A mild morning: nice day for a museum tour for JV’s first Saturday Q.
To the great lawn (to pick up stragglers) for a short warm-up: 30x IC SSH, 29x IC Hill Billies, 15+15x IC arm circles. I think there was something else, but I can’t remember what it was.
Mosey to the Lichtenstein pond in front of MOMA: 20x IC right-leg step-up, 20x IC incline merkin, 20x IC left-leg step-up, 20x IC decline merkin and 20x IC dips.
Touring up and down the promenade: starting on the south side, run from lamp post to lamp post, with 1 squat jump at the first lamp post, then 2 at the second, then 3 … to 10 at the 10th lamp post. At a plank-up for the old Q, run back on the north side lamp post to lamp post, with 1 lunge at the first, then 2 at the second, then 3 … to 10 at 10th lamp post.
Another set at the fountain: 20x IC incline merkin, 20x IC derkin and 6x IC ultra-slow dips (4 court down, 4 count hold, 4 count up).
Repeat the promenade, but in declining order: 10 squat jumps at the first lamp, 9 at the second, … to 1 at the 10th; then switch sides to run back with 10 lunges at the first lamp, 9 at the second, … to 1 at the 10th.
Slow mosey to the steps on right side of the museum to split into pairs: wheelbarrows up and down the stairs, while others wait in people’s chair. Then switch–Q plus 5 moseyed to the stairs on the other side to see the other metal work. But Q was unclear, so 4 stayed put, causing Q plus 5 to mosey back to the first set of stairs.
Nothing to do but mosey back to the great lawn for a circle of mary: 25x IC LBC, 25x IC flutter kick, 25x IC dying cockroach, 25x IC hello dolly, 6x IC the REAL Dr. W (Side Effects: it’s 1 out, 2 close, 3 up, 4 open, 5 arms up and in, 6 arms out and down, 7 close, 8 down: no touching the ground). Sudden change for 15 burpees. Then close out with some plank work: on elbows for 3 minutes with 30 seconds or so up for left leg up and another 30 or so for right leg up (someone-Heisenberg?–was trying it with both legs up), then up on all fours for another 3 minutes or so.
Finish out with a mosey to the virtual flag to close with a Prayer of Thanksgiving.
Category: Backblasts
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Museum tour
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Black Friday Beatdown
Five men gathered around the virtual shovel-flag, gave the Disclaimer and….one more joins us as we step off. Mosey straight to the Tulane sign for COP:
-SSH x 30 IC
-IW x 30 IC
-Arm Circles x 30 IC (15 each direction)
-Peter Parkers x 20 IC
Mosey to the Wolfpack Mountain and Indian Run to the top.
Time for some 11’s at the top most ramp. Run down and Merkins x 10 at the bottom of the ramp and LBCs x 1 at top of ramp. Continue until numbers reverse. TClaps to Rocky Top and Duille for lapping YHC…twice. Mosey down the mountain and head to the benches:
-Left Leg Step Ups x 20 IC
-Dips x 15 IC
-Right Leg Step Ups x 20 IC
Mosey to lawn in front of Touchdown Jesus for some Mary…
-LBC x 20 IC
-Hello Dolly x 20 IC
-Flutter Kicks x 20 IC
-J-Lo’s (fka Pickle Pounders) x 15 IC
-Superman hold and rest x 3
Mosey to the VSFAnnouncements, Shout Out and time for Coffee. Busy day for the pax so JV and YHC headed for some coffee and F2.
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11 Habits of Partially Effective Qs.
Partially may be too strong of a word.
15 residents and 2 prodigal sons gathered in perfect temperatures for this morning’s mystery Q. The scheduled Q had to drop out so YHC and RY thought it would be appropriate to share the love and give some of the newer Pax a chance to Q, all the while proclaiming our sage wisdom to their eager ears.
Habit 1: Arrive to the AO 10 minutes early.Habit 1: Grow an awesome mustache that commands respect
Habit 2: Don’t wear monkey feet
Habit 3: Watch out for bikes.
Habit 4: Always start with the disclaimerAfter explaining the importance of having different people Q and forgetting to state the disclaimer, we took off across Magazine (taking slightly different paths) so we could warm-up within earshot of the tomatoes.
Habit 4: It’s important that you give the Pax clear direction. We introduce each exercise with a standard set of three two part commands, e.g. Command 1: “Next exercise is (pause) The Side Straddle Hop!”…Command 2: “Ready position (pause) Move!”…Command 3: “In Cadence (pause) Exercise!” and then start the count. Don’t forget the last command of “Exercise!.” That is the one that ensures everyone starts together.
Warm-up COP all IC: SSH x 30; IW x 30; Merkins x 20; Plank Jacks x 30; Low-Slow Squats x 29; Peter Parkers x 24
Habit 5: If some jackass calls you into the COP to lead an exercise without any warning, then you should do some random number of said exercise so that he will be faced with how awful his memory is when he goes to write the backblast.
From here we moseyed to the abandoned soccer goal and divided up into four groups, forming a diamond about 20 yards apart.
Habit 6: Design the workout so that no matter the fitness level, all men get smoked and no man gets left behind. One way of doing this is for the Q and the fast guys to run ahead to the next location and plank or perform some sort of exercise while everyone catches up. Another way is to include timed exercises where the pax does AMRAP (as many reps as possible).
Rocket Man – AMRAP at each station for 30 seconds with a 10 second recovery as you rotate to the next station. Peek-a-boo pull-ups, Squats, Merkins, Burpees, Rinse and Repeat.
Habit 7: Plagiarize. If something works, steal it and use it the next time you Q. There are hundreds of great exercises listed on the website. Don’t feel pressured to be original. By the way, thanks to Yuengling for Rocket Man.
At this point YHC passed the Q off to Reluctant Yankee who had his heart set on driving his Chevy to the levee. However, a train cut off our access to the levee so Yank made a sudden change to 6 MOM.
Habit 8: The best laid plans sometimes go awry. Fewer pax may show up than expected, or more pax may show up, or a train may get in your way, or they may suddenly replace your favorite pull-up bars with some kind of twisted metal, post-modern sculpture with chains. The point is you need to have some extra workouts in your back pocket (literally in your back pocket if you are using a weinke and wearing bike coach’s shorts) ready to use at a moments notice.
Habit 9: Remember that pace is important. Standing around and not doing anything purposefully is a workout killer. This is a corollary of Habit 8, or maybe vice versa. I’m not really sure, but it probably doesn’t matter (Notice how obnoxious it is to ramble and not be purposeful, even in the backblast).
Six Minutes of Mary all IC: LBC x 25; Flutter Kick x 24; Rosalita x Veinticinco, LBT x 23; Russian Twist x 20
At this time the train was gone so we followed Yankee to the levee
Chevy to the Levee: 10 Burpees, 25 Mary Katherine’s at the top, 25 Parker Peters on the other side. Run back to the beginning and repeat doing 10, 25, and 20 reps.
Hit the rail road tracks for Wiley Coyote IC x 12
Habit 10: Never lead the pax into doing something illegal or highly dangerous
Back to the park for some Tchoupitoulas Tchoo-Tchoo. Pax in a line in plank as the man at the end bunny hops over everyone. We made it through one rotation.
Back to the flag for the COT. Prayers for friends and family facing treatments and surgeries during the holidays. Celebration of Amnesty’s grandmothers life.
Habit 11: There is probably never a good reason to quote John Cougar Mellencamp during the COT.
- T-claps to all the men that stepped up and led exercises today.
- T-claps to Osha for channeling his inner Corps Commander.
- T-claps to Heisenberg for being able to count to 3 in Spanish.
- T-claps to the pax for being able to count to 25 in Spanish.
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610 Stomp #15 – Bayou Boogaloo
5 Burpee starved men met in the brisk City Park gloom hoping to earn their turkey and dressing this week. There was some necessary needling of Amnesty for missing his Q yesterday. YHC decided to stick with the new Moss Street route, extending it two blocks past Canal to get it closer to 4.5 miles. After a quick disclaimer we we set off
The Thang
Run past the museum and out of the park. Head Southish on Bayou St. John / Moss St. Continue 2 blocks past Canal, then turn around and come back to the flag running along the other side of the Bayou. All the while, stopping every 6 minutes to do one minute of burpees/recovery. Once everyone gets back to the flag we seal the deal with 10 additional burpees.
Naked Man Moleskin
- In reality the route was about 4.3 miles. I think we can stretch it out to Banks and make it 4.5.
- Great job this morning. I think everyone ran this route faster this week than last week. Everyone was under the 10 min/mile pace. Time to add more burpees?
- For some reason Shorty and SFx decided it would be a good idea to try to fit in 15 burpees at each stop. T-claps to them for getting in 100 burpees this morning.
- The dew on the banks of the bayou is much thicker and wetter than other places. #Science
- The Ideal gas station near Parkway Bakery has gas for $1.53 #Corn
Shout Out
We prayed for those facing physical ailments and poor health during the holidays.
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The Skinny Arm post
OK- AO – The Birdcage/The Skinny #norocks
Sure there were only 4 of us again! But 4 dudes trying to get better. It was by far the coldest morning of this fall. I kept thinking that bagasse would show up with the flag – but he fartsacked on us!
The PAX started off with a gentle Mosey then things got harder.
First COP – SSH x 25, Hilllbilly x 25, Imperial Squats x 25, Merks x 20, Good mornings x 25
Kind of a quiet pax – I had to remind them to count in cadence. Finally felt warm after that COP.
Run following the loop and stop at the Rows. Rows x 20 while partner does burpees until Rows are done. Then Rows x 15 while partner does burpees until Rows are done.
Then we mosey’d following the loop at Audubon. We stopped and visited our old friend Jack Webb.
No rocks but our arms were still hurting!
Some mumble chatter about these goofy air pumps until we got to 10. Then Douille had his ah-ha moment. Jack Webb to 10. Gives + 50 push ups.
Then we mosey’d to the benches at the fountain near St Charles Ave. I offered the opportunity to the faster runners to meet at the benches. Nip Tuck and Douille took off.
Here we did a COP: Step Ups left leg, step ups right leg, Dips, one leg left squats, one leg right squats and slow dips holding each position. x 20
Mosey to the Golf tees. Here we got to work on our 6 minutes of Mary.
Hello Dolly, Russian Twist, Dying Cockroach, LBC, Peter Parkers, Flutter, x 25
Mosey a half mile. Finish the 6MOM that we started.
Parker Peters, Plank Jacks, Mtn Climbers x 20
Then it was a sprint to the finish at the Flag!
A quick prayer to better human beings – every day all day!
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Looking for Amnesty
8 Q-less PAX arrived at #RockCity in the frigid (relative term) gloom looking to lift something heavy. I wonder if the temperature was any warmer down south where our skinny-armed brethren were congregating. At 0530 YHC asked if anyone knew where the Q was to learn that he had decide to rest, apparently planning to skip the workout he is supposed to Q in favor of some workouts later in the week. #LetsNotLetHimForgetAboutThisOne. After YHC stumbled through the disclaimer it was off to the rock pile.
The Thang
We circled up near our workout partners for the warm-up COP all IC: SSH x 30; Hillbillies x 30 (insert obligatory joke about my Sr. Prom); Arm Circles x 30; Merkins x 15; Toe Raises x 30; Squats x 15.
Time to select your workout partner, aka rock. YHC decided to not provide any friendly advice to the FNG – some lessons are best learned through experience.
Mosey to the flag football field for a Rock COP all IC: Shoulder Press x 15; Toe Raises x 40; Curls x 15; Squats x 15; Rows x 15
We then lined up facing the far fence ( 75 yards?) for a variation of Lt. Dan. 2 lunges followed by 1 squat, then 4 lunges followed by 2 squats, 6 lunges and 3 squats, etc. etc. and so forth until you reach the fence. YHC almost got to 16 lunges. Tool and I recognized that Shorty seemed to be benefiting from his abnormally long stride. I am going to put his over/under at 12 lunges. Feel free to place your bets in the comments.
Next up was Lt. Dan’s cousin the Rockin’ Jack Webb: 1 merkin with hands on rock followed by one overhead rock press, then 2 merkins and 2 presses, etc., etc., and so forth. We made it to 7 before YHC got totally smoked.
Grab the rocks and mosey to the Kaboom playground where we partnered up into 4 groups and completed 2 sets of the following
- Group 1: Pull-ups x AMRAP
- Group 2: Squats con roca x AMRAP
- Group 3: Curls con roca x AMRAP
- Group 4: Rock burpees (Rockees?) x 5 (this was the count for everyone)
Grab the rock in front of you (Heisenberg got the raw end of this deal as he got stuck with Gibraltar) and return it to its home.
Finish with 6 minutes of Mary: Regular Plank; Elbow Plank; Pickle Pounders x 15; LBC IC x 30; Dying Cockroach IC x 30; Superman to Boat x 2.5
Horses to the stable back to the flag.
Shout Out
YHC led the shout out praising God for the weather, the park, and a group of men to workout with. Prayed for increased strength and compassion.
Naked Man Molekskin
The title to the backblast is a pun poking fun of our missing Q, but it does hint at a much more serious problem in our world. The situation in Syria and Iraq is grave and needs our attention and prayer. The decisions that countries must make in regards to the millions of refugees are not simple. Let’s pray that world leaders make the right decisions. Let’s pray that God moves us to look upon those seeking refuge with love and compassion. What is happening in Iraq and Syria is genocide. Christians are being killed for their faith. Peaceful Muslims are are also being murdered. I follow the band Rend Collective on twitter and they tweeted the following quote that I think is important to consider if you are a Christian: “Safety is not our number one priority : it is to follow the dangerous, wild, gospel with a cross on our backs. Settle for nothing less.” If you are a Christian, you have an opportunity to exercise your faith in this crisis. Will we deny Christ in our decision making, or will we take up our cross and follow Him?”
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Goodyear and Good Cheer
A faithful 11 showed up to enjoy a beatdown on a beautiful Saturday morning in New Orleans City Park. Though we were left without a flag by the fartsacking little piggy, yet we pressed on relatively unphased. Bueller joined the Circle of Pain shortly to make a dirty dozen.
The Thang:
Mosey to Great Lawn for circle up:
25 Side Straddle Hops (IC)
15 Arm Circles Forward / 15 Arm Circle Backward (IC)
Mosey to Track for circle:
Goodyear has 3 Blimps that travel to different fields every week so….
BLIMPS #1
10 Burpees, 15 Lunges (on each leg), 20 Imperial Walker, 25 Merkins, 30 Plankjacks, and 35 Squats (OYO)
Plank for 6
Mosey to Peewee Football field for circle:
BLIMPS (same reps as above) (OYO) #2
Plank for 6
Mosey around to high ground by The Foundry:
BLIMPS (starting with 5 Burpees and so on) (OYO) #3
Al Gore for 6
Mosey to The Foundry:
Planked in line according to running speed and partnered up
Round 1:
Partner 1 – As many cycles as you can before return of partner: 5 Pull-ups (or bent-arm hangs), 10 Merkins, and 15 LBCs
Partner 2 – Run to Brick Festival Pavilion and back (1/3-1/2 mile)
Plank for 6
Switch
Round 2:
Partner 1- cycles of 5 Pull-ups (or low rows), 10 Hip Slappers (10 slaps each hip), and 15 Straight vertical leg LBCs
Partner 2 – Run to Brick Festival Pavilion and back (1/3-1/2 mile)
Al Gore for 6
Dr. W’s x 10 (IC)
Mosey to an empty dirt spot by the Peristyle
Superman for 6
Random chatter:
Ben Stein quotes of “Bueller” as he arrived hot
Several mentions of the fartsacking piggy
Grumblings of moseying distance to the track, YHC mentioned swinging by his house for a second
Questioning YHC’s focus after coaching squat form on the first circle of BLIMPS and then encouraging getting 6’s in the air on Hip Slappers
Ringing compliments of “BS” from The Foundry as YHC rounded corner from his last run
Announcements:
The usual schedule
PAX encouraged to earn their turkey during the upcoming week
Shout-outs:
Yankee’s Aunt Julie battling cancer and enduring treatment week of Thanksgiving
Baby Brook home and doing well
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You Don’t Have to Move that Mountain
“You don’t have to move that mountain, Just help me Lord to climb it.” – Nickel Creek
12 men men met in a perfect gloom for a Wolfpack Mountain Triple Shot. We were blessed with a guest from Carolina, and to his credit I didn’t hear him mention the Panthers one time – T-Claps for that. I didn’t ask, but I think he may also be a world-champion crab walker. #FasterThanJameis
This was my first time to Q a Friday workout. We gathered around the flag for the disclaimer and we’re off.
The Thang
I wanted to prove that I was my own man, so we skipped the normal meandering mosey and headed straight for Touchdown Jesus (watch for cars). We lined up by the LOYOLA sign fka the YOLO sign for the warm-up LOP.
All exercises were ran between the LOYOLA sign and TD Jesus (about 35 yards?) – High knees, Butt Kicks, Karaoke (down and back), Bear Crawl, Crawl Bear, Jameis Winston, Winston Jamies.
Observations: 1) The dewey (not Douille) wet ground was surprisingly cold. 2) Wild Turkey has to be the fastest Bear Crawl / Crab Walker we have ever seen ’round these parts. I am going to check out some Area 51 backblasts and see if they just do Ark Loaders for 45 minutes.
Humbled by the Wild Animal from Carolina YHC led the PAX to Wolfpack Mountain.
YHC chose to do 15s up the mountain instead of 11s. After realizing the Ole Miss grads were not in attendance I skipped the in-depth explanation of the arithmetic involved (Arkansas – 49th in Education, 1st in your hearts).
Start with 5 burpees on the south side and 10 donkey kicks on the north side as you run up the mountain increase the burpees and decrease the donkey kicks by one. I think we ended up with a total of 45 burpees and 40 Donkey Kicks, but take that with a grain of salt (see previous mention about Arkansas being 49th in education).
Down the stairs. T-claps to the Loyola campus maintenance department for cleaning up the urine and ice cream.
We gathered at the foot of the mountain for a Dirty McDuece climb:
- Up the first incline and then gather for the COP (everything is IC x 12): Merkins, Squats, Hello Dolly
- Up two levels and then: Left Hand Stagger Merks, Lunges, Flutter Kicks
- Up two levels and then: RH Stagger Merks, Toe Raises, Putins
- Up two more levels to the top: Abe Lincolns, Beyonces, Freddie Mercurys (these went particularly well with my mustache).
Back down the stairs. At this point we had 6 minutes left, so we went for the trifecta
Mosey to the outer stairwell and run up one at a time. YHC went all wedding coordinator like and made the PAX space out. Cross the top floor of the parking garage and run down the inner stair well. At this point we moseyed back to the flag just making it in time.
Naked Man Moleskin
T-Claps for this PAX and their record-setting performance on Wolfpack Mountain. Hopefully the record doesn’t stand for very long….I know I am perseverating on this, but I can’t get over how fast Wild Turkey can crab walk. This is the gold standard to which the NOLA PAX must aim to acheive…Full Disclosure – I think the quote at the beginning of this BB was actually written by Trisha Yearwood, but I thought it sounded cooler to attribute it to Nickel Creek who remade the song. If you’ve read this much of the backblast your realize that I’m not cool so I’ll be honest – I do love me some Trisha Yearwood… Continued prayers for RY and Agassi’s aunt…T-claps to Wild Turkey for leading us in a great prayer.
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It’s a bird, it’s a plane… no, it’s…Aquaman??
“Some people feel the rain… others just get wet.” – Roger Miller
The perfect Gloom: Rain was everywhere and mixed with an uncomfortable chill in the air. As YHC pulled up about 10 minutes early, Jingle Vader could be seen walking back and forth from his car to the usual flag spot. I believe he was trying to avoid the lightning.
To my surprise, we had 15 men post today! It must have been RY’s tough love:
Ok old ladies–
Shorty has the Q in the AM.There is a 100% chance of RAIN at 530AM.You will be wet, you will be muddy, you will have fun.Get your SIX out of the sack and meet us at Audubon 530AM.I wonder how many tomatoes will attend the YOGA session in front of the zoo?Probably not as many hardcore psychos as we will have tomorrow!Be there or be an old lady. You will be one or the other.You choose.See you in the Soggy Gloom-RYLots of mumble chatter at the pre-thang mentioning things like “Why are we doing this” and “We are awesome!” and “Look how packed the park is now (sarcasm)” and “Why would an FNG show up today” (#Tclaps to Walleye-FNG for his first post in this storm), all with an occasional teeth chatter.
At 530am sharp, we were off, but first…
DISCLAIMER
The Thang:
COP #1 around the flag – IC: Plank-O-Rama
- 20 x SSH
- 20 x Elevator Merkins
- 20 x Plank Jacks
- 20 x Mountain Climbers
- 15 x Ski Abs
- 10 x In & Outs
Exercise #1 – OYO: Indian Run Part One to the Fountain
- Every time YHC gets back to the front, the PAX pulls over to the side to perform:
- 15 x Peter Parkers Arthur Currys
- Spiderman Aquaman Walk (low Bear Crawl) back to path.
COP #2 – IC: Dips at the Fountain
- 20 x Dips
- 10 x Incline Merkins
- 10 x Dips (Left Leg Up)
- 10 x Derkins
- 10 x Dips (Right Leg Up)
Exercise #2 – OYO: Indian Run Part Deux to the Light post
- Every time YHC gets back to the front, the PAX pulls over to the side to perform:
- 15 x Peter Parkers Arthur Currys
- Spiderman Aquaman Walk (low Bear Crawl) back to path.
Partner-up by the light post for Exercise #3.
Exercise #3 – OYO: Dora 1 – 2 – 3
- Teams of 2 PAX working together to reach cumulative exercise goal of 200 prisoner squats. Pax 1 executes as many reps as possible while Pax 2 sprints to the 2nd set of light poles and back. Flapjack until team goal is reached.
Mosey back to the flag for Name-O-Rama, Shout-Outs, & Prayer. I’m glad everyone was able to learn who Arthur Curry was. We all became Aquamen today!
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Rock City VQ
Pre-Thang
It was time for YHC to get out of his Uptown comfort zone and have his first Q over in Rock City. The gloom was crisp as we set out to do some real manly tasks of heaving rocks around.
Warm-Up
Mosey over to the rock pile and pick out your favorite dead weight to haul around. Mosey with your rock a little ways:
- COP IC: SSH x 30, Rock Curls x 15, Rock Tricep Curls x 10, Slow Count Merikan on Rock x 15,
The Thang
Mosey over to the ant hill for some Rocky Burp, Merk, Press. Starting at baseball fence, carry your rock up and over hill to the track. Do one burpee with 6 Merikans and 6 shoulder presses. Carry rock back up and over hill to starting position. Perform a burpee with 5 Merikans and 5 shoulder presses. Rinse and repeat lowering count by 1 each round. Plank up once you finish.
Mosey over to the baseball field and partner up. Separate your rock and partners rock 25 yards apart. Shuttle back and forth with partner between rocks doing the following exercises:
- Wheel barrow with partner
- Boo Boo Bear Crawl
- Duck Walk
- Crab Walk
Each time you get to a rock you and your partner perform 10 (per person) overhead sit up with rock being handed off back and forth at the top of each sit up.
Mosey back to drop off rocks. Sudden change with 15 burpees. Sprint back to flag
Name-O-Rama: 8 men set out to conquer the rocks.
Shout Out: Prayers to Brooks for a hopeful final surgery, to Reluctant Yankee’s Aunt battling cancer, and to YHC’s Great Grandfather (a WWII Purple Heart Vet) who is being put into hospice for his final days. Thanks and gratitude for helping us to become better men and to keep us injury free.
