Getting Unskinny at Meathead

Getting Unskinny at Meathead

8 pax showed up at Calvary this morning at 0530 or earlier. Unfortunately, one of them was not Frehley’s Comet, who had agreed/been voluntold to Q. He even confirmed with me that I meant this week, not next. Considering his advanced age and his Qs on Friday and Tuesday, I assumed he fell asleep in his ice bath the night before and thought about calling paramedics to his house, but I have no idea where he lives, so we decided to proceed with the workout instead. The pax were properly disclaimed with an ironclad warning not to do anything stupid and then we got started.

Warm up:

  • SSH x 20 IC
  • Windmills x 10 IC
  • Prying squat x 2

Main Thang:

  • Neupert: 6 double swings EMOM x 10
  • Complex: 3 swings, 2 cleans, 1 thruster L+R EMOM x 5
  • Easy Strength: 3 sets of 5 single leg deadlifts, floor presses, upright rows, and double high pulls
  • Snatches: 5:00 of snatches EMOM: 6 per side, 7 per side, 8 per side, 9 per side, 10 per side
  • Carries: Cook Drill (overhead as far as you can, then rack, then suitcase) L+R with 1:00 rest in between
  • Mary: :45 each of elbow plank, hollow body hold, and glute bridge

Done. Thanks for the takeout in COT, Urlacher

Announcements:

  • The Functional Strength Challenge is May 22nd at 0700 at Olde Providence Elementary. If you’re posting at the kettlebell workouts regularly, you need to be there. Get signed up here. I took the liberty of signing up a few pax this morning that weren’t on there but should have been.
  • Happy Hours start again next Wednesday at 5:30 at Seaboard in Matthews. See Hoover’s pre-blast here. The location of happy hour will move around, so keep an eye out for communication from the ent on Slack and the website.
  • The August GrowRuck in Metro is filling up, so get signed up if interested. It’s a mix of team-building, leadership training, and personal accomplishment and is highly recommended. If you want more information or want to get trained up, reach out to Cheese Curd, Wild Turkey, Geraldo, or Hoover.

Moleskine:

  • Frehley’s texted me while I was driving home this morning to apologize for oversleeping. I told him we’d all been there and offered to let him make it up to the pax in a couple of weeks. He can’t have next week because Uncle Leo agreed to Q this morning!
  • In honor of Frehley’s and to rub in that feeling of FOMO, I was able to find a This is Poison playlist on Spotify. It was surprising in a couple of ways: (i) the number of covers (even Ickey thought they had at least 12 minutes of original material) and (ii) the length of the playlist (over 3 hours!). Unfortunately, we had to cut it off at 45 minutes, but it’s good to know we could listen to Poison for a full week of workouts if we wanted to, which we don’t.
  • Urlacher finally got his matching bell for doubles. Unfortunately for him, it’s a 28kg/62# bell, which can be challenging for some exercises. But I respect his moxie for going big!
  • The Worm will be Qing at Swole next week. Come on out and support his VQ at the site!

Too Much Time or Ran Too Fast

13 pax arrived at Calvary’s parking lot ignoring the threat of rain and the Q’s lack of alternative plans for rain.  Started by running to the parking lot near the hot box for a warm-up, 15 each, of side straddle hops, imperial walkers, low slow squats, mountain climbers, and peter parker’s.  From there to the hot box for 20 step ups.  Then off for a circular adventure, running west on 51 to Elm, for 20 merkins.  From there south on Elm to the first right entry road for 20 jump squats.  Then continued south on Elm to a set of rock piles off the sidewalk for 20 curls and thrusters.  Apologies to the ant colony I disrupted with my rock pick.  On to the Elm/Bevington intersection for another 20 merkins, followed by entry onto the Four Mile Creek Greenway.  Heading east we sought benches for another 20 step ups.  Several modified/ignored the step ups not being able to find a bench in the dark woods.  Rudolph’s, aka Circuit City, red foot light did not help with that.  On to the parking lot of the Greenway to another rock pile for the 2nd round of 20 curls and thrusters.  Crossed Bevington where apparently yielding to pedestrians is optional if you’re turning left from Rea Rd, for merkins until the light changed to cross Rea and head north on the sidewalk back to Calvary.  Arrived at Calvary with way too much time left for the remaining work out plan of 20 jump squats and another set of rock curls and thrusters.  So on to the hot box for 20 more step ups, and then zig zagged through the parking lot adding in more merkins and several Mary’s and an illegal (according to Mermaid) venture down and back up entrance 4 with 2 burpees at the top and bottom, to kill time.  Finished at start with more Mary’s and a plank.  Closed with prayer which I should have scripted vs trying to ad lib it.  Total mileage as reported by Hopper was just over 3 miles.

Running for Tartarus

7 pax showed up at the Arboretum for another episode of Fast Twitch. I spent the previous night trying to plan a route that would include the hill on Providence, Windbluff, the Coburn half-pipe, and allow for pax to cut it off at a couple of points if they needed to get back to the start by 6:15. I’m not patient enough or good enough at route planning to make that happen, so I decided to do the Mermaid Challenge.

For those not familiar (sorry, Airwolf), the Mermaid Challenge was introduced when Fast Twitch met down 51 at South Charlotte Middle School. It involves running down 51 to Charlotte Catholic High School, running to the top of the parking deck (affectionately known as Tartarus), and running back. Complete that in 1 hour and you’ve completed the Mermaid Challenge.

I had attempted the challenge once or twice before from SCMS and I don’t think I ever got past Carmel Road. It would be more challenging from the Arboretum, but we decided to give it a shot. Run down 51 for 30 minutes, then turn around and run back. No one made it to the top of Tartarus, but a couple made it to the entrance of CCHS, which is about 3.86 miles one way.

Everyone worked hard out there and put in a solid hour of running. Everyone except Alf, who didn’t want to test his unblemished record of sphincter integrity and pulled up a little shart short.

Announcements:

  • Turkey Leg and Purple Haze will be co-Qing Fast Twitch next week to celebrate its 8th anniversary. Let’s get a big crowd with lots of mumblechatter for what is sure to be a smokefest.
  • This may be the wrong audience, but the Functional Strength Challenge will be held on May 22nd at 0700 at Olde Providence Elementary. Check Slack for the pre-blast from High Tide.
  • Cheese Curd is collecting used shoes for men, women, and children. Bring them to an AO or drop them by his house.
  • GrowRuck is coming to Metro in August. Get signed up if interested because the event is capped. It’s a mix of a GoRuck event and leadership training by the F3 hot shots.

Moleskine:

  • I’m not sure it’s possible to make it to the top of the deck from the Arboretum, but we gave it our all. Thanks for coming out and following my lead. Everyone got 5-8 miles in during the course of the workout.

“This is good S?&@!!!“ – Turnbuckle

11 Pax posted.

11 Pax stretched.

11 Pax listened to announcements.

11 Pax posed for a pic.

Titles are hard, man

7 men gathered on a rainy start to the week at the covered section of McAlpine Elementary Invue Parking Lot to get Swole on a Monday.

Pax diligently showed up at 0530 to McAlipne Elementary but no one wanted to swing hard iron in the rain so Voodoo made the call to relocate to InVue (they have his phone number anyway when they call to complain about a bunch of middle-ish aged men standing around the parking lot before working hours).  Pax found shelter by the Comet Pizza Riccio’s Italian Restaurant and proceeded to follow YHC’s instructions.  That might have been their first mistake.

Site Q, Mighty Mite, was not present sporting some kind of shoulder injury.  Hopefully it’s nothing serious.  Which, as anyone who’s had a shoulder injury can attest, is more restrictive than hobbling around in a plastic boot.  Speaking of, being in a boot limits the exercises one can do (no squats, no lunges, bad merkin form, getting off the floor from doing anything Mary related requires a team of clydesdales) so YHC made the best of it and channeled some upcoming Functional Strength Challenge material into the weinke.

Here’s what went down:

25 two handed-swings

IW

Sharon Towers 

25 two handed-swings

10 sets of 4 DBL Clean and Press

Single Side Jack Webb Snatch and Swing Pyramid: Stay on L side increasing reps, Switch to R side decreasing reps

1,04 then 2,08 then 3,12 then 4,16 then 5,20 start at the top and go back to 1,04

Pyramid:

2/4/6/8/10 Double Deadlift, Double High Pulls

8/6/4/2 Single Side Lawnmower, Single Side Snatch

Carries:

30 seconds OH hold

30 seconds racked hold

30 second suitcase hold 

30 seconds rest

Rinse and repeat on the other side

Moldskine:

Technology fail.  YHC had spent some time the night before setting up the timer on the phone.  The timer was all FUBAR in the AM.  As for the playlist, YHC delivered a strong disclaimer that included something to the effect of anyone talking smack on Jimi Hendrix was going to get a kettlebell to the face.  That seemed to quiet everyone down.  No fists were thrown and no one was butt-hurt over their favorite band being called out as worse than the Foo Fighters.

There was plenty of reason to complain though.  This was a tough weinke. The Jack Webb was rough enough, the pyramid was rougher.  Not sure if YHC will ever be invited back to Q.  Who are we kidding, of course YHC will be back.

One other thing, Frehley’s Comet is full of hot air.  Voodoo might be vaccinated for Covid-19 but pretty sure whatever forcefully exited Frehley’s system on Monday killed the vaccine.

It might also be the cure for Covid.

Announcments:

  • Aforementioned Functional Strength Challenge
  • HDHH is back on 5/19 at Seaboard in Matthews

Thanks to Wild Turkey for the takeout

Until next time, SYITG

You’ll get nothing and like it

Busy day lets keep this short and sweet. Thirteen Pax joined me at Bushwood this morning for a little fun in the gloom. As 5:28 rolled around started the DiCCS asked if there were any requests, and at 5:30 One Star arrived and we took off. Yep no Weinke so lets wing it.

 

We started with a Mosey to the large parking lot for some warmup consisting of SSH, Merkins, stretching, and Mountain climbers. From there we Moseyed to Turkey Hunt Ct, for 10 Dry Docks on the way down each mailbox, and 10 squats on the way back stopping at each mailbox on the right. While waiting for the 6 Burpees were completed. From there a Mosey to Red Twig for 11s, 1 Lunge and 10 Big Boys. I don’t think Red Twig is much shorter than Turkey Hunt incase you were wondering. With 15 min to go we Moseyed back to the rock pile for a lifting rock. The Pax completed 54 Curls, 27 Tris, 9 Squat Press,  27 Rows, and 18 Presses with a lap around the bus parking lot after every other exercise. We returned the rocks with enough time for the wall. We completed 9 balls to the wall Shoulder Taps, 18 Donkey Kicks, 36 Jabs, and 72 Air Press.  From there we headed back to COT.

 

Everyone pushed hard, Big Ben continued his rehab but would not let that stop him. He completed his own grueling beatdown while we moseyed.

 

Christ Closet giveaway this Saturday from 9 – 1

Memorial Day the Murph returns to Waxhaw

Bushwood and Last Call need Qs, step up or they will assign you a week.

 

 

So That’s My Heart

@ #F3Thrive 12 PAX found out we really do have hearts. The Warmup
  • 3-Minutes, 6 Running Stretches > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4jCDjnzI6W0
  • Mosey
  • side hurdler stretches
  • Mosey
  • Michael Phelps
  • Mosey
  • 16 Hillbillies
  • Mosey
  • 16 Imperial Walkers
  • Mosey
  • 20 Calf Raises – regular, inner, outer
The Thang
  1. Mosey to parking lot
  2. 5 Sidestraddle hops, 1 mercken … 5 SSH, 2 M … 5 SSH, 3 M … up to 10 then do AMRAP merckens
  3. Mosey around the gymnasium … 5 jump squats at each light pole … pogo while waiting for 6
  4. Mosey to the exercise center.
  5. * 5 pull ups
    * 20 reverse leg lifts (each side) by trailer
    * 20 oblique LBCs (each side) by swings
  6. Mosey to bottom of road
  7. AMRAP up and down the hill
  8. Mary
    1. 16 Dying Cockroaches
    2. side leg arcs (22 each side)
    3. oblique LBCs
  9. El fin.
Moleskine
Good to see some familiar faces out there in the Gloom. We all pushed ourselves to be better selves. Well done, fellas.
No primate sightings reported.
El fin. Announcements:
  1. Common Heart 5K & Virtual 5K
Prayer:
    1. A JEWISH PRAYER FOR WISDOM … The Amidah is the core of every Jewish worship service – prayer while standing – In the very first of our requests, we ask for the wisdom to be God-like in the day ahead. blessing known as Ata Chonen >>> “You grace humans with wisdom and teach humanity perception. Bestow upon us Your knowledge, insight and understanding. Blessed are you the grantor of wisdom.”

Lots of reps

Warm Up – Mosey .7 mile (around circle, up to Kensington Dr., back to COT, to back of school).  Jimmy Dugans, calf stretch, upward dog, downward dog, runners stretch, Moroccan nightclubs.

The Thang – Groups of 3.  P1 and P2 stand at opposite ends of playground, each doing reps of called exercise.  P3 runs from P1 to P2, takes over reps from P2, P2 runs to P1, etc.  As a team do:  300 Merkins, 500  300 Squats.

Next Round, same groups, different exercises and RUN BACKWARDS,  300 Supines or pullups, 300 big boy situps.

Mosey to Rock Pile.  Pair up.  P1 runs back up to chain link by playground entrance, P2 does exercise.  300 curls and 100 overhead presses as a team.

Mosey to soccer field.  Suicides – first light, second bench, third bench, far goal line and back.

COT.

Prayers for Premature on upcoming prostrate cancer screening.  Thanks to Premature for opening up about your story.  5/17 convergence at Asylum for Mental Health Month – Guest Speaker after beatdown.  Saturday 5/15 Christ Closet giveaway and folding party, 9am, bring the whole family, friends, lots of good work to be done, we need your help.

YHC took us out.

Let’s go

Finishing up a nice Mother’s Day and decided to check in on who was Q’ing. Turns out it’s a me!

No big deal, who doesn’t enjoy a Cuthbertson Q amirite? Well that’s fine until I’m woken up around 2AM with the sounds of a torrential rain storm outside my window. I mutter myself back to sleep something about “better not being raining when I wake up”……fast forward to 4:30 Foundation’s text telling me he’s too soft to go out in the rain  alarm clock wakes me up and I pull up the old Waxhaw weather to see what’s shaking. Just then Smithers text me to confirm he is also candy and will melt in the rain the radar tells me it’s going to be a onslaught of water throughout the workout.

Well this should be awesome, let’s rage. Got to Cuthbertson in time to launch with ignition and hear Glidah tell them they were doing the Lawson trails. Bullet dodged courtesy of my Q sign up So I head off on a prerun to scope out all of the covered areas the schools have to offer. Circle back around to join 10 other men on what is sure to be a total crap show great workout. We agreed my backblast could just read ” We ran and we did stuff” but I’ll add a bit of color here:

 

The Thang:

  • Mosey down just past Transporters Turd Terrarium /Rudy’s Poop Palace   shed for some SSH’s and some stretching
  • To the stadium, grab some fence for Prison Squats
  • To the high school, where we hit our first covered area. We did some dry docks here
  • Back out to the driver’s ed lot, here we did some speed skaters
  • We traveled to the open alcove and did some more stuff
  • Then to the front of the high school for step ups and dips
  • Let’s go around the school to the gym entrance. We did calf raises, Tysons, dry docks. We ran around in between but does it matter? Do people read this section?
  • Half lap around the bus island over to the covered areas next to the middle school. Here we bear crawled to the end then took a sharp right to the next covered area for squats.
  • Over to the middle school entrance for derkins and a couple laps around the parking lot
  • Back around the back side of the school, stopping for Al Gore twice to make sure we never needed to circle for the 6
  • One more time back towards the high school stopping a4 lights to do some more squats
  • Mosey’d back to COT and we were done

Turns out the rain pretty much held off, I got just as wet as Zinfandel when Side Project releases a new hoppy concoction I would have from just the sweat of it all. It was a good push from all the guys and we stayed in a group. I threw some for a loop when I added that we wouldn’t be counting reps, we would just be doing work until it was time to leave. Seemed to work out ok as I haven’t got an DM’s telling me to go F myself had a number of guys tell me they like the style that allowed us to stay as a group and still get the work in. I think we covered 3.25 miles and did a decent number of reps.

 

7’s, Indian Runs Through The Cemetery & Jack Webbs Oh My!

DISCS

 WARM-UP * Mosey around Waxhaw Elementary Front Parking Lot

* Rocking night clubs * 20 Side Straddle Hops *Plank Position – Calf Stretches, Jack Knifes, Downward dog, Upward Dog.

THE THANG

* Mosey to left of school by buses to hill in the back for sevens:

Round 1: Top Hill – 1 Burpee / Bottom Hill – 6 (2 is 1) Speed Skaters, 2/5, 3/4, 4/3, 5/2, 6/1.

Round 2: Top Hill – 1 LBC / Bottom Hill – 6 (2 is 1) forward lunges, 2/5, 3/4, 4/3, 5/2, 6/1.

* Mosey across street to Arbor Drive then line up to do Indian Runs through cemetery down cemetery road. Once through cemetery and bear to left (Sharon Dr) do 5 squats at every mailbox all the way down to 1st intersection (Stark Lane). Then on way back up street do 1 Merkin at each mailbox. When get to the top of the hill back at cemetery did Indian Runs until at end of Arbor road. Then crossed back to front of school parking lot.

* Mosey Back to Front Parking Lot sidewalk for Jack Webb’s. 1 Merkin/4 Air Press..2/8, 3/12..up to 10/40.

* Mosey Back to COT for 54 squats as time expired.

Announcements:

Christ’s Closet – Sat. 5/15 – 9am-1pm – furniture clear out

Convergence – Mon. 5/17 – 5:15am Asylum & 6am Mental Health Speaker Coffeteria – Brooklyn Pizza – Wesley Chapel

Blood Drive – Sat. June 19th Blood Drive 9am – 1pm Five Stones Church

MOLESKIN

Chastain pulled up in his SUV before we started warm up asking where we were going as had to use port-o-potty in back of school and got back in record 5 minutes, as finishing stretches, and thankfully refused to make hand contact with us for remainder of workout, and then Chastain proceeded to explode out of the gates during sevens, along with Dunkin & Flip Phone setting the pace.

In Posse fashion on way out during Indian Runs through the cemetery told a scary story, and then on the way back told Chastain & myself, know he knows where he can bury us, as apparently he did not like our gazelle up-tempo pace😊

Welcome FNG – “Norm the Miner” (Will Regalado) who was brought out by Schedule C, as fellow Millbridge Resident that moved here from NJ back in August 2020 and was looking for Crossfit Gym and Schedule C, said I’ll pick you up at 4:50am and let’s try F3 first. Looking good after workout, as Norm the Miner asking to come out to workouts this Wednesday & Friday!