Tag: Coachella

  • High IMPACT(FUL) Men – from Bushwacker

    If you’ve ever posted at the Marsh in the Monday gloom, you know that it’s like a Chris Nolan Batman movie, with shadows everywhere and just enough lighting to barely make out the caped crusader as he lurks. YHC saw 3 HIM scurrying about on the basketball court, one picking up trash (obviously Pik), one with a silver glint of light reflecting off his shimmering sweaty bare chest (clearly Hammer), and one wearing what appeared to be a soaking salmon-colored shirt with an attempt at slicked back hair (the shirt was pink and it was Jose). While I scanned the darkness hoping to find my knight in shining armor, Coachella, it was in fact Jose that I actually had my sights set on. I approached, gave a bow, and bestowed upon him the one thing he clearly does not have in his Mary Poppins-mobile…
    And as we were preparing to begin the beat down in earnest, we heard hoof beats clopping down Livingston with Coachella arriving on his noble steed, bedraggled yet committed!

    WARMORAMA

    Wishing to be a good steward of the PAX’s time, QIC hit ’em with a quick SSH X25 IC and then it was off to the races!

    THANG

    So recently there’s been some mumblechatter about the “Impactfulness” of beatdowns by certain PAX who like to Shoot things, as well as other PAX who like to edit things. YHC felt drawn the retort to such fellows with his idea of an Impactful beatdown. The formula goes something like this: Take one of the most excruciating experiences at the Marsh, have a conversation with ChatGPT, and VOILA!

    We started with a Merkin Ladder. Lining up at one end of the court 2 Merkins, Bear Crawl to other end, 2 Squats, run back. Then 4 Merkins/Squats, 6, 8, 10

    We then proceeded to the intersection for a little EMOM! 5 Rounds of 10 reps every minute on the minute, followed by a run to Marigny and back.
    1. Merkins/Squats
    2. Alternating Lunges (1/1)/Hand Release Merkins

    At this point, QIC felt he may have oversold the Impactfulness of his beatdown, glancng Waterpik seeming to intensify to modify. But, like Beethoven’s 5th Symphony, you had to let the masterpiece build to its crescendo!

    3. Jump Squats/ Hip Slaps (1/1)
    4. BURPEES

    The sweat-soaked and gasping PAX returned from the final run to circle up at center court for…

    MARY

    IC x20 Flutter Kicks, Hammers
    OYO 100 100s
    1minute 30 second Plank

    COT

    QIC felt that he had put in the work, and judging by Hammer and Coachellas demeanor, they had too. But when Mr. Squat-to-the Ground Waterpik said, “Whew that was a good one!” I knew I had accomplished the impactful beatdown I had set out to deliver. It’s too bad some people were off on luxury vacations or whining about Jazz Festing all day, but those who were there knew they had gotten their money’s worth…F1, F2, AND F3!

    Counted, named and YHC prayed us out with the ever-important theme of gratitude. And I and very grateful for all of you guys and the impact you’ve had on my life.

    SYITG

  • Naanu, Naanu – from Russo

    Not overly complicated today, as Pelican made his way back from Grizzly Adam’s cabin building territory, Coachella joined in for his third post of the week (YHC is very proud of his commitment, and am glad he’s become a regular since last year), and we had a Houston DR visitor in SlumLord, albeit a late arriver since he couldn’t find the crew at the A1C. We did give him the secret password of “Third Floor” so I hope he makes his way back soon.

    Warmup (all 10x)
    – arm circles
    – High knees
    – SSHs
    – Torso twists
    – Imperial walkers
    – Self love

    Thang
    Tabata (40 seconds on, 20 off) – alternating between benches and stage – 2 rounds at bench, 1 at the stage

    Benches
    Freak Nastys
    Step ups
    Bulgarian Split Squats
    Urkins

    Stage
    Merkins
    Flutter kicks
    Monkey humpers
    LBCs
    Plank jacks
    Squats
    Penguins
    Mountain climbers
    Lunges
    Gas pumps
    Cherry pickers
    Crunchy frogs
    Shroulder taps

    No Mary to speak of, but we did of course wrap with a circle, announcements, and prayer.

    Thank you gents for joining / reading. SYITG

  • The “10” Commandments – from The Hammer

    Four brave souls hit the basketball court Monday morning, led by YHC. First to join Waterpik and myself was a freshly bronzed Jose—straight from Grenada and glowing like a golden churro. Then came Coachella, who clearly forgot this was a workout and not a music festival.

    The day’s theme? The number 10. Because why not suffer symmetrically?

    We kicked off with a “Merkins & Bear Crawls” relay that basically turned the court into a sweaty hamster wheel —10 merkins, bear crawl, 10 merkins, bear crawl again, repeat over and over. We were trying to add enough sweat to erase the Marsh madness tallies that haunt some of us.

    Then came the ladder to 10, aka cardio purgatory. We hit all four corners with 10 merkins and at each stop continued to add 10 reps of another exercise. I can’t remember all of them—because who can remember anything mid-suffering?

    Highlight of the day? Coachella tried to kiss the ground with his whole face. Zero style points, but 10 out of 10 for comedic value.

    We closed with Mary… that lasted a minute and a half. Jose was still on island time, and frankly, we were all too tired to argue.

    Great workout. Even better faceplant.

  • Wall to Wall Disappointment – from Steve

    Man, this was the kinda crowd where you gotta have your coffee before you show up to Q. That or a shot of Jaegermeister.

    Not only did YHC have Bush texting the night before, making sure it would be an “impactful” beatdown before he committed to posting, but I had the Wacker progeny after me as well, with Duke apparently complaining that morning that, “Oh Mr. Steve’s workouts are never that hard.”

    Et tu, Duke?

    YHC had the last laugh, though, conjuring images of Mandeville’s long-dormant Machete Man just before Duke attempted to relieve his bladder in Granny’s bamboo forest. The little man noped right outta there!

    Now I can’t say that this beatdown was impactful, but hey, we did try a few new things. Started each round with a different wall exercise at the far end of the corridor, followed by another exercise x15 at each of three points around the trailhead, before circling back for some calf raises. Rinse and repeat.

    The wall (and subsequent) exercises were:
    BTTW crawl —> 15 jump squats (x3)
    Donkey Kicks x15 —> 15 merkins (x3)
    Hip Slappers x 15 IC —> 15x big boys (x3)
    People’s Chair w/ Air Presses x 100 —> 15x SMK’s IC (x3)
    Dirty hookup x15 (2:1) —> 15x T-merkins (x3)

    Everyone was bummed that we had to save the Chicken Peckers for a later date, but hey, we did get to hear many tales along the way.

    We learned that Jose on vacation in Grenada is the same Jose that we get every week: he nearly memorialized his 10k status on TripAdvisor, threatening the airline that he’d run from the hotel to the airport if they didn’t provide a taxi to get his lost luggage. Considering Jose’s recent mastery of the backblast, I think we can all agree that the world has been deprived of a very unique TripAdvisor review.

    What else… Three of the pax (Russo, Bush, Cowbell) had successfully run the Crescent City Classic over the weekend. Cowbell reminisced about the time the amphitheater bats chased him down the block. Duke counted cadence with the salty authority of the gunnery sergeant from Full Metal Jacket. (Duke also showed us the opposite of “intensify to modify,” with his Dead Superman modification of the t-merkins reminding me of the old days and the infamous “Nacho plank.”) Bushwacker lit fire to his reputation as a tight wad and made it rain this weekend, buying trips and vehicles that would’ve given the Bush of old an aneurism. And last, but certainly not least, we learned that you don’t cut in front of bear-killer Coachella at the lunch line at Piccadilly, even if you are a child. Bad things happen and this man has no problem stepping over your dead body for another scoop of carrot soufflé.

    COT, announcements of the Zoorich Classic this Saturday, Legal’s party on May 10th, and Coachella’s birthday party coming up in June. Stay tuned for details on the latter, which promises to be a Breakfast Club-type collision of stereotypes. And finally, Russo prayed us out.

    T-claps to Coach, who is making a concerted effort to post to multiple weekday beatdowns from here on out. (Be on the lookout for him at Thursday’s Scramble, minus the plate armor.)

    And thank you gentlemen for posting this morning and pushing me to get a little better. Appreciate you.

    Except for Bushwacker, who summarized my effort to make this an impactful beatdown as…

    “Eh.”

  • 2 to 22 too – from Russo

    Cool for some, not for others this morning as a dozen HIM took to the streets to make themselves stronger. Very basic this week as I’ve run out of creativity but not heart.

    Warmup IC 10x
    – SSHs
    – imperial walkers
    – Self love
    – arm circles
    – Good mornings
    – High knees
    – Torso twists

    Thang

    Given the date, I had to throw in the number 2. We would mosey around, stopping periodically for some combination of 2 burpees plus 22 of one or two exercises:
    Lunges
    Squats
    Monkey humpers
    Jump squats
    Merkins
    Wide merkins
    Shoulder taps
    Plank jacks
    Gas pumps
    American Hammers
    Crunchy Frogs
    Leg raises
    Flutter kicks
    SMCs
    Apollo Ohnos
    Freak Nastys
    Step ups
    Box jumps (though only 11)
    BSSs

    Midway through we made it to the Splashpad for two calf raises up each step and 2 rounds of slalom the columns.

    Back at the flag, it was 11 IC penguins, LBCs, flutter kicks and we closed with COT, NOR, A, and P.

    I enjoyed the camaraderie of each of you and thanks for joining.

    SYITG

  • The Mandela Effect? – from Russo

    The Mandela Effect: phenomenon where a large group of people misremember an event or share a memory of something that didn’t happen. It’s a social phenomenon that occurs when people have false memories of a person, place, or event.

    Want an example? People remember Nelson Mandela dying in prison. They may remember a cornucopia on the Fruit of the Loom logo (myself included). They swear Vader says “Luke, I am your father.” Mr. Moneybags (I think that’s the gent from Monopoly) doesn’t have a monocle?

    A more local example? The Treen Center. I swear I’ve left my keys on the bench more than once. Steve swears he remembers a Super 20-something led by me but my counting always stops at 10. We both swear we remember Shooter and Jose “scissoring” on the bench, but alas that was just a threat (proposition?).

    Jose and Steve were running around as I arrived, followed by both Coachella (not HogsBreath) and Grundy (also not HogsBreath).

    Lower 60s to start, slightly less humid, overall both “pleasant” and “sweat-inducing.”

    Warmup (all 10-20x IC)
    – Sealjacks
    – Grass grabbers
    – Arm circles
    – Imperial walkers
    – Self love
    – maybe some other stuff, I don’t remember because Jose distracted me with his average time per mile. Dude’s a full-on runner now, no doubt.

    Thang
    The Walls of Jericho
    (7 rounds of moseys around the Treen center, it of the Mandela effect) interspersed with seven reps of 7 exercises:
    – 7 merkins
    – 7 squats
    – 7 lunges
    – 7 Peter Parker’s
    – 7 SMCs
    – 7 shoulder tap plank jacks
    – 7 monkey humpers

    A mosey back to base where we wrap up with COT, NOR, Announcements, and Prayer.

    Great group this morning, and I’m glad to have been able to share the streets with you. SYITG

  • Foggy on the Escalator – from Russo

    I realize this may be late in at least one or two people’s eyes, but we can’t all be superstars.

    Warmup (10x IC)
    Seal jacks
    Grass grabbers
    SSHs
    Arm circles
    Torso twists
    Imperial walkers

    Thang

    I tried to make at least half of the beatdown mosey-related for the RCR folks, so we did just that: moseyed around old Mandeville, stopping on average every block or two to perform reps of 10 exercises in what I call an “Escalator”, or as Chewy rightly called it: “Sudoku”. Exercise 1 gets 10 reps, Exercise 2 gets 9 reps, down to one. Next round, Exercise 1 gets 1 rep, 2 gets 10, R&R until as Steve was first to chime each will get 55 reps for a total of 550 movements. Math!

    The exercises:
    Shoulder tap plank jacks
    Star jumps
    Merkins
    Burpees
    Jump squats
    Murder bunnies
    American hammers
    Crunchy frogs
    Donkey kicks
    Imperial squat walkers

    The weather: Foggy! As thick as I’ve seen this year (39 days in). This, humid so sweat was a plenty. Around 64 degrees to start, so within the 3.7 degree window that Quarterpipe will join us in.

    The music: Not Jose’s

    We timed it well enough that there was no Mary, so COT, NOR, announcements, and prayer closed us out.

    Coffee afterward, which is apparently a thing and I may or may not have needed a special engraved invitation for.

    Thank you all for joining and making the world a better place. SYITG

  • KISS with Crucial Taunt – from Jose10k

    Late Friday evening, when everyone else was busy pretending their weekend plans were too important to sweat it out, I decided to keep it “simple stupid” and crank out a Murph at the marsh. Because why not combine the serenity of nature with a borderline masochistic workout, right?

    We kicked things off with a quick warm-up around the flag—mostly to loosen up, but also to stall and hope for a miracle excuse to skip leg day. No such luck. Straight to the marsh we moseyed, where we proceeded to grind through 20 sets of 5 pull-ups, 10 push-ups, and 20 squats.

    Now, here’s where the comedy gold begins. You’ve got Bird over there doing jump squats with a full spin like he’s auditioning for Cirque du Soleil, and Zoolander showing off with thumb-only pull-ups and one-legged inverted Bulgarian split squats. The rest of us? Oh, we were doing our own kind of heavy lifting—debating whether Guns N’ Roses could out-mosh New Kids on the Block, swapping embarrassing stories about our ‘90s crushes, and contemplating if VH1’s Behind the Music counts as cardio.

    After wrapping up the Murph and rethinking life choices, we moved on to some Lt. Dan lunge-walking—because who doesn’t love a good Forrest Gump reference in the middle of quad destruction? We finally ran into Grundy, who had been “enthusiastically” searching for us by running laps around the lakefront. (Sure, buddy. We believe you.)

    Stop signs became our new nemeses, where we busted out 20 squats at each one. At the second-to-last stop, we switched it up with two rounds of 20 penguins and 20 LBCs because nothing screams camaraderie like flapping around like aquatic birds. A few brave souls sprinted to the flag to finish strong while the rest of us casually redefined what counts as a “sprint.”

    We wrapped up with C.O.T., where Russo prayed us out, undoubtedly asking for divine intervention to heal our sore muscles and to forgive Bird and Zoolander for showing us all up.

    Thanks for letting me lead, gentlemen. Next time, let’s try something harder—like keeping a straight face when Zoolander breaks out those one-legged shenanigans again.

  • Coming to you live in 25, first Saturday beatdown of the year! – from Jose10k

    OK Waterpik was the only one out there early doing the pre-thing. It was a nice chilly morning. Started off with the usual warm-up size straddle hops torso twist grass grabbers windmills you know you got the usual Bushwacker grumble grumble as always. All right mosey to Noah’s ark this is where my partner in crime Jv took over. It was a simple Dora 100 Americans 200 LBC’s 300 squats while partner one did the exercise partner to ran the block. After that I took over and we decided to mosey to the marsh stopping at every other stop sign to do 23 squats 10 Merkens in honor of Notre Dame winning 23 to 10 against Georgia. Once we got to the basketball courts, we split it up into three teams each team two teams battling on the basketball courts for six minutes while the third team was on the playground equipment doing sets of five pull-ups 10 Merkins 15 squats rinse and repeat over and over again Both teams ended up in a tie which to be honest I didn’t prepare for that so we kind of waste a little bit of time trying to figure out who was gonna be the next team up. My team got destroyed Truecoat and Zoolander, which is too much in the paint for our only one basketball player Grundy to try to compete against him then we mow it all the way back straight around there circled around the flag And then Butt Splice and Manny join us for coffee afterwards, which is always a pleasant surprise and that’s about it nightmare after Christmas or nightmare before Valentine’s Day or nightmare during Mardi Gras season or hell it might be nightmare on Memorial Day, but Grundy’s getting some coming soon so be on the lookout for thatI appreciate y’all coming out. Appreciate Jv help me you and I’d say I’m out. See you in the glom gentlemen.

  • DR + FNG FTW – from Russo

    Oh Jose, you know not of what you speak. Up until around 5:28 today, you would have been right. After Thanksgiving…Cold-ish for mere mortals…some rumored Turkey day double postings. Who could blame anyone for fartsacking and leaving me sad clown. I knew I’d have to begin working off the extra pounds, so with Pelican resting up, I started slaloming the columns and doing some pilot house climbs.

    The Pad has been decked out in its Christmas best sparkles and tinsel for a week or so, but today I spotted something new: an 8 foot tall light-up snowman on the stage (We have a stage). My mind immediately thought “Get a selfie with it, and post it saying something like ‘we had a downrange poster’”.

    Alas, that was not needed, because out of the dark I see an F3 shirt. It was Houston’s Einstein. And he brought an FNG. The 4 leaf clover-type rarity: A downrange post with an FNG in tow. I love ya, HogsBreath, but that beats a semi-regular dirty ‘Dell post any day of the week.

    Regardless, it was in the 40s as we went a little long because of the late start.

    Warmups (IC 10x)
    – SSHs
    – Self love
    – High knees
    – Toe touches
    – Imperial walkers
    – Arm circles

    Thang
    Ye olde tried and true deck of death, using the bus stop and stage as changes of scenery:

    Spades – urkins
    Clubs – step ups
    Diamonds – freak nastys
    Hearts – gas pumps

    Spades – Peter Parker’s
    Clubs – shoulder tap plank jacks (2 is 1)
    Diamonds – lunges (2 is 1)
    Hearts – leg raises

    Spades – Carolina drydocks
    Clubs – Monkey Humpers
    Diamonds – SMCs
    Hearts – heels to heaven

    No Mary to speak of, but we did finish with COT, NOR, and quick prayer. Welcome FNG Coachella (who is a Mandevillian), and word is Einstein will join us for Bird’s birdday party tomorrow.

    SYITG