Author Archive Boerewors

Less than 8 hours of RockZero

My first Q in quite some time at RockZero, weather was perfect and no site Qs were joining the workout, so we could celebrate May Day in peace. I did promise no burpees and that the workout would be less than an 8 hour work day, and I think we were successful.

The Thang

Warmup run to side of Calvary which included some  high knees, butt kickers, karaoke. Had to go around a bit to add be able to get both sides of the karaoke, but the PAX still complained it wasn’t quite enough karaoke.

Circle up for some SSH, mountain climbers, IW, Merkins (seems like I need to work on my cadence counting for merkins), Sharon Towers, Carolina Dry Docks, Low slow squats.

 

Run to grassy field in front of the church

5 corners – deconstructed burpee edition

Middle: jumpsquats x16

Corners (x16):

Merkins

LBCs

Widearms

Heels to heaven

Diamonds

Second round reduced this to 8, which felt much better.

 

North Face:

Feet on curb planks, with called exercises, and some moves to the sides (bear walks?)

Shoulder taps, Mountain climbers, arm highs, back pockets, peter parkers and various other fun little activities that were broken up by some North Face loops. Think we did 3-4 loops, but who is keeping track anyway.

 

Rock Pile / Baseball Field:

Lifting rock

Partner 1 runs around outside of field (obstacle course)

Partner 2 does exercise curls, overhead press, tricep ext, rock squats.

Joker Lap – each partner had to do at least 1 joker lap hitting all the bases.

 

Back for some Mary.

 

Moleskin

Thanks for letting me lead! It has been a while since I’ve done some North Face loops and Baseball field loops, both of which turns out is quite a bit of distance, so that managed to eat up most of the workout. We did manage to get a good 3.3 miles, but that did mean we didn’t quite have time for the 2nd half of the weinke. Still, was fun to do some of the more “old school” items at RockZero. Great work by the PAX, especially since no one got hurt on the baseball field loops (man, those holes are huge).

Triple play at RockZero

Runstopper requested a last minute substitute Q, hope you recovery quickly! I think half the pax volunteered to Q, so we just decided to share. I started us off, Nemo got the middle 20 and McGee brought it home.

Warmup
Short run to the middle of the parking lot to circle up for the warmup:
SSH, Mountain Climbers, IW and some sharon towers (windmills).

The Thang
Ran over to the far parking lot next to 51, did some ladders with merkins at the base and situps every island.
Ran over for some Wall Time:
People’s chair with arm raises, hip slappers, air punches, donkey kicks, “shoulders, knees and toes”, balls to the wall toe taps etc

Nemo took over with some partner work:
Partner one runs to the playground for pull-ups and merkins
Partner two does burpee broad jumps and lunges.
Flap jack and repeat, was brutal.

By popular demand Nemo sponsored rock time:
Lifting rocks in a circle, exercise and rotate all the way around.
overhead press, curls, tricep ext, rock lbcs and like 5 other variations.

McGee took over for the last 20 minutes…
Parking lot alternating exploding merkins and jump squats at every line.
Round two had diamonds and changed to every second line. There might have been a round 3, but my brain refuses to remember.
A couple of sprint runs, we had to keep going until Sprockets let McGee win one.

Triple speed mary to burn last 5 minutes, not sure anyone could understand the instructions since they were so fast.

Moleskine
Thanks for all the offers by the PAX to take part of the Q, it seemed as soon as McGee offered, everyone wanted to do it rather. Thanks to Nemo and McGee for completing the Triple Play.

Strong work by all the Pax, especially Dingo and Sprockets who were keeping McGee in check.
I received universal praise for my lifting rock choice, some (McGee) even calling it the most beautiful lifting rock they’ve ever seen, at least until McGee found one that had a shoulder notch.

Announcements (text stolen from Hoover)

Vagabond – November 10th, Hickory Tavern, 13 miles, 6 AOs, t-shirts are available. Check the pre-blast.

Christmas Party – Dec 1st, 6:00 PM, Seaboard in Matthews, food by Brown Bag

Swimming with the fishes

Apparently I missed a DM from Nemo asking me to post this, so this might be some kind of record for the slowest backblast post ever. My bad, here follow’s Nemo’s backblast. – Boerewors.

13 posted for a rock zero sweatfest

THANG:

After a Thorough disclaimer to my 2 FNGs mosey across rea to Library parking lot
SSH x30
5 burpees OYO
MC x20
5 Burpees OYO

Febreze: stole this gem from Laronda, 1x world war situp then 5 arm presses while holding 6 inches then 2 sit-ups then 3 etc. wasn’t able to capture full effect of this one due to McGee and Spackler’s lovely mumble chatter.
Walk over to parking spaces and grab a line, scoot to the line to the right and do 1 merkin then back to the one you started and then do 2 and then back to right do 3… all the way to 10. YHC thought this would shut up the Mumblechatter but to no avail so took the long way around to 51 and entered Calvary’s 2nd entrance for the main event.

•Start at lot in front of hotbox and partner up
•P1 hairburn to 2nd lightpost and back while P2 did Merkins then flapjack. 2nd set was squats then 3rd LBCs. Mumblechatter started to die down a little bit…
•keep same partners and do catch me if you can with hairburners and get to the end of the lot and back. #soulcrusher
Mosey over to the hotbox for more parter work. P1 runs to far trash can while P2 does derkins, then flapjack. Then dips 2nd round step ups 3rd.
Mosey over to far lot near baseball fields for a crowd favorite cheddar shredder. Lots of modifying going on there. With Out of Ideas YHC took Purell’s excellent advice and deciding to do some rounds on the ye old Northface.
•do 10 merkins at bottom then run loop and complete 2 more sets of the same.
Mosey over to the launch lot and do some circle mary then done.

Moleskine:
•Glad to have both FNGs Swiffer & Rafiki who both pushed hard the whole workout
•Good to see sprocket who is a site FNG and new to area
•YHC rejoiced when McGee pulled in at 6:59 per usual so my 2 FNGs could experience that “McGee charm” which includes excessive Mumblechatter and perfectly G rated humor.
•Marlin on take out

Announcements
•YHC, Marlin, and Rafiki are all traveling to Kenya leaving today so prayers are appreciated

Thanks to Flipper for opportunity to lead
Nemo out.

• Thanks to Marlin with the take out.

South African Freedom Day at RockZero

Quick summary of South African freedom day, 24 years ago the first free elections were held in South Africa… but that right to vote didn’t extend to any of the Pax.

Prompt start to the workout, since we were on African Time. Bug eater had to catch up, no waiting.

Warm Up:

Mosey over to a very busy looking soccer field, some high knees, butt kickers and confused directional karaoke on the way there.

Circle up for some SSH, Mountain Climbers, IW, copperhead squats and the very popular windmills.

The Thang:

Over to the slight hill / incline on the side of the soccer field, doing some ladder/8s with burpees on top and LBCs at the bottom. Another popular exercise due to the frost on the field. I’ll admit that my hands were pretty frozen after this, gotta love spring this year.

Avoid the crowd and head over to the hotbox and grab some wall.

Wall sits with arm raises, and hip slappers, quick loop.

Wall sits with air punches, donkey kicks and quick loop.

Wall sits with foot raises, balls to the wall toe taps, quick loop.

Wall sits with some zombie arms, more donkey kicks, and quick loop to finish it off.

 

Got tired of the crowd, so we headed off to the baseball field.

Picked up some rocks, there were heavy complaints from Flipper about following the RockZero light rules, but this is South African Freedom Day, so he was ignored.

Partner up Baseball loops, with one partner doing Curls, overhead press, tricep ext and rock squats.

 

Rocks were returned except for the amazing boerewors diamond stone (clearly one of the heavier stones in existence), which was places strategically on the baseball field to give us a good target.

Lots of very creative, fully pre-planned field exercises were performed, mostly in cadence and some running. The Pax were convinced I wouldn’t be able to recall all of the exercises for the backblast, but I know they really just want to copy the workout, so I’ll skip the details.

I think the stand out exercises for the day were the bearcrawl slaloms and plank slaloms, clearly a crowd favorite as the field nicely thawed and turned into a muddy/grassy mess.

After a quick extra loop to recover the diamond rock and futile attempt to get some extra mileage to meet the 3 mile limit, we added some dips before a return to the starting location.

 

Quick mary with an excessive amount of LBCs while the last seconds counted away to stop on exactly 1hr.

Moleskin:

Good job to all the Pax, especially Bug eater that managed to find us after we ran off exactly on time. Quite a sneaky entry too, went completely unnoticed by the Q until he sounded out.

Flipper’s new favorite exercise appears to be the windmill, although we did do some late american hammers and it did seem to win him over.

Great seeing Safelite out again, first time this year, bringing in the South African support.

Great job by the rest of the Pax of regulars at RockZero, it is a honor to lead a workout.

 

Announcements:

  1. Check out #the_sandbox on slack to see where you can help out with some yard work for people who need it. Otherwise hit up Flipper for more info.
  2. The high heel shoe run is next week, check with Jetfuel for more info, sounds like beer might be involved.
  3. South African Braai (BBQ) next week saturday at the Charlotte Rugby Club (10-4pm), free for anyone, come say hi if you are  interested in finding out what Boerewors really is.

Horses do some running, right?

A day late on the BB, no excuse…

The Charge is still going strong, enjoying our underground status with shared Qs. With GAAP visiting we decided to do a more traditional workout, as well as include a bit more running into the Charge for a change.

Warmup

Run down the the track and around, doing some high knees, butt kickers and karaoke before circling up.

SSH, Mountain Climbers, IW and slow squats took care of the warmup.

The Thang

4 Corners around the track, with 5, 10, 15 and 20 of called exercise:

Round 1: Merkins, 2: LBCs, 3: diamonds, 4: jumpsquats, 5: mountain climbers

a couple of breather breaks in there with some planking related exercises.

Wall Time:

People’s chair with arm raises, donkey kicks and run around goals.

People’s chair with air punches, hip slappers and run around goals.

People’s chair with foot raises, donkey kicks and run around goals.

People’s chair with knees, shoulders etc, hip slappers and run around goals.

Rock Time:

2 groups, one group runs around pavilion while other group does called exercise: curls, overhead press, tricep ext, rock squats.

Rock lunge walk, rock LBCs, some minor rock running.

Quick sprint back for 30 seconds of mary.

Moleskine

It wasn’t quite cold enough to show off the new parking deck today, but there is always next week. Great job by all the pax, and not too much complaining, even with the extra running. Probably a mile more than our average for the charge.

Lots of announcements, see twitter

Sausage fest was overrated

Disclaimer was given properly since I saw some new faces, had to hold up for a minute to wait for Nemo who was struggling to find his way from his car to join the PAX, and we were on our way.

Warm Up:

Run to side of church, decided to go for parking lot since the side of the church seemed a bit cramped, but the PAX still kept the circle nice and tight.

Some SSH, Mountain Climbers, IW and slowish Squats felt like a good textbook workout.

 

The Thang:

We ran over to join the geese and morning fog on the field for a 4 pointed starfish.

Directions were a bit slow and not detailed enough for the PAX, so seems like there was a bit of confusion, but we pushed through:

10 Merkins in the middle, and 4 corner had 20 jump squats, 20 LBCs,  20 heels to heaven, and 5 burpees since I couldn’t think of anything and apparently that is all the PAX dream of.

 

Mosey to parking lot where I was finally awake enough to give more detailed directions:

Round 1: Modified parking space tracers with zig-zag line touches in ladder form, with 20, 15, 10 and 5 merkin stations at each median.

Round 2: Bear crawls / Crab walks switch for every median, LBCs in 20, 15, 10 and 5 at each median.

Round 3: Repeat round 1 now that everyone knows what we are doing.

 

Mosey to the wall for some people’s chair:

Arms punches, donkey kicks, arm raises, hip slappers, repeat with some short runs.

 

Head to Hotbox for some rounds:

Round1: 20 dips, run to far trashcan, 20 step ups, run to 2nd trashcan, 20 derkins, next trash can.

Round2: 10 of each to closer trashcans.

 

Heading back we stopped for some partner swap pull-ups and LBCs.

 

Moleskin:

Good seeing some new faces at the RockZero this morning. I think the promise of a Sausage fest convinced some of the PAX to come out. I did see at least 80% guys today, so I think we meet the urban dictionary definition, so no false advertising claims here. Also, if your Q is named after a sausage, you know what you get (Boerewors is South African sausage for those who don’t know).

Great job by everyone today, we got in 3.3 miles and we didn’t touch any rocks! Next time I’ll consider having a coffee so I can remember workout names during the first 10 minutes of my Q.

Thanks to Flipper for taking us out.

Announcements:

RockZero is closed next week for the Isabella Santos 5K, hope to see you all there! Otherwise head over to Ascent for a workout.

Sign up / Sponsor F3 Golf

 

Shared Qs at the Charge and we found rocks!

 

Quick intro for the new Shared Q format at the Charge. Basically we are taking a teamwork approach to leading, breaking the 45 min workout into 2 or 3 sections of at least 15 min each. We encourage anyone to step up for a 15 min Q as practice for a full Q, or to try out some new exercises/formats. Reach out to me or John Deere, or simply post on a Wednesday morning and let us know.

 

Warm Up:

John Deere took the first part of the Q, straight to the circle and for some SSH, IW, Mountain Climbers, Squats, Peter Parkers and Parker Peters, and finished it off with 10 oyo burpees. I think John Deere is easing us back into his burpee heavy warmups, but luckily that was the last burpees for the day.

 

The Thang:

Over to the wall, partner up and do a couple of rounds:

  1. Half lap and back, while partner wall sits, flap-jack
  2. 2x quarter lap, with 10 merkins every stop, partner hand raises wall-sit.
  3. 2x quarter lap, more merkins every stop, partner lbcs.

I (Boerewors) took over, mosey to the back of the athletic center, quick sprint and find some lifting rocks.

We did a couple of laps around building:

  1. 20 curls, 20 press-ups, 20 tricep ext. run, plank.
  2. 15 curls, 15 press-ups, 15 tricep ext. run, wall sit, some punching in cadence, and donkey kicks oyo.
  3. 10 curls, 10 press-ups, 10 tricep ext. run, wall sit, 10 hip slappers
  4. 15 curls, 15 press-ups, 15 tricep ext. run, wall sit and arm raises.

Return rocks and go to the stands:

Snake through the stairs for 3 laps:

  1. 10 dips, run up and down, 10 dips, run up and down 10 dip. Plank and 10 Mike Tysons.
  2. 10 step ups, run up and down, 10 steps ups, run up and down, 10 step ups. Plank and Merkins.
  3. Last lap had some LBCs and squats.

Mosey to back and quick sprint to COT.

Moleskin:

Great job by the PAX, there was a serious concern raised by Nibbler about the prospect of having to pick up a rock, however once we promised that he wouldn’t have to run with it, he seemed to reluctantly accept his fate. John Deere felt strong after his first half Q and picked the largest rock available, which lasted about half way through the first round. Still, respect that he managed to get that far with a rock that size. Who even knew this AO had rocks?

Thanks to Telsa for taking us out.

Announcements:

HDHH tonight at Providence Sundries, look out for brewery meetup on the 20th at Legion Brewing.

Join GAAP and  for a 5k this Saturday in memory of Bryon.

 

Field day and the return of John Deere

Cooler morning (although humidity is still too high) saw the return of John Deere to the Charge with cheers from the PAX.

First part of the workout was led by me (Boerewors) before handing over the reins to John Deere for his return. 1 FNG from Chicago brought in by a visitor from Atlanta (Home Boy), so a proper detailed disclaimer was given.

Warm Up:

Lap around the track, some karaoke, high knees and butt kickers.

Circle up for some  SSH, mountain climbers, IW and Merkins to finish off the textbook warm-up.

 

The Thang:

End-zone ladder was started, with exercises in 10 yards increments to the 50 yard line (7s style). Think it was LBCs and Jumpsquats.

Full field ladder for 2nd half of the field, also 10 yard increments, all the way to the other endzone, think it was hand release merkins and low squats.

Moved on to some wall work, with people chair, arm raises, donkey kicks, punches, quick run past goal, foot raises and more donkey kicks before ending it with 1 more run around the goal posts.

 

John Deere took over, which called for Bear Crawls and crab walks (25 yard each).

Some partner work with burpees, lbcs, merkins, heels to heaven and some running including chest ground touches (every 10 yards). Rounded it off with some more bear crawls.

Probably some other exercises that my brain decided to remove from my memory.

Headed back to COT with a quick sprint and ended with some Mary.

 

Moleskin:

The return of our Site Q (John Deere) seemed to raise the intensity a bit, or maybe just the bear crawl speed. That could be why the chatter level was lower than normal, or the PAX decided to just keep it civil for our visitors (Home Boy and Scratch ‘n Sniff (FNG)). Great effort by the PAX, definitely pushing harder to show John Deere that we still have it.

 

Announcements:

HDHH tonight, look out for brewery meetup coming up too. Lost track of other announcements, check twitter.

 

The PAX loves some cool merkins

My first time Q at this AO, now that it is nice and official. Was a lovely cool morning, the PAX seemed to be enjoying it so much it was difficult to get the chatter down for the disclaimer, but once that was given we were off…

Warm Up

partly around track, with some karaoke and high heels.

Circle up for SSH, Merkins, Mountain climbers, Imperial Walkers.

Track

Inside square of track –

Lap 1 – 5, 10, 15, 20 Merkins

Lap 2 – 5, 10, 15, 10, jumpsquats

Lap 3 – 5, 10, 15, 10 widearms

Little break over to the wall for some people’s chair and arm raises.

5 hip slappers on your own

Return to the square –

Lap 4- 5, 10, 15, 10 lbcs

Lap 5 – 5, 10, 15, 10 diamonds

Back to wall

Peoples chair for some foot raises

10 donkey kicks on your own

People chair for another 20 (punch)

5 hip slappers on your own

Stands

Mosey to bottom of the stands

Partner 1 runs around top loop

Round 1 – dips

2 – step ups

3 – decline merkins

4 – lbcs

Head back with some Merkins and Burpees, quick sprint, and some Mary to finish it off.

Great seeing some new faces at the Charge as word spreads that we are official again. We have some throwback Qs lined up later this month, with Baracus, DDs and Bulldog returning for a Q.

Good work by the PAX all around, the cooler weather definitely helped, and other than a couple of drops of rain we managed to stay nice and dry. Pigskin was running hard especially towards the end. A decent amount of feedback on the variations for merkins, but I think we managed to get enough of those in, I could definitely feel it towards the end with the extra Mike Tysons.

Announcements:

See Whim for a 5k at McAlpine Park (7th day Adventist sponsored), last day to get your bright F3 shirts ordered, donate to Speed for Need!

Serving Some Cold Merkins

Checked earlier in the week and the forecast was 60F, checked this morning and it was 26F.

Probably my coldest Q so far, so tried to start with some laps to get warmed up, didn’t really help.

 

The Thang

 

Warmup: Disclaimer with some interruptions from Gummy about how they did disclaimers before the war. Quick lap around the track, some karaoke on the way. Circle up for some SSH, Merkins (the start of good things to come), IW, mountain climbers, squats.

 

Still freezing, so we fit some squares in an oval shape, doing a couple of rounds:

  1. 5, 10, 15, 20 Merkins
  2. 5, 10, 15, 20 Jumpsquats
  3. 5, 10, 15, 20 Wide Arms
  4. 5, 10, 15, 20 LBCs
  5. 5, 10, 15, 20 Diamonds

 

Run up to playground for some people’s chair, arm raises and a couple of rounds of crowd pleasing hip slappers. Any reason to slap some heat into this legs.

 

Back down to the grandstand for some partner rounds, group waiting on runners were doing some:

Dips, derkins, lbcs, incline merkins, squats.

 

Finally on the field for some 50 yard sprints, lunge walks, more merkins and maybe some lbcs.

Return to cars for 2 min of cool down with some more merkins for the fun of it, and finish it off with some Russian twists.

 

The Moleskin:

Gummy was on form patrol, definitely going for quality over quantity and making sure there is daylight on our jumpsquats. The PAX seemed to enjoy some of the metro exercises, specially the hip slappers, definitely need to add more of those. Good job guys!

Distance of 2.3 miles, got in our 200 merkins for the merkin challenge!

My first non-weekend Q, next time it will hopefully be a bit warmer.

Thanks for the Q guys!