Yes, I'm wearing sweatbands

Well, it's been some time since I've updated, but we have still been at it. I have included group photos from 3 of our workouts. The guys at the fight house have been hooking us up with some great sessions. On top of the grueling workout, we have been getting some good stand-up drilling also. There's nothing like trying to keep your hands up and punch a heavy bag after you have already done a workout.
Now, about the sweatbands. They work. I don't have to worry about sweat running into my eyes. With them on my legs, I get better footing because the floor under me isn't soaked. Many scoff, but it is the best $2 that I have spent this year.

Exercise of the Week, 1 May 2010

Here is a demonstration on the bus driver. We switched up the 45lb plate for a 35lb. It makes the exercise much more effective. Of course Grif looks like he is just out for a morning drive the way we effortlessly moves the bar around.

More Comments, More Posts

Yes it has been long since the last post. No, we have not been skipping our workouts. For some reason, every time I sat down behind the computer, I found myself playing Diablo II. April, while not evident by blog activity, was quite a busy month.

We did start the month out with a Saturday PME Hard Session. I took a little video of Big Frank wringing out his shirt, and COL King toting the keg.





You can't see it, but he is hooked up to resistance bands.
The next weekend was recovery from the Mangudai.

The third weekend was our tribute to the New England Recruiting Battalion. We visited them during the week and they gave us a couple of t-shirts for our photo. The only problem was that we didn't have a camera. Well, with my New England Recruiting Battalion shirt on, I pushed hard on our gauntlet. This was our first weekend that we grappled and sparred after our circuit. I found out two things: 1, I suck at boxing 2, I suck at grappling. I guess it was a good thing that 1LT Kinsel was going at about 10% effort because he put me in an arm bar in about 2 seconds. It was a good workout and the grappling and sparring was an outstanding addition to the program.

The last weekend of the month, CSM and I were attending a conference in Las Vegas. We were able to get up early and go workout at Randy Couture's gym. Yes, we bought souvenirs. Yes I did wear them the next week.

During the last week of April, we put on 2 gauntlets during the week and finished it up with another Saturday gauntlet with grappling at the end. Somehow, my arm still works, even though I was in several arm bars. I guess I'm doing something wrong in my attempts to apply a triangle choke. If there is anyone out there that weighs about 140, and has no skills, come on out and make me feel better. Remember, no skills SSG Giles (he is a 140lb monster, see the cage climb video).

Now, about the title. No one is leaving comments! Let us know what exercise you like or hate. Tell us that the reason you weren't there is because you had to take the kids to see Elmo. Leave comments.

Comments to come

Here is a quick post of the group from Saturday's session. More comments will come. Sometime.

Exercise of the Week

The exercise of the week is the Fingal Fingers. The easiest way to explain it is to have you watch the video. While I'm not the most graceful at it, I get the job done.

Spring is in the Air

It was a beautiful Saturday morning. The sun was shining, birds were singing, and the sounds of grunting men permeated the air. It has been a while, but we were finally able to do an outside gauntlet again. We set up 20 stations, many of which we can't do indoors.

1. Supine Knee tuck with TO bands with 16lb med ball toss.
2. Agility cone runs while holding 2 8lb med balls. The cones were set up in a T formation with 15 yards in between cones. We ran forwards, backwards, and left/right latterals.
3. Battling Rope. We parted the waves.
4. Tire Pull. See the video on this post. SGT Bingham demonstrates for us.
5. Fingal Fingers. Our exercise of the week.
6. Steel Log Clean and Press.
7. Jump Rope.
8. Heavy Bag
9. TRX with Parrallets.
10. Box Jump while holding 18lb Kettlebell.
11. Make a Rock Pile. Got to break out the Husefel stones for a change.
12. Agility Ladder. High knee runs.
13. Keg Carry. Bear hug the keg and walk with it.
14. Barbell puts. I don't have a better name for this exercise. Essentially it was taking the equipment from the Barbell destruction exercise, and using in a shot put technique.
15. Sledge Hammer Tire.
16. Tire Flip and Hop.
17. 60lb Kettlebell relay. We walked up the steps, squating with the K-bell at each step and then doing a trap raise. Once you made it to the top, you come down the ramp and start over again.
18. BJS. Doing it on mats spoiled me.
19. Keg toss. We took the 3 kegs that won't hold liquid and Granny-tossed them over the 7' fence.
20. Cage climb, minus the cage. We used a TRX to grab on with our hands.

We did three rotations of 45 sec exercising and 30 secs for transition. Our total time was 75 minutes. It was a good workout.

Exercise of the Week

The Cage Climb is our featured exercise here. Watch as SSG Giles demonstrates.

Gauntlet Backlog

We have been busy with the workouts, but I haven't been busy updating the blog. We continue to find new ways to challenge our bodies every week. I have made a new parallette and the new steel log has arrived. We were lucky enough to get an introductory class with club bells and learn some new exercise techniques from CW3 Larson. Here's some pictures of the sessions.

Saturday's Pictures

We had a good session on Saturday! We had all the equipment that was supposed to be there, so we didn't have to supplement with heavier objects. Our total time was 82 minutes. My heart rate monitor crapped out on me 5 minutes in, so I can't analyse exercises, but the way my back feels, the keg was a butt kicker.

Exercise of the Week, 13 February

This week's exercise is the Keg Clean and Press. While clean was fairly simple, an entirely new difficulty was added at the press. That was the point where gravity and the water in the keg became reacquainted. Add in the diameter of the keg and it is a smoker. Enjoy the video.

Saturday's Line Up

Well, I learned how to take a keg apart this week. Why is that important? Because now we can fill it with water! Here is the line up for Saturday's workout:
1. Heavy Bag
2. Ground and Pound
3. BJS
4. TO Band Supine Runners with Medball Toss
5. TO Band Runners
6. TRX with Parallettes
7. Suspended Agony
8. Agility Ladder
9. Jump Rope
10. Battling Rope (Tsunami)
11. Iron Chair with 60lb Kettle Bell
12. Turkish Sit Up
13. Keg Clean and Press
14. TRX One Arm Squat Row with Kettle Bell Press
15. Renegade Row

Exercise of the week

This is a new section where we show you what one of the exercises we do looks like. This week is the good old Bungee Jump and Scoot, or BJS. The exercise is quite simple and will take the starch out of you in one round. First take a rope, string, elastic tube, etc. and tie it to two fixed points about knee high (that's knee high to an average adult male, not a giraffe). Be sure that you have about 7 feet between your anchor points. Next stand parallel with the cord. Laterally jump over the rope. Drop down to the front leaning rest and scoot (DO NOT ROLL) under the the cord. Stand up, repeat. Enjoy the video on this.

Results are in, finally

First of all, sorry for the delay in getting this posted. Saturday was definitely a smoker. I again had the pleasure of shoveling snow before heading out. Thankfully it was only a fraction of last week's. When the Turkish Get Up is a rest, you can kind of figure that everything else was tough. Over 48 hours later, and I can still feel the water board. This was probably one of the most demanding sessions (even though someone forgot the heavy bag) since the first gauntlets. Our lack of a heavy bag was supplemented by the failure also to bring the 25lb dumbbells; we got to use the 35lb'ers instead on the renegade row. We also used the new set of parallettes. I didn't glue them, so they could be broken down easily, but they do need to be glued in several of the joints to keep them from coming apart. Also, we are going to make the cross bar on them a little longer so they can be used for wider grip exercises. Enjoy the pictures.

Another Saturday Smoker Awaits

Snow is in the forecast. Be prepared to get up early so you can shovel your driveway. Also, I have a 4WD vehicle; I'll pick you up if you live on post. Now that I've addressed to most common excuses from last week... The only thing that cancels a session is a natural disaster that removes the workout location! We have got a pretty good workout for tomorrow planned. The most difficult item will being getting the rotation of the stations down. In case you want to study tonight, here are the exercises we will be doing in rotational order:

Inside the cage
1. T.O. Band Resistance Runners (Harness on the chest)
2. TRX Push up with parallettes (Just made these last night)
3. 4 TRX Torture Rack
4. TRX Waterboard
5. Dirty Boxing with the Ground and Pound
6. Heavy Bag
7. Bungee Jump & Scoot (or the BJS as I like to call it)
Outside the cage
8. Agility Ladder
9. Renegade Rows
10. Jump Rope
11. Kettlebell Deck Squat with Med Ball Up Down with Perfect Push Up (this is a multi-movement exercise :)
12. Turkish Get Up
13. Iron Chair with 60lb kettlebell
14. T.O. Band Shadow Boxing
15. Battling Rope (Crucifix)

I have heard a rumor that the New Kids on the Block reunion album will be on the stereo this week. We'll see you there.

Monster Factory Fun

Well, I would have posted this yesterday, but I couldn't move my arms. Maybe shoveling the driveway before heading out wasn't the best idea. Friday night we had 4" of snow. I went outside at 8:45am to start shoveling. I finished at 9:45am. I went back inside to check my messages and already had one, "Roads are bad, catch you next Saturday." I quickly changed and headed over to the Monster Factory. Out of our nine invitees, we had five show up. Today I'm rethinking if I should have ventured out. It only took us about 15 minutes to get everything set up and started. With Cyndi Lauper blasting on the radio, we began our circuits. Our first round consisted of 60 seconds exercise, the second round 55 seconds, and the last round was 50 seconds. To clarify, that 60-55-50 is per station (14 stations per circuit). I was feeling pretty good until I made into the TRX Atomic Push-up on the parallettes. Talk about a smoker! I hope you enjoy the pictures. For those that were snowed in, here's what you missed.

Saturday at the Monster Factory

Another Saturday of barefooted fun is planned for us. Here are our stations:
1. Agility Ladder
2. TRX Torture Rack
3. TRX Push-up with parrallettes
4. Jump Rope
5. Battling Rope Pull
6. TRX Elevated Suspended Bicycle Runners
7. Heavy Bag
8. Ground and pound
9. Bungee Jump & Scoot
10. Resistance Band Bear Crawl
11. Med Ball up-downs (16lbs)
12. Kettle bell Turkish Get-up
13. Kettle bell Two-arm swing
14. TRX Combo of Squat with one-arm row and Kettle bell press

Lunchtime Workout

Had a good workout with Ron Selbe at lunch. We have continued the 60 seconds workout to 30 seconds rest/transition ratio for a 36 minute high intensity workout. Here is today's exercises:
1. V-up with medicine ball wall throw
2. Jump rope
3. TRX Kneeling oblique rollout
4. TRX Crossover lunge
5. TRX Muscle-up Prep
6. Jump rope
7. TRX Overhead back extension
8. Squat thrusts