Third Space bootcamp: Whole body wonder move
The Dumbell ManMaker is an excellent whole-body exercise. It strings together a number of multi-joint movements and will stimulate lots of muscle fibres. It will also challenge your core strength considerably, especially if you are strict on the Renegade Row component.
Lots of muscle-fibre stimulation means a high energy requirement, which means you’ll burn lots of calories in a short space of time.
1. Start with the dumbbells in hand, holding them in front of your hips, with straight arms, then do a bicep curl and squat. Make sure your chest is up during the squat, your abs are braced and your chin is slightly down.
2. As soon as the dumbbells are on the floor it’s time to jump your legs back. Landing on your toes, you’ll now be in the starting position of a push-up — except you’re holding dumbbells. This is also known as the long-arm plank position.
3. Now it’s time to perform a full push-up. Abs braced, glutes tight, get that chest all the way down to the top of the dumbbells. Don’t let the elbows flair outwards and don’t do half-reps. If you can’t do a full push-up, regress the movement by dropping on to your knees. Even with the regressed version, you’re still looking to push the chest right down to the dumbbells. No half-reps. Once the chest has touched the dumbbells, it’s time to exhale and drive your body up into that long-arm plank position.
4. Now it’s time to perform one Renegade Row on either side. Don’t rush these. We need a big abs brace while you row each dumbbell. Ideally, there’d be no rotation at the hips when you row, and a big squeeze of the shoulder blades at the top of both reps.
Once the rows are out the way, it’s time to get back to standing. Jump the feet forward. The legs should go to the outside of the arms and you should get your heels down. Once the feet are down, drive the chest upwards and then squat the dumbbells back to standing.
5. As you are squatting upwards, really drive the hips forwards and squeeze the glutes. This momentum will be carried into the dumbbells as you bicep curl them to shoulder height. Bend at the elbow to facilitate this. Now the dumbbells are in the front rack position, it’s time to shoulder press them overhead. You can strict press the dumbbells, or you can use a dip and drive at the hips to generate the momentum to push them. At the top of the press, the elbows need to be locked out.
Return the dumbbells to the front rack, then curl them back down to the start position.
That’s one rep — do 10 to really test yourself.
Follow Luke Barnsley, master trainer at Third Space, on Instagram: @lukebaden
Third Space, The City opens this summer at 40 Mark Lane, EC3, thirdspace.london
