YHC took advantage of Labor Day and posted at the new AO Chamber of Horrors to get the first opportunity of the week in for the IPC. To his delight, Short Bus made the trek as well. Would that mean the Master Melvin was going to be down 2 Pax? Hardly! YHC arrived a few minutes early with a 100 foot tape and some cones to set up the field.
At 0500, six devoted Pax were assembled around the flag planted on site. YHC gave a brief disclaimer, then mosey for a warmup:
SSH IC x 31 Abe Vigodas IC x 10 Grass Grabbers IC x 10 Arm Circled IC x 20
With the warmup completed, mosey to the cones for the main course, The IPC week 1 “Killer B’s”
Times for the Pax ranged from 28+ to 31+ with improvements from both Short Bus and YHC.
On 29 Aug 19, the pax of AO F3 Westbank called Master Melvin celebrated its 1 year anniversary.
What started with a core group of men drinking beer and seeing visions, resulted in a year’s worth of great memories, hard workouts, and good friendships.
To celebrate the 1 year anniversary, 4 of the core men that were part of Master Melvin in the beginning led 10 minutes each of the total workout.
9 total PAX braved the 0500 calling including one FNG.
Opening
Fracsac opened the 0500 workout with some warm-up exercises.
Then the group moseyed over to the large parking lot where we remained the rest of the workout.
First Workout
Thighs led the first workout with a unique challenge. With a 1 year anniversary in NOLA, we had to celebrate with some Mardi Gras magic. So, with the help of an ‘ancient Zulu King’, Thighs brought Mardi Gras cups each engraved with a unique workout and reps. As the PAX pushed out in a very wide circle, the Mardi Gras cups were laid randomly in the middle. On your mark, get set, Go, the PAX raced to the middle grabbed a cup, returned to their place and performed the reps/exercise indicated. The goal was to collect as many Mardi Gras cups as possible until time or cups ran out. At the end, TripleShift and T-Square had accumulated the most at a whopping 6 Mardi Gras cups.
35 Cups; w/ equal amounts of cups having the following:
10 – Burpees
20 – Merkins
30 – Squats
10 – Jumping Lunges
20 – Bobby Hurleys
Second Workout
Then T-Square led the next set of exercise. With a speed ladder and a cone placed about 10 m away, T-Square led us in a series of exercises that pushed the heart rate up with the muscles burning.
As PAX waited to go through the speed ladder they would SSH. The first set, PAX would step each foot into the ladder and out rapidly to the end of the ladder and then bear crawl to the cone and then jump-lunge back to the beginning. We did this 2 times.
Next, the PAX would jump both feet into and out rapidly of the ladder to the end. Then we Burpee-Broad Jumped to the cone. Then we Bobby Hurleyed to the beginning. We did this 2 times.
Next, the PAX would high knees both feet into and out of the ladder to the end. Then we plank-walked to the cone. Then we high kneed to the beginning. We did this 2 times.
Third Workout
FroZone took over at this point. He led us in some suicides that kept our heart rates very high.
First set was suicides from beginning of the parking lot to the first light pole, then to the second, and finally to the end of the parking lot about 100m away. At the end of each set of suicides, we did 10 squats.
Next set, required 10 jumping-lunges at the end of each suicide.
The final set, required 10 Bobby Hurleys at the end of each suicide.
With only 2 minutes left of his workout time, we continued doing jumping lunges until Frasac, official time keeper, announced for a change over.
Fourth Workout
Medulla Oblongata took over as the final Q. Given all the heart racing exercises we did up to this point, he had mercy on us and required us to partner up to a Lazy Dora, which I think may be harder than an actual Dora…
100 – Merkins; each partner doing 10 at a time while the other planks
200 – Squats; each partner doing 20 at a time while the other Al Gores
300 – LBCs; each partner doing 30 at a time while the other does 6 inches
When Fracsac, announced the end of our time, we collected all the gear and moseyed back to the flag.
At the flag, a cold Gatorade was waiting for us to refresh us and to celebrate the conclusion of our 1 year anniversary workout.
Speeches were made. Pictures were taken. And FNGs were named. Welcome SpeedTrap!!
It was definitely a hard workout that challenged everyone in different ways. But our brothers were there to encourage us and to see us to the end. It was a great workout to celebrate the many, many creative ways the Qs of Master Melvin has kept our workouts interesting, challenging, and positively memorable.
Congrats, F3 Westbank on 1 year anniversary! Here’s to many more!! #MasterMelvin
YHC was expecting a small group at the Master Melvin, but word obviously spread far and wide about the Q, and 7 eager Pax were in attendance, in desire of a solid beat down. Plant the flag, give a brief disclaimer, and off to the Warm up:
SSH IC x 31 Abe Vigodas IC x 10 Grass Grabbers IC x 10 Arm Circles IC x 20
YHC decided to introduce a couple great work out routines to my West Bank Friends. First, the DirtMacDuece. But YHC is calling it the Dirty DMD, as each round is kicked off with 10 Burpees OYO. That’s just Dirty….. All exercises are completed in cadence to 12
Round 1 10 Burpees OYO Merkins LBC’s Squats Run a lap around the park
Round 2 10 Burpees OYO Shoulder Taps Flutter Kicks Lunges Run a lap
Round 3 10 Burpees OYO Floyd Mayweathers Hello Dolly’s Jump Lunges Run a lap
Round 4 10 Burpees OYO Catalina Wine Mixers (6 count, but still 12) Big Boi Situps (WW2) Low Slow Squats Run a lap
Next up was the Suck. F3 Nola has learned to Embrace it! Not sure who started this, but YHC will credit it to Tool, as that’s where I got it from. Time to introduce our West Bank crew to this horrible routine.
3 Rounds of 3 minutes doing the following exercises over and over 7 SSH 7 Merkins 7 Jump Squats 1 minute rest between each round (actually only 30 seconds, but YHC made the Pax feel like they were getting more, YHC is cruel like that….) The Westbankers killed it!
Finish off with some Mary Freddie Mercury IC x 15 Tin Snips IC x 10 American Hammer IC x 10 Crunchy Frog IC x 10 YHC remembered about the Q school thing with only a couple minutes left. Called out to T-Square to call an exercise and correctly call to start: Spiderman Merkins (aka Angle Grinders I think) IC x 10 Called out to Pauly D – Dying Cockroach IC x 20
Times Up, mosey back to flag for
COT Count off, name-o-rama, announcements, intentions, closed with a prayer to the Sky Q
NMM
YHC attended his first Master Melvin last week, and discovered a solid group of Pax that had a lot of drive and no quit. This is pretty much the opposite of YHC. These guys are definitely going to make me better, so I figured I needed to step it up and see if I could challenge these HIM’s. I hope all enjoyed the beat down, and thanks for posting with me!
Conditions: 72 degrees, 90% humidity, winds out of the SSE at 4 mph.
Participants: 30 Pax including, 7 H8!ers, and 14 first timers.
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. At the starting point you do a descending burp and merk pyramid starting at 8 (burpee with 8 merkins, burpee with 7 merkins, …..burpee with 1 merkin)
At the end of the 2nd lap the burp and merk pyramid starts at 7, etc.
The goal is to complete 8 laps in 40 minutes. According to MapMyRun, each loop is approximately 0.4 miles. Therefore, to conquer the H8! you will have to do the following in 40 minutes:
Run just less than 3.5 Miles of Hills
550 Yards of Bear Crawls
36 Burpees
120 Merkins
We did AMRAP and then moseyed back to the flag.
The Skinny
12 finishers for a 40% success rate: SOGO, Cowbell, Smooth, Mahatma, 86, Thighs, Mariah, Triple Shift, Dirty Dell, Ya Mom N Dem, Screwtop, and Hawgcycle
No one got nine. Who will be the first?
I feel like YHC spent most of my energy chirping at Mahatma, at least until the 5th lap at which point he left me far enough behind he couldn’t hear me anymore.
I may have to put cones out next time to protect the integrity of the H8!.
Rudy had his first DNF at the H8! but it was for medical reasons. His doctor says no burpees. I would like to find a doctor like that.
On this day, the Master Melvin PAX was out to prove that we can do more when we have a partner with us.
At 0500, we welcomed an FNG brought by Hawcycle and then quickly mosied over to our warm-up area. After a few warm-up exercises, we partnered up for the main workout.
As one partner ran a half lap around the park, the other partner started building on the following exercise pyramid. Once the first partner finished their lap, they tagged out and that partner continued building the pyramid.
25 – Burpees
75 – Merkins
125 – E2Ks (left side)
175 – Squats
125 – E2Ks (right side)
75 – Merkins
25 – Burpees
Once each team completed the exercise pyramid, we did some new partner exercises for the AO.
3 laps of 100ft of Partner Carries
10 – Sqerkins
10 – Partner Merkin Curls
After some cool down stretches, we mosied back over to the flag to welcome our new FNG named Sunday. What a great story from Sunday. When you meet him, please ask him his life story.
Overall, we were all surprised how well we did together both in quantity and how fast we did the workout. As we found, we can do more when we work together.
I just got back from vacation. While there, I met a guy who had an app on his phone that ran through a standard deck of cards associated with different exercises. That inspired me that Master Melvin has not ran through the F3 Workout Deck yet.
So on Thursday, FroZone, Short Bus, and I committed to see how many cards we could get through. Our goal, of course, was to go through all 52 cards.
We got a great workout that I am still sore from it. But we only got through about a half the cards.
This means we have a good challenge ahead of us. I think I will bring the cards out once a quarter to see how many cards we can get through and see if we can get all the way through the deck.
It was tough getting up early after our late night Mardi Gras parades. But three brave PAXs ventured into the early morning hours to cycle through the F3 Exercise Wheel.
After a quick warm up of 20 – SSH, 20 – Smurf Jacks, and 20 – Plank Jacks, T-Square, FroZone, and Thighs mosey-ed to the center of the F3 Exercise Wheel, which for our AO is a padded playground.
Then from the center of the F3 Exercise Wheel (playground), we branched off to 5 different pavilions that were located around our AO’s track. Below is a description of this partner exercise.
We partnered up, and as one partner went to a spoke of the wheel, the other stayed in the center to do continuous Ab exercises. Then after that partner finished bear crawling back to the center, the new partner ran to the next pavilion on the route.
After completing one revolution of the wheel, the center exercise changed to the next round. The picture below shows 4 rounds of the wheel.
We completed three rounds this morning.
It was tough. We were winded from the bear crawling. Our muscles were screaming after all the ab and arm exercises.
We are all looking forward to next time, as we find creative ways to build our muscles.
A PAX did an exercise while the rest were holding our feet 6 inches from the ground. When they finished, the next PAX in the circle performed the exercise. We kept rotating around the circle until each did all of the below.
