow the hip to work harder. Repeat for as many reps and
desired.
Exercise 6 – Olympic rings press ups
Ring press ups are deceptively simple but are not easy. They require a
high level of stabilisation through the upper torso, shoulders and arms
as well as working the lower torso and hips in a similar but much more
challenging way to a plank exercise.
Start by setting up the rings. Here the rigs are just off the floor but
you can set them to a foot or even more away from the ground, the closer
to the floor they are the more challenging the exercise will be.
Kneeling in front of the rings, grip them whilst keeping the wrists
firm and straight. Move from your knees onto your toes as you would for a
standard press-up; holding the back in a neutral ‘flat’ position and
firming your abs. Keep your arms straight with your elbows closer to
your sides than you might in a normal floor
press-up
Slowly lower yourself down keeping the movement controlled and
staying rigid through the upper body. It may help shoulder stability if
you think about turning your palms to nearly face each other – this
‘winds’ the shoulder up and helps stability in the joint. Lower
yourself down as far as comfort, mobility and stability allow and then
pause very slightly at the bottom to avoid ‘bouncing’, then press
yourself back up.
As you press back up keep the torso tight and control the shoulders
and wrists. It may help your stability to keep the
elbows relatively close to the body.
When you have completed your set go down onto the knees again placing
them as close to the rings as possible – this will make moving back from
the rigs easy.
Feeling brave then give this challenge a go – record your times and let us know how you get on.
Stand
in a slightly staggered boxing type stance about 1 foot in front of the
tyre and hold the hammer in both hands so that the top hand – the one
closest to the hammers head – is the same side as the front foot.
