YHC has always (~5 years) held Vortex in high esteem for bad-assery with the legacy Assisi and now Nightshift & Bushwood have helped continue as site-Qs. It’s always an honor to attempt to meet that standard when serving as the Q at the Vortex. YHC got through a busy period at work and home the last month or so and finally had the space to put together a challenging Q at the Vortex.

Warm Up
We had our obligatory Vortex Lap and proceeded to the middle of the field for a pretty standard (albeit lengthy) warm up (with a tease for what was to come):
SSH IC x 10
Seal Claps IC x 20
Smurf Jacks IC x 30 (ouch)
Arm Circles small and big, front and back IC x 20
Bent over Arm Circles small and big front and back IC x 20
Imperial Walkers IC x 20
Hillbillies IC x 20
Mountain Climbers IC x 20
Slow Merkins IC x 10

The Thang
The first part of the work out was an escalating (both in frequency of burpees and merkins) trip around the near soccer field. The first round was a standard single merkin burpee at each corner of the soccer field, with a hearty run in between each corner of the field. Early finishers would do a peoples chair while the remaining PAX finished up. The next round was a double merkin burpee at each corner and sprinting to each corner. The third round was a triple merkin burpee at each corner – I think you get the gist – with a run in between corners and a peoples chair at the end. YHC was hoping to get to quintuple merkin burpees, but the quadruple was hard enough in the early morning humidity. Those that finished first circled back to pick up the six.

We then moseyed to the playground where the PAX enjoyed the poured in place rubber flooring, which is a very nice addition to the park. To continue the escalator theme, we broke up into 5 groups of two and proceeded through a circuit including 5 rounds of the following exercises, starting at one exercise each and adding a rep each completed circuit:

Pullups
Derkins
Swerkins
Burpees
Low Plank hold (until the Burpee Group completed their reps and moved to the low plank station).

Mary
We had an extended Mary where we interspersed stretching and the traditional core exercises. YHC was hoping to get some suggestions for “good” stretches, but didn’t get many contributions:

LBC IC x 20
COBRA POSE
Peter Parker Peter IC x 20
Glute/Hamstring/Marichi Pose
Hello Dolly IC x 20
Calf Stretch/Downward Dog
Flutter Kick IX x 20
Willie Mays Hayes IC x 20

During the stretching and Mary, there was some good mumblechatter about stretching, recovery, and what works and what doesn’t…Big Kat provided the link below to the group – https://www.npr.org/2019/02/11/693597465/the-science-of-exercise-recovery-adam-savage-of-mythbusters

Thanks for the opportunity to lead this morning!
AYE!
Boucher