Run, Kraken, Broga

13 men resisted the ever menacing fart sack and met in the gloom at the Bermuda Triangle for another great Friday.  With the shovel flag passed on from HomeBrew to Wolverine last week, I wanted to make this Q a bit different from my previous ones to help usher in a new era at the Triangle. At a recent site Q meeting the Fort’s Maximus was discussing a bootcamp consisting of a minimum of 3 miles running with a bare bones bootcamp mixed in and with Ragnar coming I thought to myself, what a great idea.

Disclaimer was given and we ran over to the basketball court for a quick COP. SSHx20/Cotton Pickerx10/Tha Windmillx10 all IC. 

Main Event

5 Kraken Burpees/5 Jump Knee Tucks/5 Donkey Kicks/ 5 Pull-ups/Run 2 Laps around track

Rinse and repeat 3 more times then we ran 4 laps straight for a total of 3 1/2 miles run.

Finished up with some Broga- Sun Salutation/Standing Half Lotus Left-Right Legs/Crow Pose

TAPS

Violence in America/ Travel Prayers.  Two Ferns is leading a prayer service at the local schools to pray over the kids, Tweet him for more info. Thanks for the opportunity to lead Wolverine! Peace!

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Back on the Ranch

Its been a while since I’ve ventured across town to the Ranch for a workout.  Five men and a dog showed up for the workout this morning.  After chatting for a little while, we launched with a jog around the parking lot.  Next, we circled up for the following warm-up exercises:

SSH x 20

Imperial Walker x 15

Windmill x15

Plank Stretches

Next, we moseyed to the school boulder to “Push the Rock”.  Each person had 10 seconds to see if he could push over the rock while the others planked.  No success in moving the rock.

Next, we ran over to the front of the school for a series of exercises:

  • Burpee broad jumps
  • Inch worm merkins
  • Bear crawl / merkins
  • Crabwalk / LBCs
  • Backwards bear crawl / Carolina dry docks

After each exercise, we took a lap around the parking lot.

We had seven minutes left for a series of AB exercises (LBCs, Freddie Mercury, Superman, Rosalita, Hello Dolly)

 

Back to COT

Prayers

Teachers/admin/students/parents preparing for school year

Family Travels

Family Illnesses

 

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Baker’s Dozen for a Warmish, Humidish Sweat Fest at Quagmire

Great to Q at Quagmire, one of my favorite AOs (and where I was Site Q for a while.)

The Thang

Mosey to Home Depot for a little COP

SSDs x 20
Windmills x 10 (Nice n Easy)
Moroccan Night Clubs x 20
Low Slow Squats x 10
Mountain Climbers x 20
Downward Dogs + Honeymooners x2
Peter Parkers x20
LBCs (maybe?)

Mosey to BRBs in front of Target

Bearcrawl to first BRB > 5 Merkins
Lunge walk to next BRB > 5 squats
Repeat pattern to last BRB.

From other end:
Crab walk to first BRB > 5 LBCs
Backwards lunge walk to next BRB > 5 Bombjacks

Mosey to Fountain

Dirty McDeuces
12 each of CCDs + Dying Cockroaches + Squats > Run a Long Lap
12 each of Wide-Arm Merkins + Freddy Mercurys + Jump Lunges > Run a Long Lap
12 each of Decline Merkins + Flutter Kicks (DC) + Step-Ups (DC) > Mosey back to COT

LBCs til the clock ran out

We welcomed FNG “Alfalfa” EH’d by Tardy!

Honored to lead this great group of men. Thx for the opportunity, Jedi!

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DORA – DOing Random Acts – Challenge

The past Saturday August 3, 2019 was a memorable one – in a bad way. Many people lost their lives, others wounded, and countless lives were forever changed in a negative way due to two separate acts of violence from two separate people. But instead of focusing on the victims, what could be done to help them, and/or what could be done to mitigate these things from happening again, things around our wonderful nation got quite ugly. Even more so than where we were before.  IMO this ugliness is just a continuing escalation of what’s been happening in our society for many many years, beyond that of the current presidential administration, regardless of political affiliation. In my opinion it is a result of where some, not all, our collective society has been heading for some time. Hate, disrespect, the anger, hostility, single-mindedness, immorality, entitlement, lack of civility, lack of compassion, lack of understanding, apathy, us vs them, me vs everyone, mine vs yours, it goes on and on. All or some of these were definite contributions to the pathology behind the motives of those two people who enacted those horrible events. But all of these things have been present in human history for quite some time. Their magnitude goes up and down, the spotlight on them comes and goes, but they have ALWAYS been there. There is no one singular root cause for what happened, why it happened, this past weekend – and previous similar instances of mass violence. There is no quick fix to these things. A singular directive from the top down will not fix them. Some of these things are a result of societal norms, the environment which people operate in, the culture in which they live.

A culture shift takes time and effort from everyone in it. A culture shift takes the decision from everyone to show the change they want to see. As one person enacts that change, hopefully their ripple effect causes others to change in some small way or another.

This is where we F3 PAX are going to pay forward all of the wonderful things we have learned from, and have been somehow improved by, our efforts while in F3. We are going to put the term High Impact Man to the test and show everyone how we can be just that. We are going to be the community leaders that F3 has helped invigorate, more so than what we currently are. We are going to be the change we want to, and need to, see in this world.

DORA Challenge – DOing Random Acts

Yes, everyone has heard of “Random Acts of Kindness”, etc. It will be similar to that.

Every day for the next 30 or so days PAX who commit to this challenge will be given a task to do. You may not have to complete it that very day, but the prescribed task has to be completed by the end of the 30 or so days. At the end of the 30 or so days, you perform 10 burpees for every challenge you could/did not complete. Modify or pick another exercise as needed, but stick to only 1 exercise.

Here are the challenges, and a few more rules:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1fz-_yarls5osMBR9zQZCW7ahMSH3LWT8IqGoypLFVss/edit?usp=sharing

Copy and paste to your browser. Print it out or whatever. Put it somewhere where you can get to it, reference it. Manage your own self accountability or get someone to help you. Keep track of what you have, have not completed regularly, however you see fit. I will send out the daily challenges via Twitter (follow me at @F3_NASA_ESR) and in the Slack channel “DORA Challenge” as a reminder.

Let’s make some positive impact and send a lot of ripples throughout our society, and maybe even help positively change the trajectory of others whom we interact with while doing so. If one person gets affected by what we do, then that is a win. Mission accomplished! But WE have to be that change, it has to start with each of us.

Let’s get it done!!

Thanks and God Bless!
– NASA

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The Pantheon Claw

It was another fine morning at the Pantheon. 70F and 90% humidity. Just the kind of morning that makes the fart sack look even better than normal.  But 12 HIM valiantly defeated the FS this morning in order to gather in the gloom.  2 of them launched a ruck about 5 minutes before the official start time, and YHC will dedicate very little more time to their cause.  They can write up their own backblast if they want to advertise just how awesome their morning was.

WARM UP

We started with a brief disclaimer.  Then ran clockwise around the school to the south lot for 20 SSH, 10 windmills, and 20 Moroccan Night Club.

That dora

Another mosey to the BB court for a quick bit of Dora.  The PAX paired up and shared. 100 pushups, 200 squats, and 300 LBC.  The runner would trot on down to the other side of the court, perform 2 burpees, then run back to tag their partner.

t stance walking

When that was done YHC showed the T Stance Walk to the PAX, which was to be performed the 25′ or so from the end line to the end of that free throw circle thingy.  I will describe below.  However, during my extremely eloquent demo and explanation, a TWSS was released in response to “It should feel weird, but won’t be too hard”.  As we all know, the only prescription for a TWSS is 5 burpees…  I thought it was Tardy who was responsible for our added betterment, but we found out that Lutefisk was the sponsor of our delight.

Open T Stance Walk:

  1. Start with R Foot at a 45º angle to the right
  2. Step L foot so that it is in line with the R toes, L foot is at a 90º angle to the left
  3. Dip down until knee is on the ground, 90% weight on L foot
  4. At this point your R knee should brush your left ankle, and your R ankle off the ground
  5. Stand up and repeat, zig zagging just a bit as you follow a straight path

On the way back, Closed T stance walk.  This time instead of pointing the feet 45º out/away, point them 45º in/across the body

This was done twice. There was some mumblecomplainchatter.

When finished we moseyed over to the amphitheater for the main event.

THE CLAW

The map produced of this particular exercise:

PAX started from the bottom (the thumb) and ran along each of the concrete paths.  Stopping at the end of each to perform a quick set before going to the next finger.  When returning to the thumb, they did LBCs.

Round 1
5 merkins
5 squats
5 monkey humpers
bear crawl there and back for the final finger
40 LBCs at the thumb

Round 2
10 merkins
10 squats
10 monkey humpers
bear crawl there and back for the final finger
60 LBCs at the thumb

There was JUST enough time to do one more round!

Round 3
15 merkins
15 squats
15 monkey humpers
bear crawl there and back for the final finger
And immediately mosey back to COT!

COT

Back at COT YHC stopped to get his phone for name-o-rama.  And to take a breath…  There were some announcements, praises and prayers.  A few minutes after disbanding, the ruckers showed up and more fist bumps were administered.

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ShipWrecked

There are not many more exciting things to do in F3 than to launch a new AO so I was very honored to be able to lead the High Intensity portion of our new AO…..ShipWrecked! One group of Pax goes and does a 30 minute Moderate Bootcamp and another group of Pax does a 30 minute High Intensity Bootcamp. We then go to Starbucks for cafeteria afterwards. I have no idea what the moderate boot camper’s did but here is my rundown.

Right off the bat…10 Burpees. Ran across the street to the High School where we did a High Intensity COP.  2 rounds of Circle Burps(16 more Burpees ) and 10xSSH IC.

Main Event

Super Crazy 8’s

8 Kraken Burpees/8 Ski Abs/8 Donkey Kicks/8 Big Boy Sit Ups/8 Jump Knee Tucks/8 Scorpion CDD’s Left Leg/8 Scorpion CDD’s Right Leg/ 8 Jump Lunges (count both legs as one rep)-run in a figure 8 pattern around the parking lot-rinse and repeat.  We completed 5 rounds before I had to get us back over to the elementary school for COT.

Finished with another round of Circle Burps(got 9 more Burpees in).

COT

We voted on the name ShipWrecked for the new AO.  Prayer Walk this Sunday at the local schools-see Two-Ferns for details! Thanks to the leadership of Lake Wylie for the opportunity to lead!!! Peace!

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Yeti Cooler Raffle – F3F Palmetto North Fundraiser

  • QIC: F3F Palmetto North
  • When: 09/06/2019
  • Posted In: 3rdF, Pre-Blast

Attention PAX:

During the 7th year Fort anniversary celebration the Foundation will be raffling a Yeti “Roadie 20” cooler with a $200 value.  The cooler is being donated by Jason Rawdon (aka Hot Spot) w/ Elite Air & Heat.  There are two ways to participate in the raffle, both leading up to the Invergence as well as at the event.  Each ticket has an equal chance of winning, whether you can attend the event or not.

Raffle ticket prices – 1 ticket for $10 and 3 tickets for $20

To Participate prior… you can contribute to the below Paypal link (https://paypal.me/pools/c/8h6YEXvU2J) or you can send money via the Venom app to (brianbrenner09@gmail.com or 804-240-1509) and you will be sent back your raffle ticket numbers that will be entered into the drawing.

To Participate at the event… we will have a table with the cooler and the opportunity to purchase tickets… so bring some cash to participate.

All proceeds from the raffle will go toward funding the local activities of the Pax that are supported by F3F Palmetto North.  The foundation has historically supported activities in Paradise, at CAH and 12th Man Ministries.  If you have a desire to learn more and or contribute toward this important 501(c)3 please see the information below.

https://f3thefort.com/f3-foundation/

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Rugby Sprints and Ab Work Work Great Together

It was a beautiful morning in the middle of the Teeter parking lot.  10 solid upstanding young men decided to choose the harder thing and push ourselves and each other (quite literally).  With YHC on Q you knew there were going to be some sprinting involved (hey – stick with a winner).  Asked the pax to think of one person that needed help from them today.  With that – the disclaimer was stated and off we went.

The Thang:

Little baby mosey up to the Grace Presbyterian parking lot.

Active WarmUp (European Soccer Team Style) :  High Knees, Butt Kickers, Slide to the Right, Slide to the Right, Toy Soldiers, Dipping Birds, World Wide Leaders (Power Skips – Trademark), Open the Gate, Close the Gate, Long Strides.

Presto – you’re warm

Little COP for some Ab Lab – Fluttes, LBC’s with your feet on the ground, Hello Dolly’s, Fredrick Mercury’s, More Flutters, etc.

Rugby Sprints (so predictable!) x 5 with Merkins, Mountain Climbers, Peter Park’s, Parker Pete’s, LBC’s.

Walk it off to get the heart rate down.

Then run (wink, wink, nudge, nudge) it back again x 5 with more ground exercises that I don’t remember.

Ab Lab Exercises were done at this point.

Huddle up, gents!  Take a knee.

YHC asked to think of someone that needs something from us TODAY!  (Not tomorrow – Not after breakfast)  It could be anything:  Help, To Listen, Attention, Time Together, An Apology, Forgiveness.  Think of that one person who you can serve today.  Service doesn’t have to be a huge production or program – it can be a simple task for one person in your life.

Back to the beat down.

Let’s go with the extra long bear crawls – haven’t done them in a while.  Then let’s do it again.  So cool!  Any fast bears got to do some burpees while waiting for the six.  Even cooler!

More Ab Lab Exercises were done at this point.

How about some Partner/Push/Sprint/Push with a Flap Jack and a Rinse and Repeat?  People were super psyched.

Hows about we head back to the COT general area for some more Ab Lab exercises to finish ‘er up?!?  Sounds fantastic.

COT

Asked the pax to follow through today.  Reach out to the one person in their life.  M, 2.0, family member, co-worker, neighbor, someone!  That is what service can look like.  That is what male community leadership can look like.  It can be simple tasks.  Just need to do it to get the ball rolling and help spread to others.  Aye!

Read your newsletter.  Endx.

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Guest Q at Stingray w/ our Cape Fear F3 Brothers

Here I was, actually at a sweet brewery in Surf City NC on a family vaca (Salty Turtle Brewing Company), taking some ‘adult’ time away from having to watch my 2.0’s like a hawk on the beaches of Topsail.  Got to thinking after seeing my boy Shakespeare Q at Grandstand in Myrtle, man wouldn’t it be great to get at least one f3 workout in if I’m within distance.  Come to find out, the Cape Fear pax had an upcoming boot camp on that Friday, about 45 min from where I was staying.  A couple tweets to the F3 Cape Fear twitter handle, and some never ending chatter from my Lake Wylie / the Fort brothers, and it was confirmed that the Friday Q would relinquish his duties for this week and hand them over to an out of towner.  Much thanks for that men – felt great to get out.

Knowing these guys wouldn’t see me for a long time, I figured it would be ok to throw as many burpees at them as possible.  What I didn’t expect was to have a mini beer Olympics at the beach house the night before after the kiddos went to bed.  Luckily, that finished at 11p so I got to bed early and woke up at 4:30a to make the long trek out to Stingray, an awesome park outside of Wilmington.  The 2 FNG’s confirmed the night before both ignored my calls to get up and come with.

Upon arriving there a little early for the 5:30a start, I met a few of the pax who were startled by the fact that the shovel flag was completely torn from the shovel and missing.  3 pax came to pre run 3 miles (these guys don’t mess around) and by the time they got back it was gone.  I sure hope the wind caused this, but anyway, we quickly discussed my lack of warming up and that they should all stretch.  Upon hitting go-time, we got to work:

  1.  EMOM – I brought my trusty bluetooth speaker and did my infamous warm-up for 5 minutes
    • 30 SSH’s and 8 burpees every minute on the minute for 5 minutes.  After a quick 150 SSH and 40 burpees to the sweet sweet sounds of buckcherry and the rocky soundtrack, we moseyed for a burpee mile so I could get the lay of the land
  2. Burpee mile – ran a mile loop of the nice trail at the park and stopped every quarter mile to do 5 burpees and then a random ab workout until the last pax finished.  About 15 minutes in and we had a mile under our belt, 150 SSH and 60 burpees.
  3. 11’s, Zima (Sweati CSAUP) style – informed them that our 11’s would be different than what they’re used to.  We’d do 1 burpee, 1 dip, then 2 burpees and 2 dips, then 3 / 3, 4 / 4, you get the point, up to 11.  That’s an add’l 66 burpees and 66 dips in about 6-7 minutes.  Got us to a mile run, 150 SSH, and now 126 burpees, and 66 dips
  4. Switched it to 7’s, but did it the right way.  We moseyed to a new parking lot and did a true 7’s (1 rep at the start, run to the other end of the parking lot and do 6 reps, run back and do 2, then 5 on the other end, etc etc…).  We did the worst merkin ever for the first exercise (1 worst merkin ever = 1 wide arm merkin, 1 merkin, 1 diamond merkin).  The other exercise on the other side was bomb jacks.  So post #4 station, we did 21 worst merkins ever (equivalent of 63 merkins) and 21 bomb jacks.
  5. Last but not least, we didn’t have a ton of time, maybe 7 minutes, so we stuck w/ 7’s but did burpees (hehe) and regular merkins, only the kicker was you had to bear crawl to the other side of the parking lot between exercises 1 and 2, and then jog back once you finished the “top” of the 7.  Most pax got through about 4 or 5 rounds of that, so the burpees being the first exercise (starts w/ 1 rep), we got another 10 reps in of burpees and about 22 merkins on the other half w/ some bear crawls / jogs in between.

End count was about 2 miles covered, 136 burpees, 150 SSH, 66 dips, 85 merkins (21 worse merkins ever = 63 merkins + 22 merkins on the #5 station), 21 bomb jacks and some bear crawls sprinkled in.

At one point during the burpee mile when I was picking up the six, I heard a couple almost vomits, so not sure when it happened, but it was confirmed that it happened either then or after that lol.  Always a good sign and a heck of an effort by that Pax who gave it his all, even if it made him get a little sick.  I feel like I received a medal.

Appreciate the 10 other pax for coming  out and supporting a Guest Q and for their push throughout the boot camp to finish strong.  We had some prayers for family (one brother) with cancer, travels, and for 2.0’s.  Thanks for having me out men – looking forward to the next time!

Cha Ching

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Highly Intense with a Dose of Moderate

Today was the “soft launch” for a new workout coming to Lake Wylie.  We meet at the usual time of 5:15, but have a couple of options.  The PAX can choose between a 30 minute moderate workout that is great for some of our respectables or guys who are needing a little rest or healing from an injury.  The site-to-be-named-later is held at Oakridge Elementary school, the school opposite from The Deep where we have our Saturday workouts.  At the end of the workout we would finish up in typical F3 fashion and then meet up at Starbucks for some 2nd F coffeeteria.

In any case, this morning I took the “high intensity” workout and decided to throw some traditions (no Warm-a-rama) out the door since we only at 30 minutes to get our WORK done.  I notified the PAX arriving a few minutes early to get their stretching in while they can.

At exactly 5:15 we took off for a fast mosey to the right side of the school.  I had a speaker with 8 rounds of a HIIT routine laid out to some music.  30 seconds of AYG burpees followed by 20 seconds of flutters.  All in all, I think most of us were between 75-100 burpees to start the morning.  A great way to warm up.

Upon completion we took off for another fast mosey to the back of the school where the playground was.  The workout was simple, run a lap around the playground and then do 15 dips and 3 “good” pull ups. I wanted the PAX to focus on form and getting them done right so I kept the reps low on purpose.

After that I gave the option to do some hill work across the street or whatever nastiness I can come up with on the fly due to only having about 10 minutes left.  Most were on board with the hill work and I was all for it until I heard Wolverine mutter that he picked that because most of the remaining minutes would be spent running to and from the hill.  He was right, so I scratched that immediately and we did the harder thing.

Back to the parking lot where we did the HIIT “warm-up”, we would start at one side of the lot, at the curb, and do 1 squat, bear crawl across the lot and do 1 merkin and then repeat going back and forth incrementing +1 each time #zimacount.  Some of us completed 7 rounds of this so do the math.

We quickly ran back and circled up for CoT.  I burned about 450 calories and we covered 1.5 miles, not too bad for 30 minutes!

CoT

20 in all showed up today including 4 FNG’s!  A great turnout!

The Deep is closed this Saturday for the Invergence.  Also, August 11th we are praying for Clover Schools (Contact Two Ferns for info).

We closed out in typical fashion and prayed for those in need.  One of our FNG’s M’s is having wrist surgery and another’s friend reached out with suicidal thoughts and needs help.

Until next time,

-FLUX-

 

 

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