F3 New Orleans

Tag: The Birdcage

  • Northshore Flickerball Championship and Upper Body Marshmania – from TruCoat

    Saturday’s workout included two activities, an upper-body medley led by The Manny at the Marsh and an intense Flickerball match played by 12 of the Northshore’s best at the 30.4-by-90 pitch. The Marsh beat-down included an expansive kit of training aids, possibly depleting Home Depot’s Garden Center, to challenge grip strength and upper body stamina.

    The Flickerball match was preceded with 25 minutes of warm-up exercises–sequences of lunges, sprawls, and push-ups. The match pushed past regular time with back-and-forth play. Game highlights included many bodies sliding out at the end zones in hope of a game winning final touch, potentially trading the integrity of their hamstring for glory. The match halted briefly as Bushwacker selflessly fended off Pontchartrain’s aquatic life to save the game ball. In the final moments of extra time, the defensive wall formed by Dukes, Russo, and Akbar was too much, leading to a quick transition and game winning score by The Hammer. Congrats to Pickaxe and Grappler, too, who were critical ingredients for the win!

  • I’ll get all the sleep I need when I’m dead – from Akbar

    Fond memories flooding my sleepy brain as YHC arrived to 17 pax helping celebrate 5 years of F3. 11 hours of sleep in 2 days gave me brain farts. 2 Toe Touches IC almost back to back in the warm up, forgot PAX names when calling 10 counts, and didn’t think to tell anyone it was my 5 year anniversary.

    5 years ago, YHC arrived at the Lakefront, unwillingly, overweight, and probably hungover – EH’d by Russo and my wife. Bubba was the Q, there were men of all ages, speaking to each other like they’ve been friends for 10 years. The one thing I remember most vividly was being last, but I was not alone – learning the concept of picking up the six. No man left behind, that stuck with me. The rest of that year, I was hooked, stopped the gym, started hitting 3-4 days a week, CSAUP’s, and building lasting friendships. I lost 25 pounds in 6 months and never looked back. Fond memories, and more to come.

    Warm up:
    SSH, arm circles front/back, self-love, toe touches, Imperial Walkers, toe touches, Hillbillies, and some other stuff

    Mosey toward the wall near the Gazebo for Red Hot Chili Pepper: Dirkin, Freak Nasty, Irkin, Step Ups – x10 IC descending to 6

    Mosey to the Shaft for Benjamins.

    2 exercises each round, 25 reps each, with a mosey back and forth from the flag. 100 total per round

    Another version of sleepyhead emerged – the plan was to do Freak Nasties and Dirkins first, until YHC realized we just did 180 Merkins on the wall. Modification was needed.

    1. Stone Mountain, Bear Crawl, Mountain Climber
    2. Superman’s, Flying Nuns (lunge walk with arm circles), George Thorogoods
    3. Squats, run, Renegade Row
    4. Reverse Grip Merkin, Bear Crawl, and something else.

    Mosey back to the Gazebo for more Benjamins with Core focus.

    1. Little Manny Crunches, run, LBC’s
    2. Crunchy Frogs, run, Hello Dolly

    Mosey a little further to get some shade, circle up for some shoulder work.30 second for each exercise with a hold at the end. Moroccan Night Club, We’re not Worthy – aka Field Goals, ,Cherry Pickers, Overhead Claps, hold arms out straight – @ 30 seconds each.

    Indian Run to the Flag – kinda – everybody just really took off and ran in a line with some sprints.

    At the Flag, 7 minutes of core. Hello Dolly, Crunchy Frogs, E2k, and some other stuff.

    Count, Name, and YHC prayed us out with thanks for F3. Remembering Birds family, Jose10K’s student and their family.

    Announcements:
    Spartan Dallas in October, sign up soon – talk to Hammer. Plenty of runs coming up for July 4th through Thanksgiving.

    Zoolander’s 6 year anniversary Q next Saturday.

    Here’s to 5 more years 👊
    SYITG, Akbar

  • WE ARE F3 – AROO AROO AROO!!! – from Bushwacker

    This fall, some of the PAX of the Northshore will be CSAUPing at the Spartan Beast obstacle race near Dallas. There is a palpably intense excitement in the air and this beatdown was designed to make sure all in attendance felt it. YHC, along with some some kind and committed brothers, arrived at 5:15 to begin setting up. We just beat the pre-thangers back to the flag in time to get things started promptly.

    WARMORAMA

    Warm up consisted of briefly attended tabata, and a garbled pronouncement of rules, regulations, and “the way things aughta go”, which, thanks to Jose’s requisite comments and interjections of others, were immediately and throughout the course disregarded, slightly adopted, and outright ignored. But a great challenge was mostly bested and a fun time was had by all teams of 2 who attempted.

    1. Tire Shuttle – step in each of 6 tires while running through (QIC tripped and fell so never assume anything is TOO easy!)
    2.Sandbag StepUp – holding 50lb sandbag, 10 Step Ups on sea wall (MAY have forgotten to mention the step up part)
    3. Bucket Carry – 5gallon bucket filled with sand carried out and back
    4. Sledge Hammer Slam – 15 wacks on the tire with a 10lb maul
    5. Tire Toss – 2 tires tossed individually out and back
    6. Sled Drag – 2 45lb plates on a minil sled pulled out and back
    7. Battlerope – 3″ battlerope slung up and down for 15 reps
    8. Rope Climb w/ Cowbell (not the short crunchy-frogging runner) – climb rope appx 12′ and tap the bell. As indicated prior to start, if a PAX was unwilling or unable to complete an obstacle, they were to complete 10 Burpees and move on. However, the rare and awesome challenge that a rope hanging from a tree posed caused a bit of a pile up by the time QIC and partner Shooter arrived. Immediately Shooter was pulled in by the tractor beam as well
    9. Dummy Drag – appx 150lb hose dummy dragged out and back
    10. Tire Pull – giant tire with long rope attached, pulled length of rope
    11. Spear Throw – in addition to the Rope Climb, Farmer’s carry, Sand Bag, flags and cones our own Zoolander (aka Chaka Zulu)supplied his new favorite toy to be thrown at and stuck into a foam target strapped to a tree. However, our honorary FNG, Al Gore, let us know with great protest that we were committing arbocide and proceded to take picture of the crime scene, and tear down the foam target for good measure.
    12. Farmers Carry – set of appx 30lb logs with handles carried out and back
    13. Tire Flip – giant tire flipped end over end out and back
    14. Sawhorse Hurdles – 4 8′ sawhorses spaced 6′ apart hurdled over

    Strong Work, great fun, fantastic teamwork!

    COT

    Count, Name, Grappler demurred praying us out in lieu of Rev Russo.
    Just a small taste of thing to come in October, gentlemen. Thank you for allowing me to lead you in tackling this Fire/Spartan obstacle course

    Post Script: Many thanks to the many hands who made light work of picking up the coupons!

  • Spartan Murph – from Zoolander

    A random shout out from Zoolander for an evening Murph , with Spartan related coupons, gathered the likes of Bushwacker, Bird, Jose 10K, and Baby Yoda to the Marsh for some extracurricular activities on this wet Sunday.

    YHC showed up early after dropping Yoda off at OLL for his Eagle scoutmaster’s conference, and starting unloading a bevy of intensification items to be sprinkled into the workout. A lone basketball player was on the court and, after being approached by some weirdo with a couple of logs with handles and a huge tire, was 100% in for some F3-style pain!

    Grundy was the next to show. After a quick introduction to our new addition, he was off early. You see, he was going to be a little slow…because he had a 30lb ruck sack on!

    Next to appear was Jose, always an exuberant advocate of La cosa nostra F3, he started preaching to the already converted upon meeting Devon Marques (Mr. Right Place at the Right Time).

    Bird and Zoo rolled up having finished a 2 mile pre thang, and we got down to brass Tax.

    THANG

    1 mile run from Livingston to the Lakefront and back, then beginning 20 sets, as a group, of 5 Pull ups (varied grips called out by Zoo throughout), 10 Merkins ( some using the logs for deep reps), and 15 Squats (some using the logs as weights or for Squat Thrusters). Random lagniappe as desired was a rope climb set up by the swing sets, Tire Flip (or carry if you’re Grundy aka Tank Jr), and Lunge Walks with the logs.

    Baby Yoda walked up and jumped right in around round 4 or 5 and started Sweating with the Oldies! Devon was really giving it hell for an unexpected event of such retarded proportions, and thrilled to be just where he needed to be… and then proceeded to splash merlot! But that didn’t keep the young buck down, as we finished up round 20 and prepared for an extended final mile, looping back down Marigny. Now, as the PAX was departing on our closing mosey, Devon planted his phone in a front yard on Lamarque so as to avoid losing it on the run. Upon our return, well, he lost it! The PAX gathered to assist him in his search, and Baby Yoda who can find anything from lost phones to lost trails turned up the prize.

    COT

    Count/Name special intentions for Devon’s quest of self-improvement, Jose prayed us out. Welcome ET (phone home)! Thanks to Zoolander (Chaka Zulu)for pulling this together. SYITG

  • THIS IS SPARTA!!! – from Zoolander

    Steve and Shooter are right, we need to be able to insert a GIF into backblasts. Y’all had the same image in your mind when you read the title, be honest. Welcome to a Spartan Murph!
    A regular murph intensified with obstacles. 100 pullups, 200 merkins, 300 squats. The obstacles: rope climb, two logs used for squats or squat thrusters, and a tire flip station. Once you finished your 5,10,15, you got your choice of which “extra” equipment you wanted. As always, Grundy went full on beast mode doing the entire thing with a 30 pound pack. At one point, he picked up the tire and carried it around like a child. Bird, as always, intensified. Using the dip bars to do his deep merkins. Zoolander called out various grips and types of pull ups. The group even added an extra half mile at the end. We had a FNG, Devon, who kept repeating over and over again: “Yall are crazy”. He even splashed a little merlot in there.
    COT, Jose prayed us out, and we named the FNG. We were thinking Merlot, Pignot…but once he lost his phone(the youthful eyes of Baby Yoda found it) we decided to call him E.T. Hopefully he’ll post tomorrow. Thank everyone for posting or if you’re just reading this backblast. SYITG

  • Inaugural Lakefront Rugby Sevens – from Brexit

    12 HIMs graciously posted for my Virgin-Q in full knowledge that it would likely be an absolute shambles. I had to do something British-themed for my first ever Q so, with it being the day of the London Sevens which is an annual rugby sevens tournament, I decided to do a Rugby Sevens inspired workout. You may not know it, but the US is part of the World Rugby Sevens and they’re sometimes pretty good at it (although sitting at 9th in the standings right now). Sevens is a much more simplified version of rugby, which is probably why the US is better at it than normal rugby, played with seven players instead of the full 15. Thought that by focusing on sevens it could be a good intro to the game.

    Warmup:
    Side straddle hops, arm circles, grass grabbers, toe touches, imperial walkers, peter parkers, merkins (only messed up the cadence once)

    Got into pairs and moseyed to the shaft passing the rugby ball between each other. The Rugby ball can only go backwards so each player had to sprint ahead to pass the ball backwards to his teammate. You could not move if you didn’t have the ball. Any dropped passes meant 5 burpees which is the number of points you get for a touchdown in rugby, aka, a try.

    7 burpees on our own at the gazebo after regrouping. Continued the passing drill to the shaft with the addition that the person without the ball had to do a single burpee while the person with the ball moved ahead of him. It appeared that I had over-estimated the hand-eye coordination of the group (to be fair, some of the pairs were geared up more than others…only so many rugby balls in circulation here so some were forced to use toy footballs that got completely taken with the wind with each pass…) and so was running a little behind schedule but we made up for this for a quicker than expected Sevens (staying on theme) – derkins and sister Mary Catherines. Bear crawl one way, run back.

    Moseyed to the rugby pitch, no passing this time.

    Get into teams and then did a passing along the line drill. A dropped pass was 7 burpees for the team (this was changed to 5 burpees for the team that YHC joined in with). The other team did merkins/squat jumps in the meantime (merkins on way up, squat jumps on way back).

    YHC gave his best attempt at explaining the rules of touch rugby in about 3 minutes and then game-on – 15 min (7 min halves).

    Skins v Shirts with Shirts kicking us off. Good formation to start with but it seemed like some of the players got confused with the fact that you are actually allowed to run forwards, you only have to pass it backwards…not too much territory made in the opening play. The Skins got the first try after a good line break (apologies, can’t remember which HIM scored first as I left it a week before I wrote this), but the Shirts re-grouped and came back strong to score two tries in quick succession. After a high-risk move to intercept the ball by the Skins didn’t pay off (if you don’t catch an interception and fumble it, it means a possession turnover), the Shirts were in a commanding position. In the closing minutes of the game, the Skins had their backs against the wall in defense but held firm to win a turnover deep in their own territory. From this position, Zoolander scored a highly controversial try to level the game in the final seconds. The try was awarded against a fierce appeal from the Shirts about a forward pass…this decision was in no way affected by the fact that the impartial ref had jumped into the game a few minutes beforehand and had started playing on the side of the Skins.
    Throughout the game, there was some obvious flouting of the offside rule and a little bit of confusion on the number of touches before a turnover, which wasn’t helped by a very forgetful ref, however we had some great runners of the ball on both sides and, all in all, was very impressed with the ability of the HIMs to pick up the concept of the game very quickly. Obviously a testament to the Q. It was great way to get some good cardio in while having some fun. Next time we’ll be introducing scrums…

    After a few reminders about time running out, we moseyed back, no passing the ball. No time for any core.

    Announcements – Spartan Beast, T-shirt ordering and Bogue Chitto trail run on June 15.

    COT – Russo closed us out with a special prayer for Grundy and his soon-to-be new addition to his family.

  • Standards at the Scramble! – from Shooter

    7 HIMs posted on a mild Thursday gloom to get in some work. Arrived with Jose10k getting in some pre work, while Hammer was doing some stretches on his own. Out of the shadows arrives Waterpik with his pre mosey to the Scramble. BD came over through the park with ruck sack in tow, as Chewy walks up with a Ruck as well. . Oh wait, what are these late headlights coming in. Has Cowbell returned? Negative, its Bird rolling in Hot as the warmup is under way..

    15IC SSH, Hillbillies, Windmils 10IC Bridges, wife pleasers, glute stretch and hold.

    Ruckers 20 out and back, while runners journeyed original route adding an extra loop through the Hermitage. Runners had some time to spare so completed 20IC Elbow to knee left/right, LBCs and 20 Merkins OYO..

    Annoucments: BEAST and don’t forget the shirt order.. Hammer has the Q Saturday and PickAxe may be part of the planning so prepare..

    Chewy closed us out with COT and until ther next Gloom 👊🏼 👍🏼✌🏼!!

  • Milestone Memorial Day Murph – from Akbar

    13 for the Memorial Day Murph at the Milestone Marsh. Mumblechatter was strong and the weather was stifling hot, muggy, and brutal.

    PAX: Speedy Gonzalez, Bird, The Hammer, Parrot, Zoolander, Steve, Shooter, Tanked Up!, The Manny, Chewy, Jose 10k, TruCoat, Akbar

    Warm Ups: SSH, Self-Love, Arm Circles, Grass Grabbers, Windmills, Overhead Claps, Slow Squats

    Thang: The Murph

    1 mile run to the Lakefront wall and back

    100 Pull Ups

    200 Merkins

    300 Squats

    1 mile run to the Lakefront wall and back

    Count-o-rama, name-o-rama

    Trucoat shared personal experiences of how tough battle can be, reminding us that the wars fought don’t end on the battlefield – but can carry on for a lifetime. Shooter prayed us out with thanks and honor to all U.S. Military who have served and will serve, honoring those who died while serving our country.

    Announcements:

    Spartan Dallas in October – se Zoolander or Hammer for sign up information

    T shirt order ends in 6 days.

    Coffeeteeria at Zoolander’s house

    SYITG,

    Akbar

  • Birds were the word – from Russo

    Not cold this morning after last night’s storm. I was so busy figuring out if I was a better Bob Breck or Margaret Orr last night to set my alarm, so I rolled over onto my phone around 4:53 and hustled out of bed, arriving juuuuuusssst before Pelican and Bird made me an honorary member of the Aviation Krewe (code name: Dodo).

    Warmup – 10x IC
    Seal jacks
    Toe touches
    Arm circles
    SSHs
    Self Love
    Torso twists
    Cherry pickers

    Thang
    Walls of Jericho at the Treen / Training / Trane Center (7 count of seven exercises 7 times around)

    – Crunchy frogs
    – Lunges
    – Star jumps
    – Merkins
    – Monkey humpers
    – Shoulder tap plank jacks
    – Jump squats

    Mary
    7 calf raises then up and down the pilot house (7 times)
    IC 7x LMCs
    IC 7x wife pleasers
    IC 7x Rosalitas
    IC 7x Hello Dollies
    IC 7x Right and Left Leg Bridges
    A slalom of the columns

    COT, Name-o-Rama, and prayer wrapped us up. Fun fact to go: David Treen was Louisiana’s Governor in God’s decade, the 80s, sandwiched between Edwin Edwards 2nd and 3rd terms. Edwards took those four years off to practice holding out his hand for kickbacks and signing casino licenses. At least I think that’s right. I learned it in 8th grade Louisiana History, shout out to Mr. Altobello, Raider pride!

    SYITG

  • Nickel and Dimed to Death OR Steve Is a Mean Stupid Face – from Bushwacker

    First off, let’s just take a moment to recognize the Pax that got out there early for the pre-thang – I think there were 7-8 guys? And that’s not counting Jose and JV, who started even earlier to roll at their own pace. AND, an additional t-claps to Jose for not only EH’ing JV, but also for getting out to the Marsh extra early for a pre-pre-thang of 30 minutes of pull-ups.

    And I’d argue we were off to a good start even before that, when in the wee hours of the morning the temperature mercifully dipped down into the mid-60’s. That small fact made all the difference – were it not for those 8-10 degrees, JV (by his own admission) would’ve punched that guy on roller blades in the face. And hasn’t Christian Slater suffered enough these last few years?

    Usual warmorama (can you decode them all?): WM’s, IW’s, GG’s, HB’s, AC’s, SSH’s. And 20 Merkins OYO.

    Split Q today, with YHC (Steve right now), up first. I tried to find the most pricker-filled patch of grass to mosey to for our first set of:

    Nickel and Dimes I:
    5 burpees, 10 hand release merkins, then SSH until next minute – for a total of 5 minutes. (Shout out to Catfish who taught me that one way back when.)

    Many noticed PI’s entrance at this point, but few saw Zoolander’s sly exit.

    Next up: Partner Races (or foot races, if Turtle had been there):
    Line up at the start of Marigny for a sprint down the longest block known to man. Winner does 10 merkins, loser 10 burpees.

    Tank, who positioned himself as the final sprinter, noted that every guy looked good running that block. “If I was passing by and saw those guys, I’d say, ‘Wow, those guys are athletes.’” High praise from the leader of the gazelles.

    Back at the pricker-filled, ant-infested (sorry Bird) patch of grass for:

    Nickel and Dimes: First Blood Part 2
    10 Sister Mary’s (2:1), 5 squats, plank until next minute. 5 minutes.

    And another partner race down Marigny, with winner taking 10 merkins, loser 10 burpees.

    There were plans for Nickel and Dimes III: Nickel and Dimed With A Vengeance, but thankfully Bushwacker had arrived and it was time to cede leadership duties. Even I was hating myself by this point. (Though I’ll point out, quite a few guys still had plenty fuel left in the tank for Wacker – including Russo, who was somehow able to calculate the age of Madonna’s hoo-ha in between Side Straddle Hops [approx. 130 yrs old, if I heard correctly].)

    So without further ado, time to turn the pages of this backblast over to the man himself, the Wacker of Bushes (and here you thought he was the long-winded one!).

    Geez! Chatty Cathy, huh, guys?

    Anyhoo, YHC got a taste of this race business (10 Burpees courtesy of Mr “I’m not really trying hard” Tank), and no thank you sir! Instead, a healthy order of circuit training was on the menu.

    All OYO, plank for the 6:

    50 100s, 40 SSH (single count), 30 Freddy Mercury’s (2is1), 20 Jump Squats, and 10 Burpees. 1 lap around Noah’s Ark and plank for the six. I reckon we made it through 5 or six rounds, with the final lap continuing to the flag.

    COT

    Count, Name, Steve prayed us out. Guys, I don’t know why you put up with Steve and his shenanigans, but I know he appreciates the allowance of said pied piper status. On a much more humble note, I appreciate this brotherhood and the ability to contribute in any small way to its lively and fulfilling existence.