The Tower of 3 Ways

Weather: 77 degrees and humid

OK, so the title of this sounds like something you might expect to see on Cinemax at 11.30 on a Saturday night, but trust me, this is suitable for reading at work (usual disclaimer: it depends on where you work).

At 5.15, the core principles and disclaimers were recited and YHC led a mozi that included high knees, butt kickers, carioca x2 and nur. We then circled up for a COP consisting of strawberry pickers, imperial walkers, side straddle hops, and moroccan nightclubs. YHC then instructed the pax to grab their drinks and head down to the base of the tower. This was my first Q at Benderson and we had a couple of downrange pax visiting, so according to official Suncoast regulations, the tower had to be put to good use.

Once at the base of the tower, I explained to the uninitiated why we had a sledgehammer. That detail out of the way, the pax were welcomed to the Tower of 3 Ways, an offshoot of the highly popular 3-way exercises that I introduced at Nolan to celebrate the opening of the Skyline Chili in Lakewood Ranch. To help explain the ground rules, the pax were told that the big deck one floor up from the ground was the Bing Deck (named that by Jimmy Dean for reasons that are apparent to no one) and that the very top of the tower was the Jimmy Dean Deck (named that by me because JD is tall and wasn’t there to object). The 3-way works as follows: an exercise is designated for the ground level, the Bing Deck, and the Jimmy Dean Deck. You start on the ground level, do the exercise there, run up to the Bing Deck, do that set of exercises, then run up to the Jimmy Dean Level and do that set of exercises. Once that’s done, it’s back down, stopping at the Bing Deck to do another set of the exercise designated for that deck, then finishing off with a set of the ground level exercises at the bottom. Just to make it more fun, the pax took turns carrying the sledgehammer up and down the tower. We repeated the process three times, with each set containing the following exercises (25 reps in all cases):

Set 1:

  • Ground level – Merkins
  • Bing Deck – Carolina drydocks
  • Jimmy Dean Deck – Shoulder taps

Set 2:

  • Ground level – Salsa dips
  • Bing Deck – LBCs
  • Jimmy Dean Deck – American hammers

Set 3:

  • Ground level – Flutter kicks
  • Bing Deck – Mountain climbers
  • Jimmy Dean Deck – Overhead claps

By this time, the pax were tired of running up and down the tower, so we changed things up with a Dora 1-2-3, consisting of 100 Evander Holyfields, 200 plank jacks, and 300 Freddie Mercuries. With a few minutes left, YHC called for a jailbreak so that the COT could be held at the top. An abbreviated Round of Mary ensued with 10 big boy sit ups being completed before 6.00 arrived.

Announcements:

  • Gator Wilderness Run is tomorrow
  • Sup & Run is May 25 – let’s have a big turnout as we did for the Hero 5k
  • Wednesday evening workouts will become a regular event starting next week, which may move the monthly 2nd F happy hour event to another day (more to come)
  • June 1 launch in St. Pete, with Clearwater possibly to follow

Praises & prayer requests:

  • Police, firefighters, military & first responders
  • Friend of Mr. Miyagi fighting cancer
  • Goob for job opportunities
  • Safe travels back home to Mr. Miyagi and Therminator

Post-beatdown, Bing, Ripken, Brutus, Trump and YHC enjoyed coffeeteria at Panera, which again kindly opened up early for us. Topics of discussion included intermittent fasting, how good F3 is for 2.0s, and how we’re all intimidated by Drake’s M.

Manziel out.