6 years, God only knows where I might have been….

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6 years ago YHC rang the bell for the first time with a handful of rag tag HIM’s. There were 3 workouts, total, in The Fort. A lot has changed!  YHC was blessed enough to be able to come to Block Party and Q on a day that has changed my life.  32 other PAX joined YHC in the gloom for some fun for Day 20 for Ass Kickn’ April Y2!

The Thang:

Long loop around WEP

COP

SSH X 50, Squats X 25, IW X 20, Mountain Climbers X 25, Plank Jacks X 25, Slow Sumo Squats X 25, 6 count Burpees w/ hand clap X 10, SSH X 10 – Mosey to playground

DORA 1-2-3

Partner up, 100 Merkins, 200 Squats, 300 LBCs. Go.

Huddle Up

Got the PAX together to briefly talk about what F3 has done for me.  I had initially thought that F3 would always be a physical challenge, and it is, but I would never have guessed how much the 2nd and 3rd F’s would come into play.  Having 32 other men show up at 0515 to work out under my lead, shows exactly what F3 is all about.  Supporting your F3 brother celebrate a special, life changing day by doing burpees and dodging fire ants.  The 1st F is the magnet, always pulling you in.  The 2nd F is the glue, keeping you connected and active.  The 3rd F is the dynamite, serving others, putting yourself 3rd and sharing this crazy thing F3 to all men around you. Off to the hill for Jacob’s Ladder.

Jacob’s Ladder – 8’s – 1 Burpee at top and 7 Bomb Jacks at Bottom. Add, subtract, flippy flop, you know the drill.

Off to COT, but lets do some more while we count down to 0600.  30 seconds of Mountain Climbers, Plank, burpees….. Saved by the Bell. Done.

Great Tuesday morning.  So humbled and blessed with the HUGE turnout this morning.  I couldn’t be more excited about being a part of F3!

FunHouse

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You Can Keep Your Speed…This Is About Form

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I AM NOT A PROFESSIONAL

PAX of The Fort or wherever else you call home. Let me offer you a slight change to your regularly scheduled Friday post. Or if you don’t have a regularly scheduled Friday post, consider joining me this Friday, April 26 at what is normally named, Slow Burn.

In short, I’m tired of seeing my brothers focused on speed which often comes at the expense of their form which in turn, can lead to injury. If you’re waking up early, putting on your workout gear, driving your 1/2-alert soul to an AO and engaging in the local mumble chatter, then you owe it to yourself to do the exercises correctly. This 45mins on Friday will be focused on doing exercises slowly AND correctly. I should also note, this will not be a moderate-level bootcamp but judging by over 1/2 the men that are consistently posting at moderate workouts, your minds and bodies are ready for the next challenge anyways. So save the whining and recognize that this will be focused on accelerating your KING, not merely coasting with your King.

Our Rock Hill brothers talk preach, “Tighten Your Core” but what does that really mean? I can tell you, it is more than a loud directive; there is something to it. Well, this Friday, I will help you identify what that means to you. Let me state again, I AM NOT A PROFESSIONAL. But, after years of lifting things, pulling things, pushing things and carrying things, I do want to ensure we do all these things correctly. Injuries will sometimes inhibit you but if you can’t do it the right way, you might want to consider why you’re trying to do it at all. Modification can be a good thing.

I am not doing this to be critical; I’m excited to do this to encourage you to learn a few tips that can be incorporated into all of your exercises. Things like how to tighten or at least, engage your core during everyday exercises like squats, merkins, side-straddle hops and yes, even windmills. We’ll even review what your core is and why it’s important to strength and stability.

That said, I hope you’re able to join me this Friday and if there is enough interest, we might have an encore one day soon. And who knows, we might even need to illicit additional guidance from the professionals like Sasquatch, Bones and a few others.

So, enough with the 1/2 squats, the head-bob or body-pivot merkins or even the imperial walkers where it looks like your only goal is to barely lift your size 11’s off the earth. Let’s focus on doing these correctly and at a pace that will remind you how hard these exercises can be. Come join me to learn, get pushed, get better and yes, this will be a serious workout.

SYITG

Maximus – Your Q for April 26 at Slow Burn.

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Ladders everywhere at Crows Nest

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I’m very ready to be done with the cold.  Another day below 50 degrees, but we warmed up pretty fast.  At 5:15 we had 7 guys ready to start their week right. Disclaimer and GO!

Dynamic warm-up going behind the school

High Knees –  Butt kickers – Side shuffles  –>

I heard one of the PAX behind me say, “watch…next will be Toy Soldiers…”

Sounds like I’m being too predictable!  But I like toy soldiers, so we did them anyway…

COP

SSHs – Abe Vagotas – Daisy Pickers – CDDs – Merkins – Mountain Climbers – Broga – Crunchy frogs

Headed over to the loading dock, one of my favorite spaces at the Crows Nest.  If you haven’t been here, this AO has so many options, you can do almost anything! A Giant Hill, playground pull ups, rocks for weights, the loading dock…

Today would be filled with Ladders…

Ladder 1 = 10 down 1 up

11s with Derkins & Crunchy Frogs

10 derkins on the curb run to the loading dock overhang, jump up and do 1 crunchy frog

Ladder 2  = 10 up 1 down

Ran over to the brick “round table”

10 Step Ups each leg –> 1 Big boy sit up

Apache 10 count from Speed Handle (thanks for sharing)

Ladder 3 = 6 up 1 down

Over to the playground

6 pull ups –> 1 Deep Squat

Next was a new one for me Indian Merkin Bear Crawl?

Line up in plank head to toe

Last PAX bear crawl to the front while rest of the line does merkins

We made it two rotations before we almost crashed to our faces… my arms definitely did not want to work on the 2nd bear crawl!

Apache 10 count from Whitesnake (thanks for sharing)

Mosey to COT at the front of the school.  6am sharp!

Announcements

Savage Race 5/18  Cannoli Run same day, lots of other great things

Prayers

For Flux’s son Evan as he gets some testing down today.  Safe Travels. Celebration of Jesus and his resurrection! The Baptism of Two Ferns Sunday and his son Hound!

An Honor to Lead

~Royale

 

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Site Q Meeting Thursday 5/9/2019 -Towne Tavern

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  • QIC: Royale & Maximus
  • When: 05/09/2019
  • Posted In: Pre-Blast

ATTENTION ALL SITES Qs:

Save the Date!

It’s been too long since we got together to talk about our region.  Please join  our Nantan Maximus and the F3 the Fort leadership team and for a night of regional updates, idea sharing, team building, dinner and a few beers!

DATE: Thursday May 9th

TIME: 7-9pm

LOCATION: Town Tavern Restaurant and Pub @ 2000 Hwy 160 Fort Mill SC 29708

contact Royale with any questions.  Found on Twitter at @F3_Royale

More to Come!

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Dynamic Duo Q at Alcatraz

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It was a chillier than usual Spring morning at Alcatraz (43 degrees) and after setting up TinselUtensils with the help of Straight Up we were ready for an unusual co Q combo with plenty of coupons; at COP we welcomed Prosciutto, he grew up in Tega Cay but now he’s a big part of F3 Chattanooga. AKAY2 crew was there for day 18 of their journey.

The disclaimer was provided by YHC and Straight Up led the warm up with the following:

10 SSHs
Warrior 1
Runner’s Stretch
Deep Runner’s stretch
Sit-on-yer-leg stretch
16 U-gotta-see-it-to-believe-it stretches
4 back stretches
2 X-jumps
3 mins of 5 reps each:
Merkins
Air squat jumps
LBC Twists

after warm up it was time to play with TinselUtensils, PAX  were split into 4 groups and each group went to a station, after completing the station we bear crawled to the next one:

STATION 1:

-> 10 burpees (Fun House noticed that our visitor Prosciutto  clapped at the end of each burpee and we were told that they do that as a standard in F3 Chatt) 

-> 10  Tire flips

-> 20  Monkey Humpers

-> 20 lunges SC

-> 30 low squat (touch the ground with hand)

STATION 2:

USE WEIGHTS OR CINDY

-> 10 man makers

-> 20 biceps curls

-> 20 bent over row

-> 25 overhead press

-> 30 triceps extension

STATION 3:

-> 30 LBC’s

-> 30 Rosalitas

-> 30 Sledgehammer swings  (15 each side)

-> 40 Dying Roach SC

-> 20 slam ball to ground

STATION 4:

-> 10 diamond merkins

-> 20 wide arm merkins

-> 20 regular merkins

-> 30 battle rope wave SC

-> 40 Shoulder taps

-> 40 plank jacks

After all groups completed the full circuit of 4 stations we moved to the grassy area for some Captain Thor’s  Ab Lab: 1 Big boy sit up and 4 American Hammers, progressive to 10 BBSU and 40 AH, this is my favorite Ab Lab combination and even though there was lots of mumble chatter we all finished the exercises.

With about 25 minutes left on the clock it was time for Straight Up’s part of the Q:

Workout:
Grab a heavy item and run to pull-up bars.
We rotated through one round of 50 seconds on and 10 seconds of rest for each of the following stations:

First Round:
Jumping Pull-ups
KB Swings
Commando Pull-ups
Bear crawl up the hill, run down
72 lb sandbag run
Jumping Lunge into 2 SSHs
Mag-R-Tai
Low Slow Squat with 40 lb sandbag
Apollo Ohnos
Dips using a set of real dip bars
The “Worst Merkin Ever”

We then proceeded to run with the heavy items to the top of the hill.
We ran down the hill, broke up into partners and competed against Straight Up.

Second Round:
Goal: to beat Straight Up as a partner team to COT by doing the following:
Partner 1 runs the hill up and down while Partner 2 does slow kick-thru burpees as they wait to be tagged.
Then switch.
Then run up hill again to COT carrying a heavy item of choice (first come first serve).
Straight Up did 2 hill runs with 15 kick-thru burpees each side in between the runs, then ran hill again to COT.
Congratulations to all groups who beat him! Well done!

Unusual F3 event: 3 deer running across our running paths directly in front of us

COT:
Announcements (keep pushing FunHouse this month!), Praises, Prayer requests.
Army PT Test Wed at The Coop

Tinsel out…

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Climbing the Ladder at Quagmire

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Every now and then, the site Q pulls his own card to Q. Today was my day, and I’d be lying to say that I spent a ton of time putting together the perfect workout. In reality, I threw together something that I knew would be challenging for everybody, but accessible to anybody. I arrived early with my 2.0’s chalk to get the workout written, then parked and waited for the PAX to arrive.

0515 rolled around and 8 joined YHC (with Copyright silently running up at near-sprint speed) for the disclaimer. We set off for a quick mosey around Home Depot, through the alley (with high knees, butt kickers, knees-to-chests, heels-to-butts, and toy soldiers), and circling up near the always-vacant restaurant space.

COP

  • 10 Windmills
  • 10 Imperial Walker
  • 10 Merkins
  • 10 Peter Parkers
  • Downward dog, cross over ankle grabs, honeymooner

Mosey to the fountain for the Thang.

Thang

As stated above, this was designed to be challenging but also accessible. Go at your own pace and get as far as you can. Around the fountain parking lot were twelve exercises to do as a ladder. Start at station 1, do the exercise, run to station 2, do the exercise, run back to 1, do exercise at 1, run to 2, exercise, run to 3, exercise, back to 1, etc. It adds up. Fast.

Stations:

  1. 20 bomb jacks
  2. 20 merkins
  3. 10 burpees
  4. 20 squat jumps
  5. 20 archer merkins
  6. 10 Tony Hawk burpees
  7. 20 runner’s lunge high knee skips (apparently my current favorite exercise)
  8. 20 breakdancer merkins (they’re back!)
  9. 10 prison cell burpees
  10. 20 lateral lunge leg lifts
  11. 20 pseudo planche merkins
  12. 10 kraken burpees

A couple gazelles got into the round going to prison cell burpees, but didn’t make it to them. Everybody got to the round of breakdancers, though not all got to enjoy those. All in, everybody got over 1.75 miles of running, 80-90 burpees, 200+ merkins (not including the merkins in the burpees), and a lot of jumping (120 bomb jacks, anyone?). Actually, reading this, it doesn’t look like much. My body says otherwise.

Olaf decided to ruck it, and we heard about it the whole time. He’ll definitely be feeling it later.

Mosey back to COT. A few announcements (read your newsletter), and a few PAX shared some pretty big prayer requests.

No big message today, just a good workout to get back into the swing of things after spring break. I’m always encouraged and pushed by the guys who post to Quagmire. We aren’t big on the flashy, but we work hard. Great group of regulars. If you haven’t posted to Quagmire in a while, come out and see us.

Jedi

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US Army Staff Sgt / NYPD Police Officer James McNaughton

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We had 23 PAX show up for my VQ this morning….the support was much appreciated.

The morning started with a quick jog around the NAFO parking lot and ended with a standard warm-up of  Imperial Walkers, Morrocan Nighclubs  and Hillbilly Walkers.

Today we Honored a Fallen Soldier and NYPD Police Officer and our workout consisted of :

10 Burpees and a 100 yard run

27 Merkins and a 100 yard run

10 Donkey Kicks and a 100 yard run

27 Big Boy situps and you guessed it a 100 yard run

10 Lunges and a 100 yard run

27 Squats and who would have thought another 100 yard run

We Rinsed and Repeated ….. Some rinsed and repeated more than others.

Thanks to Dirty Harry and Punchlist for pushing me to lead this great group of men and getting my VQ under my belt.

Shield

 

 

 

 

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Day of the 21’s – Hardwood VQ

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  • QIC: Hardwood
  • When: 04/19/2019
  • Posted In: Varsity
  • Warmup
    • Mosey
    • SSH – 21
    • Squats – 21
    • Lunges – 21
    • Monkey Humpers – 21
  • Mosey to Elem School
    • Burpees – 10
    • Merkins – 21
    • Burpees – 10
    • Carolina Dry Docks – 21
    • Burpees -10
  • Mosey to opo parking lot of Elem school
    • Flutters – 21
    • Plank
    • Flutters – 21
    • LBC – 21
    • Flutters – 21
    • Big Boy’s – 21
    • Flutters – 21
    • Plank
  • Mosey to NAFO parking lot
    • Dora
      • Merkins 100
      • Squats 200
      • Flutters 300
  • COT
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Date Night with your M

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Who: All Pax and their M’s in The Fort

What: Date Night with your M at Towne Tavern

Where: Towne Tavern on Route 160

When: April 27th, 2019 7-9pm

Why: Our M’s like each other and any excuse to enjoy some 2nd F is reason enough. We have reserved the room off to the side of the dining area, “CSPAN Room” for those that attended his send off.

**This is intended for Anchorman who is Slack-less and any other PAX who haven’t made the transition over to Slack**

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Leg Day

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18 #HIM’s chose to avoid the fartsack on a mild Thursday morning.  YHC called his own number and brought out a PAX favorite from the past and, thanks to the efforts of Esso, a FNG joined us for the festivities.  After disclaimers were placed, a welcome given to the FNG and a brief description of what F3 is, we moseyed off through a few parking lots to COP…..but just a few.

COP – YHC was reminded through various events of this week what makes F3 what it is.  In light of those experiences, it seemed appropriate after 20 MNC’s in cadence to hold the pose and go around the circle of #HIMs with each taking a few moments to talk about who brought them into F3 and what keeps them coming back.  After a lengthy hold, we proceeded to do 10 more MNC’s in cadence…..just because.  Then we did the following:

Imperial Walkers x 15 (I/C)

SSH X 30 (I/C – varying speeds)

Merkins X 15 (I/C)

Staying in the plank, moving to Mountain Climbers X 10 (I/C)

Hold the plank – right arm high and left arm high, regular holds, and 6 inch hold with Stang administering a dubious 10 count, YHC’s interpretation of its duration was called into question and, as a result, excessive mumble chatter by the PAX threw YHC off.  Therefore, penalty burpees were called.  After which……

Low Slow Squats X 15

Mosey to the Main Event

Main event – YHC’s first Q at Laces In seemed to provoke not so subtle comments from various PAX – some of whom were in attendance this morning.  Only appropriate to call a Jacob’s Ladder consisting of Burpees at the Bottom, Carolina Dry Docks at the top (2nd lightpole up the hill toward Munn Road), and lunge walking to get there (Mosey back down to bottom after each sequence).   All exercises added up to 10 since 10 PAX were present – 9 burpees, lunge walk two poles, 1 CDD, mosey back down, 8 burpees, lunge walk, 2 CDD, mosey down, you get the idea.

10 additional burpees were called at the end…..just because.  In addition, planks or Al Gores were held until the 6 was in.  The main event (always popular) took us until 5:53 so time to mosey back to COT for a little Mary:

American Hammers X 15 (I/C)

Protractor (varying degrees with holds of varying lengths of time)

Rosalitas X 10 (I/C) – YHC was not so subtly reminded of the proper angle from which this should be done – thanks was given to the PAX for keeping YHC in line.

Boxcutters  X 10 (I/C)

Body Destroyer for 40 seconds and we put a wrap on things for the morning.

Welcome FNG – Heathcliff and T-Claps to Esso for the EH.

Announcements – Read your newsletter, Custom Ruck event 5-4-19 and Travis Mannion W/O at WEP on 4-27-19.

Prayers – for families, those traveling for the spring break holiday and prayers to remember the true reason for celebration of the Easter weekend and what it should mean to all of us.

Honored to Serve,

Cyclops

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