Trainwreckking 101: A How-To

Trainwreckking 101: A How-To

Plus/minus a year ago, Chanel (probably over some Hopslam at the Lodge) swindled me into signing up for a Foxhole Q. Sure thing – not training for anything and who can’t use a little extra strength. Fast forward a year or so, and two or three Q reschedules later to somewhere around October 12, 2016.

Text from @voodoo: “Hey man, you’re still good to Q Foxhole next week?”

Text from @HB: “Yeah buddy, 100% IN” [translation: poo emoji]

So…never Q’d a KB workout before? Here’s how it works.

1. Search Youtube for: “how to do KB exercises”. What’s that you say? A formal KB clinic was held only this past weekend? Well, yeah, if you’re into doing things the smart way, do that. I opted out.
2. Spend the next hour or so getting sidetracked by “recommended videos” and realize you still have no idea how to swing a kettlebell.
3. Call it a day and “figure it out tomorrow”
4. T-minus 2 days til first KB Q: “Geez, I probably ought to go find me one of these kettleball things. How heavy should it be?” <- this is where you need to make a decision. Go “too light’ and you’ll never live it down. Go “too heavy”? Most guys’ll tell you that’s not possible. Good luck. It took trips to 3 different sporting goods stores to finally find a right-handed KB. 35lbs seemed reasonable- and it even had a stenciled “Hello Kitty” on it. #winning
5. T-minus 1 day til first KB Q: Run an obscene amount of miles training for an event arguably unrelated to anything to do with a ball of iron. (They’ll also tell you this is wrong. Whatever.) Somewhere around 2 hours into a run, I asked @TR for some advice for my first KB Q. He basically told me I was screwed and sent me Youtube videos of a weird russian guy singing. No help for the Q, but more quality wasted time watching unrelated videos #stillwinning
6. The workout started promptly at 0530. Here’s what went down:

The Thang:

COP: Merkins x 20IC, SSH x25 IC, Imperial Walker x20 IC, Mountain Climber x20 IC

Grab your KB and head to the turf fields. Circle up around the midfield circle for a twisted game of duckduckgoose. Perform called KB exercises. One guy sprints a lap around the circle, next guy goes, etc. Keep performing exercises until everyone completes a lap around the circle.

• Round 1: 2-handed swings
• Round 2: Goblet squats
• Round 3: 1-handed swings, alternate arms at 10 reps
• 10 burpees, plus a smattering of Mary after each round.

Partner up on the midfield stripe. P1/P2 sprint opposite directions to the goal lines, meet back in the middle for hand slap merkins. Each time, drop by 2. Start with 10, 8, 6, 4, 2. Recover actively with some plankorama.

Grab your KBs and high-tail back to the playground by the parking lot for more partner work.

• Complete 75 pull-ups per pair. Guy not doing pull-ups is doing swings. 10 Merkins OYO to recover.
• Complete 60 hanging knee-ups per pair. Guy not doing pull-ups does swings again. 10 Merkins OYO to recover.

10 clean & press each arm OYO

Mosey back to the parking lot. 10 burpees OYO.

The skin:

12.5 guys started together, and 13 finished together. Tolkien MAF’d his way into the circle somewhere shortly after kickoff. Somewhere between KB swing #6 and #7 of the duckduckgoose circuit, someone suggested we “may be on pace for a record number of swings at a workout.” Unsure if that was a good or bad thing, we persevered, Dingleberries and all. We kept it simple on the KB moves and most guys were cool with that. Front to back all 13 guys were hustlin’ this morning. Heisenberg mentioned that the heckling supportive texts he’d been getting from some of the guys got him back out after a week off. He was crushing it out there. Dude, I hope you’ve got an unlimited text plan, ’cause you opened yourself up for some more inbox traffic. Marlin and FC were the war dads this morning – not sure who took the trophy, but both were absolutely smoking dudes half their age – strong effort gents. Yogi was in town from south of the border and was out front most fo the morning – good having you visit, brother. Met a lot of other guys I haven’t seen much before and enjoyed Qing a KB workout a lot more than I expected. Beach season starts sometime around noon on 12/11. See y’all on the regular then. Appreciate the opportunity from Argo and Voodoo to lead this morning.

Southern Discomfort – Next Saturday. Launches from Centurion and ends at Hydra. Be there.