The Circus Brings All the PAX to the Yard

The Circus Brings All the PAX to the Yard

Orange Whip first asked YHC to Q Kevlar in late 2020, and at the time Friday was a critical element of my run training block.  Marathon season came and went, yet I’d not yet gotten around to take him up on the standing offer to check out A51’s most easterly workout (some will claim Joust is more easterly, which is true, but is frisbee a workout?).  On Monday at the board meeting, OW asked me what I was doing Friday, and like that I was on the hook… couldn’t be happier.

THE THANG:

After a thorough disclaimer, mosey out to the end of the parking lot and back to the launch for COP: IW, LSS, LSM… enough of that, on to the gear!

Circuit consisted of:

-Farmers carry w/ 2 35# plates (this is the timer)

-Ball-Over Offset Merkin

-Sandbag Clean and Press (60# or 80#)

-Box Jump (20”, 24”, or 30”)

-Slamball (40#) Burpee

-40# sandbag abducter crunches

-Kettlebell Sumo DL (67#)

-Lunges (or counter rotation reverse lunges) w/60# bag

-Squats w/ 60# or 80# bag

-Cross Body Lateral Step Ups with 20# or 40# ball

-Merkins with alternating opposite arm/leg lift at the top

-One Hand KB swings w/ 35# or 44#

We did a full rotation of the above, ran over to the church entrance for some peoples chair variations, ran back for another around of the circuit, then to the hill for some merkin/CDD 7s and then finished with another half circuit.

Ye Olde Moleskin:

-In case the PAX haven’t noticed, YHC loves gear work.  After years and years of body weight boot camps and endless running, it is nice to pick up some heavy things from time to time.  Unfortunately you have to be insane (like me) or incredibly wealthy (unlike me) to invest in enough gear to Q a workout.  The last few times Whip l’Orange and I have talked about Kevlar, he had mentioned relatively chronic low turnout (something about chasing a glow in the dark children’s toy being more appealing than real man’s work) and so I planned for a low headcount when packing the truck.  Thank god Horse Head and Geraldo always have gear with them so we could accommodate all 12 of the PAX who showed today, and I didn’t have to get fancy with alternating groups or something to that effect.  Lesson learned, bring all the gear when I’m throwing a gear party.

-The Box-Jump continues to be a surprisingly novel workout move.  While we often do jump-ups, the benches we use are rarely over 18 inches off the ground.  You start asking PAX to hit 20+ inch jumps and things all of a sudden can get a little dicey.  That said, I saw Pudge, Sharkbait, HH, and OW all hit the 30” jump multiple times this morning, well done boys.  Explosive plyometric movements like box-jumping create amazing fitness and leg strength.

-Very little mumble chatter from this group today.  Not sure if the easterly PAX are just more quiet than the Hydra crew by nature, or if the circuit had them silenced.  What little discussion we did hear, besides Horsehead of course, was in compliments of the music.  It’s amazing what loading Jump by VanHalen into Pandora will do to create a playlist which every man with a pulse will enjoy working out to.

-At the second break I decided to call an audible and do 7s instead of what I had originally planned.  As I began to move towards the hill, OW tried to tell me “we dont use that hill.”  He should know by now that just incentivized me further.  That said… whew… burley hill for 7s.

-Solid effort all the way around, nobody was mailing it in and everyone had a healthy lather going on by the end of 45 minutes.  DW mentioned “under a mile” and I had to smile.  You don’t have to run to work of a sweat, especially in the heat of Charlotte July mornings.

Announcements:

-Stone Cold is collecting 26” and larger bikes to donate for refurbishment so they can provide transportation for those in need.

-F3 10 year anniversary  is now the weekend of 10/8-10/10 in Wilmington NC.  South Charlotte currently only has a few PAX signed up, but this should be a fantastic opportunity to do some real good living with like minded men from across the nation.  If you’re thinking about going, talk it up with PAX at workouts and lets get a crew together to head down.

-Crane Relay is on 8/13, they’re still looking to get a few more teams worth of runners in.  Check out the running channel on slack or DM Frasier

SYITG

-Flipper