Blog

  • Nearly De La Soul – from Akbar

    What a beautiful morning to start the week out right. 51 degrees and a starlit early morning gloom.

    YHC was prepared for low attendance with the Spartan crew recovering. An early morning earwig hit the brain thinking it may be Me, Myself, and I. But a familiar shadow caught my eye, Waterpik doing his regular Marsh cleanup. So we got to it.

    Warm up:
    SSH, Windmills, Arm Circles, Self- Love, Cherry Pickers, Imperial Walkers, high knees

    Mosey down to the stop sign, 10 Merkins, mosey back

    Thang: 4 corners with blocks on the court. 10 reps on each corner, carry block all the way around, run to the stop sign for 10 reps of Merkins and Abs of choice, rinse and repeat adding reps.

    1: Shoulder presses
    2: Curls for the Girls
    3: Upright block rows
    4: Goblet Squat

    Mary
    LBC, flutter kicks, Hello Dolly, Rosalita, Nolan Ryans, E2K, 30 second plank.

    Announcements: Sign up to Q, Turkey Trot, T Claps to the Spartan crew
    COT: Prayers for a couple of Waterpik’s friends, thanks for the opportunity to gather together and remind to lead those around us.

    SYITG,
    Akbar

  • LEGS & CORE at The A1C – from Einstein

    Nice and cool this morning ~ 46 degrees, atop the Justice Center Parking Garage deck.
    And as an extra bonus – the AO was well lit with Thursday’s Hunter’s Full Supermoon.
    IF BBQ had been there, he would have classified it as…”beautiful.”

    Warmup: all IC15x; toe touch, side staddle hops, arm circles, neck rolls, cherry pickers,
    hi-jack hi-jills/BBQ Wings/DarkWingDuck Wings, butt kicks, high knees, shoulder rolls, scissors, etc.

    Using the parking lot stripes (fyi; there are 24 parking spaces, bounded by 25 stripes, per parking row)

    The Thang: Four sets of: a stripe exercise followed by a core exercise at each of the four corners – as we mosey back to the starting line:

    First set: Lunge walk forward three stripes, inch worm out for three merkins, inch warm in, all along the length of the deck,

    Second set: Zombie Walk; left arm to right leg, right arm to left leg, all along the length of the deck

    Third set: Wounded Bear Crawl; left leg and left arm up on the 8 inch parking barrier, bear crawl, then switch over to the other side of the barrier
    to bear crawl with the right leg and right arm up on the barrier, all along the length of the deck

    Fourth set: Star Jack Jump at each stripe, all along the length of the deck

    Core at the corners included: wife pleasers with alternating leg lift, static v-ups, roll-ups,
    supermans, scubasteve, iron crosses, big boy sit-us, crunches, dips, flutter kicks vertical,
    flutter kick horizontal, Russian twists, etc.

    Mary: finished run back to circle up as time expired

    DarkWingDuck led us out with prayers for the F3NOLA Pax traveling up to the Texas CSAUP, for world peace, for the U.S.A. election.

  • Turn it up to 13 (by Coyote) – from Goose

      YHC hopped out of the truck on this dark and refreshingly chilly morning, the Q adrenalin pumping through my body as YHC got ready to unleash the teenage beatdown. “No more fun and games,” YHC thought. “I’m going to give them a real beatdown.” The morning started well, YHC noticing that the number of men present was the biggest that YHC had ever seen at a Coyote beatdown. Suddenly, YHC saw a large white truck roll into the rocky parking lot, and a man I had never seen at a beatdown hop out. “Dumpster Fire?!” YHC guessed. No, an FNG had come to join us! 6:30 came, and suddenly, both 
Paradox and Goose revealed the game balls, Paradox wearing the Fire Within, and Goose with the Blue-tube. We started with the classic Side-straddle-hops, Safety Valve driving in right as we stopped. The warmups ended shortly after, and YHC introduced what we were going to be doing. “For this beatdown,” YHC started, “I thought I might do everything that I hate, and one of those things is coupons!” The Pax grabbed one for each brave soul, and we moseyed over to the long-forgotten hill by the park. YHC announced, “Another thing that I hate is Dora!” We partnered up, and YHC introduced the exercises, 100 Thrusters, 150 WWIII Sit-ups, and 200 Curls, and the mode of transportation being bear-crawl over the hill, and crawl-bear back. Partners were picked, YHC partnering up with Pope, and Goose started the well-thought-out “F3 Weird Al grinder” playlist.
    The Thang commenced, Pope cranking out WWIII’s like nobody was watching. The music was very attention-getting, and when the eleven-minute song “Albuquerque” came up, all ears went to the crazy song. When the Dora was done, we dragged ourselves and the coupons over to the field by Bayou Road, and YHC presented Thang 2. Since YHC is turning 13 on Tuesday, YHC said that we would do 13’s instead of 11’s, one side starting with one 4-count Nolan Ryan, and the other side 12 Inchworm Merkins, all the while listening to Weird Al crank out his parodies. This turned out be way harder than YHC planned, the Nolan Ryans hard to count, and the Inchworm Merkins almost impossible to complete without a little modification.
    After the 13’s, YHC presented the final Thang. As much as we could, the Pax and I would try to accomplish a “Tunnel of Love” across the entire field. It failed miserably, the 2.0’s all getting launched into the air by Man-Eater. Exhausted, YHC called out for us to go back to the flag. We lugged our coupons back to the flag, and commenced with the count off, numbering an impressive 16. When the time came to name our victim, we were ready for some weird stuff. The name came out to be “Blue,” or “My boy Blue,” coming from the facts that he was in the navy for 24 years, and he felt like he had to go back to college. I owe him an apology, not meaning for this to be his first beatdown. (Hopefully we’ll see him again…) When shirts came up, Paradox gave the Fire within to YHC for an IPC level workout. (Get ready to see it hanging off my shoulders next week.) Next, Goose passed the Blue-tube to White Meat for showing us the proper way to count Nolan Ryans. Man-Eater prayed us out, and we ended with a characteristic Paradox Pic.
    Happy Birthday to all those other birthday boys, Popeye tomorrow, Jackknife, Monday, Wet tap and I Tuesday, and any others not mentioned. Until next time, God bless!
                                                                         Coyote

  • Saints Hangover!? – from Bolt

    YHC saw no Q on the sheet Th night and was concerned I might fartsack or might show to an empty Pontiff…either way, only one of the choices is filled with self loathing so posting it shall be. Rolling up at 5:28 I noticed a few shadows and was pleased at winning the battle of 15 degrees. Frac offered me the Q when I threatened to grab the speaker knowing there was not time to go get it; Frac was pleased at winning the battle of JBL. Warmorama of Abe SLOWgoda, MMPGM, Tie Fighters L/R, OHC, SC, MNC. self love.

    Off to play area for Morning Calls then off to the rock pile for a medium rock and when u convert with an Android medium must mean large since Triple went big.

    Head to pavilion for 3 exercises of 20/15/10 reps doing: man makers (Triple wanted 50), squats (keep weight either through heels or balls of feet), tricep press. Rinse and repeat (Frac was psyched) except shift weight to opposite half of foot from previous round. Discussion about natural imbalance and demo from Frac with pistol squats followed by flamingo stance balance work and finished with 5 pistol squats per leg.

    Return rocks with rifle carry, KnOT walk, curls for the girls and off to flag for one minute plank followed by COT. Honored to lead.

  • Babysteps for Big Runners – from Charmin

    They Runners said that they were taking a book from Scantron’s Knotting experience; they figured if he could walk backwards and have it count for the beatdown, that surely they could take babysteps around Pontiff for 40 minutes and have it count as well.

    Meanwhile YHC rucked the normal route and lead the COT back at the proverbial shovel flag. Beautiful morning to get out!

  • The Windy H8! – just a little practice – from Mayhem

    55F – 62% RH – 52F feels like temp
    15-20mph wind gusts on the lake

    I typed a nice long BB yesterday morning. It was awesome. It is ashamed it didn’t post and you missed out. I cannot bring myself to pen such a beautifully written message again. Therefore you only get the basics…

    Chilly. Windy. 4 PAX.
    6 rounds of H8! followed by 6 minutes of Mary.

    COT
    Count
    Name
    Announcements
    Intentions

    SYITG… 10/19 @Mothership, 10/24 @Okwata, 10/26 @MistyMountain

  • H8!ing the Wind – from Mayhem

    55F feels like 50F
    65%RH
    Wind gusting at 15mph coming out of New Orleans East (felt like 30mph on the water)

    @Pinewood is bringing back the H8! 10/24 so YHC felt like we should get a little practice in before the main event.

    After two PAX relocated from the wrong parking lot, we got our total count all the way up to 4. Once again, pre-blasting may have reduced the count for a few. Or maybe it was the wintery weather. 2 of 4 PAX had to choose between stride repeats at Pontiff as part of OMR training and this beatdown.

    At 5:30 and 5 seconds, @Pinewood was itching to mosey. I don’t think it was so much that he wanted to start running figure eights as it was that he was cold even though he had on a nice thick sweatshirt and some wintery looking snow gloves. The first cold is always colder.

    Mosey to the foot of canal. Normal warm-up stuff.
    WINDYmills, concrete grabbers, mountain climbers, crab cakes, tie fightersx2

    Time for the fun. @Pinewood and @Squints have practiced the H8! before, but it was @Architecht’s first time. After giving him the rundown, he asked one quick question followed by “Ok. I got it. You don’t need to keep explaining. Mr. Rogers isn’t here.”

    Each lap consists of running south to the top of the levee, crossing canal (bear crawling the neutral ground), running south to the bottom of the levee, cross canal and run north to the top of the levee, cross canal (bear crawling the neutral ground), running north down the levee and back across canal to the starting point with the wind gusting in your face. At the starting point you do a descending burp and merk pyramid starting at 6 (burpee with 6 merkins, burpee with 5 merkins, …..burpee with 1 merkin)

    At the end of the 2nd lap the burp and merk pyramid starts at 5, etc.
    The goal is to complete 6 laps in 30 minutes because this is ONLY PRACTICE. Each loop is approximately 0.4 miles. Therefore, to conquer the Practice H8! you will have to do the following in 30 minutes:
    • Run almost 2.5 Miles of Hills
    • 415 Yards of Bear Crawls
    • 21 Burpees
    • 56 Merkins

    A couple of PAX finished in under 30 minutes. One PAX couldn’t help himself (or didn’t pay attention) and started the burp and merk pyramid at 8 instead of 6. I don’t want to name names, but it wasn’t YHC, @Architect or @Squints. He is 20 years old. He is a student at UNO. He led Q-Source this morning. But, I don’t want to name the PAX that didn’t follow directions. That is rude.

    After practice, we took a mosey along the lake. Enjoyed the waves crashing in. Found a dry spot for 6 minutes of Mary and called it at 6:15.

    Count. Name.
    Announcements (10/19 Re-enactment, 10/24 H8!, 10/26 Convergence).
    Intentions.

    Everyone was a winner for coming out and braving the chilly windy morning.
    You verses You. Just show up and push yourself.

    SYITG

  • 11s + 1 Burpee buy-in – from Bolt

    YHC wanted to avoid another fartsack and put out the call in Slack for HCs in exchange for the Q—2 pax heeded the evening call AND actually showed up in the gloom!

    Glorious breeze that caused a flag repositioning after warmorama on the pad.

    Warmorama serenaded by the requisite Rapper’s Delight: Abe SLOWgodas, IW, LSS, SSH, Tie Fighters L/R, OHC, Seal claps, self love all IC (reps of 10-20)

    The Thang:
    Mosey to JPAX for 11s with a 1 burpee buy-in/round consisting of 10 dry docks at bottom with a mosey up the steps for 1 tricep dip on the benches, returning via bear crawl down the ramp for each additional round’s burpee buy-in.

    Lunge/KnOT/mosey back to flag with stops at two benches for (10) 8-count R/LLSU and 10 derkins followed by 6 MOM: 30 LBCs, 20 Freddy Mercs, 20 American Hammers, Protractors, 20 flutter kicks, wife pleaser plank. COT, honored to lead.

  • A chilly game of cards! – from BBQ

    It was 52 degrees at the start. After a solid and assorted warm up we moved to the deck of cards to drive the rest of the beat down. Each suit represented an exercise. Aces were 14 reps thru 2’s as 2 reps. Clubs were jump squats. Spades were gas pumps. Hearts were hand release merkins. Diamonds were Freddie Mercurys with 2 as 1. There were two jokers and we told bad jokes when they came up. We got thru the deck with 3 minutes to spare The last minutes were spent on YHC’s 3 favorite lower body stretches. Dark Wing prayed us out and he prayed for a safe trip and obstacle course for our many F3 Northshore Brothers going to TX this weekend.

  • The Louisiana PureChest vol. 2: All Dem Teeth and No Teethbrush – from Paradox

    Late in the pre-Tuesday Tuff evening, YHC sat amongst the leather bound books and rich mahogany (half drank capri suns and diapers) of his study (kids desk) putting the finishing touches on tommorows beatdown. Expecting an intimate crowd with the fall break absences YHC had planned for 45 minutes of SSH while pax watched “Where the Red Fern Grows” on an old substitute teachers roll cart vhs/tv. Standard issue style where the first man to cry would start continuous burpees …buttt not so fast my friends. A timely slack notification alerted YHC that we had a down ranger from St Louis!
    The situation called for more, maybe even a 45 minute crash course in all things Louisiana to show our guest a good time. YhC had already been itching to green light the sequel to 2022s Louisiana PureChest.
    ( See volume 1 below)

    The Louisiana PureChest: Life, Liberty, and the Trivial Pursuit of Alligator Merkins – from Paradox

    So there was only one thing left to do …
    YHC headed for the garage fridge, brushed aside the gentle Lacroix’s, skooched away the chilled Canebrakes and Envies …placed a 7 digit launch code and completed the retinal scanner to unleash the foulest fruited kettle sour ever produced…
    “ Greetings from Grand Isle “

    I took a sip and this is what followed…

    Duke !!
    Grab the bean footage and let the good times roll!

    9 men cut through some of the thickest fog YHC has ever encountered for a Tuesday Tuff with most of the regulars plus a wild Superfund and St Louis down ranger, Lube, who assured us multiple times that he was a dealer of oilfield pipe and pipe accessories and there was no great story involved in his name and he gets no royalties from KY and their jelly.

    After warmups and a short mosey YHC unveiled today’s theme and objectives :

    1.) Double the size of your chest until the locals call you Gregory Pecs behind your back.

    2.) Sharpen the iron of LA related knowledge so you can throw your kids books in the trash and tell them you were raised in the streetz.

    We begin like most great historical pieces , with a sonnet.

    The Poetry of Choppa styles “Louisiana”
    Rocky balboas on the song
    Double Merkin burpee on all Louisianas

    This Preheated the pax collective chest to 375 and Lube was all but ready to take the next flight back to Nelly if the music didn’t improve. The pax assured him it would not.

    We set out into the gloom with HR merkin Indian run drop off and YHC was legit scared we would lose men in dat fog.

    Thang 2

    Back to the Future 49 Corridor

    Format :
    7 cawns with 7 reps at each.
    The cones were set in 3 groups of 2 (the first one is free) that would serve as our Gator pits.
    The only way to freedom is a thorough knowledge of Louisiana lagniappe.

    Correct 7 x 7 reps with mosey

    Incorrect Alligator Merkins Traps times the number wrong.

    YHC was bordering Maui levels of complexity but was confident the pax could pick up this island quickly so we dove in.

    Exercise: Wide Merkins

    1. Other state that does not use counties . 1. Alaska 2. Burroughs 3. name one (there are 21)

    Burroughs were missed and the pax got to taste the pit early.

    Exercise : Bobbie Hurleys

    2.) Name atleast 5 beers from parish brewing company?

    AB did AB things, waiting on the difficulty of the question to increase and when it didn’t he let the Pax hold his proverbial beer.
    YHC is confident that if left alone he would still be standing there naming Parish beers.

    No Gators this round. Just a 10 minute history of Canebrake from AB while Lube commented to Goose “oh you have one of those guys”

    Exercise: Diamond Merkins

    3.) James Bond movie set in La- “Live and let die”
    Who played bond? – Roger Moore
    Name of the villain? Mr Big (Dr Kananga)

    One dose of gators this round and the pax directed anger toward Roger Moores butt chin making unrealistic standards for young men.

    Exercise : Leg Raises
    (Hidden Music Daily Double)

    4.) Finish this line in the classic “Louisiana Saturday Night” : Waiting in the front yard sitting on a log… Single shot rifle , one eyed dog … what artist (Mel McDaniel) …. Play the song for last verse.

    Now it was HoneySuckles turn to put the team on his back as we added yet another layer to his superhero origin story. During his time at Clemson creating government funded hurricane nukes he held tightly to this Mel McDaniel tune to fend off the evils of the Carolinas.
    Not all apiarist wear capes.

    We skipped past the gator traps and did leg raises while White Meat defended the honor of the slain possum as the unsung hero of the bayou. YHC quickly translated this relationship advice to young Pope: find you a gal that looks at you the way white meat looks at a possum eating 3k mosquitoes a night.

    **this next round was skipped but you can follow along at home. Tank me later***
    Apollo Onos (2 is one)

    5.) North La parish named after the first explorer documented to have crossed the Mississippi River. (Desoto) – large body of water in that parish (Toledo bend) —- parish seat -city ? (Mansfield)

    Finisher :

    Carolina Dry docks

    6.) 1989 movie filmed in Natchitoches — name two actresses —- Can you name the fictional parish in Steel Magnolia?

    The pax got the movie Steel Magnolia and actresses (with and without flotation devices) but struggled to produce the fictional Chinquapin parish leading to one last round of dem Medulla OblanGators.

    We packed up to round off our chiseled chesticles with HR merkin Indian run home and a plank out till time .

    By the power invested in me by the LA board of internet doctors I certified all the PAX 100% Chest in Show.

    Announcements

    -Yote Bday BD at the Peltch this Sat. Buckle up, Some still have scars from the Miracle on Ice.
    -Convergence on Oct 26 . Clown car is mobilizing.
    -Thibbaversary and GoosePalooza on Nov 2.
    -Lube and his STL crew are continuing a massive campaign to fight trafficking. More on this through the year.

    Prayers for health, clarity in Gods timing and all supporting those struggling in their family and beyond.

    -Goose prayed us out

    -Lube exposed YHC for taking group selfies for the Instagram clout as this “new technology” has been available for years.

    It’s a joy to lead ya men

    Postscript:

    Merkin History Repeats Itself

    Like any great real estate deal in history the Louisiana Purchase of 1803 was not with out its controversy. Political climates, egos, military advantages, all played a part in this mega deal.

    In a similar fashion the Louisiana PureChest of 2024 was not always a smooth affair.

    Let’s take a look:

    *This Historical reenactment protects the names and identities of the real men involved*
     
    YHC: It’s a LA history beatdown and we are going to double the size of our chest.

    Thomas R. Chesterton: What if my chest gets bigger than my legs? Does this disqualify you from ladies 5ks? Asking for a friend.

    Americas Chest: Alligator Mississippiensis doesn’t actually do merkins during its locomotion, this would offset the kinematic sequence of its erect posture.

    Cricket: chirps*

    Holden MoreChest Thanmost: : I have concerns there wont be enough merkins.

    Bruce Swells: Could we just pull a beatdown from greenwood? How much is a wellness center membership?

    Pec Major Dawson: Soreness is the cry of weakness being vanquished. Bring on the chest expansion.

    Pec Minor Dawson: What is soreness?

    White meat breast and two thighs: The opossum is the backbone of this ecosystem. Prove me wrong or fight me.

    Lube Richman: Do you guys ever just do 45 minutes of exercise and go home?
     
    Historians say this went on for a fortnight until eventually Quecracy prevailed.

    They decided to suffer together.

    Their chest and their souls were all better for it.

    SYITG
    Dox