Today’s workout was deliberately light on the leg work to help out our brothers preparing for the challenge of the Blue Ridge Relay.
None of whom showed up.
I mean, I’m not bitter or anything. But you weren’t leaving town at 5am, were you?
[Ahem]. Seven pax met in the gloom of Seven Oaks for an upper body extravaganza.
Warm up:
The Pax moseyed to the concession stand for some light calisthenics: Imperial Walkers x 20 IC, Through the Tunnel x 20 IC, LBAC x 20 IC, Chinooks x 20 IC, Windmills x 20 IC, Dips x 25 OYO, Calf Raises x 25 OYO, and 2 minute wall sit.
The Thang:
The Pax proceeded to the bottom of Perfectly Good Hill to knock out what little leg work was planned (honestly, you relay runners would have been fine you big babies).
Backwards run to the top of the hill -> 20 merkins; run down ->20 squats
Rinse and repeat with 15, 10, and 5 repetitions ending at the bottom of the hill.
The Pax were feeling the burn in their quads and moved on to the Rockpile to claim their instrument of swellage. The Pax carried their rock in overhead fashion to the tennis courts, arrayed in a circle around the Q, and assumed a plank position for instruction. This element was a slight variation on the Stacked Deck exercise employed by Fools Gold (shoutout) in a recent Q.
All pax remain in plank position or move via bear crawl unless an exercise calls for another position or modification is necessary. Q starts off from center by rolling a 6-sided die to determine the exercise from a list. YHC actually owns many other polyhedral die ranging from 4-sided to 20-sided and is comfortable with the nerd-factor evidenced by this fact, but has found the Respect crowd is generally frightened by things perceived as strange and new. Also, more than six exercises is just freakin’ unwieldy, so a 6-sided die will suffice.
In this case, the rolls correspond to: Overhead presses, Curls, Bench Presses, Bent Over Rows, or Merkins. The observant pax will note that only makes FIVE exercises. The dreaded roll of SIX requires all the pax to bear crawl clockwise to the next rock and the pax in the middle to reroll (random rotation of rocks is key to keeping pax honest when you are using non-uniform weight lifting instruments – the pampered AOs with cinder blocks would not understand). When SIX is rolled several times in a row, pax get grumbly.
After the exercise is determined, the center pax draws a card to determine the number of reps (number card = that number, Jack = 11, Queen = 12, King = 13, and Aces = 15). Pax perform, middle pax bear crawls out of the center and next pax clockwise bear crawls out to try their luck. Dealer chip circled the pax three times on this occasion before the gloom started to fail.
Pax returned their rocks in an orderly fashion, proceeded back to the parking lot for some Mary, Dealers Choice, and then BOM.
In all seriousness, Strut sends out its utmost in support of our brothers all over Lake Murray running the BRR this weekend. Stay safe, stay healthy. I understand there’s a mild uphill grade in a few places, so watch out for that. Look forward to the stories when you return. SYITG.