Ah, Strawberry Fields! These lyrics have served as the inspiration for many high school wrestling team shirts across the country. They also accurately describe YHC”s Q today at The Big Dance. At first, you slowly descend, and things do not seem that bad. But at some point – and we all reach this point eventually – things start to get difficult, and that is when you realize that you have descended quite a ways. Indeed, too far to turn back. And yes, YHC is going to keep pushing us further down, mentally and physically, but to his credit he does provide blueberry muffins after the workout (courtesy of M Sweats)!
How did we do it? First, we had 3 for EC alternating between pull ups and KB swings. YHC thought it was going to be another Party of 1 EC but thankfully Te”o and Alfie rolled in right at 5am to save the day. Then 10 arrived for the ME. Each phase was designed to, you know, not seem so bad at first. But PAX soon realized that the tempo was quick, the rest was minimal, and the ferocity of the revolutions was formidable. What”s more, no one knew when the pain would end, not even YHC, who was waiting for the inexorable misery to kick in at any moment. That”s when you know you”re dong something right, and that”s when you know it”s time to go further down.
First descent:
10 Merkins; 10 dips; 15 squats, every minute on the minute, for 10-12 minutes. After we finished together, we shared the 10-15 seconds rest, which went by too, too quickly. At first this all seems doable, until you get about 5 rounds in and you are running out of breath. The tempo is meant to be unforgiving. The descent is real.
Second descent:
10 Derkins; 10 jump lunges; 10 box jumps, every minute on the minute for 10 minutes. This was tough. The lower body moves really got the heart rate speeding, and the box jumps were an appropriate finisher (YHC ate it on one rep as he made a sloppy jump). Recovery was hard to come by in this round. Still, down we go.
Third descent (Mary):
Bear crawl for 15 minutes, alternating between bear crawl and various plank exercises, including but not limited to: spiderman merkins (wide and diamond); J-Los; planks; low planks; chillcut planks; planks with arms to the side; mountain climbers.
YHC was covered in sweat, but hey, that”s what they call me. This one was slowly but most certainly a challenging work out. Nickelback said it best – that it is the mental aspect of these workouts that get to you. You just don”t know when certain things will end. A testament to the anti-isometric workout structure, a wonderful yet dreadful test to the central nervous system.
CoT:

• T-Claps:
  • to Happy Gilmore for making the effort to post today despite being sick.
  • to Cardiac for bringing the Tobacco Road shovel flag,
  • to Choo Choo for making The Big Dance shovel flag.
  • to M Sweats, for the blueberry muffins
  • TBD is officially flying the flag of F3!