Skip to main content

Old School PT Grinder: The Pulp Throw Relay by Mark Hatmaker


Oh, Crew, looking to get outside the comfy smooth gym and test your real mettle with activities and objects that haven’t been designed to make hefting them easier so you can skip grade-school reveling in the WOD participation trophy hamster wheel?
Then, belly up to the bar for a PT Challenge from ye olde days of lumberjack and woodsman prowess.
Pulp wood was a designation for bucked lengths not quite up to par for lumber use.

For our purposes, and those into Woodsman and Lumber Sports Competitions, grab yourself 4 lengths of log four feet in length with an approximate weight of 30-40 pounds per.
If you don’t have logs available, you can hit the resource that is Home Depot and pick up a couple of 6 x 6 pressure treated timbers. They come in 8-foot lengths so a wee middle cut to each gives you a PT resource that will last. [They’ll be a bit on the light side but they will serve the log-bereft.]
The Course

·        Lay out your four pieces of pulp wood.

·        Measure out 20’.

·        Place two stakes 4 feet apart.


The Method

·        Your gig is to stand behind your line 20’ feet from the 2 stakes and toss the pulp so that it lands between the goal stakes.

·        For newbies if you merely get an end length into the staked area, you’re good to go.

·        For Hosses, you’ll want to get at least the middle portion of each pulp through the stake line.


The Protocol for Partners

·        You stand at one end and your partner at the other.

·        You start and throw the 4 logs though the stake line.

·        Upon completion, your partner heaves them back to a stake line on your side of the course.

·        You will do this for 5 rounds, for a total of 40 throws, each partner having contributed 20 tosses.


The Protocol for Solo

·        Toss your four…

·        Sprint to the opposite stake line and toss ‘em back.

·        Do this for 4 rounds and a total of 16 throws.


The Catch

·        Whether playing solo or with a partner, as soon as you finish…

·        Hit a strict 90 second rest then repeat the tosses.

·        Newbies do this for 4 Rounds

·        Intermediate for 6.

·        Hosses for 8 Rounds.


The Goal

·        Throw fast and furious AND accurately.

·        Always shoot for a sub 90 second performance time, always striving to get faster and faster. [Truthfully, 1:15 is around your minimum target time for the stout of heart.]

·        Over 90 seconds and you are sandbaggin’ or need to go back to the smooth contoured lines of a CrossFit box.


Penalties

·        Pulp that does not cross the stake line must be retrieved by the thrower and re-tossed.

·        Pulp that misses the stakes either to right or left must be retrieved to be re-tossed.


Many an old school boxer, wrestler, rough and tumbler came from a logging or at the very least a woodsman background.  Many of the earl


y competitors in combat sports used actual logging skills as conditioners.
You want a piece of that old school wicked real-world strong, don’t you?
Besides, what looks cooler, you throwing logs like a badass combination man, or squatting down and continuously tossing a squishy soft wall-ball over your head like a lonely kid with no playmates.
[For techniques, tactics, and strategies of Rough and Tumble Combat, Old-School Boxing, Mean-Ass Wrestling, Street-Ready Frontier Scrapping & Indigenous Ability culled from the historical record see the RAW Subscription Service.]

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Apache Running by Mark Hatmaker

Of the many Native American tribes of the southwest United States and Mexico the various bands of Apache carry a reputation for fierceness, resourcefulness, and an almost superhuman stamina. The name “Apache” is perhaps a misnomer as it refers to several different tribes that are loosely and collectively referred to as Apache, which is actually a variant of a Zuni word Apachu that this pueblo tribe applied to the collective bands. Apachu in Zuni translates roughly to “enemy” which is a telling detail that shines a light on the warrior nature of these collective tribes.             Among the various Apache tribes you will find the Kiowa, Mescalero, Jicarilla, Chiricahua (or “Cherry-Cows” as early Texas settlers called them), and the Lipan. These bands sustained themselves by conducting raids on the various settled pueblo tribes, Mexican villages, and the encroaching American settlers. These American settlers were often immigrants of all nationalities with a strong contingent of
Post a Comment
Read more

Resistance is Never Futile by Mark Hatmaker

Should you always fight back? Yes. “ But what if …”           Over the course of many years teaching survival-based strategies and tactics the above-exchange has taken place more than a few times. The “ but what if …” question is usually posed by well-meaning individuals who haven’t quite grasped the seriousness of physical violence. These are people whose own humanity, whose sense of civility is so strong that they are caught vacillating between fight or flight decisions. It is a shame that these good qualities can sometimes stand in the way of grasping the essential facts of just how dire the threat can be.           The “ but what if …” is usually followed by any number of justifications or pie-in-the-sky hopeful mitigations. These “ but what if …” objections are based on unfounded trust and an incorrect grasp of probability. The first objection, unfounded trust, is usually based on the following scenario. Predator : Do what I say and I won’t hurt you. Or
1 comment
Read more

Awareness Drill: The Top-Down Scan by Mark Hatmaker

American Indians, scouts, and indigenous trackers the world over have been observed to survey terrain/territory in the following manner. A scan of the sky overhead, then towards the horizon, and then finally moving slowly towards the ground. The reason being that outdoors, what is overhead-the clouds, flying birds, monkeys in trees, the perched jaguar—these overhead conditions change more rapidly than what is at ground level. It has been observed by sociologists that Western man whether on a hike outdoors or in an urban environment seldom looks up from the ground or above eye-level. [I would wager that today, he seldom looks up from his phone.] For the next week I suggest, whether indoors or out, we adopt this native tracker habit. As you step into each new environment [or familiar ones for that matter] scan from the top down. I find that this grounds me in the awareness mindset. For example, I step into my local Wal-Mart [or an unfamiliar box store while travelli
Post a Comment
Read more