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Angry Teenage Music

The 5 day Q Tour made its last stop at Crazy Ivan where the deck of cards told us what to do, we couldn’t quite find all the Jokers, and where heavy music was played again as promised. 5 strong men joined YHC in the underworld to move some kettlebells and kick off the holiday weekend! Before we started, Dawgpound made mention that we should field trip it upstairs to the outside of the parking deck where the air circulation was better. YHC denied that request… this is the underworld! Buford took notice of the playlist of heavy tunes very quickly and mentioned it was for angry teenagers. YHC’s response, “yeah, or angry 40 year old men…let’s get going”.

EC: YHC

FNG’s: None
Warm Up: Good mornings, Fazio Arm Circles, Hillbillies, Willy Mays Hayes, Imperial Walkers, SSH.
The Workout: The deck told us what to do.  The timer was a pax going over to the wall to do BTTW for a 20 IC self count. Exercises were AMRAP while the timer pax was gone. YHC split the deck in to 2 rounds based on time, so we spent about 18 minutes in each series.

Round 1: Spades (Swings), Clubs (Clean/Jerk), Hearts (Bell Merkins), Diamonds (Lawnmover rows) Jokers (burpees… joker only got us once this round)

Round 2: Spades (single leg deadlifts), Clubs (Figure 8), Hearts ( Boobity Boobitys), Diamonds (Halos), Jokers (Absolutions).  Once again… Joker only got us once even though YHC threw two extras in the deck. Go figure… When finished we turned over the next card…Joker

Mary: Midget Cookie Pouches x 30, Midget Live Handles x 15 each side, Curls for the Girls x 10 each arm, LSF with kettlebell x 20.
Announcements: Sign up to mulch.  Dawgpound And Emeril will be doing a Steel Mace workout in the parking deck every Tuesday starting next week.  Non official AO, but come get stronger!
T-Claps (Recognition): My ShieldLock brother Tetanus, for hitting his first 5 pack while coming to all my Q’s this week.  That’s what it’s all about brother.
Prayer: Those traveling, our nation, our leaders.  Pax in recovery and freedom for them.  YHC took us out.  Thanks too all pax who came out to support my Q’s this week. Thanks for taking the ride with me!

That’ll Make You Feel Alive!

Stop #2 on my self imposed 5 day Q and EC tour.  This time, YHC hit the cozy confines of The Nest down in the heart of Fuquay-Varina with the promise of getting in some last day RUNE miles and to see some FV brothers I don’t see in the gloom so much. The Nest is an AO with quite a few features and lots of options for a solid Q.  One feature worth noting today would be road rash on the back and knees doing exercises today.  Good amount of gravel in the skin. It’s not a Possum Trot level surface, but many places at the Nest are not friendly.  This includes the grass.   Word of wisdom, don’t do burpees or merkins in the grass down by the entrance! You, like Buttermilk, May get to feel very “alive” if you do.  Not sure if it was fire ants, sand burs, or just grass thorns, but Buttermilk got some in his hands and apparently it’s not pleasant!

EC: Fanny Pack, Dovetail, Gamecock, 16 Bit, Boy George, Norm, Buttermilk.

FNG’s: Too soupy???
Warm Up: Circled up for Good Mornings, IW’s, HB,s, Frankenstein’s, Fazios, and Chinooks.  Mosey up to the street.
The Workout: With it being the last day of RUNE, YHC knew and pre- blasted there would be a fair amount of running. Ended up with about 2.5 during the workout today. Pax drew the 7 of Diamonds to get that done today.  Each corner around the perimeter of the park for each round had: 7 burpees, 14 WW2’s, 21 Jack Webb’s ( 7 merkins with 21 air presses), and 28 Shoulder Taps. Pax all did a great job of taking duty and calling counts.

Mosey to wall and partnered up. 1 partner does People’s Chair while other bear crawls to the curb and does Irkins to a 5 count, bear crawl back.  Switch. We did this on a descending count of Irkins from 5 to 1.

There was some mumblechatter and disagreements about mileage today so YHC wanted to put that to bed by calling a mosey loop in the parking lot followed by an Indian run that gave us a couple more spins around the lot. Return to the shovel flag for Mary.
Mary: Freddie Mercury’s, Plank Holds (standard and chill cut/2 rounds). Have a nice day.
Announcements: Mulch. Sign Up.
T-Claps (Recognition): Plenty of EC today!
Prayer: Finkle to finish strong on a software engineering class he’s doing.  Dovetail stepped up to take us out.  Honor to lead in a new place. Gotta get down to the FV more often.

Take me out to the ball game

This morning YHC promised some fun at the workout while everyone was gathering around.  Not “fun” fun but actual fun.  I hope I delivered on that.

FNGs: Not today

EC: Norm

Warm Up:

Lap around the tennis courts and then circle up in the parking lot for:

SSH x20 IC

Frankenstein x10 IC

Butt Kickers x10 IC

Windmills x10 IC

Daisy Pickers x10 IC

Imperial Walkers x10 IC

Merkins x10

The Workout:

A quick swing past my car to grab a ball and bat and we ran down to the concession stand to rip off some quick sets at the short wall.  We did 10 stepups with each leg (20 in all), and then 10x irkins, dips, and dirkins.

Afterwards we headed down to the softball field and met at home plate.  PAX counted off to establish batting order and instructions were given.  Each one would get up to bat and hit the ball.  We would all run to the ball and the batter would call out a 10 count of an excercise of their chosing.  If the ball did not make it past the pitcher’s mound before hitting the ground there would be 2 penalty burpees and a strike out would result in 5 burpees.  Luckily no one struck out and there were only two instances of the ball not making it in the air past the mount.  Lots of different exercises were called out and I can’t remember them all but there were burpees (there always has to be that one guy), star jumps, bobby hurleys, LBCs, big boy situps, monkey humpers, and a lot more.  I think in all we made it through 16 batters.

After the first time through the line up we “ran the bases”.  Bear crawls were done from home to 1st base, crawl bears from 1st to 2nd, crab walks from 2nd to 3rd, and duck walks from 3rd to home.  Afterwards we started back at the top of the lineup.

Once we started to run out of time we gathered on the drive way for a slow Indian run up to the tennis courts to circle up for…

Mary:

YHC called out an exercise that he learned while perusing the exicon one night called the Dr. W.  It’s an 8 count exercise.  I’ll let the exicon describe it:

“Dr. W is a sufferable 8-count ab exercise that combines Dolly, Rosalita, and the W; often within the 6MOM. Always a #CrowdPleaser. 1 is legs apart like a Low Dolly, 2 is legs together, 3 is raise the legs to Rosalita position (45-60 degrees-ish), 4 is spread ‘em, 5 is The W (hands together and stretching forward between your legs), 6 is the return to your back (legs still up), 7 is legs together, 8 is legs down. 5-8 Dr. W’s is a good start to get the pax coordinated with the counting. 10 is a magic # that most build up to 15 is just dumb and torture #FetalPositionMaker Qtip – We always emphasize that the W is on the 5 count. Kinda breaks down the motions and gives a 2nd starting point.”

We did 10 of those.  I like them, they’re fun.  After that it was 10x American Hammers and then HAND.

Announcements:

Bass Lake mulch again this weekend.  There were several HIM that signed up but now can’t do it so there are open slots for those interested.

New COVID friendly BRR guidelines came out yesterday from the race director.

Prayer:

1st responders.

Crosby has been sick.  Hopefully he recovers soon and can get back to his regular not posting.

 

Thanks for the privilege of leading you all this morning.

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Dirty 30

After a few weeks of 29.9’s during CoT, YHC’s 30th birthday (and the loss of hate status) was finally here. 19 pax and 1 pup came out to help celebrate with a beatdown.

FNGs:

None today.
Warm Up:

Mosey across to the old Ivan parking lot.

SSH x30 IC

Sir Fazio x15 forward x15 backward

Imperial Walkers x15 IC

Hillbillies x15 IC

Mosey down to end of the parking lot (towards the pond)
The Workout:

5x Burpees at the end of the lot

Crab walk halfway up the lot

30x of an exercise of the sheet

Mosey to end

5x Turkish getups

Bear crawl halfway down

30x of an exercise on the other sheet

Mosey to end

 

Sheet exercises were Merkins, Diamond Merkins, Wide Merkins, Carolina Dry Docks, Shoulder Taps IC, and Merkins for the first sheet. For the second they were Jump squats, alternating reverse lunges, side straddle hop, squats, alternating lunges, and jump squats.

We removed the bear crawl and crab walk for the last two rounds because we were running out of time.
Mary:

Sadly we ran out of time to close out with a song, so we settled for 30x Low Slow Flutter IC and 30x LBCs IC.
Announcements:

Rune continues – next week is team Skidmark’s rest week.

U-Turn and Disney are looking for site Q’s. Step up and lead!

2nd F after Cletus – thanks Skidmark & Banana Seat for the coffee and donuts!
Prayer:

Pablo, Particle Board, and Rain Maker’s mom passed recently. Check Slack 3rd F for arrangement details.

Martini’s mom.

Full House’s wife’s uncle and former colleague passed this week.

Hardy has four staples in his head from a ninja training accident. Florence’s friend Alex continues to recover.

An honor to lead this morning men – thank you for the encouragement and accountability for another year!

17 PAX for an Anniversary Rock Beat Down at GP

A huge turnout of 17 PAX ascended upon Ground-pounder looking for a rock beat down with a possible field trip.  Some ran during U-turn.  One showed up at 7:00 am.  Lots of mumble chatter from start to finish.  Great seeing Farva out for the first time since the start of the pandemic.  Very excited to see Dusty too (no pull-ups today).  Just an AWESOME turnout men!  Sorry Norm you were told the incorrect location.


FNGs
: Yes!  Welcome Lance Huber – NABS.  Thanks PAX who helped me with our welcoming speech.  Great job Pumpkin Spice for bringing him out.  Behind his naming, think of Lance “Nabs” crackers…way better then Armstrong or Phelps that were too easy (and too good).

Warm Up: Mosey around the parking lot to an adjacent lot and circled up for the following 10cc exercises:  good mornings, Daisy Pickers, sir Fazio Arm Circles, seal claps, overhead claps, Moroccan night clubs, static arm stretches and 25 SSH.  Ended with 5 burpees OYO.

The Workout:  I asked the  PAX to grab a medium-sized rock.  Let’s just say, some PAX were more zealous than others.  There would be no rock rotation.  In honor of my three year anniversary starting F3 at the Nut, I wanted to execute three exercise and then repeat two additional times.

LOTS of Rocks with three separate 10c exercises;  (Rinse and Repeat Three Times)

Curls for the girls, Tricep Extensions, Rut-rows

Goblet Squats, Slap Rocks, Wonder bras

Bus Drivers, Trunk Twists, Toe Taps

From our six:  6 inch hold with Rock over chest, Nipplers, Straight arm Tricep Extensions

5 Burpees OYO because Q messed up the count

Headed to the walls for 20 cc BTTW and People’s Chair.  Thanks a shredder for helping wit the count.

Back to our rocks for one last Rock exercise:  20 Ground-Pounders.  After 3 years, I finally learned there is a squat at the bottom rather then bend over.  Thanks Forceps!

No time for a field trip.  Kind of wish we did venture that way. I learned later, my trip planned to Veteran’s Park

Mary: 20 LBCs, Yoga stretches including Downward dog, Pigeon pose, leg-overs.  Have a nice day.

Announcements:  RUNE; Trash pick-up Sunday morning – See Slack/LED.

T-Claps (Recognition):  16-bit for incredible virtual Workouts!  Thanks Nemo for recognizing all of my Q activities in South Wake this year.

Prayer:  Martini’s mom entering hospice; other PAX struggling with parental care; All impacted by pandemic.  YHC took us out.  UNSPOKEN.

 

An incredible honor leading you men this morning.  Thank you for making my three year anniversary very special.

Old School, New School, Doppelgängers, and Disappearances

The use of heavy music was pre-blasted by YHC today for my first kettlebell Q at Crazy Ivan.  We moved not so heavy weight a lot of reps and listened to heavy music most of the time. 13 pax showed up on another rainy and humid morning under the garage for some 40/10 tabata kettlebell work. We had 6 in attendance for EC (3 running including YHC/3 yoga) with one disappearance for the main event. Where did Emeril go???

FNG’s: None
Warm Up: SSH, Good Mornings, Sir Fazios, and Frankenstein’s with a 2 loop mosey around the deck.
The Workout: 40/10 tabata with 8 exercises planned for 5 rounds but YHC called an audible for popcorn instead of final round.  This was a great mix of pax I don’t often see, so YHC wanted to test the creativity of the group for the final round… they did not disappoint!

4 Round Exercises were: Halos, Clean/Jerk/Press, Kettlebell Merkin, Swings, Midget Love Handles, Goblet Squats, Figure 8’s, and Lawnmowers.

The playlist stayed heavy throughout. At one point, the Dawgpound asked if a Metallica song was Godsmack.  The pax corrected him and went on to say that the song was new school Metallica (if by new school we mean 1997). Fonzie then says, “man, if that’s new school we should put on some Hanson or the Monkeys.” Playlist eventually turned to a lighter track with the  Foofighters that the Dawgpound guessed correctly followed by a 16-bit comment of “this playlist is kinda psychotic”. YHC responded, “yeah I know   I like it!” At the same time YHC mentioned that Boy George is a doppelgänger for Dave Grohl of the FooFighters.  Apparently, Boy George Has heard this before.  Then some actual old school Metallica Seek and Destroy came on.  Now that’s 1983. Of course, 16 bit says, “isn’t it all really old school nowadays?”   Good point.

Audible called to popcorn for pax to call 15 reps of anything including Mary moves. Exercises were: kick throughs, 2 rounds of Midget Cookie Pouches, standard merkins, 6 inches, LSF’s, Shoulder Press, Boobity-Boobitys, H2Ms, chest presses, LBC, and of course Lucky Charms calls burpees to just about blast us out!

Mary: Box Cutters, Pickle Pounders
Announcements: Sign up/pay up for the RUNE. Some guys are heading out at 0630 from Hilltop Needmore Park on Sunday for some adopt the highway action.
T-Claps (Recognition): LED for picking up YHC’s shovel flag as the blasting rain was coming in…good lookin’ our!
Prayer: Pax with moms in Hospice including Pablo’s family and Martini. My daughter Julia.  Thanks for letting me take the lead today fellas!

Just Like Gonorrhea

After months of Qing and not being able to move I made sure to incorporate lots of movement in to my return to Qing outdoors.  Over two miles were put in during the course of the workout.  I had also thought of several names for this backblast, going back and forth between several because I wasn’t able to land on my favorite.  Ultimately it was Forceps that gave us what you see here today.

FNGs:

None

EC:

LED, Norm, Fonzie, FedEx

Warm Up:

Mosey up over the hill to the parking lot of the shopping center on the other side.  Circle up for:

SSH x20 IC

Good Morning x10 IC

Windmill x10 IC

Squatted Moroccan Night Club x10 IC

Imperial Walkers x10 IC

The Workout:

We moseyed to the sidewalk leading back up the hill and lined up for Walk like an Egyptian.  This is a lunging Indian run type deal where the PAX line up and lunge forward while the one in the back lunge walks to the front.  When he gets up there everyone takes a step to lunge with the other leg and the next guy goes.  The plan was to do this all the way up the hill.  This is where we got our backblast name, as everyone started to talk about the burning in their legs.  The hill was longer than I remembered so after about 60% of the climb I called an audible and we ran up the rest of the hill.

We crossed the bridge and did a bear crawl Indian run down the hill to the entrance of the park.  From here we took a quick jaunt in to downtown Varina and to the mural wall where we lined up for BTTW.  Each PAX counted to 10 as we held it up there.  This parking lot didn’t have the necessary number of curbs so we crossed the street to the small parking lot in front of the Brickhouse.

Each PAX grabbed a parking spot with a curb to put their feet on and did a dirkin.  We then crab walked across the parking lot to the opposite side, put our feed up on the curb there and did two dirkins.  Back across for three dirkins.  We were supposed to go to 13 but a quick look at the watch told me that we weren’t going to have enough time to get everything in that I wanted to if we went to that, so we stopped after 5.  I don’t think anyone minded.

Back at the park we partnered up for some B.L.I.M.P.S.  Partner one started a slow mosey while partner two did 5 burpees and then ran to catch up to his partner who then stopped and did 5 burpees of his own.  This then went to 10 lunges, 15 imperial walkers, 20 merkins, 25 plank jacks, and 30 squats.  Again, due to time constraints we stopped after P but LED insisted that we needed our squats so we circled up and fired off a quick 30 count of squats all together.  After that it was off to the tennis courts for…

Mary:

Circled up for a LBC circuit.

Regular LBC x10 IC

Reverse LBC x10 IC

Knees down to the left LBC x10 IC

Knees to the right LBC x10 IC

Announcements:

Sunday morning the first Adopt-A-Highway cleanup is taking place on Hilltop Needmore road.  We’ll be working on a 1.67 mile section of the road.  LED will have bags and vest and potentially gloves but please try to bring your own.  2.0s over 12 are welcome according to NCDOT regulations.  Information is on Slack and you can always reach out to LED for more information.

Prayer:

Norm took us out this morning.

Prayers for Mr. Terrific that his job interview goes well today.

Martini’s mother who is in her final fight with cancer.

All of the people affected by the virus, either those that are sick, those on the front lines helping fight it, those helping keep us all running, those who’s jobs are affected by it, and anyone else who has been waylaid in some sort of way by it.

 

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Beach Bods

Summer is drawing near, right?  There’s at least some chance we’ll be out by the pool or on the beach, right?  Might as well get ready for it even if we’re only seeing ourselves in the mirror or hopelessly trying to show off to the M who, lets face it, hasn’t been impressed for some time.

FNGs:

Not today

Warm Up:

SSH x20

Good Morning x10

Sir Fazio Arm Circles x10 forward/reverse

Frankenstein x10

Imperial Walkers x10

Hillbillies x10

The Workout:

Focus on the torso, that was the name of today’s game. Upper body and abs.  The plan was for more but time is a thing and a thing we ran out towards the end.

Jack Webbs were the starter.  Started with 1:4 and worked up to 10:40

Next was a tabata style ab workout.   We did 6 rounds of each exercise, 40 seconds on and 20 seconds off.  The exercises were:

Low slow flutter

Gas Pumps – start with your legs up in LBC position, lower them down to 6 inches, and then bring them back up

LBCs

Dr. W – This is a “fun” 8 count exercise.  You start on your back with you legs out like you’re doing LSF.  Count 1 and 2 are to open and close them like you’re doing Dolly.  Count three is raising them up to 45° and count 4 is opening them up again like Dolly but higher.  Count 5 and 6 is sitting up and reaching through your legs and then coming back down and lastly counts 7 and 8 are bringing your legs back together and lowering them again.

Crab Crunch – Start in crab position and bring one elbow up to meet the opposite knee.  I made these up and decided I don’t like them, they didn’t seem very effective.  I also typed crap instead of crab each time I tried typing it earlier in this sentance and I think that was my unconscious self trying to tell me what I thought of them.

Mary:

Kind of backwards today.

Squats x20

Lunges x10 IC

Announcements:

RUNE challenge.  This is South Wake baby, of course its a running challenge.  Check the pinned message in the 1stF channel in slack.  Two teams will be drafted by those who put their names in the hat and their collective miles ran during the month of June will determine the winning team.

Prayer:

Continued prayers for Pumpkin Spice and his family as they try to help Sadiq get back on his feet and find a more permanent home. Also prayers for Pumpkin Spice’s new small group that is studying Revelations.  We talked about how that book might be the most popular among non-Christians as its probably the most non-bible like book of them all, what with it being doom and gloom and apocalyptic.   A chance to actually sit and study the book should prove insightful and bring a new appreciation to it.

Almost Twice

I had actually planned this workout two Fridays ago and did half of it solo before logging off to do some yoga.  I thought to revisit it this past Friday but I was solo again and just did a full workout worth of yoga.  Today I was determined to share it with someone.

FNGs:

Almost but not quite

Warm Up:

SSH x20

Windmill x10

Daisy Picker x10

Good Morning x10

Imperial Walker x10

Hillbillies x10

The Workout:

Two Dora’s were planned but not the kind where you partner up.  These were solo, meaning each of us did 100/200/300 reps of each exercise.  We did this by doing 10 sets of 10/20/30 of each exercise.

The first routine was

100 irkins

200 step ups

300 squats

After this we went in to our second routine.  Unfortunately we were only abet to get through 8 rounds so it came out to:

80 lunges

160 LBC

240 SSH

Mary:

We saw her enough during the 2nd Dora

Announcements:

Nothing new.  Check Slack for all the latest

Prayer:

Continued prayers for the young man Sadiq whom Pumpkin Spice has been housing for the past few weeks while trying to find him a permanent home.  Prayers for YHC as I have to lay off more people at work

 

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Just another manic…wait, what day is it?

Another beautiful morning in the garage.  All this working out in there reminds me I really need to sweep it out.  Chill cut planks and chill cut plank jacks this weekend have pieces of mulch and rock stuck in my forearms, possibly forever.  I don’t typically wear gloves when doing this because its a garage floor and not the Possum Trot parking lot but, man, I really need to clean this.

FNGs:

None

Warm Up:

SSH x20

Good Morning x10

Daisy Picker x10

Sir Fazio Arm Circles x10

Seal Claps x10

Imperial Walkers x10

Hillbillies x10

The Workout:

Today was some tabata style work, first focusing on our legs and then on our shoulders/upper body.  We did two rounds of two exercises, 40 seconds on and 20 seconds off, rotating exercises.  For example the first set was squat hold and squat jumps so we did a 40 second squat hold, rest for 20 seconds, AMRAP squat jumps for 40 seconds, rest for 20 seconds, and then repeat that and then move on to the next set.

2x Squat Hold/Squat Jump

2x Star Jump/Sumo Squat

2x Lunge/Reverse Lunge

2x Squat/Speed Skaters

Bolt 45s – did these as a burn out for our legs before moving on

Upper body and shoulder work consisted of:

2x Plank Hold/Merkins

2x Single arm plank (alternating)/wide grip merkins

2x Chill cut plank/Carolina dry dock

2x Air presses/Overhead claps

Mary:

WWII x20

Freddie Mercury x10

Homer to Marge x20

LSF x10

LBC x10

Announcements:

None really.  It’s good to see the 1st F channel in slack alive again as well as reading all the backblasts.  It’s adding some normalcy back in to everything.  Also be on the lookout for virtual races.  Most of the stuff we’ve all registered for has been cancelled but there are lots of virtual options popping up almost daily.

Prayer:

Abe’s wife who has an  interview today

My job and the stress involved in having to do another round of layoffs

Pumpkin Spice’s friend Kathy who lost her battle with cancer on Monday morning.  Pray for their friends and family and especially her husband Allen who has to deal with the loss of his wife.

 

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