Tag: The Knoll

  • A Midsummer Respite

    A Midsummer Respite

    With the sky overcast the morning was cool and a respite from the usual summer beatdowns.

    Warm O Rama

    • 15 AbeVigodas
    • 15 SSH’s
    • 15 Hairy Rocketteds
    • 15 Butt Kickers
    • 30 second Downward Dog Calf Stretches

    The Thang

    With Applogies to Lt Michael Murphy, we did a modified Murf (more like a Smurf). YHC underestimated the physical conditioning a strength of the Pax (or maybe it was the cool weather) and the degree of difficulty was not enough to keep the Pax from chatting amongst themselves and making new friends on the playground. Twinkle Toes went rogue and attempted a full Murph.

    Modified Murf

    • 1/4 Mile Run
    • 10 Pull Ups
    • 20 Merkins
    • 30 Air Squats
    • Repeat above, decreasing to 5 PU’s, 15 Merkins, 25 Air Squats
    • Repeat, decreasing to 3 PU’s, 9 Merkins, 12 Air Squats
    • Finish with 1/4 Mile Run

    Burpee Mountain

    Next the Pax moseyed to the Knoll and paired up. One ran down the hill, Did Burpees and ran back up whilst partner did Monkey Humpers. This was repeated until each partner completed descending reps of Burpees from 5 to 1.

    Freak Nasties 25 as we Moseyed to the Mary spot.

    Marys

    • Flutter Kicks
    • Freddie Mercurys
    • Crunchy Frogs
    • Jane Fondas

    Count O Rama, COT Prayers for Big Easy’s family journey to adaption and Shango’s son’s healing

  • A Beautiful Morning at the Knoll

    A Beautiful Morning at the Knoll

    The PAX was blessed with unseasonable weather this morning perfect for a beatdown. Upper 60’s, low humidity, newly mowed grass…………

    Welcome and disclaimer

    The Thang

    Warm Ups, 10-15 each:

    -Alabama Ass Kickers, Annies, Hairy Rockettes, Lt. Dans, Sprinklers & Failure to launch

    Routines:

    -7 of Diamonds (Laps around 4 cones on 50 yard square, lap One 7 Burpees each cone, Lap 2 – 14 flutter kicks, Lap 3 – 21 merkins, Lap 4 – 28 Squats) -Apple Turnover ( Alternating Bear Crawl, Crab Walk & Crawl Bear) -Burpback Mountain ( Partners alternate running up hill backwards then down forwards while other guy does burpees until 50 burpees are done)

    Duracell and Eagle did a lot of planking after they finished ahead of the rest of us but Shangeaux was right behind them!

    -CoT, Count / Name O Rama, Announcements, Intentions & Words of Wisdom

  • Warming up at the Knoll, BR

    Had our howdys and the disclaimer.

    Had a good workout this morning. Began with a long set or warmups near the flag location. Then ran a mosey half way around our usual track, ending at the sundial. Did a variety of more exercises at the sundial. Mosey’ed to the top of the hill where we ran a plethora of runs up and down the hill towards the creek. Did merkins at the bottom and burpees at the top, all in ever decreasing numbers. Ran 5 laps up and down. Moseyed to the soccer field and did suicides to the 25 did merkins, 50 did situps, 75 did something else and 100 did squats. Mosey’ed back towards the flag location exercise bars foundry. Divided up into pairs. Did 100 pull ups or 100 situps in pairs. Chatted with the other group that starts out there at the foundry.

    Did a bunch of Marys and Jane Fondas there at the flag location. Finished up with our call for needs and then ending prayer. Everyone had places to go this morning so no coffeerama. Worms

  • Cool, wet foggy morning. Two groups met today

    April 6, 2019. 

    Showed up at 6:45 and no one else showed until 7:10. By that time I’d already made a deal with Dennis that I might just work out with them this morning.  Dennis and his group have been meeting near us at the Knoll doing their exercise routine. Shangeaux’s daughter sometimes works out with them. We all greet each other every Saturday and enjoy his dogs that get so excited when the run or when the stop running.

     Then Big Easy showed up and then Banjo and then about 8:00 Shangeaux miraculously found us way out in the far east end of the park where we’ve never been, and stayed the course with us.

    Since our group was small we just decided to work out with Dennis, Paul and Gerald and of course Dennis’ 3 dogs, today.   Dennis seems to be their exercise leader. Since I had asked to join him I opted to let him lead his group and we would just try to go with his lead.  He moseyed us all northward on the walkway toward the bridge where we store all our coupons in the creek. We crossed the bridge and went NE towards the tennis courts. There we did a variety of lunges and skips, both sideways and forward and then backwards. We did Kariokes back and forth from the big oak tree to the concrete pad with the water stub up.  We eventually ran all the way to the building to the East with the water faucets, near the playground equipment. Rested there a minute. Then walked from their to a place at the far East edge of the park, beyond the soccer field. From there we did a variety of relay runs from a point on the trail to the south near a green carpeted exercise spot about 10×8 feet. Did a variety of exercises on that green mat.  Then did more relay runs back and forth along that eastern end of the running trail, which is also very near Highland Road.  Ended with a full tilt run from the a point along the creek to the nearest picnic table pavilion which is about ¼ mile away.  We then all walked back to the parking lot pavilion.  We did not have our usual COT or namarama since we really just joined their group for the morning. 

  • 70-0. First Round Draft Pick!

    70-0. First Round Draft Pick!

    The Scene:The Knoll

    Conditions:41*, Overcast, and slightly wind. Park was rather abandoned…

    8 Pax made it out of bed and posted! Where did the warm weather go from this week? 

    0700 – YHC was the only one not wearing a jacket…but of course he was the Q, so he knew how warm we’d be getting in our beatdown! He brought out a speaker…what would that be for?? The Pax would see.

    The flag was flying better than ever with a nice steady wind. It was cold and rather depressing looking outside like the scene from an abandoned town. A few brave souls were jogging, but no cross-country meet was taking over the park.

    No Disclaimer since there were no FNG’s…hopefully we’ll get some out next week.

    Warm-a-Rama:

    1 lap (opposite way as usual) around the “track.”

    Finkle Swings x11

    Goofball x16

    Plank jacks x12

    Smurf Straddle Hops x14

    Seal jacks x20

    Peter Parker x10

    The Thang:

    YHC pulled out his phone, connected it to the speaker, and played Thunderstruck. Pax were instructed to get in plank position and do a merkin every time they heard the word “Thunderstruck.” Backflip wanted to get even more buff, so he added merkins to the word thunder too. Some Pax joined in. A few minutes later, our arms were shaking, and we resented the ACDC artist for singing “Thunderstruck” so frequently at the end of the song.

    YHC had mercy on the PAX and decided to let the next the next ACDC song play while we stretched. As “You shook me all night long” played, we stretched hamstrings, glutes, groin, hip flexors, calves, etc.  

    Backflip gave a recovery countdown while YHC put the stereo away… Pax played Frogger and moseyed across Highland road to the baseball field.

    The scene was set…it was a baseball game that had 4 innings…

    In inning one, YHC announced that PAX had allowed 7 runs, so we did 7 burpees at each base, moseying in between. 

    In inning two, YHC announced that PAX had allowed 14 runs, so we did 14 merkins at each base, moseying in between. 

    In inning three, YHC announced that PAX had allowed 21 runs, so we did 21 flutter kicks at each base, moseying in between. 

    In inning four, YHC announced that PAX had allowed 28 runs, so we did 28 Al Gores at each base, moseying in between. 

    70 runs allowed!

    Yes, it was a fake game, but the workout was as real as it gets…Any team that bad would be deserving of the first-round draft pick!

    Then Pax moseyed back across highland to the pav.

    Partner exercise – one partner did a wall sit while the other ran to the pullup bars for 10 pullups, then ran to the sundial for 10 freak nasty’s and finally rounded the corner with 10 merkins at the last “base.” When your partner got to the sundial, the wall sitters added air presses as well. Dagwood showed his real speed, earning himself the gold medal…we all coveted Shangeaux who was paired with Dagwood and therefore had the shortest wall sit…good father/son combo.

    Finally, we finished off by visiting the zoo with a duckwalk and bear crawl back across the path followed by a crab walk and frog hop back. Snack pack enjoyed the bear crawl the most since he was rocking his Baylor Bears gear.

    Mary:

    YHC grabbed a coupon from the car…

    American Hammer – 5 each with the coupon, passing it around while the rest of the Pax did non-coupon hammers when it wasn’t their turn. 40 total. The overachiever once again was backflip who cadenced his 5 hammers making them 10.

    LBC’s – same as hammers but with coupon held over the head.

    Count-o-Rama

    Name-o-Rama

    COT/BOM:

    Prayer requests:

    Worms announced his daughter passed a retest at OT school that she had failed the first time…answer to prayer. 

    Backflip’s baby is due in April…now we see why he was overachieving (trying to avoid the dad-bod!)

    YHC prayed… thanked God and lifted up baby backflip.

    Most Pax left, a few went to lighthouse coffee house for fellowship afterward.

    Ready for warmer weather…see you Wednesday at the Coliseum!  

  • Backyard Football!

    The Scene:  The Knoll

    Conditions: Sunny. Humid. COLD!

    Welcome

    Disclaimer

    Warm-a-Rama:

    Before our inspired football game, we did:

    x25

    Side Strattle Hops

    High Knees

    Windmills

    Butt Kicks

    Imperial Walkers

    The Thang:

    Indian run around our football field. Guy from back ran with football to the front and threw it to the guy at back of the line and if he dropped it, 5 merkins for everyone!

    That was a great warm up for our backyard football. Thanks to our captains Worms and Snackpack.

    We played 4 downs or a touchdown football. Touchdown meant 10 merkins for other team and winning team got to watch losing team do 25 burpees.

    Led by new FNG Baby Daddy, Cat 5 and Co. destroyed the other team 28-7, like what LSU will do to Alabama tonight.

    Mary:

    Everyone threw in a “mary” exercise including our FNG! Great times.

    Count-o-Rama

    Name-o-Rama

    COT / BOM:

    Welcome Baby Daddy!

    Announcements:

  • Chumbawamba!

    Chumbawamba!

    The Scene:  The Knoll

    Conditions: Sunny. Humid. Watery grass.

    Welcome

    Disclaimer

    Warm-a-Rama:

    Looked like a b-class soccer team as we jogged about 50 yards, and then jogged backwards to the flag.

    Butt kicks about 20 yards out and then high knees back to the flag.

    Shuffle facing the road about 20 yards and then shuffle back.

    Brought us to the real warm-a-rama.

    Q asked the pax if they loved 90’s music. Chumbawamba was mentioned (t-claps to Shangeaux for supporting this).

    Proceded to play Chumbawamba’s only hit, Tubthumping. Performed SSH the entirety of the song and everytime the song said “I get knocked down, but I get up again…” the group did a burpee. It started with fun smiles and ended with everyone hating the repetitiveness of this hit.

    The Thang:

    Indian run to the football field.

    Wide football sprints in place (think remember the titans but without the up-downs. We did not get blood on our uniforms).

    Lined up under the field goal. Sprinted to the other field goal post. 15 second break. Did this 4x overall for a real punch to the gut.

    Lined up three cones five yards apart for shuttle runs. Line up at middle cone, sprint to one cone and touch the line, run to the farthest cone and then back to the 2nd cone. Pax planked while everyone went through this d-lineman drill.

    Took three cones and made a ‘L’ shape, 5 yards apart. Start at one cone, run around the middle cone and make a hard u-turn around farthest cone, and then sprint back to original cone. Pax did six inches for six while everyone did this drill.

    Made a baseball diamond with the cones. Pax divided into four teams of three. Each team starts at its own base. Teams completed a cumulative number of reps of different exercise at each base:

    100 team merkins at first, 100 team crab cakes at second, 100 team lunges at 3rd, 100 team squats at home, and then sprinted to each next base. Each time a team passed a station, it got a point. Did this for a 15-minute period.

    A solid competition ended with 2 teams having 13 points, one with 12, and one with 11. A masterful effort.

    As reward, the 13-point teams ran to midfield and back, the 12-point team 75 yards and back and the last team ran to other field goal post and back.

    Mosey’d back to the flag!

    Mary:

    Crunchy Frogs x20 in honor of Snackpack being back!

    Count-o-Rama

    Name-o-Rama

    COT / BOM:

    Great to see Snackpack and Trooper!

    Announcements:

  • Backblast for 7-8-18. The Knoll

    The Scene:

    The Knoll

     

    Conditions:

    Surprisingly refreshing for a July Saturday morning at 7am.

     

    Welcome:

    8 men posted.

     

    Disclaimer:

    Money Cat: “I am not a professional trainer….huh? Why’s that funny to y’all??? Seriously guys…why is that funny?? Stop laughing or I’ll bring back Fastball and make all of y’all feel the pain!!!”

    Warm-a-Rama:

    Money Cat led the first third of the workout. I told the guys we would start off on a mosey but would call out a change and to mimic my movement regardless if I was at the front or the back because I’m usually in the back on these running kinds of things. At the sundial I called out a fast walk. At the next change I called out a mosey and after that was a fast walk. I decided to try something different. I called out a left side straddle mosey. During the side straddle mosey I called out to switch sides and lead with the other leg…(that means we now switched to leading with the right leg.) By now we had mosey’d the course almost two times and felt for the last 50 yards (I’m guessing) to the sundial we needed to do a full sprint. I could tell the guys were itching for me open it up a bit. I had the lead the entire way until I yelled out “FULL SPRINT!” And suddenly Mega Dad passed me up. What he doesn’t know is I allowed him to pass me on my left side. I didn’t want all the attention by getting there first so I turned down the after burners and slowed up a whole lot….it’s my story and I’m sticking with that. Remember….don’t question the Q.

     

    Money Cat called out a recovery countdown….it sure seemed to go by fast.

    We began our morning exercises.

    20 Arm Circles Forward

    20 Arm Circles Backwards

    20 Raised Arm Claps

    20 Dips

    20 Mexican Dips

    20 Walking Al Gore’s

    10 Burpees

     

    I was glad to turn over the next 3rd of the Q to my F3 brother Work Horse.

    Workhorse jumping in!  Well, missing Fastball’s beatdowns I decided to combine his “quarterpounder” and the “Murph”.  We based in the Sundial as it’s called, so it went like this!

    I had four F3 brothers pick an exercise, Topanga (Al Gores), Dagwood (Little Baby Crunches), Big Easy (Merkins), and Shangeaux (Side Straddle Hop). The strategy was to do a 25 count on exercise #1 and then run a lap around the running track and at the last turn heading back to sundial, turn and run backwards to complete at sundial. Plank until the last man was in!

    #1 – 25 Merkins and Lap

    #2  – 50 Little Baby Crunches and Lap

    #3 – 75 Al Gores ( which Shangeaux hijacked from Topanga )

    #4 – 100 Side Straddle Hops (which actually “unfortunately” with Topanga’s count ended up being 200) then a Lap, but changed the turn at last corner to a sprint to the sundial.  Shout out to youngster Trooper, he was in the mix leading the charge back to complete.

    At this point, we began a mosey back to the flag to do some Mary’s to close it out.  Megadad took over from there.

    • Lay Flat sit ups
    • Buddy Back Squats (wall squats on partners back)
    • Crunchy Frogs
    • Jane Fonda’s ( 3 ways right and left) for Rocket
    • Partner Leg Toss ( 10 straight, 2 left and 2 right)

    Circle of Trust

    • Name off and prayers ( special intention for F3 brother “Trooper” recently lost his daughter )
  • An Ode to the CWS

    The Scene:  The Knoll

    Conditions: Sunny. We passed the longest day of the year so only getting shorter from here, a la a time is coming when it’s still shady for this workout.

    Welcome

    Disclaimer

    Warm-a-Rama:

    Mosey’d the main loop before descending the hill toward the road, crossing and stopping in the outfield.

    [All in place]

    • Seal Jacks 13x
    • Imperial Walkers 13x
    • Windmills 13x
    • Butt Kicks 13x
    • Open Faced Strike 20x (sit down in the squat position and with an open palm out, strike straight out at the air and alternate arms)

    The Thang:

    Shoutout to Omaha, CWS and Fastball for giving us the inspiration for this one.

    Pax goes into high plank in semi-circle around home plate. One person gets up, runs the bases (pax holds high plank entire time), and when they get back, one merkin is done by the pax. 2nd person runs around the bases, followed by two merkins, etc.

    We had six in our pax, before the glorious arrival of Shangeaux, so we snaked 1-6, and then went back down.

    Same concept but this time we did big boy sit ups while each person ran to the left field foul pole and back. We didn’t snake this time. Shoutout the guys for helping the next guy up.

    Same concept. Al gores with a variation—hands behind your head with a squat. Ran to the right field foul pole and back.

    The glorious arrival of Shangeaux! Shades of Gandalf arriving to the battle at Minas Tirith, no horse. (Puts our pax at 7 now)

    We stood in a circle and decided the exercise we were best at that we could do in place, then moved our exercise to the person to our left.

    We ran to center field this time and back, while doing an exercise. When our runner got back, we “passed” our exercise to the left.

    • Al gores
    • Big boy sit ups
    • Merkins
    • Arm Circles
    • Butt Kicks
    • Crunches (can’t remember name)

    Walked it off to edge of baseball fence and then mosey’d to the jungle gym/refinery/steel factory (pull up bar area).

    Circuit was 20x each exercise.

    • Step ups on low bar
    • Incline Merkins
    • Decline leg lifts (bless that thing)
    • Pull ups

    Mosey’d the lap and ran backwards, shuffled, broke up the mosey till we got to the flag.

    Mary:

    American Hammers

    Jane Fondas

    1 minute hold of high-low plank (get into high plank, count to 10, drop to low plank, count to 10, move up to high plank)

    Count-o-Rama

    Name-o-Rama

    COT / BOM:

    Duracell returns soon!

    Announcements:

  • Scales and Burnout

    The Scene:  The Knoll

    Conditions: Sunny. The sun makes you sweat while you stand there with no exercise.

    Welcome

    Scales came today, which was awesome!

    Disclaimer

    Warm-a-Rama:

    Little mosey around the “huge baseball field”, aka to the sun dial and back to the flag via the path.

    [All in place]

    • Jumping Jacks x12
    • Butt Kicks x12
    • High Knees x12
    • 123 Heisman (strike the heisman pose with side-to-side shuffles in between) x12
    • Mummy Kicks x12

    Moseyed to the sun dial as part of the warm up. This round we did it as fast as we could to really fire up the muscles.

    • Jumping Jacks x20
    • Butt Kicks x20
    • High Knees x20
    • 123 Heisman x20
    • Mummy Kicks x20
    • 5 burpees-on your own

    Two sets of recovery countdowns after that warm-up. Worms points out the sun dial doesn’t work correctly.

    The Thang:

    The pyramid!

    • Slow-Jangle Biscuit x15
    • Merkins x20
    • Al Gores x25
    • Freak Nasties x30

    ***recovery countdown*** Did each exercise as a pulse-style on the way down the pyramid. Start halfway positionally and then you are doing small “pulse” reps during the count.

    • Freak Nasties x30
    • Al Gores x25
    • Merkins x20
    • standing lunges on each leg x15

    ***Hard to walk after the way down the pyramid. They do say it’s harder to go down stairs than up.

    —–

    Moseyed to the patio area for the circuit.

    **15 reps each exercise; 3x on our circuit**

    • Dwight Howards (bend to to a squat position next to a wall and then explode up like you are trying to touch the top of the backboard)
    • No-momentum Merkins (go down in your Merkin to where your chest is on the ground, act like you are skydiving, and then go back up)
    • Faux Upper Cuts (sit in the squat position and then upper cut with alternating fists)
    • Take a lap around the building

    —–

    **really starting to sweat now.

    Walked to edge of grass of our proverbial football field.

    Wide football sprints!

    In place, hands out, quick tapping of your feet while on our five pax sprinted to the sundial across the grass and back. Once they got back we did an up-down, and then the next person sprinted out. Props to Shangeaux for really legging it.

    —–

    We walked to the jungle gym (I can’t remember what worms called it!) as our recovery countdown and did a team exercise.

    Gathered around a middle-heigh pull up bar. One person stepped up and did burn-out pull ups from a 45 degree. (arms in pull-up position on the bar, feet “stepped through the bar” so when you are “down” you are at a 45 degree position to the ground. Pull up.)

    The pax gathered around and counted/cheered for each guy as they stepped up and gave every rep they could. Gotta love the burn out! Very fun.

    Props for Scales for killing it with 60! Those biceps…

    Moseyed back to the flag and did six inches for six till Worms finished telling a guy about F3. T-claps to worms!

    Mary:

    • Crunchy Frog x10 (shout out to Snack Pack)
    • American Hammers x15 (Rocket, I thought of you)
    • Ski abs x20 (Worms said he’s a great skier)
    • Leg lifts x25

    We all laid on the ground for a solid 30 seconds.

    Count-o-Rama

    Name-o-Rama

    COT / BOM:

    Duracell’s wife coming home from Thailand!

    Scale’s friend.

    Fastball being gone to Georgia. #respect

    Announcements: