2 lionhearted PAX, Alfie and Shake it, gave it a yeoman”s effort in the mile farmer”s carry, deep in the bowels of the Animal House, in the calm gloom. T-claps to these fellas for making the effort, and good luck trying to do anything that requires hand dexterity for the next day. 2 other PAX ran to the hills, and for their lives, as the song says. Curtis does not quite have the panache of the Pine, as it were, but it does not care for the hype. As YHC and Au Jus were turning the corner to get to Curtis, we heard the loud clatter of deer hooves, seemingly fast on our heels, and breathed a sigh of relief that we were not truck-sticked by oncoming deer. That”s the kind of wild that you get with Curtis, and that”s the kind of experience you get at the one and only Animal House.
11 arrived for showtime. And by showtime, I mean electrocution of the central nervous system with very little rest and one onerous exercise after the next. Here”s the play-by-play, after your basic warm-up:
-The PAX partner up for a partner wheelbarrow. Look at them go! How the hell do they know where they are going, just a bunch of wheelbarrowing fools tumbling down to an untimely demise? Like the honey badger, they don”t care!
-They blast out 50 merkins as a group. What form! What majesty! If synchronized merkins were a sport, we would have a few gold medals as a group.
-Now one partner has 30 burpees and the other has to pull-up AMRAP and then dead hang until the other finishes. The horror! I do not know if they are going to make it at this pace. It is diabolical!
-There they go, sinewy stallions galloping around the track. 400 meters of glory. They call it the Animal House, but rest assured, to quote Rage Against the Machine, There Will Be No Shelter Here
-50 more merkins! Followed by 20 squats with a partner on your back. They have families! Have mercy. When will this end?
-One partner does 10 inversions, or Top Guns, while the other burpees, Switcharoo.
-Another 400? To quote the great movie, The Program, “Let”s open a can of whoop ass and kill ”em all, let the paramedics sort them out!”
-50 merkins, 20 more partner squats, and 50 jump lunges and we are really cooking with gas, folks. Do they charge admission to watch this carnage?
-Let”s pause here for a word from our sponsor while we transition to the Sweet Sauce, Au Jus. Partner wheelbarrow to the top of the hill. PAX are greeted by a panoramic view of battle ropes, kettlebells, jump ropes, medicine balls, dumbbells, and what”s this?! CHEESE BUCKETS?! What a time to be alive!
-It”s a veritable merry-go-round of pain and suffering. STOP THE FIGHT! PAX rotate between battle ropes, bear crawl cross-body weight drags, bent over single-arm rows, jump ropes, medicine slams, cross-body KB lifts, sand bag, um, let”s go to the booth for this one…yes, sand bag get the F*** ups (it seems Timber is the only one to really do this), and the glorious cheese buckets, which time all the exercises as PAX tote them up and down the hill. Just a bunch of cheese totin” fools, this bunch. Props to Blindside and Draper who did this X2, and for the Cheesemeister, the Cheesiest Splint of them all, for bringing the buckets. And yes, I buried the answer to the question I posed in the title, “how much cheese is too much cheese?” The answer is as it is stated in the clip, in this case, “Any amount of cheese.”
-YHC would like to note that watching Au Jus jump rope is like watching a dancing circus bear perform. It is truly a sight to behold. He is quite nimbly pimbly on his feet.
-In the name of the great Foo Fighters album, There is Nothing Left to Lose. Mary wipes them all out with 50 more merkins, flutter kicks, heels to heaven, LBCs.
-That”s all we have for today, folks. I hope you enjoyed the show. Tune in next time for more Animal shenanigans. As always, we must protect this house!
Moleskine: Love the Animal House AO. Always brings the pain. T-claps to Au Jus for bringing a literal truckload of weight, to Cheese for the buckets, and to the PAX for bringing the intensity. I always appreciate the invite to Q.