F3 New Orleans

Tag: True Coat

  • Inaugural Fire Fighter Challenge – from Bushwacker

    Since April 27 of this year YHC has been, for better or worse, persona non grata around the F3 northshore. I’ve done my best to show my face at least enough so that yous guys don’t forget what I look like. The Wacker of bushes has been on a journey to become a community servant as a Wacker of Fires. And thus, the long awaited, highly anticipated Fire Fighter Challenge has arrived!

    During academy, and from time to time on shift, we don our turnout gear – boots, pants jacket, hood, helmet, and mask – and go “on air” slinging a self-contained breathing apparatus and 4000 PSI air tank onto our backs – up to 80lbs! We then perform a series of strenuous activities which test our strength, stamina and endurance. And so it was with great preparation and only last minute planning that YHC brought to the men of the Lakefront a facsimile thereof as well as could be expected in the gloom. And, perhaps, a tradition was born?

    WARMORAMA

    In increasing reps starting with 12 (excepting for supersticious 13):
    SSH,
    High Knees
    Butt Kicks
    Cherry Pickers
    Windmills
    Fire Hydrants

    THANG

    We mossied to the gazebo for a few quick rounds of Merkin Waves and Squat Waves. This allowed for 2 things: QIC’s opportunity to count PAX for teams, and one of our resident byciclists, Turbo, to catch up to the crew.

    We then mossied to the shaft where, thanks to help from early birds Steve, Shooter, and Waterpik, the field was set! Breaking up into teams of appx. 3 the PAX lined up, each at a station including the Tire Toss, the Ax Chop, the Tire Flip, the Tire Drag, the Tire Pull, and Moby Chain Drag. While P1 was tackling the task, P2 & P3 was doing a specified exercise, including LBCs, Flutter Kicks, Mnt Climbers, High Knees, Leg Lifts and Gas Pumpers.Somewhere along the way, Waterpick split the massive log, and in a temper tantrum over having not been he who split the mighty oak, the lugubrious Shooter shattered the hickory handle of the ax! There was continuous conversation as men of all ages and capabilities gave it their all battling amongst a sea of black rubber with shimmerings of silver links, all covered in the grassy morning dew. After a couple of rounds, proving to edict that many a hands make light a work, the PAX loaded all the coupons back on the trailer from whence it came, and back to the flag we mosied.

    MARY

    With 3 minutes to spare, it was on your 6 for 20 Putins IC, 20 Flutter Kicks IC, and 100 100s OYO.

    COT

    Count and name-o-rama before naming FNG Dangerfield. Turbo prayed us out. (and Cowbell made it just in time for “Amen”)

    Gentlemen, it was a pleasure that I’ve missed, being back in the main event, and I want to thank ll of you for making F3 Northshore what it is, and allowing me the humble honor of leading you bunch of yahoos through a taste of a new chapter of my life.

    SYITG

  • Another Cakewalk – from Russo

    Hurricane Ida wrecked a lot of plans this year. She did a lot of damage, broke a lot of hearts, made life a ton more difficult. But one thing I’ve learned is that even in the darkest of hours, God can find a way to turn something terrible into something good.

    I don’t want to belittle the struggle our region is still dealing with, and I can tell you firsthand there is a lot of work left. But I can also tell you firsthand that God has given us an opportunity to grow together, help each other, and all in all, be better people.

    My original plan for the first week in September was to do a birthday Q, and following the lead of Grundy and/or Zoolander (depending on how good an idea it was), complete another “Cake walk” and hope it catches on as a thing.

    Well, those plans changed due to Mother Nature, but God’s timing is perfect, so a pax of 17 said “Take Two” under beautiful weather with low humidity and temps topping out at around 71.

    Warmup (between 10x and 20x, all IC)
    Seal jacks
    Toe touches
    Arm circles
    Torso twists
    Goofballs

    Thang: A cakewalk, your basic descending ladder of exercises and reps, starting at YHC’s age (in this case, 43), and work your way to 1, with some moseying in between around Old Mandeville/Lakefront.

    The order:

    43 High knees
    42 SSHs
    41 Plank Jacks
    40 merkins (where Bird started to wonder where the burpees were)
    39 squats
    38 Hello Dollies
    37 Calf raises
    36 Apollo ohnos
    35 Freak Nastys
    34 step ups
    33 flutter kicks
    32 butt kicks (2 is 1) (lead IC by the entire pax rotating, very nice job, gents!)
    31 Peter Parker’s (2 is 1)
    30 imperial walkers
    29 Shoulder taps (2 is 1)
    28 American hammers
    27 George thoroughgood
    26 Smurf jacks
    25 leg raises
    24 Rosalitas
    23 crab jacks (crab position – opposite plank jacks)
    22 groiners
    21 Bear crawls
    20 murder bunnies
    19 Hand release merkins
    18 Bobby Hurley’s
    17 crab cakes (2 is 1)
    16 circle ups
    15 Bulgarian split squats
    14 durkins
    13 big boy sit-ups
    12 LMCs
    11 diamond merkins
    10 star jumps
    9 donkey kicks
    8 8 count body builders
    7 makhtar n’jais
    6 6 inch drills (where Zoolander was wise to my plan)
    5 Carolina dry docks
    4 Bonnie Blair’s
    3 jump squats
    2 burpees (here they are Bird!)
    1 minute plank

    COT, name-o-rama, announcements, and prayer closed us out.

    This Q doubled as my 3 year anniversary Q, so it’s time for me to again thank Toto for EH’ing me. Like I suspect has happened to many of us, I had no idea what I was in for. I showed up late to my first beatdown (Splice was Q) and quickly wondered what I got myself into. Manny’s words to me were “just stick with it” and he was right.

    More than once, I was the 6. I’m still the 6 on occasion. But each and every time, someone is there to pick me (or you) up. Tanked up was the first I remember. Shooter seems to do it the most (especially on moseys).

    And that’s what makes this group of men so darn solid. What started out as “I could use the exercise” or “I want to get back in shape” quickly turns to something more.

    The F for Fitness is lowercase. The other two are uppercase. I’ve enjoyed laughing with you all, especially when Hammer gets a pax going with his 80’s references, or Zoolander makes an off color joke about doing a Freddy Mercury. You each have enriched me, made me a better person, lended guidance, and just in general have been a blast to be around.

    Before I started, I didn’t have a lower back that constantly aches or stiffens up, nor did I have a left shoulder that tells me “That’s enough merkins for today.” I didn’t even know I had an Achilles’ tendon.

    But it has all been worth it. Ever nagging pain and shortness of breath: worth it knowing I’m making a decision to better myself as a leader, a Christian, a productive member of society. And that’s due to each of you, whether I called you by name above or not. Because finally, after 3 years, I think I’ve learned your real names, which is maybe a bigger compliment.

  • When Life Gives You Lumber – from Grundy

    The old saying goes that when life gives you lemons, make lemonade. A lesser known saying is that when life gives you lumber, make a bunch of other guys move it around back and forth pointlessly for an hour. So, when Ida provided my backyard and neighborhood with a plethora of logs and stumps, YHC went ahead and tried out that lesser known saying. In addition, the Q was able to get rid of the lumber at the end of the beatdown which was in danger of becoming part of the permanent fixtures that are still adorning many neighborhoods around the Northshore. Win-Win.

    So after having almost knocked out Bird with my open car door before the beatdown, I proceeded to try to give us all that same opportunity of physical injury by throwing, dragging, pressing, lifting, and flipping logs/stumps.

    That’s really all there was too this workout. After a brief warmup, we went to the field where YHC placed all of the logs. All of the logs had different corresponding exercises associated with them and we rotated through them for the hour. The signaling of when to rotate was when the one individual flipping the main log returned to the starting line.

    Sprinkled in the beatdown was some Mary as well.

    We left the field a little worse than we found it, but I guaranty that we were better men by the end of it.

    We returned to the flag and Russo closed us out.

    Thanks guys for letting me lead and have a great weekend!

  • Alvin Kamara LITE – from Waterpik

    Scrounge around the garage for some coupons and emerge with a punching bag, a kettle bell, and some empty large pool chlorine buckets. There are some Alvin Kamara offseason training videos floating around you tube and this was an exceptionally weak attempt at replicating his workout.

    Here’s what happened.
    Strap a rope to the punching bag and drag it to the shaft on the Lakefront and back. Each Pax completed that at least once.

    YHC filled the chlorine buckets with water. Each pax competed step ups on the seawall and well as carrying the buckets the the street and back.

    Use the kettle bell for 50 reps of American hammer.

    Cot and thanks for letting me lead. Thanks to true coat for praying is out.

  • We Interrupt This Broadcast – from Grundy

    Bushwacker:
    Welcome to the Zoo-rich classic everyone and thank you for tuning in! Excited is just not a big enough of a word to accurately describe how I’m feeling today.

    Jose-10k:
    You took the words right out of my mouth Wacker. Covid-19 took many things from us, but I think we can all agree that it crossed the line when it forced the Zoo-rich classic to be cancelled in 2020.

    Bushwacker:
    You got that right. It was tragic. I don’t think I’m exaggerating when I say that this event might be the biggest source of hope and inspiration for America.

    Jose-10k: AND THE WORLD!

    Bushwacker: So here we are. The moment we have been waiting for for over 2 years. It is time for the Zoo-rich classic! And nothing, I MEAN NOTHING, can stop this thing from happe…

    We interrupt this broadcast to inform you that the Zoo-rich classic is currently in a weather delay and has been officially postponed until 5/1/2021. We thank you for your patience and do hope you enjoy today’s programming brought to you by the washed up wanna-be trainer Grundy.

    The Warm-Up

    We started with the following exercises in-cadence:
    * SSH
    * Seal Jacks
    * Windmills
    * Imperial Walkers
    * Cherry Pickers
    *Arm-Circles

    We continued with the warm-up by lining up on the base line in a bear crawl formation. We did a alligator crawl together across the court where we stopped to do 2 merkins every third movement.

    The next sequence turned out to be way harder than the Q anticipated. We split the group in half and each took a corner of the basketball court. We went around the court in circles doing gorilla crawls from baseline to baseline, and side crawls between the two baselines. We went for 10 minutes which worked out to be 4 trips around the court (after 2 trips we went the opposite counter clockwise). I definitely didn’t anticipate it being that difficult in my head when I made it up. Live and learn.

    The Main Event

    We walked over to grab the cinderblocks for what was the main thing the Q wanted to do that day. It was an exercise sequence first introduced to me by an Israeli personal trainer named Sagi Kalev. In it, the Q almost splashed merlot after attempting it for the first time. In the exercise Sagi gave some incredible advice, he said “When you feel like you can’t go anymore and you want to drop the weight and quit, what you need to do is… NOT QUIT!!!”

    The Q couldn’t offer any better advice to the PAX than that. Let’s do this thing!

    In this sequence the first step is to assume a lunged position over the cinderblock. Next you grab the block overhand using the opposite hand of your outstretched leg while the other hand grabs the backside underhanded. Straighten your back and try to keep the weight as much as you can to be right underneath your outstretched leg so when you straighten your leg in the lunge, the weight will hit the middle of your hamstring. As soon as you begin holding the weight underneath like that, your leg gets put into a tension that will not be relieved due to its positioning until you drop the weight. It makes it very difficult to cheat.

    The sequence then begins by doing 7 reps of the lunge by straightening your leg until the coupon hits your hamstring. After the 7 reps you go back to the starting position and begin a 10 count hold. (REPEAT SEQUENCE FOR 7 ROUNDS (COUGH COUGH sometimes 8 rounds)…

    We didn’t have enough cinderblocks for everyone to do the sequence at the same time so half the group did merkins and held a plank in the same cadence as everyone else. Rinsed and repeated on the opposite leg (and did squats and al gores the second round instead of merkins)

    Great job men!

    We walked back over to center court and did a core sequence that got named “Slot Machines” which really turned out to be quite effective.

    We went back to the monkey bars and did some forearm and grip training by hanging on a bar for different lengths of time interspersed with merkins.

    We circled up, counted off, and Waterpik closed us out.

    (Now back to your regularly scheduled programming. We thank you for your patience. Enjoy the Zoo-rich Classic)

    …ning!!!!

  • Need more 10 counts – from Waterpik

    We definitely should have had more 10 counts at the beatdown. Since there were none, we hammered through 16 sets of Tabata (30 seconds with 10 seconds rest) and about 40 minutes with the cinder block coupon. Alternate cinder block reps with an assortment of other reps (mostly pull ups). At the concluding bell, YHC was thoroughly tired. Until next time!