Mayhem in the Park Workout – Kettlebells, Maces, Battling Rope, optional Hawk and Poker Chips

Last night I shared the amusing Armour39 results from the circuit described below.  Once again, we invaded the field with the very soft grass, which was suprisingly resilient considering all the traffic it received from the art show last weekend.   Should have taken a picture, but after unloading the following it looked like we were going to have some kind of homegrown version of the Highland Games out there.  In other words, it was looking pretty mighty and I am proud to both own and use this stuff (the list is excessive, the workout can be done with much less, this was a “just because I can” and “let’s bring out all the toys!” type of thing)

1. Stronger Grip full size mace/core club, 6″ dome (11lbs empty but I’ve added an additional couple pounds of bbs which are happily rolling around in the dome.  At some point I will shake the thing and make silly maraca comments.  Shaking it for any extended period of time is pretty difficult and reminds me of the “Primal Shaking” exercises we have enjoyed from Neuro-Mass… maybe I can talk Ryan Pitts of Stronger Grip into making some gorilla-strength musical instruments for us at some point…)
2. Onnit Steel Mace (10lbs).  A lighter, smaller cousin of the other mace, it still holds its own and can be used for more endurance type movements… I brought out both to compare and also to justify the fact of owning 2 different kinds of maces.  It does seem excessive, but whatever.   The Onnit Mace is very valuable for exploring movements that I wouldn’t necessarily try with a loaded up Stronger Grip mace, also as the workout progressed I switched down to this one a couple times to preserve movement quality.  This is a really great mace though, not just for beginners… the low price makes it a good entry level “do I even like to do this?” option.  Unfortunatly the weight cannot be adjusted up or down like the Stronger Grip Mace, but both also have their advantages.   And both make you look super cool when you use them.
3. Battling Rope – I love the official “Battling Rope” brand ropes AND the heavy duty ones from Muscle Ropes.  As you may remember, Muscle Ropes sent me a really nice one for indoor use, which we love, but were not about to take out to the field.   Instead the 50′ 1.5″ Blue battling rope came out to play, and I anchored it on the…..
4. Beast kettlebell from Dragon Door.   Amusingly enough, even though it’s 106lbs, we managed to drag it around with our rope slams.  That makes me proud.
5. More Dragon Door kettlebells: Pair of 12kg, pair of 14kg, one 18kg, one 20kg
6. UnderArmour Armour39 Heart Rate Monitor and iPad (large display so you can see the crazy numbers happen and use them as a good reason to take rest when necessary).  According to where I regularly top out, and according to those rather inaccurate “projected max heartrate charts” I’m apparently 17… which might not be too inaccurate, while I’m 37, I feel and occasionally act 17 so maybe that’s it.  It’s a lot more fun at 37 though… no rules! WOOOOOOOO!  Wait… maybe that explains the strange teenage boys that made that pterodactyl scream from their car at us?  I took it to mean that we were still “youth culture releveant”.  Silly boys… is that “a thing” now?  Because that was a very high-pitched not-so-masculine sound there, buddy, and we laughed at you.
7. Poker chips (optional).  I am notoriously bad at counting rounds, so brought along some poker chips that were brightly colored and wouldn’t get lost in the grass if things got crazy.  For some unknown reason it’s extra fun to complete a round and put a chip in the “done” stack.  No idea. But it’s fun so we do it.  These are really great for intense workouts where you might forget what round you’re on (it happens to us a lot) or for clients who just don’t want to think about reps or rounds so much… because they’re so focused on the form.  No problems with that.   During the recent podcast with Mike Krivka, we even came up with a fun variant of putting the completed chips in a bucket on the far side of the workout area, thus making a built in “active rest walk” between rounds–beginners could stroll it if necessary, and more advanced folks might choose to run/walk or jog it.  The possibilities are endless!
8. Hawk.  No, not short for “mohawk.” (For the record, I’ve had this 90s “undercut” hairdo–not a mohawk–for over 10 years now… so that’s not what we’re even discussing here.)  I’m talking about a bird of prey!!   While we were loading things back into the car, a giant hawk swooped down just 30-40 yards away to try and snag one of the large, overfed squirrels in our park.  It wasn’t successful at this, but it was a sure reminder that it was dinner time in the forest.  After this workout it was definitely dinnertime.  Thanks, hawk!  Not sure why, but we tend to get visited by wildlife during workouts (hawks, owls, various large birds, random people’s toddlers…) so what we are doing must look interesting.

Here’s what we did:

Primal Move warm up, CC2 Trifecta, then another weird “contest” of crow vs elbow headstand…

Here’s the circuit that we did for 5 rounds (hince the 5 poker chips each, which were actually helpful)

1. 10 reps of our odd variation of battling rope burpees – throw the ropes, pop down to knuckle push ups (while still holding the rope ends… this is for the soft grass field only… have demoed in slow mo on concrete but do not recommend) do a GOOD push up, jump up to standing, throw the ropes… etc etc… these made me hungry.
2. 10 alternating walking lunges with mace.  Because of all those socially acceptable photos in womens magazines of stick women holding pink micro weights doing walking lunges, my “Napoleon-complex-for-her” demands that walking lunges can only be done with some kind of battle implement: maces, kettlebells, some kind of Zercher-hold variation, or rotational movement with Ultimate Sandbag… you get the idea…  Walking mace lunges challenge the grip big time, coordination, breath timing, core engagement, some legs, besides they’re really fun, especially if you growl a little bit.
3. 10 double kettlebell swings
4. Then one double kettlebell clean and 5 double kettlebell front squats.
5. 3-5 “pump stretches” aka “up dog, down dog”

After a little water and chill out break we played with doing a weird ab combo in the soft grass–alternating timed rounds of tuck ups and Primal Move style x-rolls.   We were surprised at how intense the rolls became about halfway through.  I’ve rediscovered a real love of rolling on the ground lately.  Finally we finished up with another crow and headstand practice and a Primal Move and joint mobility cool down.  Then we watched the hawk.