Workouts
The Nina Willams Workout
Apr
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Game(s): Tekken Series
Archetype: Rogue
Class: Assassin
Skills/Attributes:
- Literally an assassin.
- Extremely skilled in combat, throws and combinations in particular.
- Expert in disguise, stealth, and espionage.
- Speed, strength, and agility at the peak of human capabilities.
Overview:
After covering Jin last week, you know we were going back in for Nina! Quite possibly the most well-known and popular Tekken character, Nina Williams is strong, smart, and skilled in both combat and non-combat maneuvers and environments. She’s able to silently dispatch foes with just her bare hands as an assassin, but she’s also more than capable with a number of different firearms and hand-to-hand weapons. She’s also capable of standing up to the most capable warriors on the planet in open combat, as demonstrated on multiple occasions throughout the Tekken series.
These capabilities, plus her compact, svelte build place her in the Rogue archetype, as an incredibly capable Assassin. As such, when designing her workout, we want something that’s going to build serious strength and striking power, while also developing elite level agility, speed, and neuro-muscular coordination. We’ll be going with primarily bodyweight, kettlebellts, and resistance band exercises for this, with some kettlebell work for cardio, as well.
Before we get started, here’s our usual batch of supplementary nutrition and fitness posts. Make sure you check them out, achieving her badass physique is going to rely much more on your nutritional intake than your exercise regimen! (as is always the case with physique!)
General Nutrition Info:
Lose Weight, Burn Fat:
Build Muscle, Bulk Up:
Before and After Workout Programs:
Alright, let’s get to the workout!
Strength:
Equipment Required:
Pull Up Bar
Resistance Bands
Kettlebells
Style: Station – Perform all sets of an exercise, resting 1 minute between each set, before moving on to the next exercise.
Level 1 (Beginner):
4×8-12 Bodyweight Squats
4×8-12 Kettlebell Bent-Over Row SUPERSET
4×8-12 Kneeling Push Ups
4×8-12 Reverse Lunges SUPERSET
4×8-12 Hip Thrusts
4×4-8 Chair or Band Assisted Pull Ups SUPERSET
4×8-12 Kettlebell Clean and Press
4xCircuit:
4-8 Hanging Knee Raises
4-8 (each side) Resistance Band Wood Choppers
10-30 second Planks
1 minute Rest
Level 2 (Intermediate):
4×8-12 Kettlebell Front Rack Squats
4×8-12 Kettlebell Bent-Over Row SUPERSET
4×8-12 Push Ups
4×8-12 Kettlebell Reverse Lunges SUPERSET
4×8-12 (each side) One Leg Hip Thrusts
4×8-12 Chair or Band Assisted Pull Ups SUPERSET
4×8-12 Kettlebell Clean and Press
4xCircuit:
8-12 Hanging Knee Raises
8-12 (each side) Resistance Band Wood Choppers
30-60 second Planks
1 minute Rest
Level 3 (Advanced):
4×8-12 Kettlebell Front Rack Pistol Squats (chair assisted, if necessary)
4×8-12 Kettlebell Bent-Over Row SUPERSET
4×8-12 Banded Push Ups (wrap a resistance band around your back and hold it in your hands to provide additional resistance on your push ups)
4×8-12 Kettlebell Reverse Lunges SUPERSET
4×8-12 (each side) Weighted One Leg Hip Thrusts (hold a kettlebell on your hips)
4×4-8 Pull Ups SUPERSET
4×8-12 Kettlebell Clean and Press
4xCircuit:
8-12 Hanging Leg Raises
8-12 (each side) Resistance Band Wood Choppers
60-90 second Planks
1 minute Rest
Level 4 (Assassin):
4×8-12 Kettlebell Front Rack Pistol Squats
4×8-12 Kettlebell Bent-Over Row SUPERSET
4×8-12 Banded Push Ups
4×8-12 Kettlebell Reverse Lunges SUPERSET
4×8-12 (each side) Weighted One Leg Hip Thrusts
4×8-12 Pull Ups SUPERSET
4×8-12 Kettlebell Clean and Press
4xCircuit:
8-12 Weighted Hanging Leg Raises (hold a small kettlebell or dumbbell between your ankles)
8-12 (each side) Resistance Band Wood Choppers
90-120 second Planks
1 minute Rest
Strength Notes:
SO! We have a bunch of supersets, obviously. A superset is where you do a set of one exercise followed IMMEDIATELY by a set of another exercise, and then rest. (So you’d do 8 kettlebell bent over rows and then immediately do 8 push ups, then rest a minute. that’s one set.) Because we’re doing a full body workout here there are a LOT of exercises to get through, so supersetting them together like this enables us to compact our work time down without sacrificing much performance because we’re working opposing muscle groups.
For any exercises that use kettlebells, you increase difficulty by going up in weight, not by increasing repetitions beyond the recommended twelve. When you can do all four sets of an exercise with all twelve reps, it’s time to increase the weight of the kettlebell! If it’s a resistance band exercise, same rule, just increase the strength of the resistance band. If it’s a bodyweight exercise progression (kneeling push ups to regular push ups, for example), then four sets of twelve reps is when you’re able to start doing the next progression.
I hope that all makes sense! It’s a pretty solid work load but if you start light and progress slowly, it’s manageable, and it will turn you into an absolute badass fighter/grappler/assassin hybrid!
Cardio:
Equipment Required:
Kettlebells
Heavy Bag & Gloves
3xCircuit:
3 minutes Heavy Bag Drills (or shadow boxing)
15-25 Kettlebell Swings
1 minute Rest
Cardio Notes:
Simple. Brutal. Those swings should be heavy enough that doing 25 swings on all three rounds of the circuit is pretty insurmountable. Seventy five kettlebell swings should be no joke. This is brutal. Again, Nina is a great hybrid of striker and grappler so we’re still retaining the striking training with the heavy bag, but the kettlebell swings are going to focus more on developing strength and conditioning for throwing people around and beating them up with a planet.
Schedule:
Day 1: Strength
Day 2: Cardio
Day 3: Strength
Day 4: Rest
Day 5: Strength
Day 6: Cardio
Day 7: Rest
Schedule Notes:
Simple enough schedule, get that whole-body strength development three times a week, and then your cardio twice a week for good conditioning as well. Even though it’s not prescribed as the cardio, feel free to go for an hour run or bike ride a couple times a week if you want to build that cardiovascular “gas tank” even more.
That’s it for the Nina Williams workout! I’ll see you tonight at 7 on the Be a Game Character YouTube channel for our regular Tuesday night live hangout!
Live boldly, change the world, and continue to be awesome!
