Tag: Vagabond

  • The Rocky Run – from Baywatch

    Conditions were cool and excellent for an early morning Friday beatdown. With pleasantries exchanged and a disclaimer given, we moseyed over to the rock pile for a warmup.

    Warmup (IC):

    SSH 20x
    Hillbillies 20x
    Stormtroopers 20x
    Peter Parkers 15x
    Parker Peters 15x
    Arm Circles F/B 15x

    Now the fun part…everyone grabbed a rock (well, except for Rougarou. He grabbed a pebble.) and we headed over to the track.

    The name of the game was 4-corners. We did 4 laps around the track, carrying our rocks, and stopping at each corner for some fun.

    Corner 1–25 curls & 25 flutter kicks (FK)
    Corner 2–25 overhead presses & 25 FK
    Corner 3–25 bent over rows & 25 FK
    Corner 4–25 squats & 25 FK

    After 4 laps we all finished right at the buzzer with Bogey and Vagabond leading the way. We dropped our rocks off (and one pebble) and headed back to the flag to close it out.

  • They All Ask’d for You – from Triple Shift

    Complacency is the enemy of Acceleration!

    I had fell into the habit of recycling a few good workouts with a minor tweak here and there but let’s face it…I was in a Q rut. I could always use the excuse of ‘Cause Covid’ or Hurricane Ida but the reality is that I got lazy. The rhythm of life got jumbled up and I forgot that I have a responsibility to the pax members who show up. With that in mind, I went to the F3 Nation Exicon page and…WHOA….I had numerous ideas on just the first page. With a little inspiration, I was off and running (so to speak) with the Animal Parade theme.

    WARMUP
    Start off with 10 inch worms facing the bacon and enjoying the sunrise.
    10 – Low Slow Squats (8 count)
    10 – Low Slow Merkins (8 count)

    THE THANG
    We lined up on front apron to the left side of NOMA and then performed the following movements to travel to the right side of the NOMA. It is approximately 30 yards.
    Bear Crawl then Crawl Bear (try to keep your hips lower than your torso for both movements)
    Duck Walk then Walk Duck (try to keep your chest up and knees bent at 90 degrees)
    Monkey to the right then Monkey to the left. (try to keep your chest above your hips as you move left to right then right to left. Hands first then feet second)
    Now that we were warmed up, we used the concrete benches behind the front columns for 10 pistol squats and Bulgarian split squats on each leg.
    Head to the fountain for 10 low slow dips (8 count) and 30 right leg step ups and 30 left leg step ups. For all those doing the Veterans Day Go Ruck in NOLA, it is my strong suspicion that we will be doing the CHAD 1000x. Yes, you guessed it, you have to perform 1000 step ups in honor of Chad Wilkinson.
    With 10 minutes left, we go to the back of NOMA and perform Jackass Webbs which is one burpee with 2 donkey kicks up to 5 burpees and 10 donkey kicks. We finish it out with Sunday mornings and head back to the flag.

    COUNTOFF, NAMERAMA, AND COT
    Extremely grateful for the men today and their efforts! Prayed for a greater awareness of our mission and that we would live life with skill to impact others in a positive way. Soli Deo Gloria!

  • Dancing with the Devil at El Diablo – from Triple Shift

    Ecclesiastes 4:9-10
    Two are better than one,
    because they have a good return for their labor:
    If either of them falls down,
    one can help the other up.
    But pity anyone who falls
    and has no one to help them up.

    One of the main things I love about F3 is the brotherhood that gets forged when working out with another man. As you know, the immediate unknown of Covid-19 caused many to forego the gloom from a health perspective. Unfortunately, from my observation, many members have foregone the gloom from a habit perspective. Today, I wanted to incorporate a partner workout to bring back what I enjoyed the most about F3….shared suffering.

    Warmup
    Twelve other men joined me as we warmed up around the track doing butt kicks, high knees, side shuffles, and cariocas and then headed to the rock pile. We started with 31 SSH then 10 eight count squats, and 10 eight count merkins. After the warmup, I directed the PAX to get a heavy rock and head to the goal line on the football field.

    The Thang
    We partnered up for 25 Patty Cake Merkins, 25 BBSU, 10 Bulgarian Split Squats (Pax 1 is kneeling on the ground with one knee forward and one knee backward while Pax 2 props his back foot on Pax 1 front knee and performs the Split Squat), and finally the crowd pleaser of 10 Nordic Hamstring Curls.

    After we finished up those exercises, we performed the ‘Tortoise and the Hare B.O.M.B.S.’ on the football field. Pax 1 carries the heavy rock down the field to the other goal line while Pax 2 does 5 Burpees. After Pax 2 completes his five burpees, he runs and tags Pax 1 (who now does 5 burpees) to take the heavy rock and continues walking until he gets to the end of the field and then turns around to walk back. After the 5 Burpees, the next exercise is 10 Outlaws (think O Mary), 15 Merkins, 20 BBSU, and then 25 Squats until everyone finishes.

    Time is running short so we mosey back to the rock pile to circle up and perform 10 straight leg deadlifts (8 count). Head back to the starting point and finish up with 5 big boy sit ups then stand up without the use of your hands.

    Countoff, Namerama, and COT
    I thanked the PAX for allowing me to lead and I closed out with a prayer for God to provide healing and peace for all those struggling with disease and the difficult time we live in.

  • Full Compliance H8! – from Hawgcycle

    Conditions: 75 degrees, 81% Humidity, Wind 1 mph from SSE

    The Thang

    The H8! is the standard measure of F3 NOLA fitness. There are 8 laps. It includes over 3 miles of running New Orleans Hills (aka levees), 550 yards of Bear Crawls, 36 Burpees, and 120 Merkins. It is hard. The H8! debuted on October 23rd, 2016. A lot of familiar names were there that day…Belloq, Tool, Triple, JV, Bubba, Cowbell, me…. all failures. The 2nd running was in March of 2017 and a couple of guys finally broke through. Since then we have held the H8! Semi-annually and seen numerous successes and improvements.

    We have also seen the standard become more lax. There was at least one (maybe more) 45 minute runnings. There has been a fair amount of corner cutting…you know that guy…the one in Junior High basketball practice that basically cut across the free throw lane when we had to run laps. Since the addition of the bike lane on Canal, guys have started running in that, significantly shorting the course. There have been shortened bear crawls as guys take a few steps into the neutral ground before getting down on all fours, or stand up and jog a few steps from the end of the neutral ground.

    Fortunately, there is new leadership in NOLA and they are not going to put up with any of this crap. I was told very succinctly (and in NSFW words) that today would be a Full Compliance workout and that if I could not make that happen there would be some changes come April.
    Luckily, for me I found some cones at Pontiff after War Eagle’s Aggie Tribute. I got to Okwata early and set out cones at every corner. Demonstrations of the overly complicated burp and merk ladder were made. I informed everyone that the running must occur on the sidewalk, and I gave the speech about the bear crawl standard….start the bear crawl with one foot on the concrete next to the neutral ground and do not stand until your hand touches the concrete on the other side.

    Showing their personalities, Saban looked at me at the starting line, made a NSFW gesture and proceeded to run in the bike lane. Vagabond on the other hand, to ensure his bear crawl compliance, started his bear-crawl across the street. Had he been wearing his Garanimals workout wear, I could have let it pass, but with a black F3 shirt, it was a definite safety issue.

    40 minutes later, we were all spent. Three guys finished all 8 laps (YHC, Catfish, and Biebs) for a 19% completion rate. However, there was a 100% success rate among the 16 men that posted today. Getting out of the fartsack and battling the H8! for 40 minutes accomplishes more physically than what many men do all week, or maybe all month.

    NMM

    Bones convinced me to get a Whoop. The Whoop assigns a Strain Score to each workout. The score is between 0-21. The higher the number, the harder the workout. Cardio heavy workouts, with very little recovery score high. Here are my highest F3 Workout scores

    • 17.3 – The H8!
    • 16.7 – IPC Week 3
    • 15.0 – IPC Week 1
    • 15.0 – IPC Week 4
    • 14.9 – IPC Week 2
    • 14.5 – War Eagle’s Aggie Offensive at El Diablo. It was a Snot Woggler.

    An average workout is around 12-13. The H8! Is not an average workout.

  • Burnin’ Down the Holy Day House w/ Rings of Fire – from Baywatch

    5 PAX joined yours truly to push themselves on this Sunday morning. The pleasantries were exchanged, disclaimer given, and then we moseyed to the museum steps for a warmup IC:

    SSH 25x
    Arm circles forward/backward 15x
    Grassgrabbers 15x
    Windmills 15x

    With the warmup complete, the fun stuff began. First came the Deep Sea Divers down the museum steps with 1 merkin per step. Then we turned around at the bottom
    and repeated back up to the top. Next we moseyed over to the pond to make one lap with three stops along the way. Rings of fire occurred at each stop with 3 rounds and 10 reps per round.

    Stop 1 was a static Al Gore with jump squats round 1, Mary Janes round 2, and 180 jumps round 3.

    Stop 2 was a static plank with diamond merkins, shoulder taps, and merkins.

    Stop 3 was a static six inches with flutter kicks (2 is 1), dying cockroaches (2 is 1), and box cutters.

    With the lap finished we moseyed to the foundry. 4 stations; 2 rounds; 1 person per station. Pull ups, big boy sit-ups, derkins, and the timer was a run to the track with 5 burpees and return.

    After that we moseyed back to the museum to finish off with Sunday Mornings. This is where Catfish and Tripleshift met the rest of the group to finish off the beat down. Catfish had just completed Week 2 of IPC with an awesome sub 30 minute time.

    Then back to the flag for name-o-rama, announcements, intentions, and a prayer.

  • Copycat – from Rudy

    YHC was devoid of inspiration late Sunday night. The Q was his in the am. He’d just fallen back on his usual (Rock 11s) very recently, and couldn’t risk disappointing RevSox again. Fortunately, Mr. Arkansas unintentionally came to the rescue as he posted his pre-BB. It looked brutal. So… Sounds about right for Rock City.

    Call me a Copycat. I’m ok with that. After clarifying what an “alpo” was, and realizing that would only cause problems at Rock City, YHC modified slightly, and had a game plan. Alas, despite having promised it to a few other Pax (looking at you Frac – thanks for coming anyway), the Yippee Bag was still in the closet waiting to be filled up with treats for another future workout.

    At 5:30, YHC issued the disclaimer, tried to give our FNG some fair warning (thanks, Vagabond, for bringing him out!) and we were off to the rock pile.

    Quick WarmUp. YHC fumbled through the explanations of Peter Parker and Imperial Walker, falling back on “uh, just move this thingy towards that thingy.” I think I actually used the words “appendage”. Scantron seemed to offer necessary clarity to our FNG.

    Grab a Rock. Feel free to go big – once we get to the Tree Field, we won’t be moving.

    The Thang: Rock Pyramid. Once again, YHC struggled mightily with his “words” during the explanation of this. The PAX were not bashful at calling out my multiple verbal fumbles. Thanks for keeping me honest – I can only imagine how I might have responded as a PAX to this kind of mumbo-jumbo I was spouting. But anyway…

    Manmakers, Overhead Presses, Curls, Squats, Rows, BB Situps, Bench Presses were the exercises. Do the pyramid. The one catch: YHC was the timer – x5, then x5/x10, then x5/x10/x15 etc. etc. etc. Everyone else: push yourselves and do as many as you can in the same interval. So we stay together in time, but everyone is going OYO. Makes about as much sense here as I write it as it did while I tried to say it.

    Ample resting to try and recover, intermingled with a few penalty laps for PAX heckling. But we got through it. Must have pushed the PAX because things DEFINITELY got quieter after about 15 mins.

    Bring the rocks back (Rifle Carry as much as possible). Head back for some LBCs, a few burpees. And welcome Triple Shift, who seemed to be joining us after a leisurely walk around the park.

    COT, including naming of our new guy “Water Pistol” (last name was Cannon – Thanks Hand Gernada, for what might go down as the fastest naming ever….) Welcome back Bagpipes – may we see you again soon!

  • SLT 2.0 – Summary – from Reluctant Yankee

    This is a no frills backblast summary of our organizational meeting on Tuesday 8/18/21 7pm at the PJS on Magazine St. I am sure if Hawgcycle wrote this – it would be witty and clever but I am neither of those things. I assigned it to the Birdcage AO but this really belongs to ALL AOs.

    The rain tried to keep us away, but we would NOT be deterred. Even non-beatdowns happen rain or shine. During the meeting the PAX enjoyed bourbon produced by a PAX member and beer brewed by a PAX member. Seaman brought his own stuff.

    The PAX – assembled…Tool, Roots, Catfish, Triple Shift, Mahatma-Ice, Cowbell, Fast Tax, Kuch, Seaman, Vagabond, Sandbar, FracSac, Rudy, Rev Sox and Baywatch. We were missing Hawg and Gabby due to RONA, several PAX out of town, several PAX had other obligations.

    Tclaps to Aubry Miller – owner of PJS magazine for reserving the space for us!

    The outline of the meeting was…
    1. The History of SLT 1.0
    -Here I explained how I landed the sweet job of Nantan for the last 7 years-(not really 7 but since we became a region). How Hawgcycle became Weasel Shaker and how Tool, Roots, and Rudy(Comz) ended up becoming part of the SLT 1.0 although we never truly embraced this idea. Instead, we focused on the Starfish and all of us equally stepping up and in when and where needed-along with many other PAX of F3 NOLA over the years. Side Fx, Woz, Amnesty and some other PAX have been part of the “undefined” SLT in the past.

    2. Leadership Roles in F3 Nation (typically)
    Nantan – Q of the Region “the guy”
    Weasel Shaker – Support for Nantan but also the guy that keeps people from weaseling out of things. Q school guru. Finger on the pulse of our region guy.
    1st F Q -Fitness: Checks and makes sure we have site Qs, Q schools, checks to see if all Aos are viable,etc. **This is just the surface but you get the idea
    2nd F Q Fellowship– Mr Party Pants “the glue” CSAUPS, etc
    3rd F Q Faith – Dr Dynamite. This is Qsource, Bible Studies, Shield Locks, Outreach, Service opportunities, etc (This model isn’t compulsory- just what is typically done)
    And Comz.
    NOT part of SLT but part of the regional leadership are the Site/AO Qs.
    Each AO has a site Q – we will start to push for yearly leadership change at each AO.
    Site Q duties are:
    a.) Manage Q schedule for AO, headlocks Qs.
    b.) Welcomes Fngs – gets their information to COMZ
    c.) Sells AO, and the mission. Qs when Q fartsacks.
    d.) Harass Qs to write BBs. 1 year term.

    3. The plan for SLT 2.0 — We spent a chunk of time debating selection of the SLT members outside of Nantan and Weasel. Hawg’s wacky lottery idea and my more normal idea that comes from almost all of the other F3 regions concerning selection of SLT by Nantan and Weasel. The end result merged both ideas.
    -Term will start at the CONVERGENCE 10/16/2021
    -SLT 1.0 will not be permitted to serve on SLT 2.0
    -2 year terms (maybe first two appointees only serve one year so that we can change the rotation of leadership to every year we have 2 new leaders every year)
    –New Nantan and Weasel Shaker will be selected by SLT 1.0
    –New SLT breakdown will be 2 selections by the new Nantan/Weasel. 2 selections by self selected lottery. If you agree to be in the lottery – you agree to also be selected by new Nantan/Weasel for the two positions of their choice.
    –Rudy will be COMZ until we find a suitable replacement – that change can happen as soon as we find “the guy” otherwise our leadership is stuck with him
    –SLT 2.0 will need to have meetings (don’t commit to this if you don’t have time)
    –I will reach out to the PAX via the weekly email to volunteer to be in the lottery this weekend.

    4. The plan for future growth (for the SLT 2.0)
    a.) 501c – Tool and the $$, Gaby and Moana
    b.) Slack vs Groupme
    c.) Growth of AOs in the region (Northshore region plan, Thibodaux, West Bank,etc)
    d.) EH Outside our demo

    5. CSAUP calendar
    a.) IRON PAX – Sept – start getting Pax registered now
    b.) 10 yr anniversary in Wilmington, NC aka CAPE FEAR Oct 9/10
    c.) Roast to Coast – first weekend in NOV
    d.) Go Ruck Vets beatdown in NOV
    e.) Christmas Party – Almonaster has the Q

    I am looking forward to pushing forward with SLT 2.0. I can’t wait for some explosive growth in 2022. I hope that we can keep our own regional identity and stay true to the starfish and really insist that we are all the F3 NOLA leadership. Also – NO Otisbombs. If you have a great idea for F3 NOLA – you step up and you Q it!
    SYITG –
    Reluctant Yankee

  • Disclaimers Start at 5:29 – from Belloq

    Arriving early to Pontiff for my 1 mile warm-up run, I was trying to recall how I was assigned the Q for the day at El Diablo. Don’t remember signing up, just getting an invite on my calendar. Oh well, time to lead…Not knowing how many would arrive, I thought through several scenarios. As my run came to an end, I was happy to see 7 men stretching and preparing for a challenge and all pre-planned scenarios went right out the window.
    The time was 5:29 and I gave the disclaimer. 5:30 strikes and RevSox arrives as I give the direction to mosey to the rock pile. He begins to mention the missing disclaimer which I pointed out was done in such a way to maximize out time working out.

    Gave direction to circle up on me by rock pile to begin warm-up

    Warm-up
    15 8-count bodybuilders to get the blood pumping
    Arm Circuit (15 Arm Circles Front and Back, 20 Seal Claps, 20 Overhead Press, 20 Overhead Claps, 15 Moroccan Nigh Club)
    31 SSH
    3 rounds of Ring of Fire (Merkins to Monkey Humpers to Bonnie Blairs (2-is-1)
    Mosey to the Mound

    The Thang
    7’s
    Start on track side go to top, do 5 lunges both legs (i.e. 2-is-1), other side 6 8-count body builders, back to top for 5 lunges both legs, to track for 1 big boy sit-up…repeat with 5 8-counts and 2 big boy sit ups…etc

    Moseyed back to rock pile for Mary.
    5 Minutes of Core —30 seconds Halos Clockwise, 30 Seconds Halos Counter Clockwise, 1 Minute Corkscrew (reverse crunch with a twist), 1 Minute Dynamic Plank, 1 Minute Chainsaw, 1 Minute Slow, Controlled Big Boy Sit ups

    Followed with 10 8-count cinnamon toast crunches (1-2 Crunch, 3-4 Twist Right, 5-6 Crunch, 7-8 Twist Left).

    Moseyed back to flag for COT, Announcements, Intentions and Prayer.

    Always an honor to lead am F3 workout. 9 Total PAX for the workout.