Category: New Orleans

  • What is this Cadence of which you speak – from Hokie

    After being MIA for 28 days, YHC was determined to return and took the open Q for Rock City.

    12 Pax gathered At 0530 we had a disclaimer and headed toward the rock pile for Warm-o-rama

    The first exercise will be Slow Vagoda’s … 1, 2, 3 … and the Mumblechatter erupted about the Q forgetting how we do things at F3 with the Q being left with no defense

    After being reintroduced to correct procedures, we continued

    The next exercise will be
    Arm Circles
    Starting Position
    Move
    In cadence
    Exercise

    We then gathered with requested medium to heavy rocks (probably should have said just medium) to begin our journey up the mountain

    1, 5, 10, 15, … 40…. 35,30…. 5 with coupons/rocks

    1 burpee
    1… 5 cross over merkins
    1, 5… 10 triceps
    1, 5, 10…15 shoulder press
    1, 5,10,15 …20 curls
    1, 5, 10, 15, 20… 25 rows
    1, 5, 10, 15, 20, 25… 30 lunges
    1, 5, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30… 35 chest press

    Then back down, 30, 25, 20, 15, 10, 5, 1

    30, 25, 20, 15, 10, 5, 1

    25, 20, 15, 10, 5, 1

    20, 15, 10, 5, 1

    15, 10, 5, 1

    10, 5, 1

    5, 1

    1

  • NOT Easy Like Sunday Morning! – from Triple Shift

    The Commodores released a song called “Easy” 1977 that has a classic line in it that goes like this, “I’m easy like Sunday morning.” Well, the one thing I discovered in F3 NOLA, is that easy workouts are not things that motivate me to get up in the gloom. To me, Easy is sleeping in, overeating, staying up late, foregoing that hard conversation, etc. Simply put, easy is being indifferent or passive. Conversely, I’m not saying that you should always look to redline your heart rate at every workout but it’s not my natural inclination to do hard things. So, under that mindset of creating a hard workout, I presented the following.

    Warmup – Low Slow Squats, Low Slow Merkins, Imperial Walkers, SloVigodas, and Grass Grabbers

    The Thang – Perform 30 air squats, 25 V-Ups, 20 Body Rows (flat portion of hand rail where you are inverted and bring your chest to the bar), 15 No Cheat Merkins (hand release merkin with two shoulder taps), 10 Bulgarian Split Squats (each leg by the fountain), 5 Burpees and then run a ¼ mile. Rinse and repeat a total of 4 times. Maytag killed that workout and picked up the six!

    COT – Countoff, Namerama and gave thanks to God for his gift of physical health so we can help others in need.

  • Even the Mosquitoes got Swoll – from Mahatma

    Roughly 2 weeks ago scanning the Q sheet I saw an opportunity to travel outside the norm and signed up for Swollfest. Of course some habits are deeply engrained so leaving at 5:15 pushed the envelop, YHC pulled up at 5:30, shoes untied. Thankfully the LVCC crew was locked and loaded with blocks pulled waiting and ready.

    Warm Up at various cadence intervals
    Scantron x 2
    Mnt Man Poopers
    AbeVegodas
    Side Lunge
    SSH
    Front lung with arm circles
    Grass Grabbers

    Tabata 30 on 10-0 off some with blocks
    Mnt Climbers
    TriCep Extensions
    Jump Sqt
    Curls
    Front Lunge with block on your back

    3 Rounds – JesusJuice informed YHC there are several timer apps created eons ago and was curious why it wasn’t being used!? Apparently the “ding” is a motivator.

    365
    3-Burpees
    6-Box Jumps
    5 – Rounds
    OYO

    Circle up for Mid Mary
    Dr W’s
    Leg Raise
    Opposite Leg Raises

    AMRAP 10 minutes
    All 20 reps except Burpees x 5
    Rows
    Burpees
    Kettlebell swing
    Over Head Press
    Sqt front raises

    Oh all to the tunes from Rock City

    Another Round of Mary
    Gas Pump to scissor kick
    XFactor
    WWI sit ups

    Finisher 2 rounds of Indian Push Ups
    Note – YHC had a brainfart in that the end of the line was supposed to complete the entire snake of the line – flip flopping from the end through he beginning (my explanation may not be communicated well so I’ll have to Q again to get it right). That said shout out to squints and other pax that completed the gauntlet twice.

    COT
    Good to see other pax that are showing up consistently holding each other accountable. Thanks be to God.

  • Figure 8s come quickly – from Thighs

    This week we had a mix up on Qs, so we pulled some oldie but goodies beat downs.

    We started w/ a mosey around the block.

    Then we did a warm up:
    15x Side Straddle Hops
    7x Windmills
    7x Cherry Pickers
    7x Sungods (each direction)
    7x Merkins
    7x Peter Parkers
    7x Squats
    7x InTempo Squats

    Then we moved over to the blocks to do the Gauntlet workout 3x.

    Round 1:
    Station 0: 5x Catcher Burpees
    Station 1: 20x Derkins
    Station 2: 30x Dips
    Station 3: 40x Step-Ups

    Round 2:
    Station 0: 5x Catcher Burpees
    Station 1: 20x Squats
    Station 2: 30x Flutter Kicks (2 is 1)
    Station 3: 40x Step-Ups

    Round 3:
    Station 0: 5x Catcher Burpees
    Station 1: 20x Lunges
    Station 2: 30x Hello Dollies
    Station 3: 40x Incline Merkins

    Then we mosey-ed to the Amphitheatre to start the Figure 8s.

    Starting at one corner, running down one set of stairs and then up the other, moving across the amphitheater and back again to the start.

    Round 1:

    20x Hand Release Merkin
    20x Bulgarian Split Squat (10x per leg)
    20x Ab X-tensions
    20x Box Jumps
    20x Tricep Dips
    20x Step Ups

    Round 2:

    10x Hand Release Merkin
    10x Bulgarian Split Squat (5x per leg)
    10x Ab X-tensions
    10x Box Jumps
    10x Tricep Dips
    10x Step Ups

    Then we mosey-ed back to the beginning to finish up.

    We ended with the usual close out, sending us off with a prayer.

    Looking forward to next time!

  • F4—Faith, Fitness, Fellowship…& Football, by Coyote – from Goose

               The morning’s first challenge to meet the Pax and YHC was the wet, and surprisingly active, ant piles. More than half of us were bitten before the warmups. YHC lead the Pax in unusually long warmups then we headed over to the Lower Field for what we knew would be a messy, muddy Football game. YHC announced that each turnover was ten Merkins, and each Touchdown was a series of Burpees. The offense started by doing five and the defense ten. With every next Touchdown, five Burpees would be added to each. The two teams were named by the color of their flag, blue vs. yellow. Team Yellow consisted of Goose, Lil Cuz, Goldilocks, Picadilly, Duke, and Smooth Operator, while team Blue had Enron, Paradox, Pope, Popeye, and YHC. Team Blue started on offense because of low numbers. The team’s possession switched after a failed fourth-down conversion attempt. Team Yellow took a 7-0 lead after a great catch by Goose. After another Blue turnover, Goose made another amazing Touchdown catch, and Yellow took a 14-0 lead. Pope threw an Interception, and Smooth took it from there with a great diving catch, and a Touchdown catch. Yellow had a 21-0 lead when Blue finally scored a Touchdown on a great throw from Popeye and catch from Paradox. Goldilocks said, “Aw man, we didn’t shut them out.” Enron and Paradox had to leave before it was over, and Lil Cuz went to blue team. The final score was 28-7 Yellow, and everyone’s combined total of exercises was 675 Burpees and 400 Merkins. YHC counted a total 16 cut-slips, half of them being Smooth’s, who shot out mud when he fell. We all had a great time, and we all went home dirtier then we’d been in a long, long time.                   

  • Chaos Monkey on the loose – from Kenna Brah

    9 Brave PAX fearlessly stepped onto the filed of battle, scoffing at the impending rain.
    3 Went to KOT and 6 went with YHC.
    Basic warmups
    SSH
    Imperial Walkers
    Low Slow Squats
    Arm Circles F/B
    Then a little stretch work

    The Thang:
    Line abreast at the South goal line Each Pax at a turn dragging a large tire to the 50 yd line, at the other end of the line, another Pax farmer carried two 30# Plates

    The PAX in-between those two did the following up until the tire dragger got to the 50 and blew the “whistle”. At the point we all shifted one place to the left, the dragger went to the far end at each 50 yd increment.
    Rd 1 Sets of 10 Merkins, Shoulder Tpas, Mountain Climbers
    Rd 2 Sets of 10 LBC, Flutter Kick, Freddy Mercs.
    Rd 3 Sets of 10 Squat, Bonnnie Blaires, Side Lunge

    We traversed the field twice

    With time on our hands we loaded the two plates into the tire, a dragger then took the tier to the other goal line while the Pax was lead each member every 10 yds. That member was the Q of that marker and anything he said goes.
    Once all of the members had a turn dragging 60#s in a big tire, w began to cool down, stretch and then mosey back to the Vflag for COT.

  • More than we started with! – from Charmin

    As normal for YHC in an effort to leave no man behind, we started with a pre-beatdown count off with a count of 8. So each of the groups went off, runners went to the outside track, while knotters and Ruckers went backwards on the track.

    Noticing that the gates were locked, Ruckers ended up retracing our steps and even saw a mummy along the way. Discussion was had about positive language and how much progress we have made during our time in F3.

    Returning to the shovel flag with just enough time to spare, I notice that the area is more filled. Doing countorama and nameorama we ended up with 10. Proving that showing up late is better than not showing up.

    That being said, Thursday beatdown might need to move the start time for the later boys.

  • Casino Royale and The Gettysburg Address – from Triple Shift

    If you don’t write a backblast quickly, you will forget the details. I’m doing this for the Pax Miner so everyone gets credit.

    I brought all my toys (dumbbells, kettlebells, and sandbags) and borrowed a couple from Frac and Heisenberg’s 80lb sand ball. I provided a disclaimer and the pax picked up all the coupons and headed to the front steps of NOMA to play a few rounds of blackjack.
    Diamonds – Thrusters/Squats
    Hearts – No Cheat Merkins/Bench
    Clubs – Patti Cake Big Boi Sit-ups
    Spades – Body Row/Upright Row
    Joker – Farmer Carry/Run around NOMA
    A’s – 10 of suit and then Bear Crawl to one side where the slate ends.
    K’s – 10 of suit and then Lunge Walk to one side where the slate ends.
    Q-s – 10 of suit and then Monkey Walk to one side where the slate ends.
    J’s – 10 of suit and then Duck Walk to one side where the slate ends.

    For the game of Blackjack, the loser or if a draw happens, performs 10 burpees. The winner does one (1) burpee, and a bust (going over 21) must do the number of burpees of the bust. My kids came up with that diabolical choice as in the Prisoner’s dilemma scenario.

    We finish up by carrying all the weight back to the virtual flag. For the COT, I shared with Pax that the next day (November 19, 1863), Abraham Lincoln gave his famous Gettysburg Address where some 51,000 men were either killed, wounded or went missing / captured in the three day battle. With that, I closed out with reading President Lincoln’s speech.

    Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
    Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

    But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate — we can not consecrate — we can not hallow — this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us — that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion — that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain — that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom — and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.
    Abraham Lincoln
    November 19, 1863

  • Exicon Top Cover – from Honeysuckle

    YHQ arrived early to test out the “mintron” speaker’s ability to broadcast from the Lion to the trees and was disappointed. Fortunately, several PAX arrived at that moment at the same time. YJ continues to impress with his parking skills. Significant amounts of calf stretching ensued. Valve arrived just in time for warmarama.

    Warmarama:
    SSH, Windmills, Willie Mays Hayes, Imperial Walkers, Toy Soldiers, High Knees, Butt Kickers

    Thang 1:
    As this beatdown was coming together, the theme seemed to be YHC making slight modifications to some other beatdown or Thang that someone else did. So the theme today would be covers. A lot of time, the band doing the cover tries to get as close to the original as possible. But sometimes they make it their own, and this latter approach would guide our exercises today.

    First, since we do 6 minutes of Mary quite a bit, this was changed to be 15 minutes of Joseph. The Joseph in this case is Joseph Pilates, who put a lot of focus into the brain-muscle connection. For the exercises we’re used to, this is no big deal. But some movements, especially fine movements or new movements, we aren’t used to them and they can be a challenge.

    America’s Best previously mentioned that the “Hundred” was in the exicon, so YHC scrubbed the exicon to find other “official” F3 exercises that were similar to pilates exercises. Here is YHC’s mapping, which is the set of exercises done today:

    Exicon -> Pilates

    Hundred -> Hundred. On your six, pump arms up and down 100 times. Feet on the ground, abs engaged.

    WWI Situps -> Roll up

    Alphabet -> Leg circles. The first 13 letters done on the right leg, unless you are left handed. The second 13 letters done on the other leg. It was good to brush up on the alphabet also.

    Boat/Canoe -> Double leg stretch

    Bay city scissors -> Scissors (w/o side scissor)

    Criss-cross -> Freddy Mercurys

    Superman -> Superman

    Ab stretch -> Bottom of pickle pounder

    Cooler -> Side lying leg raises (w/o knee to chest). These were extra rough.

    ? -> Figure 4 stretch

    At this point it was noted by Yankee Joe that we really don’t do much stretching. Goose’s opinion was that stretching was supposed to be done on your own time, and that was that.

    Thang 2:
    YHC still regrets missing the Iron PAX challenge done at the track this year. So to sort of replicate it, the PAX were to do a Route 66 around the civic center. Exercises were to be done at the front and rear of the building. Starting at the front, one burpee, one squat, and one merkin were to be performed, then run to the back and do two of each exercise. Then run around to the front and do 3 of each exercise, and so on, until at the last stop 11 of each exercise are completed.

    We often wonder, how many [fill in exercise] did we do? With route 66, there are multiple ways to get this number.

    1+2+3+4+5+6+7+8+9+10+11 = 66

    Or

    (1+11) + (2+10) + (3+9) + (4+8) + (5+7) + 6 =
    12+12+12+12+12+6
    = 60 +6 = 66

    Or

    Sum of 1 to N is N*(N+1)/2, so for N=11 we have 11*12/2 = 11*6 = 66.

    Or

    Just make an inference as to why the exercise is named Route 66.

    During this exercise, we listened to several covers and also an original song that possibly has a more famous cover.

    Rolling Stones covering Route 66 (orig: Nat King Cole)

    Rascall Flatts covering Life is a Highway (orig: Tom Cochrane. Nod to Smooth’s Disney beatdown)

    Lenny Kravitz covering American Woman (orig: Guess Who)

    Bruce Springsteen singing Blinded By the Light (covered by Manfred Mann. Wrapped up like a douche?)

    Van Halen covering You Really Got Me (orig: the Kinks)

    Thang 3
    Just 3-4 minutes left, which was the perfect amount of time for some VO2 max work. Enron several months ago had a sequence that worked on this, so we were going to burn it out today. The exicon word is “Ciabatta” (hence the bread), known to everyone else as Tabata, which is a specific type of high intensity interval training (HIIT) in which you work for 20 seconds and rest for only 10 seconds. It provides most of the fitness benefits of cardio, without having to spend all that time doing cardio. According to google, the only negative of Tabata is that it isn’t much fun.

    PAX would sprint back and forth between the lion and the trees during the work period, and do whatever they felt like during the 10 seconds rest. Since minitron would not be loud enough for the PAX to hear the start/stop from everywhere on the course, YHC brought a whistle as a backup and this is what was used to demarcate start and stop. The PAX completed let’s call it 5 rounds of work before it was time to recover.

    As Goose and Pope had to leave early this morning, we counted 6 PAX. Yankee Joe prayed us out.

    YHC appreciates the PAX diving deep into the exicon today and dealing with YHC’s strange cadences at times. But we made it through. And YJ was not only able to pull into his parking spot, he was also able to pull out of his parking spot. No reverse required. No other PAX who drove today could say the same.

    SYITG,
    Honeysuckle

  • 5 Minutes of PT and 40 Minutes of Hell – from Hawgcycle

    Conditions: Clear and 46 degrees. Feels like 42. Humidity 75%. Wind 7 mph from ENE.

    Grabbed the Q last night. Knowing that we would be on the Blue Devils’ field reminded me that The Hogs will be hosting Duke Wednesday night at Bud Walton. Which then took me back to the glory days of Razorback Basketball and the 94 National Championship win over Duke under the direction of Nolan Richardson. That led me to thinking about the 40 Minutes of Hell defense he installed in the late 80s and early 90s. Then I remembered that I had seen a workout in the F3Nation Exicon called the Nolan Richardson aka 40 Minutes of Hell. That’s how you plan a workout.

    Been a while since I have given the disclaimer. Stumbled through it as normal and did a warm-up lap. Tenderloin, Scantron, and Rou left to do their own thing. The rest of us circled up in the center of the field (not the exact center and not exactly a circle as made clear by the F3 Nola compliance department). Did 15 SSHs and then much to everyone’s delight we went through the PT regimen for my groin issue: Lunges, Suzanne Sommers, Wife Pleasers, and Leg Lifts. A couple of these exercises required full body contact with the frosty field. #crowdpleaser

    Then jog to the goal line for 40 minutes of Hell. It’s a lot like Dora. Partner up and complete the rep count as a team. While Pax 1 does the prescribed exercise, Pax 2 backpedals 50 yards, does a Bobby Hurley…scratch that….does a Scotty Thurman, and then runs back to the goal line.

    150 burpees, 300 squats, 150 Big Bois, 300 Arm Circles, 150 Merkins, 300 Imperial Walkers.

    We didn’t quit get through the entire set. Probably a bad omen for tonight’s game.

    I didn’t have a shovel flag this morning, which is a Q fail. Fortunately Belloq came to the rescue. He wore his 1991 American Flag leather jacket and stood patiently in place during the workout. He was there guiding us home at the end. #HIM.