Just as there was in Avengers: Age of Ultron, there may have been too much insider baseball in this workout to make it truly stick in the “memorable” category. Only five PAX showed up in the rain for the main event, which was at least better by four than the meager showing for EC. Hopefully we didn’t sacrifice too much fitness for the sake of story line, which was all about the most-anticipated addition to the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
We added a few Avengers treats to the warm ups, including Iron Man-themed SSHs (think this pose) and, for Ant Man/Giant Man (early merchandising suggests that he will do both in the coming film), we did “Little-Man SSHs” and jump squats. Since Civil Wars are always tragic, we did 50 burpees. Since trusted friendships are more critical than ever when ones worlds fall apart, we did lazy doras for 150 merkins (sets of 15).
There will be all sorts of fun character combos in the new movie, and we worked them in partner carries. The odd man out ran to the edge of the field and back with a cinder block, symbolizing the Hulk’s mysterious exile. In the first set, because War Machine will at least be severely injured, we did fireman’s carries. In the second set, since there is the possibility of at least two new romances (Vision/Scarlet Witch and Cap/Agent 13–my enthusiasm for links is flagging; but there are stories about each), we did bridal carries. Finally, to approximate Ant Man’s glorious ride one of Hawkeye’s arrows, we did piggy-back.
In a somewhat unsuccessful attempt to approximate the truly epic chase when Black Panther hunts down Winter Soldier, we did a chase exercise in which one PAX carried a cinder block until caught. Then the PAX ran 1/4 mile+ until he caught up with the cinderblock, which traveled just over half mile for the exercise. Since we didn’t get enough sprinting we then divided into Team Cap and Team Iron Man (with Spidey/Bones as the wild card) and did an approximation of the airport charge, running back and forth (at least 25 60-yd sprints per PAX).
Finally, we did Spider Man crawls from the end line to the 18, where we did Thor’s Hammers. Then Black Panther walk back to the end line for Cap-inspired WW IIs. Then again. Then half a set more. Then some flutter kicks. Because that’s how we tend to end at the Vortex.
Always a pure joy to sweat with such a great crew. Looking forward to May 6.
