As many rounds as possible…
1. 12 Sit-Up Pistols (6 each leg)
2. 12 Burpees
3. 250ft Bear Crawl
4. 12 Big Boy Mountain Climbers on half wall
Wow! For the last Millstone appearance at Veteran’s Park, home of the Minnow Pond, eight (8) injured or supportive PAX showed up for leisurely stroll and discussion.
NOTE: Millstone moves to WEP at 6:30 AM next week. It will run concurrently with The Yard and The Fort.
Fortunately, YHC has stayed in a Holiday Inn Express within the past year and though not a medical professional, was successfully able to ascertain the PAX injuries before moving out.
Disclaimer: YHC shamelessly and completely stole Senator Tressel’s Q from the prior week. 100%.
After a brief stretch, punctuated with the correct yoga terms provided by CC, the PAX moved out for a walk up a hill and over to the church on Harris Street. Four PAX donned rucks for extra credit.
On the way there we discussed each PAX’s “thing” in high school – what did they do? This being an effort to build on the Senator’s plan of getting to know each other better. There is no way this Q was going to recall all of the details. However two standouts are easily recalled:
After 50 calf raises the PAX continued their journey to WEP and the playground contained therein.
Whist executing the following exercises: 20 pullups, 15 Squats, 10 pullups, 15 flutters and 15 LBCs, the PAX, in turn, addressed their favorite vacation, highlighted by Drop Thrills 5 amusement parks in 3 days, or maybe it was 2, but either way that’s hard and Boss Hogs’s journey to Belize with his father.
The PAX then turned their attention to the return trip to COT, pausing at the Springs Building to discuss the architecture of the windows (patterned after the Hindenburg), more calf raises and a brief history of rigid airships in the US Navy.
Upon return and in the Name 0 Rama, each pax also noted their favorite or most unusual concert experience. To know what that was, you need to head to the Twitter Machine and check out the video post there.
Moleskin
There’s a lot more to know about each other than what we can get from a workout and COT. Each of our histories is amazing and there is so much to learn about each of us. Let’s take the time to ask and listen – you’ll be amazed.
If you are injured or just not feeling all there on a Saturday AM, come join the Millstone for a bit of a workout and a whole lot of the 2nd F.
SYITG
5 PAX gathered at Pantheon (added a 6th later)
After Gekko called for a sub on Slack. Shady and I both responded within a minute of each other saying we’d be willing to step in…..so the only thing to do was split the Q!
We even managed to convince Slash to venture West of I-77.
Shady:
Warm-up
Squats 10
SSH 25
Windmill 10
Merkins 10
Peter Parker’s 10
Imperial Walker 10
up/down dog
Mosey
– Olaf warned Shady that Zoolander may post at Pantheon. As we began to mosey a car looking suspiciously lost in the maze of Tega Cay Elementary went around to the back of the school. We chased it down and confirmed it was a discombobulated Zoolander. We moseyed back to assist in him finding a parking spot.
Down to ampitheater:
Jacob’s Ladder to 11
– Diamond Merkins at the top
– Jump Squats at the bottom
Hand off to Band Camp:
Mosey to the Pillars of Pantheon.
Bear Crawl to each marked pillar:
5 merkins
10 squats
15 lunges (each leg)
20 monkey humpers
(skipped burpees the first time)
Mosey back to start
Repeat with compounding interest:
5 merkins
bear crawl
5 merkins
10 squats
bear crawl
5 merkins
10 squats
15 lunges (each leg)
bear crawl
5 merkins
10 squats
15 lunges (each leg)
20 monkey humpers
bear crawl
5 merkins (30 total)
10 squats (50 total)
15 lunges (60 total)
20 monkey humpers (60 total)
25 burpees
mosey back to start
Plank up
Pigeon Lunge
Plank/Al Gore for Highs and Lows
COT
Announcement: Millstone and The Yard are merging as the Milkshake. They will meet on Saturdays at WEP and share COT with The Fort.
NMM
Tried something different with the message for this one. To try and accelerate the 2nd F a bit, as we were holding Plank/Al Gore, I asked PAX to share their High (moment/event/happening) and their Low (moment/event/happening/behavior/etc) for the past week. My “high” was getting to travel as a family to a gig I played and enjoy the trip with them during my downtime. My “low” was my parenting behavior when we were all tired after the weekend and the travel back home on Sunday…not my finest hour.
The smaller workout numbers really can facilitate a growth in 2nd F, if we’re intentional.
An honor to lead.
-Band Camp dismissed
Observations: 13 Pax posted for a hideous workout at Quagmire. Today’s workout looked better on paper but still successfully completed the Board Of Pain. FNG Zoolander fit right in with the mumble chatter. #EPIC
The Thang:
Mosey to Home Depot’s Parking Lot:
SSHs (20x), IWs (20x), Parker Peters (15x), Slow Sumo Squats (15x), WMs (15x), Box Cutters (20x), Windshield Wipers (15x)
Mosey to Kohl’s Parking Lot.
The Buffet Of Pain included the following exercises.
COT
Moleskin: We are constantly feeling good and bad pressures during our journey of life. Life has valleys and peaks with both bad and good experiences. Life is also like a train on parallel tracks, we continually find ourselves between the good track and the bad track. When things go well in life, we are soon challenged with a tragedy or a loss. Remain steadfast. Be aware of when you become unbalanced toward the bad track where evil one awaits. Choose God and move forward.
With the opportunity to Q Minnow Pond I knew I needed to bring the pain and increase the intensity. With everyone gathered and watch at 5:14, I gave the disclosure and at 5:15 we were off.
Ran from Confederate Park to the FM Post Office, meet in the parking lot and do burpees until the six is in. The plan is running the roads behind the post office with exercises each corner. The roads make a square and 1 exercise 10 reps at each corner.
1st lap – Elliott Street – merkins
2nd lap – Leroy St – Wide arm merkins
3rd lap – Hill St – Monkey Humpers
4th lap – Oak St – CDD
5th lap – Elliott st and back to COT
Not a lot of talking with the official 4.36 miles. Everyone was accelerating and the AO is the type of site that will push you but also offer a lot of encouragement. We are all at different paces in our acceleration, but doing a little more than you did the day before is showing acceleration.
Don’t let the site and distance scare you away. Push yourself to try something new and just like every site, there are always Pax to push, encourage and pick you up. Just like in life, we are all in different places and phases, and we can encourage one another to be better in our house than we were the day before.
Thanks Shady for the opportunity to Q.
A nice and cool morning turned into something a bit warmer about 3 min in. 9 PAX took the DRP and after a quick, and non-energetic into as called out by Jekyll, YHC jumped out to a quick mosey. Stopping in front of the elementary school entrance, we circled up for a warm-up.
SSH x25, windmills x10, low slow squats x10, imperial and hillbilly walkers x10, merkins x10, and finished off with some stretching: lunge stretches including runners stretch and hamstrings as well as some downward dogs and honeymooners. Enough with the stretching and off to The Thang!
Ran over to the parking lot in the back where the basketball hoops are located and grabbed a tennis ball out of the box. Everyone was instructed to put their family’s initials on a ball (M and 2.0s) as this was going to be carried around by them for the morning for an extra reminder of why they’re trying to get better. Family is always going to be with us and to get that extra push or to be mindful of what’s important, the tennis ball fam was going to tag along for the ride! 3 stations with written exercises were located throughout the parking lot. Instructions were to run to the sheet of paper and do the exercise at the top and the run back to the center where the music was located for 1 burpee. Then back to the sheet for the next exercise, back to the center and so on. Once all the exercises were done from the 1 sheet, the PAX were told to run back to the center and finish with 5 burpees. Then onto the next sheet until all 3 sheets had been completed.
Sheet 1:
Sheet 2
Sheet 3
Some exercises were done in cadence at sheet 3 to keep the PAX together. There were a couple instances when we returned closer to the music where Pusher gave us some karaoke solos from the early 90s rap and beastie boys jamming….it was delightful. Since we had a few min left, it was a race to sheet 1 where first place picked one exercise to do (Jekyll for the hand release), 4th place to sheet 2 with the selection (L Train I think with the squats) and second to last to sheet 3 (Hardwood maybe for the mountain climbers). (and this is why you don’t wait until the weekend to write a back blast b/c I can’t remember Tuesday!)
We scooped up the sheets and headed for COT for a blinding name-o-rama, announcements, and TAPs. Tennis ball families were retained by the PAX for their own usages. Appreciate the call over to the Colosseum as YHC has been overdue for a Q.
Shady….AYE!
YHC was pleased to be asked by J-Wow (there’s a guy who is accelerating) to come back to the Armory and Q. While not a true Redwood, I was there when the idea of a KB workout was launched at the Baxter pool with Package and Orange Crush (never posted). I immediately went out an purchased a 25lb’er via the internet (shipping costs!) and away we went.
Since that start, I have gravitated to running partly due to CSAUPs and given my bell to Anchorman. But there’s no question that YHC needed a beatdown after a long golf weekend. I started the Hype Train on Sunday with a request to borrow a bell and was met with some witty replies. The Fort represents!
Weather: Its F3 time! 63 with a light breeze
The Thang
Partner KB Workout
Round 1
Partner 1 – KB Swings x 12
Partner 2 – Rests until Partner 1 is finished
Partner 2 – 1 arm military press x 12
Partner 1 – rests until Partner 2 is finished – you get the idea
Partner 1 – Goblet Squats x 10
Partner 2 – Bob and Weave x 10
Partner 1 – Merkins x 12
Partner 2 – Bench Press x 12
Partner 1 – SSH x 20
Partner 2 – SSH x 20
Rinse and Repeat for 7 minutes
Take a lap around the parking lot
Round 2 – Flip the exercises for 7 minutes then take a lap
Round 3
Partner 1 – Curls x12
Partner 2 – Triceps x 12
Partner 1 – Bent Over Rows x 10
Partner 2 – CDD x 12
Partner 1 – Reverse Lunge w/ Hammer x 8
Partner 2 – Jump Squats x 10
Partner 1 – Bombjacks x 12
Partner 2 – Man Climbers x 16
Rinse and repeat for 7 minutes then a lap
Round 4 – Flip the exercises and head home
Mosey to COT
Moleskin:
Pusher out!
The hype was huge, the turnout was moderate for Boss Hogg’s VQ at the Millstone. All 8 PAX in attendance got to enjoy the first day of cooler temperatures. 3 PAX went for a walk…2 with rucksacks and 1 with his arm in a sling. Huge T-Claps to Smithers for showing up while on the IR. The remaining 4 PAX followed the most Boss of all Hoggs on his VQ journey.
The Thang:
Mosey’d from Veteran’s Park to the parking lot across from Puckerbutt Pepper Company
• Stretched arms and legs
• 15 – Gas Pumpers (for my buddy Twister…Respect!)
Mosey’d to the St. John’s United Methodist Church parking lot
• Toy Soldiers across the parking lot – jogged back to starting side
• High Knees across the parking lot – jogged back to starting side
• Lunge Walks across the parking lot – jogged back to starting side
• Butt Kickers across the parking lot – jogged back to starting side
• Carioca across the parking lot and back in the opposite direction
• Shuffled across the parking lot and back in the opposite direction
Mosey’d to First Baptist Church of FM parking lot (home of Footloose!)
Circled up…
• 15 SSH
• 15 Windmills
• 15 Cherry Pickers
• 15 Imperial Walkers
• 15 Hillbilly Walkers
Mosey’d to FM Church of God parking lot
Next up was a Guillermo 1-2-3 routine. For those of you know don’t know (and I would be shocked if any of you didn’t already know this), Guillermo is Dora’s infant brother who does not fully grasp the concept of pairing PAX in 2’s and progressively moving from chest, to core, to legs. Guillermo likes to divide the entire population into two groups. The goal being that the exercising group works out together with focus on form, not speed. In concept, this was a great idea. Given that there were only 5 PAX participating in the Guillermo 1-2-3, one group included 3 PAX and the other included 2 PAX. The routine included:
• 100 Squats
• 200 LBCs
• 300 Overhead Claps
The group not performing exercises got to snake the stairs across the street.
Next up, was the Presidential Wall of Non-Sense! Don’t worry, there is nothing political behind this. The non-sense had to do with the exercise itself. PAX formed a line to begin the border wall. PAX were instructed to hold a tree via the Al Gore or by planking to form the wall. The HIM at beginning of the wall was instructed to run to the imaginary forest to gather more trees for the wall. Trees were knocked down via 1 burpee, 2 donkey kicks, or 3 Bobby Hurleys. Once the HIM obtained another tree from the imaginary forest, he returned to the end of the wall and held it in place via the Al Gore or by planking. The exercise continued until the wall crossed the parking lot.
Finally, with time running out, the PAX mall walked back to COT. The leader of the group dropped out of line to perform 1 burpee, 2 donkey kicks, or 3 Bobby Hurleys. Once completed, they rejoined the group at the back of the line. The process was repeated until COT was reached.
At the end of the workout, Boss Hogg was asked about his VQ experience. He responded in the words of the great scholar Borat Sagdiyev, “Great Success!”.
I kept asking “what is a kettle bell” as my frequency of attendance at KB workouts can be counted on two hands- maybe one. Somehow I was tapped to lead and thankful that I did. Getting outside of the comfort zone and breaking routines is refreshing.
Warm Ups: Moroccan Night Clubs, windmills, lap runs with shuffle
The Thang
Naked Man Moleskin
Great group this morning and truly appreciate being shown the way to better form and technique. Good to end a tough cardio week on focused strength. Highly recommend Hive attendance.
BB- Perfect conditions if you like 90% humidity and August like conditions. Straight Up was a beast on the up and down hills. Funhouse had perfect burpee form and the rest of us did our best to keep up.
From Launch:
Take off down White, Right on Massey, Right on Harris. At intersection of Harris and Yorktown, Plank it up and wait for #6.
The Thang:
Rinse/Repeat, #AMRAP until time called. Be at Center at 0555 for run back to COT. 2 rounds will get you 4.5 +pain.
Get it? Got it? Good.
Bring your smokeboots and a zest for pain.
Jekyll