Backblast: March 6th, 2025
AO: The Wall – Riverside Park – Perrysburg, OH
PAX:
Photon – Q
Bourbon
Coconut
Finkle
Geppetto
Huckleberry
Irish Hoss
Mile High
Pimento
Spaulding
Workout: Michael Bauer's Off The Wall
FNG’s: N/A
Mission and Principles:
F3: Fitness, Fellowship, Faith
Mission: To plant, grow and serve small workout groups for men for the invigoration of male community leadership.
The core principles of F3 are that it is always:
1. Free of charge
2. Open to all men
3. Held outdoors, rain or shine, heat or cold
4. Led by men who participate in the workout in a rotating fashion, with no training or certification necessary. You versus you. Modify or stop an exercise if you need to. The most important thing is that nobody gets hurt.
5. Ends with a Circle of Trust
Credo: Leave no man behind but leave no man where you find him
Warm-up: In cadence to music
Sumo Squats (2 is 1) – 10
Gore Claps (2 is 1) – 10
The “Thang”:
Part two in YHCs Michael Jackson dance series, this was the shoulder-free follow-up with a spotlight on Michael’s best album, Off The Wall.
This was a 12-round ladder workout where a new rung was added to the ladder each round, each rung being an exercise out of the standing position. After each round, all PAX ran the stairs and SSHed while waiting for the 6 to finish. For the work portion, the PAX lined up side-by-side about 6 feet apart from one another in two lines drawn off by a sets of cones. This spacing was used to ensure every PAX had enough space to perform the Off The Wall routine without any collisions. On the Qs count the routine started, with YHC calling out cadence throughout its entirety. During the last 4-count of each “rung” in the routine, the Q also called out what the next movement/exercise would be in the progression. This continued until the routine was complete for any given round. Run the stairs and repeat until entire routine was built and run in succession. The culmination of this was a 1:30 minute, in cadence routine performed by all PAX, from the standing position, to the backing “Burn This Disco Out” track.
Dance exercise were as follows…and yes, they were included to try and mimic the dance moves MJ might actually use on a dancefloor.
Rd. Measures
1.) Forward Lunge Walk (slow): 4
2.) Squat Kicks: 4
3.) Boy Bands (2 is 1): 4
4.) Monkey Humpers (2 is 1): 4
5.) Skiers (2 is 1): 4
6.) SSHs (2 is 1): 4
7.) Lateral Hops (Right/Left) (2 is 1): 4
8.) High Knees (2 is 1): 4
9.) Flying Squirrels: 4
10.) Apolo Ohnos (2 is 1): 4
11.) Star Jumps: 4
12.) Squat Compass: 4
Ended with:
Count-O-Rama: 10
Name-O-Rama
The Six – Spaulding
LDP3
Ball of Man
Spreadsheets from the Gloom: The chilly temps and brutal wind didn’t stop us from Burning The Disco Out at The Wall this morning. While it won’t go down as the best beatdown of all time (I still believe Thriller Reprise takes that spot), this was a worthy follow-up in the series. Learnings were implemented from the Thriller beatdowns to make the cadence work smoother and the overall timing better. But the next run of this will include some changes. It is quite obvious watching the video footage that plyometric exercises should not be included in these workouts, especially ones that involve moving in a lateral direction. Synchronizing jumps is all but impossible with zero rehearsal time. So while the explosive moves DO make the workout harder and the visuals of the routine better (more dynamic range to the dance moves), they are simply too difficult to perform in cadence safely. Lateral hops will definitely be removed on the next run, with Apolo Ohnos pulled as well. Bonnie Blaires could probably replace the latter. Another improvement that will be made in all future runs in this dance series is to ensure the backing track is in the same time signature the entire song. There were several times during the beatdown when cadence got completely thrown off in the middle of a round with little understanding as to why. It wasn’t until AFTER the beatdown that YHC listened back to the track and discovered that the bridge/breakdown was 9 measures and the chorus 5 ½. As great as “Burn This Disco Out” is as a track, it will not be used in the future for this specific reason. Unless 6 or 8-count exercises are tried, songs will only be chosen if they are in 4×4 time throughout their entire duration.
Issues aside, Off The Wall was able to push a 12 rung ladder into a 45 minute workout, but there was no time for anything beyond one run-through of the final round. 45 minute beatdowns may need to be reduced to just 10 rounds to allow a few minutes for a second/third final run-through of the whole routine.
One change that I would still like to make would be to give other PAX the opportunity to lead the routine during different rungs if desired. I originally suggested that Coconut could lead the final round so that I could man the video camera, but once Spaulding agreed to take the video, Coco encouraged me to lead the final run-through myself. This is where an hour can certainly come in handy. Leading the cadence takes the routine to a whole new level in terms of difficulty, and I know there is at least one PAX interested in and capable of doing so.
Thank you to the nine HIMs who joined me for this one, whether they knew what they were getting into or not. Leading these routines is very fulfilling, and the positive feedback I continue to receive on them will encourage me to keep pumping them out. So similar to Thriller, this beatdown will be back. And this approach will be back. Keep a lookout for “Michael Bauer’s JAM” coming this summer.
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