Everybody gets a strength workout!

Everybody gets a strength workout!

As a new year dawns in South Charlotte, it’s time to announce the establishment of a new series of strength workouts, including new days of the week and new locations. Pay attention so you know where to be starting on Monday, January 6th:

• Mondays at 0530:
  Name: TBD
  McAlpine Elementary (former site of Day Zero), 9100 Carswell Lane, Charlotte, NC 28277
  Site Qs: Mighty Mite and Ickey Shuffle
  Note: this will be a joint Area 51/SOB workout

• Wednesdays at 0530:
  Name: Meathead
  Calvary Church (site of Anvil), 5801 Pineville-Matthews Road, Charlotte, NC 28226
  Site Q: Voodoo
  Note: shared COT with Anvil (think Bagpipe/Swift or Hawks’ Nest/Fast Twitch)

• Saturdays at 0630:
  Name: Olympus
  Elizabeth Lane Elementary, 121 Elizabeth Lane, Matthews, NC 28105
  Site Q: Open (Voodoo for now)
  Note: this will be a 60-minute workout

Please note that Skunkworks will be unaffected by this change. Funky Cold and Tulip will continue to run that site at Covenant Day School in Matthews on Tuesdays at 0530.

The goal is for these three sites to work together on a coordinated strength program during certain parts of the year (similar to Bratwurst’s 1-month rotations at Swift). If you joined us for the Total Tension program earlier this year, it will be like that, but with a few different programs being run throughout the year. During a strength program, the site Qs or weekly Qs will lead the prescribed workout and post a backblast. When there’s not a strength program in effect, they will function like a traditional gear site with weekly Qs leading workouts of their own design (and also writing up backblasts).

The first strength workout is a modified version of a prep program for the StrongFirst Girevik Level I certification. I recommend reading the original post, which can be found here. I have modified this plan (see here) to reflect a few things:

1. 3 weekly workouts instead of 4 and elimination of the last week of tapering for the certification
2. Replacement of the TGU with the waiter carry (since none of you were going to do them anyway)
3. Increase in weights to account for the 24kg “standard” bell size for men per StrongFirst – modify this as needed! If you modify, try to keep the various steps up/down during the program consistent (i.e., if the program says to use a 28 instead of a 24, you should use a 24 instead of a 20).
4. The author of the article says these workouts last 60-90 minutes, so we will likely run out of time. Don’t focus on completing everything, just do what you can in the 45 minutes you have.

I am excited for this new chapter in strength workouts in South Charlotte. I’m hopeful that some new locations will make these options attractive to more men from both Area 51 and SOBland.

See you in the gloom,

Voodoo