Das Boot invited YHC to Q out at Body Shop this Thursday, 4/8. IR has limited running and created
somewhat of a strength focus for YHC for the last year, so… as the site name implies, this will be a strength focused endeavor on Thursday. Heart rates will be elevated, some mileage will occur, but likely a little below the typical ~5km required of a boot camp. Expect some coupons, rocks, and other (un)pleasantries.Bring a friend.
11 of the finest Wax Pax and/or SOBs, a 60 degree Spring morning, a car full of gear, some cones, a reasonably well-planned weinke… what a great way to start a random April Thursday. The 80lb KB made an appearance this morning (aka Liberty Bell, aka Fat Boy). Gave the initial disclaimer, and handed it off the Site Q for some of the Waxhaw specific kumbaya that YHC is not familiar with.
Divide dudes into 4 groups, each starting at a lane below.
Lane 1 | Lane 2 | Lane 3 | Lane 4 |
---|---|---|---|
35 lb KB (7 each side) | 20 lb dumb bells (14 total) | 40 or 50 lb KB (7 each side) | 55 / 80 lb KB (7 total) |
Single Straight-Leg Deadlift | Thruster (Squat to Press) | Single Arm Deadlift High Pull | Goblet Squat |
7 Merkins | 7 Merkins | 7 Merkins | 7 Merkins |
20 walking lunges | 20 walking lunges | 20 walking lunges | 20 walking lunges |
100 meter run | 75 meter run | 50 meter run | 25 meter run |
Got everyone through about 3-4 times (which was hell-a-lot of lunges), perfect number of PAX for this, and there was minimal waiting.
Worked on a build-up burpee, something popularized in SOB land some years ago.
Now are bodies have some important positions to anchor too whilst we burpee the next time. (i.e none of this failing about, Flurpee, nonsense)
Off we trotted towards the main entrance. Everyone was instructed to get on their sixes with their head near an aluminum post. And we worked on some Simplified Dragon Flag Negatives, Plank Jacks (regular and at six inches). Something like this:
Sorry, not sorry, for a bit of a change up at the Body Shop today. Less running around, more grunting and lifting. The general feedback seemed to be positive, and everyone did excellent work in the main event. Das Boot was seen hoisting the Liberty Bell (ye ole 80lb KB) at least one of the trips through. A few others went with the heavy choices as well. Lot’s of good pain-oriented noises throughout, YHC included, which is a marker of some kind of success. Well done all.
Penalty Box (R, R, R) and Centerfold (R) were working some strong brick game in the 0.0 traveling AO, MASH, and stayed at the start area. Good work guys.
Thanks for the invite, Das Boot. Hope to work the Body Shop into the fitness rotation again sometime.
Das Boot invited YHC to Q out at Body Shop this Thursday, 4/8. IR has limited running and created
somewhat of a strength focus for YHC for the last year, so… as the site name implies, this will be a strength focused endeavor on Thursday. Heart rates will be elevated, some mileage will occur, but likely a little below the typical ~5km required of a boot camp. Expect some coupons, rocks, and other (un)pleasantries. p>
Bring a friend.
Dry, May-like conditions made getting warm the inevitable result of exiting one’s car. Disclaimed then things started heating up already on the mosey over to the least natural strip of rectangle grass you can imagine (very Waverly). Circle demanded and received.
- 20 Side Straddle Hops (IC)
- 15 Mountain Climbers (IC
- 10 Low Slow Lunge (Civ Count)
- 9 Windmills
- 15 Slow Push-Ups (Civ Count)
off we jog to the parking deck
For those not doing it, tough; this was a purely #swole challenge completion oriented but ended up yielding some heavy breathing.
snag a partner
- 5 pull-ups (partner counts, encourages or assists)
- flapjack
- 10 hand-slap partner pushups
- 15 Superman’s together.
4 rounds
mosey out of the deck around to the sludge pond, pointing out the top of the hill, park benches, and bottom of the hill.
There’s this picturesque body of water-ish stuff southeast of the Viva, just outside of the Waverly complex. There’s a little 250 meter hill that hugs the semi-circular rim of the west side. Pretty sure the contents of the “lake” are spawning some Ninja Turtles right now.
- gather at the base of the hill.
- Run to the Top (1/2 mile pace, 1/4 mile pace, 200 meter pace)
- mosey to the benches
- first to arrive leads jump lunges until the 6 is in.
- strict plank after 6 arrives (1-min)
- 15 push-ups OYO
- mosey down to base of hill.
Thrice, despite some grumble-chatter.
Jog back to the rectangular dog-piss turf. Line up around the perimeter.
Due to the high-winds that are prevalent in the inner Waverly pass, YHC had to stand in the center this time and endure the dog piss grass. Quick 7 ish minutes of core and push-ups.
- 10 Push-Ups, OYO
- 20 Heels to Heaven IC
- 10 Push-Ups, OYO
- 20 Flutter IC
- 10 Push-Ups, OYO
- 20 Crunch, IC
- 10 Push-Ups, OYO
- 10 6-inch Plank Jack, IC
- 10 Push-Ups, OYO
- 15 Chippy Cross, IC
- 10 Push-Ups, OYO
Jog the wrong way. Nearly all PAX chiming in to point out the time. Clearly, they’ve never posted for an Argo Q; have we ever been late… no. Punctuality is all there is. It’s a piece of imperturbable binary in the natural order; you are either on-time, or late. There is no gray. #digression
- All you got back to launch. (Optional to yell, “Viva Chicken”)
Arrived at 6:14:45:001. For circles, counting, naming, and such. Transporter takes us out, and we done.
Well. Another should-have-brought-a-snorkel kinda morning at the Foxhole. Humid as hell. If it weren’t for the 5 steely eyed men waiting for a workout, it would have been a quittin’ kinda morning for YHC. Guess that’s why it’s better to do this in large groups. Harder to quit. In any case, there was no planned workout; just a faint whisper of what the first 30 seconds of the warm-up would be. Here’s what happened.
Off we went around the school, chasing roughly 100 U.S.A bunnies from various patches of grass. While the PAX were distracted with all the scurrying about, YHC went from zero to weinke, in 60 seconds. Back near the launch we warmed up with this circuit.
- 20 lunge walk steps
- Run Forward to the end of the lot
- 10 Merkins
- Backwards Run back to the start.
- 10 Merkins
- 20 lunge walk steps
- Run Forward to the end of the lot
- 10 Merkins
- Backwards Run back to the start.
- 10 Merkins
5 PAX, 10 bells… let’s whittle that down to ONLY the biggest, most bigly, bells. Final weightage was: 80 lbs, 55 lbs, 55 lbs, 45 lbs, 40 lbs . Those bells were each carefully backed into an empty parking space so as to give each man enough room to swing it. The following exercises are all sets of five, where each PAX gets a chance to use each of the bells. Here’s what we did:
- 20 Swings
- 5 Cadence Pull-ups
- 20 Swings
- 4 Cadence Pull-ups
- 20 Swings
- 3 Cadence Pull-ups
- 20 Swings
- 2 (5-count) Cadence Pull-ups
- 20 Swings
- AMRAP OYO Pull-ups
- 10 Sumo Deadlift High Pull
- 10 Hanging Knees to Elbows
- … (repeat 5 time)
- 7 Push-Ups (Right Hand on Bell, Left on Ground)
- 7 Push-Ups (Left Hand on Bell, Right on Ground)
- Pull-Ups (same descent as Set One)
- … (repeat 5 time)
- 8 Lunge Steps, Bell on Right Shoulder, Right Leg Only Lunges.
- 8 Lunge Steps, Bell on Left Shoulder, Left Leg Only Lunges.
- 10 second rest to switch bells.
- … (repeat 5 time)
Core strength is central. So:
- 10 cadence LBC (Argonaut)
1013 cadence Box-Cutter (Wild Turkey)- 10 cadence 6-inch LBC (General)
- 10 cadence Russian Twist (Transporter)
- 10 espanol cadence Rosalita (Mighty Mite)
- 10 french-japanese-spanish cadence 6-inch plank-jack (Argonaut)
No significant pre-plan still turned into a solid workout, at least according to attendees and YHC’s already DOMS-y muscles. The group covered roughly a mile and a half of ground and fought hard for it. Workouts like this are easier to read than do. If you are an F3er that only runs, and does bootcamps (which are predominantly running), you too can experience the benefits of adding some weight training (especially pull-oriented exercises), to your fitness routine. It’d be a lie to quote, “It doesn’t hurt to try”, it will hurt, but in all the right ways (when done carefully). Other notes:
Argonaut Out.
After a sizable earned sabbatical, “General _” called YHC back from administrative leave to Q at FishFoxBoxHoleCamp, or whatever it has devolved to in YHC’s absence. “_” also called a pre-run that was only attended by Wild Turkey, who received a couple salutatory honks from YHC’s beat up 2005 Tahoe that blew by him on Ardrey Kell. Excellent work pavo salvaje.
Warm-up wasn’t necessary for any poultry-oriented PAX, but the rest of the crew just rolled out of the bed (or off the john, like “_“) and needed to activate the muscles. YHC opted to skip the usual C(ircle)OP in favor of a R(ectangle)OP. After a short, rectangular lap-round-the-campus and a hurried and awkward disclosure, we imagined a rectangular shape of roughly 80 by 20 yards and did thus, twice:
- Corner 1: 25 KB swings
- Run Forward
- Corner 2: 25 Merkins
- Shuffle Right
- Corner 3: 25 Squats
- Backwards Run
- Corner 4: 25 LBCs
- Shuffle Left
So as not to be accused of shapism, we allowed for some diversity in shapes, and succumbed to a large circular shape and prepared for a (bad) breathy call of various cadenced movements, all civilian count, with interjections of OYO. Like so:
- 10 Low, Very Slow KB Squats, IC
- 20 One Arm KB Swings, OYO
- 10 Low Squat and 2-hand press, IC
- 20 One Arm KB Swings, OYO
- 10 Low KB Jump Squats, IC
- 20 One Arm KB Swings, OYO
- 10 … (nope, no jump squat and press)
To the vocalized dismay of several in the group, we force marched over to the mouth of the Devil’s Driveway. The Way is a long (0.5m), winding, speedbumped, piece of asphalt that leads deep into Elon park’s darkness where an unusual amount of 5am cars enter, but very few return. After some brief instructions and bell relocation (to the grass), be performed the appropriately named “suicide”:
- speed bumps mark the suicide lines
- every time a hump is crossed, 10 hand-release Merkins
- every time you are back at the baseline, 20 KB swings, 10 KB Squat.
All workouts must come to an end (as must all backblasts), so we waltzed up to the launch point, bells adroitly and precariously perched directly over our heads. We closed out with some work on the chassis, all in cadence:
- 25 Chippy Chipotle Spicy Mc-Cross
- 10 Full Arm Plank Jack
- 10 6 inch Plank Jack
Great to be out of doors, in the gloom, with the PAX, after 6 months of volunteer absenteeism. The break was nice, did some other fitness things, stayed active, etc, but missed the silent competitiveness and loud camaraderie of the morning group. Good effort out there buy most. “_” barely even tried and still crushed us all. The rest of the group REALLY put forth an effort, or win several collective oscars for fooling the Q. Hope to see you all around more. Contact me on Slack if you are interested in Qing Cerberus in July for SOB month, I have 2 more open slots.
Argonaut Out.
4 bros circled up on the blacktop next to Yama, a trendy Asian grub spot at the ole Waverly. Low numbers due to Spring Break, which was perfect for today’s weinke. YHC’s first post/Q in 90 days, disclaimer was a bit rough and unrehearsed, but it did happen.
Mosey over to the Whole Foods employee parking lot.
Several trips up the stairs, all followed by a simple single step run down, some partners, some not. We stopped a few times to plank/merkin. Here’s what we got into:
All the below are up 6 flights of stairs-ish
Pause for something different.
Back to the stairs
Pause for something different.
Mosey back the launch and square off. 20 count Mary called by each PAX:
“Don’t call it a come back”, says Turkey. Fine, we won’t call it that. We will however call it a fun day at the Cerberus. Few PAX make for many weinke options and nowhere to hide (especially for the Q). A couple observations from the morning:
Good to workout with someone new (new to YHC). Zekeface was crushing it out there; hope the legs are ok for the run tomorrow.
Pop Tart complained about his knees. Some things never change (and shouldn’t)
Wild Turkey will still be calling Sid the Kid every mary oppo he gets, and will be demonstrating each time. Some things never change (and shouldn’t). Wild Turkey has the Q next week. Be there.
Argo out.
Imagine you can’t see, on account of blinding oncoming automobile head lamps, you can’t hear, as a result of a humid, howling, head wind, and you can’t trust your step due to the bramble infested, crack laden hilly sidewalk. Imagine all this and you have, JRR Tolkien’s impression of our Providence Halfpipe 5K pre-run. Tuck, Transporter, Tolkien, Goodfella, and YHC partook in the hilly course.
27 total had gathered for a pre-launch as the pre-runners returned. Probably the biggest “pre” launch in modern history. Transporter’s weinke was likely altered, YHC threw his in the dumpster. Modify. Adapt. Overcome.
(Transporter Leads)
Mosey over to the very wide parking deck to receive some instructions.
Repeat for each ramp AND flat, which was 8 lengths
(Argonaut leads)
Mosey down a ramp.
Run back to the top of the parking deck
Run back to the bottom of the deck for Mary.
20 Flutter, in cadence.
Great group from a variety of regions out at “Cerberus” today. Oh by the way, that was the crowd favorite during COT. Runners up were: Black Pearl, Trifecta, Alliance, The Wave Pool. Brutal partner work set-up from Transporter, the initial trip up the deck was a real grinder. Great effort from everyone. During COT, Transporter reminded us that the point of this AO is not to draw existing PAX from the the surrounding regions but to partner the regions together in an effort to bring a large quantity of new comers into the ranks. Join us.
Transporter, Alf, and YHC are initial site Qs for the new spot. Alf has the Q next week for the launch. Several Friday workouts are converging.
Argo Out.
General accommodated YHC’s abysmal pace for nearly 3 miles. If only the cold could truly be blamed. #christmasbooze #holidayonice
With a total of four shivering men awaiting Q instructions we started off:
20 SSH IC
10 Merkins IC
10 High Slow Pull-ups IC
300 meter KB weighted mosey down to the lower fields.
If was a simple thang today. An AMRAP of sorts, but one that kept the PAX in close proximity.
20 One Arm Swings
20 Merkins
8 lunges (16, 24, 32, 40 …)
Run 600 meters around both fields.
(add 8 lunges, 4 each leg, in each round)
After about **5.??** rounds, with around 10 minutes until endex, we headed back to the launch via a KB weighted mosey, and finished with this closer:
5 Fat Bar pull-ups
10 merkins
5 commando pull-ups
10 merkins
5 circular pull-ups
10 merkins
5 slow count negative pull-ups
10 merkins
90 second plank.
The AMRAP is often railed against for being exclusionary, too competitive, and/or leaving the six to fend for themselves. While that can sometimes be true, a good AMRAP also has some real benefit, for both the leader and the six.
The spirit of competition, especially amongst males, is a strong motivator. A motivator that is sometimes enough on it’s own to push the six. Strong encouragement from other PAX, along with the competitive spirit is a great combo. AMRAPs that are done in a relatively close vicinity (i.e all PAX can see all other PAX for the duration of the training) are great for delivering a competitive spirit and the ability to “cheer” on lagging dudes. Strongly recommend a tight geographical area for your next AMRAP workout, seems to help the community spirit, while still allowing everyone to get a great workout.
Great group of veteran dudes out there for said AMRAP, it looked like a board meeting (except Wild Turkey was present, so that was different); YHC probably would have called a different workout if some of the newer PAX were there. Great work men.
Several pre-runners arrived at various times for the final Foxhole of the year. Fire Hazard, NardDog, Paw Patrol, Cobbler, Argonaut and 2 FNGs… that’s right, 2 FNGs out there pre-running.
After with 4 additional on-time, regular time PAX, the final number was 11. Prime. Not ideal for the planned partner workout.. whatever, we’ll audible the whole thing. Here we go.
- 30 Side Straddle Hop (Cadence)
- 20 Low Slow Squats (Cadence)
- 10 Merkins (Cadence)
- 5 Good Mornings (Cadence)
- Lap Around the School with: Butt Kicks, High Knees, Karaoke, and Back Pedals.
The goal of today’s workload was to spend some time in the low-rep, high resistance zone, some time in high-rep, low resistance zone, and some in between.
Grab a partner (or group of three), and set up Bells about 5 ft from the edge of the curb. Partner A places hands on bell handles, feet on curb, Partner B places palms of hands on Partner A’s shoulders and applies the requisite amount of down force.
- Each PAX gets 3 rounds of 6 deep, abyss merkins. Partner provides sufficient resistance to limit reps to 6, simulating heavy weight.
- Fast 400m lap around the parking lot.
Everyone line up, with KB in front of you. Complete the following circuit, AYG.
- 10 KB High Pulls
- 10 KB Squats
- 20 Swings
- 10 Pull-ups
- 10 KB High Pulls
- 10 KB Squats
- 20 KB Swings
- 5 Pull-ups
Shoulder your bell and jog it slowly down to the mouth of the Devil’s Driveway. Prepare for an AMRAP. There are 4 speed bumps along the 1/2 mile sloping track.
- 10 KB Press
- Speedbump Suicides (each speed bump perform 2 more reps of both merkin and jump squat than the previous speed bump)
- Round everyone up for a 180 yard AYG sprint.
- Recover
- 10 KB Press
Gather all the PAX at the launch for a 8 minutes of core work. A mix of leg lifts, vertical flutters, LBC, horizontal flutters, etc.
Welcome to our two FNGs:
Too much time has passed for an adequate rip at a moleskine, and time is running out tonight. It’s been a great year at the Foxhole, and this was a great way to end the year. A good group of guys continues to get better.
Until Next Year.
Argo
Apologies for the late BB; too much going on these days.
Solo. 5k, in a neighborhood of particularly sinister Halloween houses.
Partner-up with someone of like bell-size and head to the Playground. Each round was 3 sets of each exercise, partner switching on P1’s achievement of the called reps.
Round 1
Round 2
Round 3
Round 4
There is a winding drive in the rear of Elon park that curves its way into the dark abyss; it’s roughly a 1/3rd of a mile long. And there are 4 randomly places speed bumps on it. It is hereafter known as, the Devil’s Driveway.
Pull-ups as we wait on the six, then 8 minutes of windshield wiper mary that left the abdominals quivering.