Blog

  • Zoolander’s VQ Was So Phenomenal That No Title Can Do It Justice

    YHC did not sleep a wink the night before due to the excitement of his VQ at the Mandeville Lakefront.  Weather and Pax support could not have been better.  Warmorama consisted of the following:

    Side Straddle Hops (IC)

    Don Quixotes (IC)

    Seal Jacks (IC)

    Monkey Humpers (IC)

    Twist & Pivot (IC)

    Toe touches (IC)

    Side-to-Side Squats

    In the frugal spirit of F3, YHC introduced 3 mostly filled 1 gallon paint cans from his garage as coupons for the Pax to be used throughout the beat down, which went something mildly resembling the following:

    Mosey – Indian Run Lunges while passing paint cans back.  Last person in line runs to the front with paint can and passes back. Rinse and repeat.

    Circle up for:

    –         Atlas Twists — The Hammer, as an example of brute strength, refused to relinquish his paint can.

    –         Alternating Forearm Plank with Arm Raise — switching arms after PAX counting off around the circle

    –         LBCs (IC)

    –         Peter Parker Peters w/ Leg Raise and Mountain Climb (IC)

    –         Sputter Kicks (IC) — aka slow flutter kicks. Thanks to Barely Legal for leading the cadence.

    –         Freddie Mercurys (IC)

    –         Alternating Forearm Plank Crunch (IC)

    –         Sister Mary Katherines (OYO)

    Bearmuda Triangle BLIMPS – Like the F3-defined Bearmuda Triangle but with BLIMPS.  Two times around the triangle with bear crawls between the 3 points (paint cans) and performing 1 exercise at each station.

    –         10 x Burpees

    –         10 x Lunges

    –         15 x Imperial Walkers

    –         20 x Merkins

    –         25 x Plank Jacks

    –         30 x Squats

    Impromptu Freak Nasties and Derkins on the Lake Wall, followed by another lap around the Triangle this time with squats at the points and Groucho Walks between.  Return to the Lake Wall for Box Jumps (IC).  Thanks to Turbo for simplifying “Up means Up, Down means Down”.

    Mosey back to shovel flag for the burn out.  Unfortunately, due to technical difficulties with the portable speaker and YHC’s inability to overcome them, our music was cut short during think drills, which included call outs of sprawls, burpees, merkins, high knees, squatting punches and superman banana.

    Closed out with COT – Counterama, Namerama (welcome FNG James, now known as Psycho) Announcements, and the compulsory closing prayer.

    Thanks for letting me lead, men.  Look forward to the next one.

  • Maupin Hero WOD at The Uptowner

    Such a late backblast…I’ll try to remember what happened.

    Hawqcycle was on the Q schedule, but, was out of town for the BRR and suggested I take it. So I did.

    Warm-up, IC:

    • SSH x 20
    • Windmills x 15
    • Mountain climbers x 10
    • Peter Parkers x 10

    Mosey to the track, where we began the Maupin Hero WOD, which consists of 4 rounds of the following:

    • Run 800 meters
    • 49 merkins
    • 49 Big Boy sit-ups
    • 49 air squats

    We had 4 “official” finishers before the time ran out. Thanks for letting me VQ again! Still not sure if it counts. One of these days I will create an actual workout!

     

     

  • Monday Morning quarterbacking at the Marsh

    With pains still lingering from the VQ offered up by Zoolander on Saturday at the Mothership. YHC arrived to the Marsh not knowing the extent in which one could perform to bring his 4 fellow F3 brethren the desired beatdown they so deserve. Thanks to high humidity and multiple resources, the doubt quickly eroded as we circled up at center court to begin our journey at the Marsh.

    Warmup

    15IC GM

    15IC Windmills

    15IC Arm circles forward/reverse

    15IC Butt kicks

    15IC High knees

    15 IC SSH

    Started our Mosey toward lakeshore drive with discussions and chatter about the 2 winners over the weekend..

    Go Tigers!!

    Who Dat!!

    Discussions surfaced about how both teams overcame deficits to prevail and how the road will only get tougher along the way.. With that in mind the YHC couldn’t help but reflect on how F3 has pushed him to become better physically and how the dedication of others to post regularly inspires and motivates to go above and beyond..

    After all with F3 it’s a win every time..

    Arrived at RIPS for a series of 2/4/6/8.. One PAX goes up and over stopping at the top for jump squats, while the rest of the PAX completes Merkins. Leg Lunges, followed by reverse shoulder presses, at which point a wise disclaimer stated by Coconuts to NOT crack our Coconut!! Wrapped up with a Chewy favorite, alternating crossbody balance Toe touches.. Crossed the street for some wall action. Freak nasties 12IC (Steve Staple) 12IC Derkins R/R 8IC.. Moseyed up toward the Trailhead  for a stop at “The Tax Barn” thanks Pelican. Series of Jane Fonda’s to 12IC followed by pulses 12IC and Toe to knee 12IC closing with pulses 12IC.. Much chatter upon completion how there was a noticeable difference of strength in each leg.. Began to Mosey back and thankfully the ever speedy Garfield showed mercy to the PAX slowing his pace… Arrived back with a few to spare and a Marsh beatdown would not be complete without some action on the monkey bars..  Descending 5/4/3/2/1 pull-ups, with between Parker Peter, Forehead, Peter Parker leg ups, (not sure of the name) compliments to Zoolander for that one.. At this point the YHC noticed Waterpik and his over zealous counts of pull-ups.. Nice job Pik!!

    Circled up for count, announce and COT!!

    Q prayed us out!

    Appreciate the commitment and dedication of the Post gentleman with the opportunity to lead!!

    Till the next time

    👊🏻💪🏻✌🏻

  • Rock City’s still hot in September!

    In the gloom, it’s still hot in mid-September!  Come on!  I digress.  Anyway, as the PAX moseys to the flag it is 5:30 and 30 seconds and Rudy reminds me that we’re late so off we go to the rock pile.

    WARMUP – 31 SSH, 20 Imperial Squat Walkers, 10 Abe Vigodas, 10 Arm Circles (forward and backward)

    Grab a rock and head to the field where the grounds crew locked up many of the fences but that won’t deter F3NOLA.

     

    THE THANG

    We partner up and proceed to do a FLORA – 100 Merkins, 200 LBC, and 300 squats.

    Merkins – Partner 1 does 10 merkins while partner 2 planks and waits his turn then flapjack till they reach 100 cumulative merkins

    LBC – Partner 1 does 20 LBCs while holding their rock over their chest and partner 2 does 6 inches while holding their rock over their chest.  Flapjack until they reach 200 cumulative LBCs.

    Squats – Partner 1 does 25 goblet squats with their rock while partner 2 holds the people chair with their rock.  Flapjack till they reach 300 cumulative goblet squats.

     

    Catch Us If You Can

    Break up in groups of three.  Pax 1 will carry (piggyback) Pax 2 around the track while Pax 3 does 5 burpees with their rock then run to catch the other two and then they will rotate until they complete 400 meters.

    With only a few minutes left, we mosey back to the rock pile to deposit our coupons then to off to the flag.

     

    COUNTOFF, NAMERAMA, AND COT – Praying for Babyface’s family friend who lost his life in a traffic accident in Arizona, prayers for Brady, people affected by Hurricane Florence (especially our F3 brothers), Triple Shift’s sister in law with an unknown mass in her breast and a friend who has a tumor in his spine.   Thank you for the opportunity to lead!

  • 15 Reps For The 15th

    15 Reps For The 15th

    The Scene: The Knoll
    Conditions: Sunny. Not too humid. Crowded with college cross country participant’s
    Welcome: Hi y’all!
    Disclaimer: Don’t hurt yourself guys.

    The 4 brave  50 yr old F3 men and one twenty-something whippersnapper planted the F3 shovel flag inside the grass area of the walking path. Youthful college eyes were on the “elder” motley crew wondering who we were. The men of F3 in no sense felt intimidated by the amount of athletic youth present at the park for a college cross country event. It was obvious the college kids were jealous of our varicious pump-ah-tude in our pectorals. It’s not our fault we made the gurley men jealious. Money Cat was the Q for this beautiful Saturday morning. It was announced since the date was the 15th that all reps would be in the count of 15.

    Warm-a-rama:

    15 – arm circles forward.
    15 – arms circles backward.
    15 – overhead claps.
    15 – hamstring stretches.
    15 – windmills.

    The men of F3 mosey’d on the walk path and stopped at the area of the workout bars for pull up reps. Since other men were working out in this area the F3 men took separate turns with pull ups and ab exercises. Reps of 15 were still the count for the day.

    Money Cat kept an eye on the time wanting to keep each stage of the workout at 15 minutes.
    Finishing up at the bars the men of F3 moved down to the hilly landscape towards Highland Road for working out the quads. At this time Mistletoe joined us after finding us amongst the crowded park. We obviously stood out with all the yooooth’s in the park. We walked backwards down the hill and walked up it backwards several times. More leg exercises were to come and we moved across the street to climb the bleachers at the softball field. This exercise was only done once since the morning dew on the metal bleachers could have caused more damage than we would have liked. Staying at the field we performed pushup reps of 15 by using the parking lot bars or the ground. Afterwards, we lunged down to an area of the parking lot and did more pushup reps. We walked across Highland Road and climbed the hill backwards toward the flag.

    Money Cat keeps a coupon in his vehicle for spontaneous moments when a work out might breakout. We lined up with our six on the ground and passed it around keeping our feet off the ground.

    We completed our Mary’s in this area since we were in the shade.

    15 – left leg raises.
    15 – right leg raises.
    15 – both leg raises.
    15 – right side Jane Fonda’s.
    15 – left side Jane Fonda’s.
    We got up and walked backwards to the flag for Count-o-Rama and Name-o-Rama.

    Ended in prayer for our F3 brothers in North & South Carolina enduring Hurricane Florence.

  • A Barrell Full of Monkeys

    My achilles has been bothering me and I knew running was going to be in limited supply at the Uptowner so I was looking forward to being the Q.  Arriving at the AO, I was shocked at how much rainwater had fallen and how saturated the ground was.  I quickly decided to save my new shoes and directed the PAX to get a rock and head over to the tennis courts.  Arrrgghh!!! My shoes still got wet walking to the tennis courts.

    WARMUP

    We warmed up with 31 SSH, 20 Imperial Squat Walkers, 20 Mountain Climbers, 10 Abe Vigodas and 10 Arm Circles (forward and reverse).  Now the fun begins!

     

    THE THANG

    We would proceed to do 11’s on the tennis court.  On one side we would do 10 straight leg deadlifts on each leg with the rock then proceed to monkey across and do one (1) eight count bodybuilder.  After the 8 count bodybuilder, we would monkey back and perform 9 straight leg deadlifts and so on.  This took about 30 minutes.

    MARY

    With only a few minutes left, we did flutter kicks and leg lifts while holding the rock.

     

    COUNTOFF, NAMERAMA AND COT – Prayers for friends and families affected by death, diseases and life-threatening diagnoses.  Help us to bring comfort, hope, and leadership for those near and dear to us.

  • 1/2 Jacobs Ladder at the 6-10 Stomp

    Wow! How you forget what happens when you don’t record it.  I know I was the Q and I know we did the Wisner bridge but I can’t recall much more except it was HOT at 5:30 am.  It was a simple run to the Wisner bridge and I planned on doing a Jacobs ladder but because of the distance and burpees at the bottom of the hill, we only got to 4-5 rounds instead of 7.   Running is not my specialty but it does make me stronger.  We got back just to close out with the countoff, namerama and COT.  Thanks for letting me lead!

  • One Trick Pony

    On the way back from the BRR the F3 braintrust of Yankee and Hawg were discussing the week ahead for F3 NOLA,  ‘Tinkles do you know you’re Q at Mothership this week?’  Later during the week on mumble-chatter, ‘Tinkles has the Q on Saturday, think he knows.’  ‘Yeah he knows.’  ‘He’s known for inidian running all 3 garages at WPM.’  ‘I’ll host a low impact workout for those not wanting to run.’

    So it sounds like I’ve been type-cast?!   With such a reputation of perhaps being unaware of my commitments and making the Pax run, the challenge to show up and to run had been laid down!  It actually made planning the beatdown pretty easy.

    Disclaimer and mosey to peristyle for a group warm up:

    • SSH IC X 30
    • IW IC X 30
    • Mountian Climbers IC X 30

    Mutual agreement with low impact group to go our separate ways.

    Indian Run from the peristyle back around to City Park Ave.  Up City Park Ave to Carrollton to main entrance of the park.

    Quick breather then BLIMPS (plus BLI) at the light posts up the neutral ground on the way to NOMA.

    At the fountain:

    • Dips IC X 20
    • ‘Bongos’ IC X 20
    • Incline Merkins X 20
    • RLSU IC X 20
    • Decline Merkins IC X 15
    • LLSU IC X 20

    Water break and then form up on the jogging path by the lagoon.  Indian Run around the lagoon.  Break at the boat dock for ring of fire Merkins.

    Keeping the theme going and Indian Run back around to the great lawn.  Found our buds doing some ‘Sally Up’ and quickly got out of there.

    Suicides on the great lawn for a little change of pace.

    Slow Mosey back to peristyle for some Mary:

    • Dying cockroach IC X 20
    • Real Freddy Mercury X 20
    • Penguins X 20
    • Super Man X 20
    • Russian Twists X 20

    Mosey back to the flag just as time expired.

    Count off to 25, namorama and welcome to two FNGs:  t.i. (as in Texas Instrument, 2.0 of Abacus, yes still in business) and Tumbleweed who is originally from Amarillo.  Intentions were offered for Abacus’s family after the recent passing of his uncle and for another pax relative recently diagnosed with breast cancer. Thanks to God for the desire to challenge ourselves to be the best we can be!  Thanks for the chance to lead!

     

  • Westbank Circuit Course

    Westbank Circuit Course

    As the clock struck 5 AM, 4 PAX gathered at the flag with one FNG.  This was my first Q, so I was nervous.  I wasn’t nervous for the specific leading part, but nervous about ensuring the right balance of intensity to the workout.  If we were getting up at around 4:30am for a 5am start time, I wanted to make sure that it was worth losing some sleep.  I didn’t want it to be so easy that it felt like a waste, nor so intense that it crushed our fledgling Westbank group.

    So, I decided on a circuit course around Mel Ott Park.  And wouldn’t you know, after we welcomed everyone and mosey-ed on out to our warm-up exercise, everyone proclaimed as they shuffled that they hated running and that if this workout contained running it would ruin their experience.  Great!  What I feared would happen was about to happen.  I planned a circuit course that required running.  Well, being a new Q, I didn’t have anything else prepared, so I warned them that running would be involved and to stay motivated.  Here goes:

    WarmUp 

    Windmills – 7
    DaisyPickers – 7
    Sprinklers – 7
    Hillbillies – 7
    Sun gods – 10 each direction
    Side Straddle Hop – 10
    Peter Parker – 10
    Parker Peter – 10
    Mountain Climbers – 10
    Merkins – 10

    Workout

    Circuit Course with stations (individual effort)
    Each lap = # of Reps
    1 lap = 1/3 Mile
    Station 1:  Step Ups/Box Jumps – each leg
    Station 2: Tricep Dips
    Station 3: Burpee
    Station 4: Flutter Kicks – cadence count
    Station 5: Bobby Hurley

    Each PAX did between 6 – 8 laps.

    MoM

    Cadence Count
    20 – Flutterkicks
    15 – Hello Dollies
    10 – Leg Lifts
    1 min plank

    Count-off, Name-arama, and Welcome of our new FNG – T-Squared – He is an architect from Gretna.

    At the end, we all had a good time.  Everyone was in good spirits.  The workout was challenging, but wasn’t a total disaster as I feared.  I learned a lot and am ready to participate and grow the F3 Westbank krewe.

     

  • 110 Floors 9/11 Remembrance Stair Climb

    Well – I wanted to sign us up for a Stair Climb to commemorate 9/11 so a few months ago I contacted a group that does one at the Hyatt.  They told me only first responders can do it – so I decided we would do our own stair climb at our Friday spot at WPM.

    The 11o Floors were the number of floors that First Responders and Firefighters climbed to get to people at the top of WTC in NYC on 9/11/2001.  I can’t imagine doing that in full gear with the stress of the scenario playing out – not to mention the heat and the weight of the gear.  Tclaps to Landing Strip, Peppa and Hawg for bringing their RUCK gear.  I think one more PAX brought their gear.

    We did a quick MOSEY to the base of WPM and immediately got to work trying to get our 16 trips up.

    It was much harder than I thought it would be.  I actually only got to 14 complete reps.

    All of the PAX in the first stairwell completed the activity.

    Tclaps to BAM from Winston Salem who actually did a stair climb on 9/11.  So he did it twice!

    We had our guy Carlton post again but then vanish mid workout – I suggest Copperfield for his F3 name–

    For he is a master of illusion.  (or perhaps GOB pronounced JOB)

    Thanks again for letting me attempt this reflection.  Someone gave me an idea for doing that at Champion Square next year and I think that might be a better location.

    See you in the gloom!

    RY