Category: Richmond, VA

  • Pickles and Balls

    11 fine gentlemen showed up for a workout but my workout took second fiddle to a large Pickleball tournament. One pickeballer thought we were gathering for the tournament or maybe he had a man crush on White Deer. The workout went something like this:

    COP: DQs, helicopters, HRMs, MCs, FMs and ACs. Mosey to field below the main field.

    Lindseys with merkins and WWIIs. Totals 100 of each exercise. Not too shabby. Mosey to bus loop

    Sets of pole smokers. 15 then 20 then 25. Mosey to basketball court which was redone just for Ed.

    Four corners with 10 burpees, 20 Lt. Dans, 30 squats and 40 SSHs. Mosey to soccer field in front of SPMS.

    Indian bear crawl. Everyone bear crawls in a line. Last person runs to the front and then bear crawls. Problem with this exercise is that White Deer bear crawls faster than half the PAX run and much faster than he runs. Mosey to pavilion by home base.

    Elevens with step ups and heels to heaven. Polly decided to take some time and talk to a friend playing cricket.

    Triple check with donkey kicks, dips and the pacer runs across the field and Bernies back.

    Finished with American hammers and LBCs.

    On 5/29 the day a friend of mine turns 50 there will be a Convergence at Tredegar a 7 a.m. Polly is trying to plan out a joint F3 workout and mixed cricket game. More to come on that. It was good to see Bodos make it to Gridiron and get Homer back. I am happy you all let me lead.

    Fireman Ed

  • Saturday at Rockwood

    A group of 9 came out this morning. This is probably the first morning you could feel the humidity. We haven’t seen anything yet, wait about a month then mornings where it’s in the 70s with 90% humidity. For myself, I am usually awake and at the park earlier for a ruck but fell back asleep for a bit(with one of my cats laying beside me). The sign of I needed a little more rest.

    Started off with a good warm-up with a little wrinkle added, SSH, Helicopters, Don Quixotes, Imperial Walkers, Merkins and LBCs. Then headed over to the baseline, we did full court Ukrainian Soldiers, ran back then full court runner’s lunge with a twist(getting the lower body stretched, loose plus adding a little movement. Let the journey begin…

    An FYI….today’s workout all came together as we went along(I only had one thing set). First area was a 25-50-75-100 with a little lap after each exercise. 25 double count flutters, 50 jump squats, 75 calf raises, 100 jump ropes. After a 20 count, onto the next area

    Triple check time….The exercises were monkey humpers, Freddie mercuries, and a run down to the other side of the lot and back. I saw a gentleman tried a quick recruiting to join us but he had to leave for work. This point you start to get into the flow, work on keep moving as you finish each part. A little breather, them mosey over to the next area.

    Build a beast….this one is where I call out to someone, they chose the exercise that we should do. Merkins, shoulder taps, mountain climbers, jump squats, WW2 plus if someone was not home, we made sure to help them out and bring them in. After a quick walk, back to the road, between the baseball fields to our next stop

    A quick 2 part upper/lower body. 3 rounds, 30 seconds each of wall sits and tricep dips. This was great to break things up, give us a little breather cause now we’re coming up to the big one

    Prostitute… four corners where you hit a corner, come back, hit the next 2, etc….The exercises: 10 Merkins, 20 LBCs, 30 Air Squats and 40 SSH. At the completion of that for everyone, we had 45 seconds left so back to the flag. Count-outs, announcements and prayer by YHC to finish everything out.

    Welcome Derek to the group. He used to come around but went away now he’s back. Since he went away and returned, needed a name first came Olympic but we decided on Leap Year. Posh will help get him set up on Slack. Look at Slack for everything upcoming including VQ by Wildcat coming Monday at The Alamo, Friday Purple Rain’s VQ at Satan’s Hill. We have a big convergence Memorial Day so everyone have a little extra in the tank that day. Enjoy your weekend, see you next time out there and if you are training hard, start hitting the hydration you will need it

  • Just one rucker

    YHC took off on a solo ruck at 6:00am…Mission Complete.

  • Crushing it at The Crucible

    Whelp, I am not that good at posting backblasts in a timely manner. Please forgive me…

    It was a lovely morning in Blackwell for the four gloom warriors to take the field. We started with a COP, as usual. It consisted of the regular stuff that I do – you know, SSHs, DQs, Ukrainian Soldiers, merkins, and the like.

    Offshore had some coupons – a 40lb kettle bell and a 30 pound ruck plate so YHC decided to use those because it’s not really working unless it hurts a little bit. YHC is going to start bringing a couple of KBs on the regular.

    We partnered up and one partner did an exercise with the coupons while the other ran across the playground to the tree and back. Exercises were Russian kettlebell swings (the Russian swings are where the KB is straight out in front of the swinger, the American is when you swing it overhead – in case you were wondering), overhead press, and goblet squats – good times

    Then we went to the brutal and steep but mercifully not huge. We did 11’s featuring Carolina Dry Docks and jump squats.

    Next we moseyed across the street to the sports fields and went all the way to the end where we did some burpees, WW2s. and something else I cannot remember. Mosey back to the flag for numberama, namerama, and COT.

    Keep Caleb in your thoughts and prayers – he is struggling.

    So – I marked this post 3rd F for a couple of reasons. This AO has a couple of purposes and you may know – one is to attract men from The Healing Place and the other is to expand into neighborhoods underserved by F3RVA. This is something that we all (or most) agreed would be an important thing to do during our Pandemic Zoom town hall thing. It is so late because we are working with the schedules of the men in THP. We have a couple of ex THP Pax who have dug right in to F3RVA and I am grateful that they are now reaping the benefits of what we as a group have to offer.

    The second reason is that The Crucible has been added as a 3rd F AO for the Summer Tour. YHC plans to do the tour and hope some of you other touring Pax come by.

    Yours in service and brotherhood,

    Shakedown

  • Something like this

    10 of SOJ’s finest came out the SH for a flex/run Friday. Coupons were used. According to an aggressive bird here is what went down.

    COP- 20 each SSH, LBC; 10 Each DQ’s, Jazzercise, Helicopters, Imperial Walkers, , Coper head squat, Dead man hang, Merkins, Box cutters, Plank jacks,

    Horseshoe on the trail by dog park. Side 1 exercise with coupon. 5 curl presses, run 10 WW11, 15 bent rows, 20 Merkins, 25 front raises, 30 merkins, 35 curls. Work way back down with runs in between all.

    Ring of fire. PAX call coupon exercise and run to top of lot as timer. Rotate through all PAX.

    Announcements: On Slack.

    Prayers: to Oysters recovery. To grads and a safe grad season. YHC took us out in prayer.

  • Has anyone ever gotten seasick at a workout before?

    The answer to this question is yes. It happened today at Twin Team. Read on to learn more.

    5 men joined YHC and committed to finishing Gumbo’s Tour de Twin. A beautiful morning for us all and at 530am we launched from the BWE parking lot.

    Jog to backside of James River High School and pay tribute to Karen’s parking lot with a little warmarama and Thang 1.

    Warmarama: Side Straddle Hops, Dead Man Hangs, Arm Circles, Helicopters.

    Thang 1: Grab a tire and head to Karen’s parking lot. Flip the tire 10 times then complete 2 burpees. Repeat until you’re at the end. Put tire back and head out.

    The PAX jogged down to the river in hopes of seeing the sunrise at 5:58am sharp.

    Thang 2: Partner up for a modified Dora.

    • Exercise 1: Partner 1 – Burpees, Partner 2 – Run to the Construction Flags and Back. Alternative and repeat until a total of 50 burpees have been completed. Special note: The burpees impressed the passerby’s walking at James River park. Well done men!
    • Exercise 2: Partner 1 – Merkins, Partner 2 – Run to the Construction Flag and Back. Alternative and repeat until a total of 100 merkins have been completed.

    Head down to the floating dock at 5:56 in hopes of seeing the sunrise, but before we continued on our exercise journey, we taught Tobit about the sun rising from the East. The things you learn at a boot camp!.

    • Exercise 3: Partner 1 – Squats, Partner 2 – LBC’s. Alternate when partner 1 hits 50. Complete a total of 200 squats.
    • Exercise 4: Partner 1 – 2 count lunges, Partner – WWII’s. Alternate when partner 1 hits 25. Complete a total of 100.

    Exercise 4 is where the stomach started to get a little queezy for YHC. The strong leg muscles of the PAX created quite the movement on the floating dock and YHCs head and stomach did not appreciate it. Audible called and back up to solid ground to finish out exercise 4.

    Back to the Flag, stopping along the way with some Merkins, Squats, etc. Just about 3 miles logged for this group today!

    Announcements:

    • Family day picnic at Bettie Weaver elementary – Sunday May 21st. Check Slack for details and confirm your attendance. Bring a dish if you can.
    • Boberry shared some exciting news for their family. Reach out to him for the deets.
    • Oyster’s paying lunch next Thursday at Rusty Taco.
    • SOJ takeover week of June 12th. Reach out to Rosie to sign up.

    YHC took us out.

    Man, what a great day to be outside. Although, it was a little cloudy and we didn’t quite see the sunrise, the day was beautiful. Exercise, Tunes, Laughs and Good Friends – YHC is blessed today.

  • Bodos, Fudd & Splinter gone? I guess I’ll wing it

    A 14 Biker Runner Combo descended upon Mary Munford to attack the day. YHC was originally planning on tagging along with Bodos, Fudd and Splinter since this was my first post at RAMM, but alas they are out of town and there was no Q. Here’s the boring rectangular route with all left turns YHC came up with :

    4’s : From Mary Munford, head down Commonwealth towards Patterson, Left on Patterson, Left on Maple Ave, Left on Grove then BTTF

    5’s : After finishing the 4’s route, left on Commonwealth, Left on Patterson, Left on Bunting Ave, Left on Grove then BTTF

    6’s : After finishing the 5’s route, left on Commonwealth, Left on Patterson, Left on Bunting Ave, Left on Grove then BTTF (so same route as 5’s but you’re repeating the last leg an additional time)

    Bikers did their THANG

    DONE

    Numbers, Names, YHC took us out

    Announcements : The Crucible Saturday AO is back at Blackwell Elementary on Saturdays 7:30 am – 8:15 am. Offshore and Shakedown are trying to EH some more Healing Place guys to come out. Help them add some energy and get the ball rolling

    Memorial Day Convergence 5/29 at Tredegar at 7 am. Invite FNG’s. Coffee and Bagels served after the Q

    NMMS : Enjoyed my first post at RAMM. Good crowd there. I like to get in at least one run during the week and this week I hadn’t done a run until today. Glad I came out. Here’s a map of the route :

  • Southside Complications

    YHC got the 50/50 committal from an FNG, which in F3 parlance means ‘not a chance in hell.’ Best practices according to Shakedown: ‘offer to pick him up on the way in.’ Lesson learned.

    Ruckers headed out and the warmarama commenced: SSHs, Don Quixotes, helicopters. Imperial squat walkers… what? Is that some kind of complicated southside mating dance? LBCs, then some Rosalita whips… what? It’s true what you’ve heard, the SOJ evolution has led to some exercise inbreeding.

    Mosey to the pavilion for some 5 station picnic table rotation: incline mirkins, dips, step ups, dirty hookups and WW2s.

    Mosey to the basketball courts for a mini-beast: burpees, LBCs, mirkins, jump squats, heels to heaven and Lieutenant Dans. Then we ran the loop.

    Some nice wall work: 3 rounds of wall sits, 15 donkey kicks OYO, and balls to the wall. With a bonus round of dirty hookups.

    Mosey back to the flag for some ab Mary x5 with a 1.5 minute elbow plank to finish it out.

    Ruckers came back and we took it out in the COT.

    Grateful to be out there in the gloom with the guys – way to put in the work. Won’t make the same mistake with the FNG next time.

  • No Energy, All Pain

    Eight noble warriors clanged some KB metal in the gloom this morning.  Here is how it went down:

    • COP
      • SSH
      • IW
      • DQ
      • Helicopters
      • Arm circles
      • Dead man hang
      • Merkins
      • LBC
    • Catch me if you can – partner up, one man carries 2 KBs while the other does 10 burpees and runs to the loop until he catches up; rinse and repeat 4x each PAX member
    • KB escalator (10, 15, 20, 25 reps)
      • KB press
      • Skull crushers
      • Overhead pulls
      • Sumo squats
      • KB curls
      • Lawnmower pulls, each arm
    • Mosey to the benches – 15 step-ups each leg (on the extra high benches) and 18 WWII sit-ups
    • Mosey to the flag for COT with YHC taking us out

    What a great compliment from Handshake for YHC today, “your Q’s lack energy but they can be deceptively brutal.”  The KB escalator will leave some reminders for the PAX in the coming days.  Great work by the PAX today.

    Convergence on Memorial Day at Tredegar at 7 am.

    God is good all of the time!

    Attila

  • What a HILL of a workout

    7 HIM came out for a House Party Q. This is how it went…

    COP

    20 x SSH

    10 x Don Quixote

    10 x Ukrainian Soldiers

    10 x Copperhead Squats

    10 x Tempo merkins

    10 x LBC’s

    To the top of the hill…

    We ran down the hill stopping at each light pole to do 5 WW2’s for a total of 75.

    Dora at the bottom of the hill…

    100 x Merkins

    200 x squats

    300 x LBC’s

    400 x toe taps

    Back to the top of the hill…

    Ran up the hill stopping at each light pole to do 2 burpees for a total of 30.

    Finished with just enough time for a round of suicides and flutter kicks.

    YHC took us out in prayer.

    It was great being out in the gloom this morning and seeing the fellas. Thanks for letting me lead today.

    House Party