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  • Centipede – from Russo

    Around 40 degrees to commence this morning, in what I would call the first “cool” morning.

    I heard a term a few days ago: “X-llenial”, someone born in the late 70s or early 80s, who had an “analog childhood and a digital adulthood” and I thought that fit YHC perfectly. To wit:
    – I didn’t have a true email until I was a freshman in college.
    – I remember needing a CD to run AOL and access the internet. We also thought “50 free hours” was a deal.
    – Required reading between 4th and 7th grade was either (a) baseball trading card magazines (How much was the ‘87 Donruss Mark McGuire worth?) b) Nintendo power (the secret to beating level 7 of Castlevania inside!), (c) Professional wrestling illustrated (with foldout Jake the Snake Roberts poster), or (d) comics (Madballs or Spider man), unless you were a Mad magazine type, or you were in the doctor’s office, and then it was Highlights all day every day.
    – You remember stand up arcade games besides golden tee, pac-man / gallega, or donkey kong.
    – You at least had some knowledge of Atari games, and one of my favorites (which also came in the arcade stand-up version) was Centipede, where the whole goal was to blast the multiple parts of the centipede back to whatever planet they came from. Destroy all of the segmented thoraxes of the centipede, and you’re rewarded with an even longer one to vanquish. Too easy you say? Maybe, until the critter moved progressively faster and around set up markers in a zig zag or random pattern. Think PacMan but with insects.

    So as YHC was planning, the thought of us looking like that centipede was in the forefront of my noggin as we traversed S, then, E, then S, then W, then S, continuing until we reached the lake in one piece.

    Warmup (all IC, 10x)
    – Seal jacks
    – Toe touches
    – Self love
    – Grass grabbers
    – Hillbillies
    – Arm circles

    Thang

    Centipede
    Simple ladder as we moseyed block to block, with reps at 10, adding an exercise at each block:
    Merkins
    SMCs
    plank jacks
    crunches
    Peter Parker’s
    Jump squats
    Monkey Humpers
    Donkey kicks
    Crunchy frogs
    Imperial squat walkers

    COT (Count, Name-o-Rama, Announcements, Prayer, in that order).

    A thanks to Steve for layering up and braving the colder temps to join, and you for reading.

    As a hidden bonus to anyone who has read to this point, as I searched the internet using my AOL CD (“You’ve got mail!”), one of the first things that pops up when you search “Centipede Atari” is a website where you can play that, and a few other classic Atari games like Asteroids or Pong or Breakout. SCORE! right?

    That Website? AARP.org. YHC kids you not. I will now go die an embarrassing death, but not before sharing my sorrows with pitfallsnake1 and digdug79 on AOL messenger.

    SYITG

  • Field of Burpee Dreams – from Mayhem

    5:30am sharp start with a wind chill of 41 degrees.
    6 for the real workout, 3 KnOts and Tenderloin.

    Disclaimer followed by announcement of my manniversary.

    Warmup: windmills, grass grabbers, hill billies, imperial walkers, SSH, both arm circles.

    To the rock pile, rifle carry a couple hundred yards.

    3 minutes non-stop OYO: 10 curls followed by 10 rows, rinse and repeat.
    5 burpees. Bogey was anxious to do his burpees 2.5 minutes early.

    To the diamond for Field of Dreams.
    Split up in four groups (that is 1.5 person per group), 15 burpees at home plate as the timer. Then head to first and tag next group to move on, and so forth.
    Rd 1: 1st base AMRAP merkins, 2nd base AMRAP squats, 3rd base AMRAP LBCs
    Rd 2: 1st base AMRAP bonnie blairs, 2nd base AMRAP shoulder taps, 3rd base AMRAP Big Boys

    Grab the rocks and line up on short stop base line. Suicides with the rock using trees as the markers.
    Rd 1: 10 curls, 10 squats, 10 overhead
    Rd 2: 15 curls, 15 squats, 15 overhead

    Rifle carry indian walk near rock pile.
    2 minutes non-stop OYO: squat thrusts.
    5 burpees.

    Conclusion of mary: flutter kicks, dying cockroach, whatever Frac chose, v-ups, squat twist, modified v-ups, protractor

    Next book… Do Hard Things: Why We Get Resilience Wrong and the Surprising Science of Real Toughness by Steve Magness.

    One year down. More to go.
    SYITG

  • Tower of terror – from Wet Tap

    11-27-23 Tower of terror

    A surprisingly cold Monday morning following a Diddle birthday beatdown blowout had YHC wondering, who would show and how much they would hate me for building this beatdown?

    Yes it’s true, I no longer head to the gym where metal weights and yoga pants fill the void in my life.
    Now, a bunch of sweaty guys in short shorts and witty humor keep the wheels turning. Why I am here? Where did cargo shorts go? Perhaps that’s why a coupon heavy beatdown for the this graciously accepting PAX was created.

    Warm-a-Rama
    SSH
    Toy Soldiers
    Willie May Hayes
    Arm circles in all the ways
    Cherry Pickers
    Self Love (love yourself quickly SV… like no one is watching)

    Thang1. (Construction)
    A little team building work. Emphasis on building. The Pax partnered up for some Dora.
    Each person had a 20 merkin buy in. partner 1 sprints to the coupon corral(120yd) while partner 2 performed SSH. Partner 1 rucks the coupon to the stage to begin the building process. Coupons are stacked to build a tower. Highest tower wins.
    The merkin buy in was abandoned half way through for time constraints, and only having 5 Pax made this a little bit more challenging.
    As we rounded the end of the thang, one coupon remained. It was Pope vs Valve. A full out mosey ensued. Anxiously waiting for their return, not knowing what atrocities may have taken place deep in the gloom, pope emerged holding the trophy. But wait, behind was a valve making up ground, not defeated but enraged. In his hands, he grips the remains of a previously fallen coupon. Two perfectly spit pieces.
    As they return, the height of the two towers have grown to an unreachable altitude. Improvising, YHC assumes the human step stool and we crown ourselves as champion.
    Both towers were crowned and a quick picture was taken to bask in their glory.

    Thang 2. (Grunt work)
    Easy instructions, minimal chatter, callous building.
    Each PAX performs:
    100 coupon curls. 50 coupon swings.
    100 tricep press. 25 we’re not worthy
    100 forearm curls each arm.

    Thang2. (Deconstruction)
    3 burpee buy in for each as parter 1 rucked the coupon back to its home while partner 2 performs WW3 sit-ups. Yes, I said WW3 as I ran away with the coupon not making eye. I could hear the discontent as I tried to make amends. It’s not what you want, it’s what’s best for you. Trust me.

    Time fell short as I had more in the bucket of fun, but maybe next time.
    All in all, it was a fun day at the Stage for us all as you can see in the picture, most are still smiling. Thanks to the PAX for making these dumb ideas of mine come true.

  • Cyber Monday – from Akbar

    Chilly day at the Marsh, where the regular HIM joined YHC for a Cyber Monday beatdown. Not a big fan of spelling workouts, but something new was learned. Did you know you can google a list of exercises that start with each letter of the alphabet?

    This is how it went.

    Warm Up: SSH, High Knees, Butt Kicks, Windmills, Grass Grabbers, Imperial Walkers, Hillbillies, Self-Love, Arm Circles

    Thang: Exercises correlated with Cyber Monday, starting with 4 corners around the block, a stop at the playground, and another 4 corners on the court and more stuff. Most exercises x10 IC, some OYO, 2 is one on single leg exercises.

    C – Cobra Squat
    Y – Y Press – like a superman, only moving your upper body
    B – Bridge – 1 legged Wife Pleasers
    E – Explosive Merkin – Think handclap Merkin, without the clap
    R – Rocket Jumps – basically a Bobby Hurley with two hands on the ground, no jumpshot

    M – Martial Arts Kick – Karate Kid kick each leg
    O – One legged Squat – Romanian Split Squat
    N – Nordic Skater – Apollo Ohno
    D – Dips – Freak Nasty
    A – Atomic Merkin – 4 count Merkin with mountain climbers – this was brutal
    Y – Y Superman – Superman with a row

    Mosey around the big block 4 corners style for CYBER x 10 IC each exercise. Playground – 3 sets of 5 pull ups and 10 LBC’s. MONDAY 4 corners on the court. CYBER MONDAY on the court 4 corners style again.

    Court sprints – High Knees to half court then sprint. Butt Kicks to half court then sprint. Karaoke full court.
    Mary – Atomic Merkin, Hello Dolly, Rosalita, Wife Pleasers, LBC’s

    Count, Name, and Waterpik prayed us out with thoughts of his 2 employees, Freon and family, and the Latino’s daughter (eye cancer).

    Announcements – Nightmare Before Christmas (Dec 17th?), Krazy Ivan, Run Cajun Run coming soon.

    SYITG,

    Akbar

  • MOGO (not BOGO) on Black Friday – from Russo

    50 degrees to start Black Friday, just about the perfect temperature to start to work off those holiday pounds that, for YHC, started well before Thanksgiving.

    Warmup (all 10x-15x IC)
    – SSHs
    – Toe touches
    – Torso twists
    – High knees
    – Cherry pickers
    – Grass grabbers

    Thang

    Inspired somewhat by those racing around today shopping for deals and steaks:

    Suicides (using the columns as markers as opposed to court stripes)
    6 total rounds, where at each column, we performed one of either:
    3 merkins
    10 curls
    4 Tricep extensions
    5 crunchy frogs
    5 leg raises
    2 absolutions

    Somewhere along the way Hammer changed SOGO to MOGO (Moon’s out, Gun’s out) so here’s hoping that becomes a thing.

    COT, NOR, Announcements, and Prayer. As always, good mumble, some sweat, great times. Come out and see what you’re missing.

    Hammer has Q tomorrow, let’s get it!

    SYITG

  • The Few, the Proud, The A1Cer’s – from Jose10k

    A day after the massive feast that I hope everyone enjoyed, two crazy HIMs joined together at the top of the parking garage. Warmups: slow stretches to work out them muscles.
    Just the two of us and a cluttered A1C. So we decided to do 5 slow merkins and 10 deep squats while we picked up the A1C. COT and it was over. Happy Black Friday y’all.

  • PAX Turkana: A Thanksgiving Reforus – from Yankee Joe

    The following is a refurbished version of Thanksgiving 2022…

    A record seven PAX showed up at the Stage….wait…no that was from Thanksgiving last year. This year, 11 PAX posted at The Den, and that wasn’t even a record! I’m tellin’ ya…this year’s PAX draft class is legendary. Anyway, Thanksgiving is a holiday that often gets overshadowed. As such, in the chaos leading up to Christmas, we can forget to take a moment to be thankful.

    As my children adorably sang (sang is a strong word) Thanksgiving songs during their Pre-K performances last week, one verse stuck out to me:

    “I’m a little pilgrim on the run, here is my knife and here is my gun. When I go a-hunting, hear my shout- Deer and turkey better watch out!”

    I pondered about what the turkey thought about all this? I asked myself, who will speak for the Turkey? I’ll tell you who…the turkeys of F3 Thibodaux…oh and also one Goose. We would need to think like a turkey, sound like a turkey, move like a turkey, and fly like a turkey.

    Wait, can turkeys fly? We would find out together. You know what they say, “Turkeys of a feather Jurp off together.”

    “Nobody says that.”

    “Shut your pie hole, Duke and focus on the turducken.”
    —————————————-

    Warmarama with the regs, followed by a civic center mosey.

    Today, we’re all a bunch of turkeys. But I’m proud of that fact. There are haters everywhere. They say that we’re delicious. They mock us saying gobble gobble. Their kids trace their hands on construction paper and slap some feet on them and say, “Look mommy, I made a turkey.” Like it’s a genuine Turcasso. Sorry kid, your teacher found the turkey hand template online because she’s bored and hates her job. However, she’s pissed that you used so much freakin’ Elmer’s glue when all you need is a dot. Just a dot. It’s a googly eye for crying out loud. C’mon Tana.

    I could deal with all of this if it weren’t for the worst thing. They say we can’t fly. Bobby Joe, Jessie Pearl, and Popeye call us flightless birds. Flightless! Oh yeah, Bubba Sue, how the hell did I get up in this tree? Well, I say horsefeathers. They think they’re the cat’s pajamas, drinking all that giggle juice; They don’t know their onions. Until now, we’ve made a right pig’s ear of things. But that ends today. Today, we will show them a thing or two about a thing or two. We’re going to learn to fly.

    Welcome to Butterball Flight Academy.
    ——————————————–

    Lesson 1: Arm and Leg Warm-up
    To the tune of “Learning to Fly” by Tom Petty, these parakeets did:

    – 1st verse – Shoulder taps; Refrain (or chorus? Asking for an optometrist friend) – Merkins
    – 2nd verse – Shoulder taps; Reforus – Mountain climbers
    – Bridge – chill
    – 3rd verse – squats; Extended reforus – Flying squirrels

    *YHC didn’t fully understand what a flying squirrel entailed. Thank goodness we had a G- oose to set us on the right path.
    ——————————————–

    Lesson 2: Coordination and flight training – Turkeys are not completely flightless and can fly in short bursts. To work on this facet of training, the flocked did:

    – Flying nuns with forward arm circles through lunges to sidewalk (approx. 20 yards)
    – Jump squats X25 (at this point, YHC was questioning his…well everything)
    – Mario punch skips back to start (apparently Geese just skip/run…weird)
    – Bonnie Blair’s x25 (yeah, Lil’ Cuz, 25:2)
    ———————————————

    Lesson 3: You Must Focus: Sometimes You Must Think Like a Crane, not a Turkey.
    To the tune of “You’re the Best” from Karate Kid (Part 1, of course), these flamingos did:

    – 1st verse – SSH; Refrain – alternating crane kicks
    – 2nd verse – SSH; Refrain – alternating crane kicks
    – Bridge – Speed Monkey humpers; Refrain – alternating crane kicks
    – 3rd verse – SSH; Refrain – alternating crane kicks

    *By the end, it is impossible to describe whatever the hell any of us were doing. They weren’t crane kicks. BUT WAIT! Is that Ralph Macchio out there? No…it’s America’s Best! Oh how I wish we would’ve had someone recording his perfect form.
    —————————————–

    Intermission: You can only push a bunch of turkeys so far without giving them some reward. So, we took a break and like any good family thanksgiving, we had a pot-luck Mary session.

    – Dilly: Leg raises

    – Honeysuckle: Freddy Mercs

    – Lil’ Cuz: Dolphin Hops (like a real son of turkey, but he misses Paradox, so who can really blame him…I can.)

    – America’s Best: At first squats, but then someone (probably Lil’ Cuz) threw some shade about it not being an ab exercise, so AB, without missing a beat and putting on his Dad voice, said, “Ok fine. V-ups 3:1!” And we did 60.

    – Popeye: He pondered for a moment, then called a lap around the civic center. At this point, Goose suggested to YHC that the concept of Mary may have been woefully unexplained to the most recent draft class.

    – Wet Tap: Bird dawwwwwgs

    – Pope: American hammers

    *YHC had to cut the potluck short due to selective hearing. A note about MARY: There’s something about her. Abs in just seven minutes. NOT six, I said seven. Step into my office. You’re X@#$& FIRED. MARY is abs.
    ——————————————

    Lesson 4: We Fly!

    – Sprint to sidewalk with tucked wings, intermittently screeching “gobble, gobble.”
    – Nur sprint back with tucked wings, screeching “elbbog, elbbog.”
    – Repeato three times.
    ——————————————-

    Lesson 5: Stabilizers
    Our wings are curved, our tail feathers are straight up, our bones are dense. We are fluffy, not fat. As such, our last lesson dealt with an oft overlooked facet of turkey flight training…stabilizers.

    AND you’re all a bunch of soft, entitled turkeys. You don’t deserve to be comfortable…ever. You think I enjoyed hiding this uncomfortable hunk of metal up my tailfeathers…oh man…sorry. I get mixed up sometimes.

    To the tune of Gobble Gobble (by Matthew West…it’s a good one), these cockatoos engaged in a combination of elbow plank holds, J-Lo’s (low plank, alternate hips touching ground), and pickle pounders (low plank with hip thrust down and up).

    Together, the J-Lo’s and the Pickle Pounder are called the ARod. But for obvious reasons, this name is no longer appropriate. For the consideration of F3 Thibodaux, I offer the J-Lo Pickle Gobbler. It’ll catch on. (I wrote the same thing last year. It didn’t catch on.)

    – 1st verse – Elbow plank
    – Pickle pounders on “gobble”
    – Reforus – J-Lo’s
    – 2nd verse – Elbow plank
    – Pickle pounders on “gobble”
    – Extended Reforus – J-Lo’s
    ————————————————–

    Encore! Three minutes remaining
    YHC deliberated with great pains on which Karate Kid song to use for the Crane Kick lesson. It came down to “You’re the Best” and “Glory of Love.” The former won out by virtue of faster cadence.

    So, to the tune of “Glory of Love,” we held Mission Impossible plank for three minutes until time called at 6 am.

    COT and Piccadilly prayed us out. As always, I am thankful for F3, the men of the Thibodaux FLAX, and most of all the values that we share.

    SYITG and Gobble Gobble,

    Turkey Jeaux

  • Turkey Trot Rucksgiving Plus an FNG – from Bolt

    6 pax heeded the call to accelerate on Turkey Day with what else? A run/ruck because it’s the Wally Run: runners covered 4.5 miles for a 10’00” pace and the ruckers covered 2.7 miles for 15’02” pace.
    Teedy OCP and an FNG were DR from AR for Thanksgiving with Hawg. Boo Boo baited the FNG into naming himself—it was brilliant; welcome Hose Monkey, one of the best names in recent memory!

  • 7 for the Dirty Dozen – from Bolt

    War Eagle asked YHC to Q as we disbanded the Scrim and knowing the Q is a great way to avoid a Fartsack, I obliged. Thankfully, War Eagle kicked off the warorama due to my “turdiness” and allowed me to finish it upon my arrival. There was considerable mumble chatter about my called warm ups the pax had already done and then being too slow for today’s cold plus my JBL co-Q wouldn’t connect so no music—my apologies ladies, FIA meets Uptown…
    Mosey to JPAX with music (finally) for The Thang: Dirty Dozen
    12 exercises/12 reps each, add an exercise after taking a lap down/up the stairs:
    Monkey Humpers
    Shoulder Taps
    Big Boys
    Bonnie Blair’s
    Merkins
    Leg Raises
    Scoop Squats
    Carolina Dry Docks Pl
    Compound Ws
    Burpees
    Mountain Climbers
    SSH

    Congrats to Maytag for making it through round 11 as designed before YHC called for suspension of down/up stairs for time and simply finish that round with all 12 of the exercises so everyone had a final round of 12 exercises equalling 144 reps. Rev Sox was super stoked to have kicked off the morn with a combined 144 Monkey Humpers—you’re welcome!

    I suspect this BD will make a third appearance at an AO near you since no one invoked the song skip rule; that tells YHC it must’ve not sucked and by not sucked, I mean sucked. Honored by your presence and to lead.

  • Disney Zumba – from Smooth Operator

    11/21/23

    Attendance
    Pope
    safety valve
    Wet tap
    Americas best
    Goose
    Enron
    Lil cuz
    Honeysuckle

    YHC slept through 2 alarms this morning and woke up at 4:50 which pretty much set the tone for the beatdown. At 5:10 YHC showed up and didn’t see the Turt wielding Safety Valve, which caused YHC to send Goose to his house for a music box. 2 minutes later Safety Valve showed up and Goose showed back up at 5:16 on SSH 18.

    YHC recently had the privilege to take his family to Disney World. With all the stuff my family had been through in the last 4 months, I figured it was worth a shot to try and capture a little bit of happiness from the happiest place on earth. YHC has a love hate relationship with Disney. I don’t mind the drinks and food that they sell there even though it is more than double what a meal should cost, but YHC’s family loves going and I’m not going to stop them if I can help it. YHC needed a couple weeks to let the idea of this beatdown mature before I was ready to bring this joy to the PAX. Alright let’s get after it.

    Warmarama
    SSH
    Wind mills
    Arm circles
    Cherry pickers
    Mosey to coupon corner for some 35 lb dance partners.

    Thang 1-10
    A few weeks into YHC’s F3 experience, Goose shared a beatdown with the PAX which involves nothing but music exercises and burpees. We did over 200 burpees that day and I thought that was the coolest idea and I developed a love for the burpees that day. Well due to YHC’s experience at Disney and this very fond memorable beatdown, I decided to stick these two in a blender and YHC’s version of Disney Zumba was what came out. Alright let’s get after it.

    The 1st song was meant to be an additional warm up due to a relatively short warmarama. The song was Poco Loco from the Pixar movie Coco. The Pax did mountain climbers for the duration and A-rods (J-lo and pickle pounder) on the trigger words Poco Loco and Mi amor. The Pax knocked this out with relative ease and looked to be hungry for more.

    The next song on the agenda was from Mulan named Make a man out of you. Naturally the duration workout was Manmakers and the trigger exercise was goblet squats. Our trigger words for this song were Huns, son, boy, Mr. and man.

    Song 3 was surface pressure from Encanto. For this song the Pax switched from high, middle, and low Al gore squats each time there was a lyrical break in the song. Our trigger exercise was Bobby Hurleys each time the words pressure or surface came about which happened to be a good bit.

    Our next song I started feeling the Pax giving me some icy stares. The song name was Frozen heart from the hot movie Frozen. The duration exercise was Side straddle hops although there was not many SSH due to the amount of trigger exercises completed. The trigger exercises was goose’s and our trigger words were frozen, cold, icy, basically anything that the Pax determined to represent cold. I’m pretty sure everybody thought this one was cool.

    Next we stayed on theme and did another song from Frozen 2 named Lost in the woods. Our duration exercise was holding 6” and our trigger exercise would be leg raises. Our trigger words were go, gone, lost, catch, chasing.

    The next song , Zero to Hero, comes from Hercules. Each time there was a lyrical break we would switch from high plank to low plank.

    YHC is a big fan of this next movie, if I had to pick a favorite princess movie it would be Moana and Shiny our featured song is a good one. Our duration exercise was Apollo onos and we did burpees for our trigger exercise. The trigger words were shiny, glam, treasure, sparkle, glitter basically anything to do with a shiny. We basically did 3 minutes of burpees once this one was finished.

    The next one is not as well known as the rest on this list. It’s all right from the movie Soul is another good song. Our duration exercise was coupon crunches and our trigger exercise was WW3 sit ups. The triggers were it’s all right and soul. We did a lot of ww3 sit ups.

    YHC couldn’t pass up the Jungle Book Bare necessities since Wet Tap was really looking forward to it. We did Bonnie Blair’s for duration and burpees for a trigger. Our trigger words were Bare, Bear, Bees, Honey, and Paw. We didn’t do many Bonnie Blair’s.

    Our last song which was supposed to be engrained in the Pax’s brains was It’s a small world. We did penguins for duration and WW2 sit ups whenever we heard the worlds it’s a small world in all languages. This seemed to baffle the Pax but we ended up getting whistle bit on 0600 before we left the English language.

    After this we circled up and did COT and prayed out
    Thanks to the Pax who stuck with me. I half expected people to walk out on this one. All in all those who came, put in work, and were probably sore the next morning. Mission accomplished.
    SYITG
    Smooth Operator