At the End of Our Rope

At the End of Our Rope

QIC: SGT Schultz

Date: March 5, 2018

PAX: Drama Queen, Fingers, Goofy, Schneider, Sixty Minutes, Sour Mash, Spamalot, The Singing Cowboy, SGT Schultz, TPS, Wobegon

Although stricken with a severe case of being Ordinary, YHC does my humble best to try to come up with something unusual or unique during my Qs.   Yesterday afternoon it occurred to me that a workout centered around pulling a weight via a rope tied to it might be both interesting and difficult.  Combine that concept with the short but very steep hill located in the back of the Parliament AO, and Voila! A workout is born!   YHC gave a strong hint at what the Parliament workout might be like by way of the .gif that I included in my Pre-Blast.   11 PAX were curious enough to post and find out.

WARMARAMA:   Conducted in the Southwest Elementary parking lot,  a short medley of SSHs, ISTs, Arm Swirly Things (forward and reverse), Seal Claps, Whirlys with You Know What, and some standing hamstring stretches.

Mosey to the hill in the rear of the school building, alternatively known as “Hank’s Hill” or “The Principal.”

THE THANG:   The workout was a variation of a three-man grinder, so the 11 PAX divided up into three 3-man teams, with Drama Queen and YHC forming a Dynamic Duo.

Placing 4 lights in a row along the top of the hill, YHC fashioned four lanes — one for each team.    In each lane was a 100-foot rope, each  stretched in a line running into the gloom down to the bottom of the hill.  Unknown to the PAX, at the bottom end of each rope was tied either a 25lb kettlebell or a 30lb hexagon dumbbell (2 of each).  (It was purely the luck of the draw in the darkness.)

At the bottom of the hill were two Weinkes illuminated by a light, one listing various exercises and the other one listing 4 means of locomotion.

In sum, the 3 man grinder went like this:

• Partner # 1 performs the listed exercise at the bottom of the hill
• Partner # 2 moves up the hill, utilizing the listed means of locomotion
• Partner # 3 is at the top of the hill, pulling the dumbbell or kettlebell up the hill via the rope.

When Partner # 2 reaches the top of the hill, he switches with Partner # 3, who trots down to the bottom of the hill to replace Partner # 1 and begins performing the listed exercise.  Partner # 1 now ventures up the hill, trying to move faster than the Partner at the top can pull the weight.  Whenever the weight reached the top of the hill, the Partner returning to the bottom carried it with him, while the Partner remaining at the top of the hill either fed the rope so that it would not get tangled or performed some exercise like SSHs, etc. to occupy himself until he heard his teammate call out “Pull!!” through the gloom, signifying that the weight had reached the bottom of the hill and was ready to be pulled back up it.

The listed exercises performed at the bottom of the hill were:

• Merkins
• Monkey Humpers
• Low Flutters
• Beat Your Boots Squats (hit the outside sole of your shoes when you squat down)
• Crucible Merkins
• Alternating Lunges with a clap
• Burpees
• American Hammers
• Carolina Drydocks
• SSHs
• Ranger Merkins
• Heels to Heaven
• Running with Scissors

The methods of locomotion up the hill were:

• Bear Crawl
• Backwards Mosey
• Steam Engines (essentially ISTs while walking forward – high knee to elbow at each step)
• Mosey
• REPEATO (return to Bear Crawl)

At 0606 hours, we collected the Weinkes, lights, weights and ropes and returned to the parking lot for Mary.

MARY:  Performed democratically, with Sixty Minutes calling out Low Flutters, Schneider calling out Freddie Mercuries, and TPS calling out Box Cutters until 0615.

FINIS!

NMM:

• YHC had a playlist of music from 80’s hair metal bands.   Alas, between the cold and my having absentmindedly left it playing for the 30 minutes that I set up the AO and returned to the parking lot to gather the PAX and lead Warmarama, my phone died about halfway into the workout in the middle of Twisted Sister’s “We’re Not Gonna Take It!”   No problem, as Fingers serenaded us with that song in a hillbilly accent for the remainder of our toils on the hill.
• Great partner work, DQ!  Even though it was just the two of us, and we had to contend with a 30lb dumbbell (which, in addition to being 5 pounds heavier, was significantly harder to pull up the hill than the rounded 25lb kettlebell because the edges dug into the ground), we got after it!!

COT: 

• Prayers for the tornado victims in Alabama
• Prayers for Spam’s niece, who is dealing with the pain and anguish of being bullied in school
• YHC took us out, with praise to our Lord for our Band of Brothers that HE has given to us, in which we can (and do) lean on one another, and asking Him to use each of us for Good to spread His love in this World.
• For each of us who posted today, there will eventually come a day when our bodies will not allow us to do this anymore, BUT TODAY WAS NOT THAT DAY!!

P.S. My shoulders are already really sore!