Author Archive 50 Shades

Head Sock

The difference between “cold” and “very cold” is determined by whether you see YHC bust out the head sock. The head sock is reserved for “very cold” days. With a real feel temp of 15, this morning was head sock weather. YHC spilled from his vehicle at 05:29:38, donned his head sock and so began

THE THANG:

Warm up trot to the stadium stairs. Weave up and down, back and around to the field. Do one lap around the heated track with some high knees, butt kickers and karaoke.

COP:

SSH; IW; Copperhead Squats; Mountain Climbers.

Do a Merkin. Do an LBC. Do 2 Merkins; 2 LBCs; 3 Merkins/LBCs and so on to 10 ea.

Line up at the 50 yard line. Dash to the goal line for 10 Jump Squats. Return for a Turkish Get Up. and perform some good, old fashioned 11s. Some guys did Burpees–claiming they weren’t doing TGUs in 2016 or some nonsense.

Catch Me If You Can:

Partner up. P1 runs a lap. P2 does 5 Monkey Humpers and runs to catch up to P1. P1 does MHs and P2 keeps going until P1 catches up. This continues for 1 lap.

People’s Chair w Air Presses.

Catch Me If You Can w 5 Merkins.

People’s Chair. Excellent 10 count from Huddle.

Line up on the goal line. Each member of the PAX calls an exercise for his mates before running to the opposite goal line and back. We had Merkins, MHs, Hand-release Burpess (Huddle, please!); Flutter, Squats, Makhtar N’Diaye, and some other stuff I’m forgetting.

Return to parking lot for Mary: LBObliqueCrunch; Freddie Mercury; Russian Twist; Heels to Heaven

FIN.

NMS:

Joe Davis run is Sat. You can still register.

Tesla took us out w wise words of prayer.

Nice, clear, frosty morning to get out and move around, y’all. Thanks, Baracus, for the opportunity to lead this excellent group at this excellent A/O.

Ain’t Broke

Long-time participants at The Charge may have seen some familiar things this morning. I haven’t had the honor of leading here since February. That gave me the chance to dust of some old material. I prefer to call it vintage. Hey. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. After some mumblechatter about the pleasant weather and whatnot, it was time for the PAX of 13 to get right down to

THE THANG:

Warm-up lap with high knees; butt kickers; karaoke

Middle of the field COP:

SSH; IW; Copperhead Squat; Knee-ups; Merkins; Mountain Climbers;

People’s Chair with some Air Presses

Catch Me If You can

Lap 1: 5 Merkins; People’s Chair

Lap 2: 5 Jump Squats; People’s Chair

Lap 3: 5 Burpees: People’s Chair

Stadium Stairs

11s: Dips & Squats

Back to the field. Catch our breath for a moment with some fellowship LBCs.

Goal Line:

Bear Crawl to 25

Crab Walk to 50

Lunge Walk to goal line

Plank to fail:

When you can’t plank any longer, Sprint to other goal line for Turkish Get Ups. Saw some mighty odd form with some of those planks, btw. Who were our hold outs who planked longest? I was too busy getting up Turkishly to notice.

MARY:

Rosalita; Freddie Mercury; LBObliqueC (L&R); Low Slow Flutter

Mosey to the road. Elbow plank then AYG to the COT.

MOLESKIN:

Not much in the way of announcements. Baracus said that BRR was the worst best thing he’d ever done. Or it was the best worst thing? It’s Hump Day. Get thee to Happy Hour. Thanks to Bridges for taking us out. Always fun to lead at The Charge. Great men meeting at a great facility. Thanks for the opportunity.

See you in The Gloom

–Fitty

You could argue

There was some mumblechatter this morning at around 0528 about the merits of working out in single digit temps versus 81 degrees (source: Tesla). The jury is still out. But this morning the heat and humidity felt like things to be hauled around. Perhaps this wasn’t the most difficult workout in YHC’s recent memory. But it felt like the hottest. It was a comfort to see the EMT crew on standby. I don’t think they were there just for us, but I’m unsure what exactly brought them out to Providence Day at that hour. I can assure you that they chose not to participate in

THE THANG:

Mosey around the track for a warm-up which included some high knees, butt kickers and karaoke.

COP:

SSH; Imperial Squats; 5 Burpees OYO; Monkey Humpers; Merkins; Mountain Climbers

line up at 50 yd line. Bear Crawl to goal line and partner up.

Wheel barrow; switching every 10 yds. Partner carry back swapping at the 50 yd line.

P1 run 200 yds; P2 elbow planks. flapjack

P1 run a lap; P2 people’s chair. flapjack

Catch me if you can: P1 gets running while P2 does 10 Merkins. Swap when your partner catches you. People’s chair while everyone finishes.

Mosey to stadium:

find some stairs for 11s.

1 Derkin at bottom; 10 Jump Squats at the top.

Mosey to Bear Crawl Alley for some Bear Crawl Slalom.

Mosey to COT for Mary:

LBC; Oblique Crunches (L&R); Rosalita; Dolly; Russian Twist

FIN.

MOLESKIN:

F3 Dads at Freedom Park (@F3Metro) and Francis Beatty Park (@F3Area51) at 0900 Saturdays.

Hops took out out with wise words of prayer to send us back to our community. Thanks to Baracus for the chance to Q at The Charge. Thanks to the rest of you for following me around in this heat.

See you in The Gloom. –Fitty

Calling for Six Inches

Six inches of what pray tell? Read on faithful reader. Read on. YHC was concerned about patches of ice, so today’s workout happened exclusively on the state-of-the art heated track and field at Providence Day School. And it went a little something like this:

THE THANG:

Warm up lap around the track, which included High Knees, Karaoke and Butt Kickers.

COP:

SSH; IW; Copperhead Squats; Merkins; Mountain Climbers

11s at 50 to the goal line:

Run to goal line 10 Jump Squats

TGUs at the 50.

Plank

Catch me if you can: Partner up and chase each other for a lap around the track.

First Round: 5 Merkins; People’s Chair w arm presses while waiting for the 6.

Second: 10 Monkey Humpers; People’s Chair

Third: 5 Burpees; People’s Chair

Elbow Plankorama. When you fail, run 100 yds and do LBCs at the other end until everyone joins.

Chowda came in 3rd place. Jolly good show.

John Deere and Tesla held out and started playing games whereby they were doing Six Inches, then regular planks and all sorts of other nonsense while we all did LBCs and wondered what the hell they were up to. But I must say it was an impressive display of planking–from what I could tell at 100 yards in the dark, that is.

Finally, they came trotting up and YHC let them call an exercise (burpee broadjump) while they ran 100 yds out and 100 yds back again. Next was Chowda’s turn for coming in 3rd place. Pretending for a moment he was the weatherman (let’s keep this back blast PG, shall we?) he called for six inches.

By this point in the workout, time was running short. So we headed back to the 50 yard line for quick

MARY:

ElbowCs (Side plank on elbow and crunch other elbow to knee) followed by Oblique crunches.

Exit sports facility and plank on road. Tesla 10 count and then jail break to

COT:

MOLESKIN:

Mud run registration ending soon. Sign up, if you’re going to.

Always fun to Q at The Charge. YHC hadn’t led in quite some time. Thanks to Baracus for giving me the opportunity this morning.

 

 

 

Stair Climber

For a while now YHC has wondered whether the back playground of Providence Day offered any good place for pull ups. Arriving a bit early I jogged over there to check it out. Hm. Not bad. Some of the bars are pretty low to the ground. But it just might work. Feeling the time crunch YHC trotted back to the site of the VSF. Men, it was time to embark on . . .

THE THANG:

COP on field turf after a warm up lap

SSH; IW: Copperhead Squat; Mountain Climbers; Merkins; Peter Parker

recover and mosey to the stadium seats via the parking lot and up the back stair case.

5 dips; jumpups; derkins run up 5 LBCs plank

10 dips; jumpups; derkins run up 10 LBCs

continue with sets of 15; 10; 5

I overheard somebody say, “I’m glad he didn’t take that to 20.” I thought to myself, “What’s next is harder than 20.”

Elevens

10 heels to heaven; climb stairs for 1 burpee

9 heels to heaven; climb stairs for 2 burpees.

& etc.

Back to the field

People’s chair air presses

Jump squats in cadence

People’s chair

Bear crawl from goal line to 10 and crab back

Bear crawl from goal line to 20 and crab back

200 yd dash in 1 minute w LBCs to finish out the minute: 2 reps

Mary:

Knee ups; Rosalita; Freddie Mercury; Protractor

END

MOLESKIN:

Not much to announce afterwards. Those stairs. Whew. Toward the end I thought I might need Sherpas and oxygen. The PAX really gutted it out with courage, but everyone was wilting a little toward the end. Some guys working the track paused to cheer on Huddle at one point. Between those guys and the other track walkers out that morning, YHC believes the boys from F3 earned everyone’s respect that day.

–See you in The Gloom.

Fitty

 

Punt Pass & Kick at The Charge

[Posted on behalf of Hopper on the occasion of his most excellent Q job this day]

Nine pax including one Charge FNG (Snowflake) posted at PDS this morning.  The break in humidity seemed to be broken itself as the air felt a little thicker this morning.  After the Q admitted he was not a professional (not a real surprise to anyone) here is what the pax got into:

 

COP:

 

Mosey to basketball court with high knees, butt kickers and lunges mixed in.

 

SSH X 25

IW X 15

Arm Circles Forward X 15

Arm Circles Backward X 15

Freddy Mercury (normal speed) x 25

FM (slow speed) X 15

 

The Thang:

 

Mosey to Upper Field.

 

Circle up for plank exercise.  Plank shuffle ten strides to the left, hold, six inches, hold, six inches, plank shuffle back to the right ten strides, hold, right arm behind your back, hold, left arm behind your back, regular.

Repeat

 

Pick a partner.  Partner 1 planks while partner 2 does 20 decline merkins with feet on partner 1s back. Flapjack.

 

Mosey to Headmaster’s House.  Line up single file for Indian Run.  Ran through school ground entry way, down to Sardis Presbyterian Church, back up Sardis Rd. and back down the entryway of PDS.

 

Mosey to parking lot in front of fieldhouse.  Time for a Mary break:

 

25 LBCs OYO

20 Flutters

20 Rosalitas

 

Mosey to Football Field:

 

I did not have a name for this drill so I self-dubbed it “Glory Days”.   Each member of the pax stood at the goal line of the field and one at a time threw a football as far as they could.   Once the football landed they shouted out an exercise and the pax dropped, stood, whatever and did 5 of said exercise, ran AYG to the ball, did 10 of the exercise, picked up the ball and ran AYG back to the goal line and completed 15 more of said exercise.  With 9 pax here is what we did:

 

Squats

Turkish Get Ups

Merkins

Heels to Heaven

Hand Release Merkins

Side Lunges

Diamond Merkins

Knees to Chest

Burpees

 

Mosey to track/stands wall for Wall Work:

 

Hands out

Left leg up

Right leg up

Arm raises (x2)

 

Mosey back to the parking lot with an AYG stretch from the stadium entrance to the gate.

 

Moleskin:

 

As I say, the air was humid this morning and once we started the plank work, I did not have a dry spot on my shirt.  The pax really hung in there and gave it their all.  Frankly, everyone’s pace was right on board with everyone else so it was a strong push by all!  Thanks to all of you men for contributing to the Glory Days drill by coming up with an exercise.  It’s nice to have crowd participation.  One last thing….I had made a commitment yesterday that this workout included zero burpees……and I stayed true to that until one unnamed pax (fine…..it was 50 Shades) made that the last exercise of Glory Days.  The truth is that was the right way to end it, so thanks for keeping on us on task 50!  Great job men…..it was a pleasure leading today!

 

Announcements:

 

  • There is a 5K for Billingsville Elementary this weekend.
  • There is still space to join the F3 24 Hours of Booty team.  Check the website.

 

Snowflake…..thank you for taking us out in Ball of Man!

 

Slings and Arrows of Outrageous Fortune

It was 450 years ago on this day that none other than Shakespeare himself was born. The mysterious workings of the universe are such that there were 11 abed this day who from within the fartsack asked themselves, “To be, or not be–that is the question. Whether ’tis nobler to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune or to sleepeth in on this lovely spring morn. . . To sleep. Perchance to dream. Aye there’s the rub. I shall find my way to The Charge.” And that’s how we came to participate in. . .

THE THANG:

DDs Q:

10 Burpees

Mosey around the parking lot with High Knees; Heels to Butts, Karaoke

Mosey to upper field

Single leg lunges

Circle around basketball court

25 SSH; 25 Imperial Walker; 25 Mount climbers; 25 Peter Parker; 25 Parker Peter; 25 LBC

10 Burpees

Mosey back thru campus

10 dips

10 incline Merkin

10 decline Merkin

REPEATO w 15s then 20s

Peoples chair 90 secs; Wall Plank

Balls to wall 60 secs

People chair w air press 60 secs

Balls to wall sliding down to wall plank 60 secs

Bear crawl and crab walk 35 yards thru high road cones

Mosey to stadium

partner 1 sprints around back of stadium, up the spiral staircase and accross the top of the bleachers and down to meet partner 2

partner 2: (100 reps, 4 different ex.)

20 dips, 20 Merkins, 20 LBCs, 20 steps ups, 20 decline mercins

REPEATO 2 SETS

50 Shades Q:

Mosey to field.
100 yd dash dropping to belly every 10. Run back.
Last man planking, everyone run 100 yds and back when you fail until last man is planking. Big Kudos to Mr. Green and Chowda who agreed to call it a draw after planking for what seemed like nearly half an hour.
Mosey back to lot w jail break.

END.

MOLESKIN:

Two new boot camp workouts in the area: Casbah meets Fridays at 0530 at Sharon Elementary. Black Widow meets Tuesdays at 0530 at Trinity Presbyterian.

Yesterday Power Play was an FNG at Black Widow. Today he was a veteran at The Charge. Who is this guy? Time will tell.

See you in The Gloom.

–Fitty

The Ow’er Glass

As The Polar Vortex enveloped the area once again, The PAX scrambled to relocate all that cold-weather gear. From inside the cozy comfort of the fartsack, the cold seemed worse than it was in reality. This was nothing compared to The Deep Freeze of weeks gone by. Six brave men in long-sleeves congregated to participate in. . .

THE THANG:

Mosey to track for a warm-up lap doing some high knees, butt kickers and karaoke en route.

Center of the field for COP

SSH

IW

Copperhead Squats

Mountain Climbers

Carolina Drydocks

Peter Parker

Meet up at the goal line of Providence Day School’s heated field.

Bear crawl to 10. Crab walk back.

Bear crawl to 20. Crab back.

Bear crawl to 30. Crab back. Plank-o-rama

 

Ow-er Glass: Run the field in an hourglass design with called exercises at the corners and center.

Near and far corner: 5 Jump Squats

Center: 5 Burpees

Opposite corners: 5 Merkins

Rinse & Repeat with an Increase to 10 of each. YHC was going to take it to 15, but judging by the jagged, labored breathing, it was time to switch things up.

Mosey to the stands the back way and up the stairs. People’s Chair to explain:

5 jump ups; dips; derkins run up the stairs for 5 LBCs & back. Plank. Rinse and repeat with reps of 10; 15; 10 5.

Barracuda Bunny Hop: Jump two steps; jump back one. Take it to the top for 10 Jump Squats

People’s Chair at concession stand with air presses.

Mary:

Rosalita

Russian Twist

Dolly

Low, Slow Flutter

Heels to Heaven

MOLESKIN:

Quiet crowd afterwards. Beetle announced that YHC had been Q for the last 3 days at Copperhead, Black Widow and now The Charge #humblebrag. YHC may well fartsack tomorrow.

There’s also been mumblechatter about The Charge and the fact that it’s classified as “Charlotte–South” even though it is easy to access for many in the Charlotte–Metro area. Not sure what would help with attendance or awareness, but ideas and suggestions are welcome.

The Shawshank Shimmy

Perhaps out group was small, but this morning’s PAX showed the heart and effort of 30 lesser men in Charlotte still abed on this cool, spring morning.

THE THANG:

Co-Q John Deere started off in the COP:

15 Merkins

20 SSH

10 Merkins

20 IW

15 Merkins

15 Windmills

10 Merkins

25 LBC

10 Merkins

10 Burpees OYO

10 Merkins

Gather at the goal line for the Shawshank Shimmy to the 30 yard line. Everyone planks to form a tunnel. Guy at the goal line shimmies or crawls through the tunnel and planks at the end. Next guy in line crawls through. Repeat until somebody sees open gloom at the 30 yard line. Also known on the Providence Day field turf as the Carpet Burn Crawl.

Suicides to the 10, 20, 30 40, 50. Plank.

Bear crawl to the 10; crab walk back.

Bear crawl to the 20; crab walk back.

25 Jump squats.

Co-Q: 50 Shades

Partner up: wheelbarrow 100 yards, switching every 10.

60 Second elbow plankorama.

Partner carry 100 yards, switching at the 50 yard line.

People’s chair while YHC explains Catch Me if You Can. Partner 1 begins a lap while partner 2 does called exercise. Partner 2 then catches up to partner 1 and partner 1 does the exercise. Repeat until lap is complete. While we were all just sitting around on that wall we did 20 air presses too.

Catch Me If You Can. Lap 1: 10 Merkins. Lap 2: 10 Jump Squats

People’s Chair w 25 air presses

Lap 3: 10 Carolina Dry Docks

60 second elbow plankorama.

25 dips OYO; Jailbreak to COT.

MOLESKIN:

Not much mumblechatter from the PAX. Everyone had their back into it. Announcements were light. Tesla’s prayer was strong. We all vowed to do it again. And we will.

Spring Training

Eight of the finest men you could ever hope to work out with found themselves at the mercy of Double D’s and John Deere on this lovely, crisp spring morning. There were thoughtful nods all around as we heard the new F3 disclaimer language. Paraphrasing here, “Be careful. Go at your own pace. Don’t hurt yourself.” Aye. Without further ado . . .

THE THANG:

QIC: Double D’s

Mosey to basketball courts with carpool pylon slalom, karaoke, lunge walks and backwards lunge walks en route.

COP:

SSH

IW

LBC

Mosey to hill by Sardis

10 Merkins; 10 LBC; Bear crawl up hill and mosey back down

20 Merkins; 10 LBC; Bear crawl up; mosey down

10 Squats; Bear crawl up; mosey down

20 Squats; Bear crawl; mosey

1 min People’s Chair w air presses

10 Air Presses; 10 LBC Crab walk up; mosey down

20 Air Presses; 10 LBC Crab walk up; mosey down

Dragon merkins (aka aligator merkins) up the hill; mosey down

1 min People’s Chair w air presses

Dragon merkins up; mosey down

Find some wall for 20 step ups

Bear crawl slalom through carpool pylons

Plankorama

QIC: John Deere

Mosey to field.

60-90 seconds of Merkins

Sprint to 50 yard line and back

Crab walk to 20 yard line and back

Called exercises w sprints to the 50 and back:

SSH

LBC (x2)

Diamond Merkins

Partner up: Partner 1 planks. Partner 2 does 25 Derkins. Flapjack.

Mary:

Low Slow Flutter

Rosalita

Michael Phelps

6 inches—YHC feels like he’s still holding it, boss.

10 Jump squats

MOLESKIN:

YHC found this to be a taxing workout indeed. My shoulders were smoked. And that was an abundance of bear crawling. Kudos to the Qs for pushing us. Kudos to the PAX for powering through without a whimper.