15 big hairy men did some competitive analysis.
The SOBs have been noticing some puzzling form at the non-Ballantyne AOs. Being a compassionate bunch, we feel sorry for those other AO pax, and thought we’d spend the workout trying to get inside their heads and see what makes them tick.
The Thang:
Mosey to parking lot for warm up: 10 SSH, 10 Imperial Walker, 10 Mountain Climber
Mosey to next parking lot for the Premature Excitement merkin. This usually occurs early in a workout, when the Q is desperate to get going, having been thinking about this since the night before. In his excitement, he pumps out the merkins way to fast. The pax can’t keep up, and the result is a lousy experience all around.
Mosey to next parking lot for the Saggy Butt merkin. This is for those who can’t keep their back straight. It seems easier but ends up hurting where it shouldn’t and not hurting where it should.
Mosey to next parking lot for the Shallow Character merkin. Also known as the head bob, the metro merkin, and too many others to mention. Not strong enough to deal with the perceived shame of not being able to keep up, (he doesn’t realize that everyone else is cheating too), Joe 6-pax thinks that simply bobbing his head up and down will get the job done. Not so.
Mosey to next parking lot for the Sneaky Cheat merkin. This one looks the part as it involves going all the way to the ground, but sneaky Joe 6-pax decides he can take the blue pill by not going all the way up. Say it ain’t so, Joe! What do you do that for?
Mosey to the next parking lot for the Stick Your Neck Out merkin. This ruse involves craning your neck forward and down so it looks like you are getting full extension, but of course you actually are not. YHC has been known to indulge in this bad boy from time to time. Takes some focus to avoid.
Mosey to the next parking lot for the Double Cross merkin. Crossing your legs or putting one leg on top of the other may feel as if it is taking the strain away, but all it does is throw you off balance.
Mosey to the next parking lot to put it all together for…… the Go Ruck merkin. Including elements of all of the above, this is the most pointless exercise you will ever do. It’s par for the course (at least it was for YHC) about five minutes after the Go Ruck welcome party starts. You’d be better off tying a bag of bricks around your leg and trying to go for a swim.
After going through all this, the wholesome SOBs felt pretty dirty, and decided that we should now do some real merkins to cleanse all this junk out of our system. Frehleys had been wondering what the whistle was for. From now on, if any of the preceding junk was witnessed, the whistle would sound for 5 burpees.
The tour continued with burpees, dips, pull ups, etc, but that is too much to write about for now. We finished up with a modified mini-murph where the numbers were limited to 5 pull-ups, 10 merkins, plus a run around the lake. This was repeated as many times as possible. Whistle rules applied.
Moleskin:
Thanks for the good humor.
It turned out to be a solid workout, and hopefully gave us all a reminder of why we are out here. Iron sharpens iron. Funnily enough, poop doesn’t sharpen poop.
To be fair to the Rucktards out there, Swiss Mist was wearing a ruck, and he did some seriously impressive merkins throughout. Perhaps it’s just YHC who can’t do merkins with bricks on his back.
Always a joy to lead a great group of men.
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