This week at the Armory, 13 unfortunate comrades didn’t see it coming and got whacked upside the head with some communist inspired plyometrics. 

Here’s the scoop.

Conditions: Hurricane Laura treated us to overcast skies, 72 degrees, and all the humids.
PAX: @Rudolph @Timeshare @Kwame @Peewee @Three’s Company @Lone Star @Heidi @Pancreas @Tiny Dancer @Dizzy Gillespie @Hot N Ready @Ron Swanson and your Q @ragdoll

Welcome & Warmup:
We take a warmup lap around the playground. @Kwame is surprised. He doesn’t expect running from a @ragdoll Q.  I’m full of mysteries today @Kwame.

Back at the parking lot we side-straddle-hop to 20 and do some magnificent leg stretches. @Heidi complains. We stretch some more. @Tiny Dancer introduces himself to parts of his body he didn’t know he had. Don’t forget the cherry pickers.

Thang 1: Great American 11s
We start things off patriotic. Nothing more patriotic than 165 Merkins, right?
– PAX form a line and perform 10 sets of 3 Merkins + 1 four-count Mountain Climber.
– Then Lame-duck Session Walk 30 yards (that’s a duck walk 3 steps + a hop forward… like a duck with a broken foot, kinda like Congress after midterms).
– Perform 1 American Hammer.
– Mosey to the start.
11s are like an apocalypse, except 1 more. I try to explain this carefully to the PAX but @Pancreas gets impatient and wants to get a move on, and so we do.

Somewhere around round 3 we decide Merkins suck and we’re not feeling that patriotic anymore. But we persist.

Thang 2: Chick-fil-A Parking Lot
At some point Chick-fil-A is gonna open up their dining room again, and when they do, you’re gonna need to know how to park. Cuz on any given day, that place cray-cray and slammed with minivans and preschoolers … except Sunday of course.

The PAX run in a long ovalesque shape. Shut it spellcheck — ovalesque is a word, I just created it. Meanwhile, 4 cones mark available parking spaces. If a space is open, 1 PAX at a time pulls in to perform an exercise.

We run until all PAX have performed 3 exercises, including:
– 10 Iron Mikes
– 20 Merkins
– 30 Squats

Field Trip
We mosey up the street, with a speed bump for 15 yards of lunges. @Kwame is surprised again.

Thang 3: Cold War Apocalypse
The Yurpee is YHC’s contribution to the F3 Exicon and a plyometrics variation of a burpee inspired by Russian Olympic trainer Yuri something-or-other. Handclap merkin + 2 tuck jumps.
In this epic battle of USA vs the Commies the PAX sprint on command approx 40 yards, and perform 9 Yurpees, then a quick mosey back down the street where they perform 1 American Hammer. Since this is an Apocalypse, on the next round we do 8 and 2, and so forth … I’m sure you understand math.

@Pancreas says he’s tired. Caveat though — he really pushed himself on those Cherry Pickers. Sadly we only make it to 7 Yurpees, so communism lives to die another day. We mosey back to the parking lot for COT.

COT:
Forgive my summary, but numerous prayer requests lifted up for PAX, family members and friends dealing with illness, injury, struggles at work, marital challenges, and personal struggles. It’s been a tough season for a lot of us — I encourage you all to stay strong, plug into the Word, and lean into your F3 brothers. We are all here to support one another.

From Romans 5: “Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.”

Announcements:
It’s a Labor Day Miracle! Double Murph is happening on Monday September 7th! Come for one, get a second for free!

A pleasure to lead you all today! Until next time, @ragdoll, out.