F3 New Orleans

Author: High Rise

  • The 10 Gassers Challenge

    YHC was happy to return from his week long absence due to a family trip to Disney World. While it may be the happiest place on Earth, I feel that everyone with small kids who takes them there will agree that it’s not a vacation, it’s a trip. I’ll leave it at that.

    With that said 11 men met in the gloom on a warm, humid, yet mildly breezy morning at our usual spot. We were blocked from parking in our normal spots due to some cones and a cop car but otherwise everything seemed like a typical morning. Disclaimer was given and off we went to the track.

    Warm up:

    • Frankenstein kicks
    • Butt kicks
    • Carioca
    • Straight leg shuffle (Kuch thought this had a different name but his argument was weak so it was overruled. I thought he was a lawyer?)
    • Closed the gate
    • Open the gate
    • Super Mario punch
    • 400m jog

    Tha Thang – The 10 Gassers Challenge:

    • Round 1: 50m at half speed, backpedal to return
    • Round 2: 50m at half speed, backpedal to return
    • Round 3: 50m at three-quarters speed, backpedal to return
    • Round 4: 50m at three-quarters speed, backpedal to return
    • Round 5: 50m at full speed, backpedal to return
    • Round 6: 100m at half speed, backpedal to return
    • Round 7: 100m at half speed, backpedal to return
    • Round 8: 100m at three-quarters speed, backpedal to return
    • Round 9: 100m at three-quarters speed, backpedal to return
    • Round 10: 100m at full speed, backpedal to return

    Static stretching (each done for 15 count):

    • Seated Hamstring stretch
    • Figure-4 piriformis stretch
    • Kneeling hip flexer stretch
    • Stand quad stretch (done with partner for balance)

    Lagniappe:

    • Mountain climbers x 10 IC into 100m full speed sprint
    • Merkins x 10 IC into 100m full speed sprint

    Mary/Plankorama:

    • Forearm planks x 30 sec
    • Side planks x 30 sec each arm
    • Single leg planks x 30 each leg
    • Alternate arm/leg forearm planks x 15 sec each

    Mosey back to the shovelflag, countorama, nameorama, announcements, intentions, and sweaty ball of man.

    Glad to be back and thankful for a safe trip. Look forward to leading the PAX for my next Q.

  • Running With Scissors

    I had been looking forward to this (1 day after) Birthday Q. Since I am a Physical Therapist I wanted to introduce a few exercises that I have my patients perform in the clinic or suped-up modifications of those exercises. I had considered using the great lawn for a portion of the beatdown but due to the amount of rain we had received and the lack of any animal crawls I opted to stay dry (of water, not sweat) which I hope the PAX appreciated. 8 men gathered in the humid, muggy, but sunny morning, the disclaimer was given, and off we moseyed to the pavilion by the Festival Grounds as everyone carried their soon to be announced coupons while I carried the scissors so said coupons could be distributed.

    Warm Up:

    • Side straddle hops x 25
    • Windmills x 10
    • Self love x 10
    • Hillbillies x 20
    • Mountain climbers x 20

    Thang #1:

    I was inspired by 2 recent beatdowns by Mr. Awesome and Kuch that included Tabata. So I performed a dry run the night before with a free app I downloaded and chose a 90s grunge playlist on Amazon Prime for 20 sec of exercise and 10 sec of rest for a group of arm exercises all using Theraband. We performed 2 rounds, with some questionable grunge selections by Amazon (Goo Goo Dolls and Dave Matthews Band are not 90s grunge).

    • Shoulder flexion (forward straight arm raise)
    • T’s/airplanes (separate arms apart while maintaining arms at shoulder level)
    • External rotation (elbows by your side and swing open arms like a gate)
    • Shoulder abduction (lateral straight arm raise)
    • Biceps curls
    • Triceps extension

    Thang #2:

    With everyone’s shoulders burning it was time to work on some legs. After shifting the picnic tables out of the way, PAX lined up on one end of the pavilion and performed a series of exercises back and forth across the pavilion

    • Lunge with twist, there and back
    • Toe walks, there
    • Heel walks, back
    • Monster walks with Theraband around ankles, forward there and retro back
    • Lateral monster walks with Theraband around ankles, alternate direction after a lap

    Thang #3:

    Everyone’s quads and gluts seemed to be burning after those so PAX circled back up for a some merkin and plank variations all performed in cadence

    • Merkin plus x 15
    • Merkin into side plank x 10
    • Plank on elbows into a birddog position (lifting alternate arm and leg) x 10

    At this point my arms were getting worn out and I was slipping from my sweat on the pavilion concrete so I made slight change in my exercise order. Time for some People’s Chair x 30 sec each, with modifications of course to target different muscle groups.

    • Feet flat on ground
    • Shift weight towards heels to fire the gluts
    • Shift weight towards balls of the feet to fire the quads
    • Single leg with right leg in air
    • Single leg with left leg in air

    Following this I went back and completed by merkin/plank exercise group with side planks into a straight leg raise x 10 each side.

    Thang #4:

    Following our pavilion portion of the beatdown we moseyed over to the deck in front of Big Lake while carrying coupons (and scissors of course). All exercises done in cadence.

    • Prone T’s/airplanes (Theraband optional) x 15 ; my apologies to the tall people/people with long arms
    • Prone W’s x 15
    • Dips x 15
    • Step ups x 15; 1 set leading with right then 1 set leading with left leg
    • High rises x 15

    Yeah, I named an exercise after myself. I have a lot of patients at the clinic perform wife pleasers. However, I do not call them wife pleasers. They are called bridges. Wife pleasers/bridges seemed too simple for this group of men so I modified it into something different. Starting position is in a crab walk, then lift your hips/butt into the air while also lifting 1 leg in the air. So it’s a suped-up single leg wife pleaser. Hope this makes sense to anyone reading this nonsense.

    Mosey back to the Muscleship shovelflag for some static hamstring, butterfly, and figure-4 piriformis stretching x 15 sec hold for each. Count off, name-o-rama, annoucements, intentions, and sweaty ball of man prayer. Thanks to all PAX for showing up. Hope everyone was as sore and fatigued as I was.

  • Shorty Dooby Doo…Where are you?

    So as YaMomAnEm and I arrived in the smallest possible LVCC possible to the AO a small group of men were ready to engage in some Shorty-style sprinting. I don’t own a watch but I knew 5:30 had to be approaching so I casually turned to Rudy and asked, “Is it 5:30 yet?” since our Q hadn’t arrived. He looked at his watch and said, “It’s 5:30 now. And since you asked you’re the Q.” Mildly taken aback I took it in stride, said the disclaimer, and moseyed over to the track.

    Dynamic Warm Up:

    • Frankenstein kicks
    • Butt kicks
    • Open the gate/Close the gate
    • Toe grabs
    • Karaokes
    • Standing quad stretch (with partner for balance)
    • 100m run at 50% speed

    At this point I opted to steal from Hawg’s Danger Zone debut so we did some sprints of varying lengths with a walk back to the starting line following each sprint. We roughly did 25m, 50m, 75m, and 100m sprints.

    After this, I stole from Screw Top’s Danger Zone beatdown and we ran 4 laps, split into 2 groups of 3, around the track with 100m sprints on the straight-a-ways and a mosey in the turns.

    During our 4 laps a growing crowd of runners was gathering near the entrance to the track. Following the completion of our 4 laps I wanted to perform some static stretching. Since there were only 6 of us, the PAX decided to perform these stretches in the warm-up section of the track in the turn to stay out of that group’s workout.

    Static Stretching:

    • Seated hamstring stretch 2 sets each leg x 15 sec hold
    • Butterfly stretch 2 sets x 15 sec hold
    • Supine figure-4 piriformis stretch 2 sets each leg x 15 sec hold

    Since the other group was breaking off into smaller running groups, I wanted to get 1 full sprint with all 6 PAX in our respective lanes. So we lined up for one more 100m sprint which YaMomAnEm took home handily. Afterwards we moseyed back to the warm-up area for some Mary.

    Mary (all done in cadence):

    • LBCs x 20
    • Sweaty Angels x 15
    • Dying Cockroaches x 20
    • Freddie Mercury’s x 15
    • Single-leg wife pleasers x 10 each leg

    Mosey back to (invisible) flag, count off, name-o-rama, announcements, intentions, sweaty ball of man.

  • Take Me Out To The Ballgame

    YHC was honored to perform my VQ at The Foundry today. Thankfully rain has held off for several days as I was concerned about possibly ruining the grass for the exercises I had planned. I had been bouncing some ideas around in my head and reviewed the entire Exicon to get some good ideas. Despite their absence from the Lakeview Clown Car today, Tclaps to Kuch (sickness) and YaMomAnEm (out of town) for providing suggestions, guidance, and allowing me to bounce ideas off of them. The remaining members of the LCC, Half Nelson and Abacus, happily joined along for what was hopefully going to be an entertaining workout.

    15 PAX gathered in the gloom today at the usual spot in Roosevelt Mall and after what could’ve been the shortest disclaimer I recall we mosey’d over to the track.

    THE WARM UP – all in cadence

    • SSH x 27
    • Windmills x 9
    • Peter Parkers x 9
    • Parker Peters x 9
    • Wife pleasers x 9
    • Left single leg wife pleasers x 9
    • Right single leg wife pleasers x 9

    Next we performed a “Cleveland Indians” run. Due to the size of the PAX (thankfully it was an even number) I opted to split into 2 groups as we ran towards NOMA then promptly continued the loop and headed back towards Falcon Field. Along the way the running group I was a part of realized the other group had dwindled from the initial 8 members down to 5. Some comments were made as we realized we were not following the motto of “No Man Left Behind.” Those PAX members who had already reached Falcon Field promptly decided to sweep the 6 and complete the run.

    Thanks to the Exicon I was able to determine what would be meat of our workout today. Since I am a baseball lover I thought “Field of Dreams” would be a great way to include a little bit of everything. After splitting inot 4 teams of 4 men instructions were spelled out.

    • Home plate group perform 18 burpees and would be our counter.
    • While group at home plate performed burpees, first base group performed squats, second base group performed merkins, and third base group performed LBCs. All of these groups would perform AMRAP.
    • Once home plate group completed 18 burpees they would “Chicago Cub” crawl to first base. At that time first base group would “Chicago Cub” crawl to second base, etc. until all 4 groups had completed all 4 stations.

    After a small amount of confusion on when to crawl, the PAX quickly understood the rules of the exercise upon my second attempt and completed without incident and most importantly without injury.

    After a 20 count from War Eagle we moved on to a timed team competition. PAX was again split into 2 groups. Group 1 lined up at home plate to run the bases. The first participant would take off and upon reaching second base would yell for the next runner to go until all members had hit all 4 bases. While Group 1 ran, Group 2 headed to left field for some walking lunges until Group 1 had finished. We then swapped and while Group 2 ran the bases Group 1 performed an exercise which looked like more LBCs. I realized afterwards I did not actually instruct this group on what to do while Group 2 ran the bases so they thankfully took it upon themselves to lead each other.

    Finish times:

    • Group 1: 1 min, 32 sec
    • Group 2: 1 min, 23 sec

    Since Group 1 had lost in admirable fashion they performed a penalty run along the warning track with a stop in center field for 9 burpees. Group 2 headed to the left field line for some celebratory Nolan Ryan’s. 9 reps on each side were performed in cadence followed by a plank and wait until Group 1 returned. Cowbell requested group to plank on elbows so his request was granted.

    With the PAX whole again we completed the workout at Falcon Field with 27 “Los Angeles” Sweat Angels. Mosey back to flag (or at least where flag typically is located.)

    COT – countarama, namearama, intentions both spoken and unspoken, and prayers of thanks.

    Thanks to everyone for allowing me to Q today and try something out at the baseball field I had been wanting to mix in. Now that I have my VQ under my belt I look forward to future Q’s.