This was my birthday Q (51 yrs old) and I wanted to make it special for the PAX NOLA. As Christmas day is tomorrow, I wanted to not only strengthen the body but also strengthen the mind as well. As I was thinking about the direction I wanted to go in the Christmas Eve themed workout, I realized that we already done a couple of 12 days of Christmas beatdowns and desired to go a different route. During the Christmas holiday season, the pace of life slows down enough for me to be more contempletive and I have more time to read. As I was reading a book by Ace Collins called ‘Stories behind the best-loved songs of Christmas‘, I came across the ‘real’ history of God Rest Ye Merry Gentleman which fit the theme of the beatdown today. Here is an excerpt.
“When people today say “Merry Christmas!” the word merry means “happy.” When “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen” was written, merry had a very different meaning. Robin Hood’s Merry Men might have been happy, but the merry that described them meant ‘great and “mighty.” Thus in the 15th century (Middle Ages), a strong army was a merry army, a great singer was a merry singer, and a mighty ruler was a merry ruler….the word rest in the title means to ‘make’ or ‘keep’. As the angel told the shepherds, “I bring you good news of great joy.” That joy and the power of faith can be felt and experienced in every note and word of “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen.” You just have to know how to translate the words into the language of the day in order to have a very ‘Mighty Christmas!”
WARMUP
Run over to the field by the rock pile and proceed with the following
51 SSH x IC, 20 Imperial Squat Walkers x IC, 10 Abe Vigodas x IC, 10 Arm Circles x IC (Forward and Backward), 20 J-Los x IC
THE THANG
I instruct the PAX to get a medium sized rock and we head to the football field for Bearicides. Because we had 15 men, I had to break the groups up into 3s. We line up on the sideline and PAX 1 and 2 perform 100 lunges, 150 goblet squats and 100 straight leg deadlifts. Meanwhile, PAX 3 bear crawls out and pushes the rock forward to the middle of the field then bear crawls back while continuing to push the rock.
After the bearicides, we did a Febreeze. This exercise consists of WW2 situps followed by air presses with feet 6 inches off the ground while in a sit up position. The count was 2 situps / 10 air presses, 3 situps / 20 air presses…all the way up to 5 situps / 51 air presses. Whew….that hurt!
Running out of time we did a Jack Webb with a rock press up to 7 merkins / 14 rock presses.
Time is running out so we put our rocks back and mosey back to the virtual flag.
COUNTOFF, NAMERAMA AND COT
Prayers for peace, hope and healing for Brad Brechtel, Hawg’s mom, Disclaimer’s 2.2 and all the intentions we hold in our hearts. Truly honored to be leading such a great group of men looking to get stronger physically, relationally and spiritually! Many blessings to you and yours this Christmas Season!
