Popeyes not only holds the crown for the best chicken sandwich in the Fastfood wars but also holds the crown for the best location for the IronPax challenge.
12 men came out in the heat and humidity to conquer the IronPax challenge and all 12 men finished the task at hand.
Challenge One: The Killer Bs
10 Yard Bunny Hop
10 Burpees, 10 Bonnie Blairs, 10 Big Boy Situps
10 Yard Bunny Hop
10 Burpees, 10 Bonnie Blairs, 10 Big Boy Situps
10 Yard Bunny Hop
10 Burpees, 10 Bonnie Blairs, 10 Big Boy Situps
30 Yard Bear Crawl
Rinse and Repeat for 5 laps
SoGo won the day with a time of 21:15 but all 12 men pushed themselves through the dirt and grass to complete the challenge. YHC, SOGO, Tua, Shuffles, and Tanner all completed the Challenge for the 2nd time this week and each improved on his time before. T-Claps to Tua for knocking 7 minutes off his Rock City time.
The End
Count-Off, Name-O-Rama, Prayer in the Sweaty-Ball-O-Man
16 men arrived to stomp through the streets of New Orleans this morning, but YHC had other plans. YHC has enjoyed tracking his endurance and capabilities through the IronPax challenge, H8, and bi-annual F3NOLA races. YHC thought it was time to throw in another way to measure himself and his brethren.
Going forward whenever YHC Qs the 610 Stomp, the workout will be a 3 mile race followed by some fun and games. YHC’s hope is that the Pax will be able to track their time and distance to see how F3 has made us faster and stronger on this journey.
The Thang
Standard disclaimer and mosey from the flag to the track. The men lined up for an F3 race – 3 miles without using the inner two lanes in the track. This resulted in a 3.2 mile race. The times were as follows:
Shuffles 20:16
Screw Top 23:06
Belloq 23:43
Rudy 23:47
Tua 24:11
Sacagawea 24:15
Jesus Juice 24:51
Rev Sox 25:28
Col. Mustard 27:20
Swiss Miss 28:08
Kuch 27:25 – 11 laps
War Eagle 27:52 – 11 laps
Tool 28:08 – 11 laps
Complicated 25:05 – 10 laps
Hokie Pokey 26:37 – 10 laps
Hawg 27:04 – 10 laps
The Game
The Pax moseyed through the mud and over to the football field for some ultimate frisbee. The Pax counted off by two and spit into 2 teams. The skins blew out the shirts by a score of 28-7. The winners were YHC, Jesus Juice, War Eagle, Tua, Col Mustard, Kuch, and someone else on my team that I can’t remember.
The Conclusion
Count-Off, Name-O-Rama, and Prayer at the flag. Thank for playing some games and letting YHC score some touchdowns.
On 29 Aug 19, the pax of AO F3 Westbank called Master Melvin celebrated its 1 year anniversary.
What started with a core group of men drinking beer and seeing visions, resulted in a year’s worth of great memories, hard workouts, and good friendships.
To celebrate the 1 year anniversary, 4 of the core men that were part of Master Melvin in the beginning led 10 minutes each of the total workout.
9 total PAX braved the 0500 calling including one FNG.
Opening
Fracsac opened the 0500 workout with some warm-up exercises.
Then the group moseyed over to the large parking lot where we remained the rest of the workout.
First Workout
Thighs led the first workout with a unique challenge. With a 1 year anniversary in NOLA, we had to celebrate with some Mardi Gras magic. So, with the help of an ‘ancient Zulu King’, Thighs brought Mardi Gras cups each engraved with a unique workout and reps. As the PAX pushed out in a very wide circle, the Mardi Gras cups were laid randomly in the middle. On your mark, get set, Go, the PAX raced to the middle grabbed a cup, returned to their place and performed the reps/exercise indicated. The goal was to collect as many Mardi Gras cups as possible until time or cups ran out. At the end, TripleShift and T-Square had accumulated the most at a whopping 6 Mardi Gras cups.
35 Cups; w/ equal amounts of cups having the following:
10 – Burpees
20 – Merkins
30 – Squats
10 – Jumping Lunges
20 – Bobby Hurleys
Second Workout
Then T-Square led the next set of exercise. With a speed ladder and a cone placed about 10 m away, T-Square led us in a series of exercises that pushed the heart rate up with the muscles burning.
As PAX waited to go through the speed ladder they would SSH. The first set, PAX would step each foot into the ladder and out rapidly to the end of the ladder and then bear crawl to the cone and then jump-lunge back to the beginning. We did this 2 times.
Next, the PAX would jump both feet into and out rapidly of the ladder to the end. Then we Burpee-Broad Jumped to the cone. Then we Bobby Hurleyed to the beginning. We did this 2 times.
Next, the PAX would high knees both feet into and out of the ladder to the end. Then we plank-walked to the cone. Then we high kneed to the beginning. We did this 2 times.
Third Workout
FroZone took over at this point. He led us in some suicides that kept our heart rates very high.
First set was suicides from beginning of the parking lot to the first light pole, then to the second, and finally to the end of the parking lot about 100m away. At the end of each set of suicides, we did 10 squats.
Next set, required 10 jumping-lunges at the end of each suicide.
The final set, required 10 Bobby Hurleys at the end of each suicide.
With only 2 minutes left of his workout time, we continued doing jumping lunges until Frasac, official time keeper, announced for a change over.
Fourth Workout
Medulla Oblongata took over as the final Q. Given all the heart racing exercises we did up to this point, he had mercy on us and required us to partner up to a Lazy Dora, which I think may be harder than an actual Dora…
100 – Merkins; each partner doing 10 at a time while the other planks
200 – Squats; each partner doing 20 at a time while the other Al Gores
300 – LBCs; each partner doing 30 at a time while the other does 6 inches
When Fracsac, announced the end of our time, we collected all the gear and moseyed back to the flag.
At the flag, a cold Gatorade was waiting for us to refresh us and to celebrate the conclusion of our 1 year anniversary workout.
Speeches were made. Pictures were taken. And FNGs were named. Welcome SpeedTrap!!
It was definitely a hard workout that challenged everyone in different ways. But our brothers were there to encourage us and to see us to the end. It was a great workout to celebrate the many, many creative ways the Qs of Master Melvin has kept our workouts interesting, challenging, and positively memorable.
Congrats, F3 Westbank on 1 year anniversary! Here’s to many more!! #MasterMelvin
12 PAX were greeted with the perfect mix warm, muggy, and damp conditions at the new UNO site on Monday. Ideal setting to sweat out the celebratory weekend beers from a kinda-stellar Saints preseason victory on Sat followed by our little league dudes lighting it up in Williamsport on Sunday. YHC encountered Belloq upon arrival where we gazed upon the intramural fields at UNO, recalling our time spent out there mid-90’s playing sports for our respective fraternities, oftentimes with a cold beverage in one hand and football in the other. Yes, those were some glory days, but I think it’s safe to say we’re probably both in better shape now than we were then, at least we’d find out in the next 45 min. Perhaps our real glory days still lie ahead?
YHC stepped in to Q the day before, filling in for Holy Grove who originally stepped up to help lead, but is on IR and hopefully will be back in the fold soon. Quick warmup included paying a little homage to the Easbank All-Stars for playing strong, displaying great teamwork, and making Louisiana proud. Scores = rep counts. YHC is no ESPN commentator but did my best with a recap of the LLBWS:
SW/LA vs W/Hawaii 2-5 2 SSH- 5 Burpees
LA vs NW/Oregon 3-2 3 WM- 2 Burpees
LA vs MW/Minnesota 10-0 10 AC
LA vs MA/New Jersey 4-1 4 Side Lunge-1 Burpees
LA vs SE/Virginia 10-0 10 PP
LA vs W/Hawaii 9-5 (US Final) 9 IW- 5Burpess
LA vs Carribean Region 8-0 (LLBWS Final) 8 GG
Next up, time to pay some even greater respect to Staff Sergeant Edwardo Loredo by knocking out the Loredo Workout, a Crossfit favorite and the “preseason” workout for the F3 Iron Pax Challenge.
6 Rounds
For Time:
24 Air Squats
24 Push-ups
24 Walking Lunges
400m Run
Given the rainy forecast, YHC mapped this out to be done near the overhang at the front entrance to the UNO HPC Building, aka Chamber of Horrors, using the parking lot as our 400M lap, verified by Google. As the PAX started churning away, there were some pros and cons with our site. Pros included lots of dry pavement and a steady flow of puzzled student athletes tricking in the building for training. Cons included a rather slippery sidewalk for the walking lunges (hindering form for some) and what appeared to be a rather long 400M lap, despite what Google said. Anyway, we plowed through and several PAX pushed extra hard. T-claps to Shorty and Shuffles for blasting out of the gate and setting the bar…and t-claps to several others that YHC saw digging deep. All PAX managed to finish before the bell rang, with times ranging from 27:48 to 36:ish minutes.
Great job knocking out a not-so-pleasant WOD. September is going to be a looooong month, especially if one opts to do the Iron Pax workouts multiple times per week. Hopefully we’ll all be faster and stronger come October….the H8 should be chump change. We capped things off with a COT. Afterwards we officially named the AO “Chamber of Horrors” which is the old nickname for the adjacent HPC building which has seen many a sweaty athletes and students alike for the past 50 years.
NMM:
It’s nice to have dry-ish feet.
Pop Tart killed it and is filling Smooth’s shoes as a front runner.
T-claps to Shorty for knowing when to listen to your body/stomach and throw in the towel. With other PAX recently going down or feeling ill mid-workout, a new addition to the Lexicon has been proposed by Da Parish…..Kenny Rogers (verb?) – Knowing when to hold em and when to fold em.
T-claps to the PAX for posting and supporting the new AO. We pay back F3 not only by leading workouts, but by continuing to grow and spread the footprint…just like several guys did here when they kicked things off in NOLA.
“U.S. Army Staff Sergeant Edwardo Loredo, 34, of Houston, Texas, assigned to the 2nd Battalion, 508th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 4th Brigade Combat Team, 82nd Airborne Division, based in Fort Bragg, North Carolina, was killed on June 24, 2010 in Jelewar, Afghanistan, when insurgents attacked his unit with an improvised explosive device. He is survived by his wife, First Sergeant Jennifer Loredo; his daughter, Laura Isabelle; his stepdaughter, Alexis; and his son, Eduardo Enrique.”
Thanks for the opportunity to lead and the motivation to keeping getting out in the gloom.
Over the weekend my fellow LVCC member, and unofficial F3 chauffeur, Screw Top was injured (not seriously) in a purely unavoidable pool incident in which he was emulating Odell Beckham Jr. Thankfully Kuch being the big man that he is volunteered to step up as replacement Q. Unfortunately it was determined on Tuesday afternoon that Kuch’s schedule would not allow him to Q. So your resident relief pitcher stepped in to clean up the mess. I scoured the F3 exicon for a solid routine and came across one that had a fitting name for me but also would somewhat put me out of my comfort zone.
25 PAX gathered at our usual location for The Foundry on a typical hot, humid, windless morning. Disclaimer was given and off we went to the track.
Warm Up (all exercises IC):
SSH x 20
Windmills x 10
Arm circles fwd/rev x 10 each
Grass grabbers x 15
Self love x 15
Tha Thang:
I found a routine on the exicon called The Cooper which was fitting for me since my youngest 2.0 is named Cooper, who also happened to turn 3 y.o. 4 days ago. The Cooper consists on running a lap around the track then performing 10 burpees, 10 squats, and 10 merkins. Then run a lap and follow with 9,9,9, etc. in descending order until completed.
T-claps to Shuffles and Holygrove who absolutely killed it. Speaking for myself I still had over 2 laps plus exercises to go when they finished. As instructed (rather poorly) anyone who had finished all 10 rounds were to plank, perform the ISI squat, do some mary, or help sweep the 6. I apologize if I missed anyone deserving of T-claps.
Around 6:10 I yelled for anyone who hadn’t completed all 10 rounds to circle up back at the start with the rest of the PAX for some mary. To keep in line of helping newer members get practice with leading workouts Mmmbop, Tug Boat, and Pop Tart stepped to each lead an exercise. T-claps to all 3 men.
Mosey back to the flag. I explained to the PAX my reasoning for choosing this routine. I will never be the best distance runner, I will never be able to easily crank out merkins, and burpees are among my least favorite exercises. But I wanted to better myself in these areas and hopefully everyone that participated was able to do the same. Countoff, name-o-rama, announcements, sweat ball of man.
Good morning, rise and shine! YHC usually opens the Stomp with a Disclaimer and “The Usual”. But with lots of creativity at 610 Stomp of late (#TClaps to Kuch, FracSac and others who find new ways to liven up our early morning run!), YHC needed to try and think of something at least a wee bit different…
Right, right. The Wisner Bridge. Our city’s version of “Hill Workout”. Yup, lets do it.
So – after the disclaimer, and a reminder to everyone of directions to the bridge (go Left, not Right) – we were off. Run to the bridge (about a mile), then back and forth over it (each pass is just under half mile) until its time to come home (another mile). And just for fun – lets throw in 5 burpees after each pass.
Shuffles (missing his running pal Smooth already) tried to stay back with the pack, but couldn’t help himself. Jumping to the front with Swiss Miss, they proceeded to go right (not left), disappearing in the gloom – only to reappear much later at the bridge.
At the bridge, Dirty Dell and Briefs set the pace. Back and forth they went. Several “Good Mornings” – to dog walkers, other runners, other PAX. This would be a dangerous way for the Frac GM run. YHC was blinded on each pass by the approaching glow of the Surge Special outfit. That’s a lot of day-glo yellow.
Nearing 6am, time to get the PAX together again at the foot of the bridge. YHC makes it to the bottom to find Ya Mom’n’dem and Pop Tart sitting around, apparently looking for some donuts and a cigarette or something to pass the time. More Burpees for them, YHC calls out. So PAX start burpeeing. And burpeeing. And burpeeing. While Hawg and Rev-Sox (closely watching their heart rate, apparently) saunter down the final hill.
Mosey back to the flag for a round of Mary, before closing with our count-off, Name-o-rama, and send everyone off to start the day with St. Ignatius Prayer for Generosity.
On another glorious hot and muggy August morning, 11 pax arrived for what may possibly have been the last Danger Zone workout, and Smooth’s bon voyage before heading to the life of Tapas and Sangria.
After a quick disclaimer, we moseyed to the track for a warmup that consisted of:
SSH x 20
Squat jacks x 20
Windmills x 20
Grass grabbers x 15
High kicks
Butt kicks
High knees
The thang –
Pax were to make 4 laps (1 mile) around the track as fast as possible. After each lap, pax were required to do 50 merkins each, totaling 200 merkins. When finished the group did LBC’s and other core exercises waiting for the six.
Next on the agenda was a sprint beep test, which was initially planned to be done on the track, but a large group of runners were also on the track, so we shifted to the grass in the middle of the field.
YHC forgot to bring cones so we formed 2 points about 20 yards apart. All pax lined up with the objective to sprint to the opposite “cone” before the sound of the beep. Once the next beep would sound, the Pax would sprint back to the opposite side awaiting the next beep. This continued while the time between beeps decreased. If a pax was unable to make it back to the line before the beep, he would be eliminated and assume a plank position. T-claps to Holy Grove and Jesus Juice for battling it out to the end with JJ taking the crown.
With about 5 minutes remaining, we circled up for some more core called out by the pax. Exercises included Freddy Mercurys, LBCs, and a few others that I can’t remember. Last but not least we finished up with a merkin ring of fire before heading back to the flag.
Circled up where intentions were offered for those battling cancer, Holy Grove’s father, Smooth’s impending move to Spain and giving thanks for our health and good fortunes.
Thank you for posting with me and the opportunity to lead.
It was a typical summer Sunday morning in front of NOMA. We had our biggest showing yet at the Renaissance and it was the first time I q’d that wasn’t the stomp. All in all it went really well…even a little tougher than I originally thought. Started off with the disclaimer in Spanish and translated to English for those that took Latin in school.
Warmup with a lap around noma and circled up for TARRAGONA (where I’ll be living)
Tin snips, air squats, Russian twists, ranger merkins, Abe vigoda, gas pumps, intended to do one armed pickle pounders but turned into the normal ones, Nolan Ryan’s, and finished with angle grinders
Then we partnered up and did bear crawl 1,2,3 (cumulative 100 merkins, 200 lbc, and 300 air squats while other person bear crawls to second tree and back). My neck is still a little sore.
Lastly, everyone completed two rounds of what I call 3 x 5’s. Kept your same partner…one is running up and back lelong drive while the other goes through 5 smurf jacks, 5 merkins, and 5 crunchy frogs). Continue with that pattern until partner gets back.
I’m very grateful to belong to such an awesome group. Best wishes to everyone! I look forward to seeing you all in the gloom 🇺🇸🇪🇸💪🏻👊🏻🏃♂️
The Uptowner Q list was running low, so YHC jumped at a chance to give Hawg a break and tryout an unused Uptowner resource YHC has had his eye on for a while. Turns out, a no running beatdown is more of a challenge than this F3 neophyte imagined. YHC was honored to lead 13 men through the gloom for this experiment.
Warmup x 20
SSH, IW, Arm Circles (10 forward/10 back), Grass Grabbers, Plank Jacks, and Abe Vigodas. There was quite a bit of mumblechatter towards the end of the warmup by a PAX who will remain nameless to protect the guilty so YHC imposed a five-burpee penalty to maintain order. The offending PAX refused to clap during the burpees, which almost lead to another round of penalty burpees, but there was more work to be done so the group was spared.
The Thang
The PAX was instructed to grab a medium-sized rock and slowsey to the parking lot in front of the gym. YHC is a fan of Dora 1-2-3 and merkin ladders. The PAX partnered up for 100 curls, 200 overhead presses, and 300 air squats (modified from squat presses with rock after a round or two of an excruciating arm and shoulder workout). While PAX 1 completed the above exercises, PAX 2 bear crawled from the parking lot to the steps of the gym for a merkin ladder (one merkin at the base of the steps and adding a merkin for each step up, for a total of 35), then lunge walk back and switch with PAX 1. Tclaps to mmmBop and Amnesty for bear crawling through a rather large puddle without complaining (guess Amnesty learned his lesson after the penalty burpees). After completing the ARMAPOLOOZA workout, the PAX circled up for a three-minute ISI compliant squat.
COT- Nam-a-rama, announcements, and prayers.
Thank you F3 for another opportunity to lead. It’s never taken lightly and always an honor. Thanks to the PAX for participating in my experiment. Parts of this beatdown will be repeated at a future beatdown, but YHC will look to modify to strive for a full body workout with compound exercises.
Eager to mark our territory with a trail of sweat, 14 PAX, aka privateers, gathered this Monday for a maiden voyage in the uncharted waters of northern 70122, and area deep with nautical history. This would be a test run to check out the area and also see what interests there may be in establishing a new AO. As the clock neared 5:30, it was encouraging to see a mix of guys, coming from near and far, that all wanted to be in that number. Before we set sail, YHC mentioned that this workout would be somewhat of an exploratory mission and perhaps a work-in-progress as we bounced around. The disclaimer came next followed by the annual recitation of a crude yet useful nugget from the F3 Lexicon that is something we should strive to avoid: Whiskey Dicking (verb) – “Half stepping through a workout or other event. More generally, execution of anything without sufficient zeal”…recently updated to read “Tentative execution of a task”. Basically, try to give it your all and make the most out of the next 45 minutes. Here’s what we did:
Quick “capri lap” around the parking lot with a COP in the nearby field for a warmup of IW, Phelps, WM, AC, Toy Soilders, LSS.
Then we kept it close for any lost latecomers with a continuation of the warmup, getting in a diamond formation for Burpees x20, Bench/Bleacher Dips x15, Jump Squats x10, Tire Flips x5. This circuit would hopefully be repeated later on but no dice.
From there, we moseyed into the heart of UNO’s campus, with a stop to plank for the six followed by 10 Merkins. T-claps to Kuch and Gideon who YHC overheard discuss trying to nudge a guy back out in the gloom…#HIM! We ended the mosey near an area officially named “the lazy river” by Gabrielle which is adjacent to a few tall sets of stairs leading up to the amphitheater hill. Here we dropped anchor for the first round of Dora, partnering up for 100 crossfit/hand-release Merkins while PAX#2 ran a lap up and down the stairs and hill. Pull anchor up…
Northerly mosey to the concrete planters in front of the Alumni Building for the second round of Dora. T-claps to Holy Grove and others for pushing hard then sweeping the six. Partner up with someone different (swinger style) for Inclined Hip Slappers x200 while PAX#2 run to the top of the levee and back. Some groans and panting were heard on this one.
From here we changed course back towards harbor, stopping in front of The UC for the third round of Dora. Original plans called for a stair running loop but time was ticking and we had to wing it with LBC x300 (in sets of 50) which PAX#2 held a low squat #ISI. We had to cut this a tad short and hightail it across the field to the flag. Shout out to HG and JJ for kicking it in high gear on the final run. Total distance covered was approx 2.17 miles. YHC’s goal of scoping out the area was accomplished but the run/plank time squeezed out some of the circuit work.
Finished things off with a COT. Next two workouts in that location (NW corner of Leon C. Simon and Elysian Fields) will be 8/26 and 9/9. Input and Qs are welcome so please chime in and/or step up. Hopefully this AO takes off, in turn further growing the footprint of F3 and having a positive impact on more men. T-claps to Gideon for the nudge and pledge to help get this going.
