Having tweaked the spine somethin’ fierce last week, YHC is pretty much limited to merkins, and a few arm movements, which was conveniently similar to the PAX who ran in It’s Only A Mile on Saturday. So, YHC decided not to relinquish the Q, but offer a clinic in stretching while also completely burning out the one muscle group least used on Saturday. It was time to loosen the legs and challenge the chest; ease the knees and flex the pecs; salve the calves and test the breasts. Know’m sayin’.
Warmup: Imperial Walkers (cuz that’s all YHC could handle, and we’d be stretching the legs nicely for the rest of the beatdown), AC both ways x20, Cherry Pickers x15, Lafayette Night Clubs x15, and Self-Love x20 to get the upper body nice and loose. It wouldn’t be enough.
The Thang for the duration of the workout would be a Tabata style, AMRAP/stretch routine consting of 30 seconds of stretching (x2 of each) followed by 30 seconds of a given merkin variety AMRAP. If the stretch was one leg at a time, or one arm at a time, we’d alternate two types of merkins since there would be four rounds of merkins altogether for that one stretch (each limb needing to be stretched twice, you see).
It went like this (all x2):
-Feet together, touch toes; regular merkins
-Quad stretch; Werkins and Diamond merkins
-Calf stretch on the curb; staggered merkins w/one hand up on the curb (2 L, 2R)
-Butterfly groin stretch; Ranger Merkins
-Butt/IT stretch (laying down, pull knee to opposite shoulder); Hand-release merkins and Shoulder-tap merkins
-Ab stretch (on elbows, up like a cobra); Peter Parker Merkins
-Tricep stretch (against a post); Irkins and Derkins on the Stage wall
-Chest stretch (between posts); Carolina Dry Docks
The stretches were deeply welcomed by all, but the merkins quickly became something to be dreaded as the timer ticked loudly toward another round, and chatter was at a minimum. By the time the Derkins were upon us, the bird poop on our resting faces didn’t seem so bad. And, the Carolina Dry Docks had YHC thinking we need to EH a dentist soon if we’re gonna keep declining on dead arms.
YHC was impressed by Popeye and Yankee Joe posting after such a grueling feat of endurance on Saturday (Pope, too, but he didn’t really have a choice). And, it was great to have Safety Valve with us again–nobody quite matches the smiling-while-complaining wit of our very own 16-year-old surgeon.
We never left the stage area, and we never ran, but we heated up nicely in the cold weather, and the fire that burned in our chests warmed the cockles of our innerds as we circled up, grateful for another fulfilling experience of shared suffering. COT and YJ prayed us out
N.B. The neighborhood has been given yet another reason to put forth (almost) 0 FNG’s during YHC’s tenure here–the tricep stretch had us leaning against various posts on the stage like a 90’s boy band right before walking over to the half wall for some manly irkins. They don’t know what they’re missing.
