Richard Gibney's 365 Days of Fitness: Day 179

Day 179 This morning I went over to a client's house with my friend Scott to do a little more demolition work. We weren't in a basement, which was refreshing. Instead we were removing a lower section of the front of the house, so that we could get at some more soggy insulation. To do this we had to remove some cement that was covering the wood siding. This meant a lot of time with the sledgehammer. For 2 hours we took turns swinging away at this cement. At first it was a lot of fun, but after about 2 minutes the novelty wears off. We were both pretty dirty and sweaty by the time we were finished, but it was more than worth it to help out my client.

Later in the day after recovering from my session with the sledgehammer I went to the gym at Mount Royal University for a more structured form of exercise. I had originally planned on doing a light upper body workout. My arms and shoulders were still pretty tired from earlier in the day. However, when I got to Mount Royal I saw this piece of equipment called a "Move Strong" that I couldn't help but try out.

The Move Strong is a big open cube that is comprised of multiple stations. In a way its kind of like those old universal exercise machines with the cables. However, instead of fixed machine exercise stations like a bench press or lat pulldown, the move strong has stations that involve things like gymnastic rings, battle ropes, and a variety of chin-up bars. It even has mini trampolines at the corners for throwing medicine balls at. I found the rings particularly fun. I've been trying to do a muscle-up (essentially pulling yourself from a dead hang up on top of the bar) on a standard chin-up bar for ages with no success. On the rings I was able to do a muscle up on my 3rd attempt. I was pretty excited.

I decided to throw together the following circuit on the move strong.

Move Strong Circuit: 3 rounds

• Battleropes: Snap Downs 20 reps
• Ring Dips: 10 reps
• Battle Ropes: Alternating Wave 40 reps (20 per side)
• Pull-ups: 15 reps (1 round I tried the salmon ladder station a la American Ninja Warrior)

I really enjoyed using this piece of equipment. It just makes so much sense. it doesn't take up a lot of space considering the number of exercises you can do on it and the exercises you can do yield so much return. The Glencoe fitness centre will be undergoing a big renovation next year. Part of that reno will be adding new pieces of equipment. I will definitely be suggesting that my director considering adding a Move Strong set-up to the gym.