Swing Sammiches

Swing Sammiches

What you are about to read is called a Backblast.  It is something that used to be written and posted to the world wide web that would summarize a workout, possibly make the reader laugh, and sometimes impart nuggets of wisdom.  Currently, backblasts are as rare as finding flour, toilet paper, and ground beef on a single Harris Teeter run.  Unless they come out somewhere called “Waxhaw”, which I’m not even sure is a real place that exists.  “Waxhaw” sounds like a karate instructor from Mississippi trying to teach a pupil to block punches by rubbing turtle wax in a circular motion on  and off a fleet of classic cars.

Back to the matter at hand.  Nine of us gathered this morning to pursue strength and knowledge while not running a single step.  The current program’s core element is 250 swings per workout supplemented with other kettlebell and bodyweight exercises, and now that we’ve been at it several weeks, the pressure to come up with new combinations was weighing on me.  Also weighing on me was the pressure to come up with a playlist that would motivate, entertain, spark conversation, and elicit appreciation for the artists.  My last playlist was curated around my first love, Sunset Strip Hard Rock and Heavy Metal, and was pure auditory bliss.  Not everyone has the proper reverence for this era however (I’m not mad, I’m just disappointed), so I went in a different direction for today.  Play button pressed, we jumped right in to the first of five rounds of the swing sandwich, which is 20 swings (the bread), 20 weighted crunches (the cheese), 10 clean & press (the meat), and 20 swings (the other bread).  In between rounds we mixed in merkins, chest presses, flutters, and deadlifts.  With 200 of the 250 swings now complete, we topped it off with a final set of 50 swings so we could move onto some personal favorite exercises.  Next we did three rounds of overhead squats and three rounds of the Sots Press, which is a wonderful exercise that is as awkward to perform as it is difficult.  I noticed a lot of “modify as necessary” on this part.  I’m not mad, I’m just disappointed.  A handful of core exercises capped off the morning as dawn was breaking and the geese were defecating.  A threatened/promised fly by monkey humping from Spackler and the Anvil crew never happened, so they must’ve been having too good a time over on Five Knolls.

Today’s playlist focused on alternative rock hidden gems from the mid-nineties and seemed to be well received, I even had some requests to share it so I’m calling it a win.  We didn’t get to the selections from Letters to Cleo, Buckcherry, and Goldfinger though, so I enjoyed those on the drive home.  The next playlist may involve professional wrestling entrance themes, but the idea is still percolating.  Only a handful of announcements including the upcoming blood drive being spearheaded by Mighty Mite and Beetlejuice.  At least I think that’s what Mighty Mite was saying, it’s hard to make him out from 45 feet away.  There’s a happy hour tomorrow at the cougar bar in Ballantyne, I can’t remember the name, but you know the one.  There’s an Iron Pax challenge going on, and undoubtedly every rep of every exercise will be done with perfect, Chelms-esque form. In closing, let’s recommit to writing quality backblasts (insert jokes about starting that right after this particular backblast) so we can read about places other than Waxhaw, or Narnia or whatever it’s called.