12 for 12

Nice humid and thick morning for a beatdown from YHC.

12 showed up 12 finished. Perfect number for some Dirty McDeuce

Warmup lap with Butt Kicks, High Knees, and Toy Soldiers. Circle up for some COP

SSH x 20
Windmills x 12
IW x 12
Mountain Climbers x 12
Peter Parkers x 12
Moroccan Night Clubs x 12
Overhead Claps x 12

Mosey over to the ROTC building for the Dirty McDeuce
Round 1 – 12 Squats (IC), 12 LBC’s (IC), 12 Pullups -run down the hill and back
Round 2 – 12 Sumo Squats (IC), 12 Rosalitas (IC), 12 Merkins – run the hill and back
Round 3 – 12 Monkey Humpers (IC), 12 Flutters (IC), 12 Toes to Bar – run the hill and back
Round 4 – 12 Lunges (IC), 12 Freddy Mercuries (IC), 12 Wide Arm Merkins – run the hill and back.

Mosey back down the hill to the elementary school for two round of People’s Donkey Balls. People Chair then 12 Donkey kicks, then Balls to the wall.

Mosey up towards the school gym entrance and the benches 3 rounds of:
12 Dips (IC)
12 Step ups each side
12 of an Ab exercise (IC)

Long lap Mosey back to the flag for a little Mary finishing with 12 Goofballs (IC) for Kielbasa.

COT and BOM

Moleskin
1. Short notice Q form Wegmans. Not sure who couldn’t make it but thankful for the opportunity to lead.
2. Yes, I can lead a workout and not make you do burpees. You can thanks Ginsu for that.

Shanks out (mic drop)

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Kettlebell Tabata + Weighted Indian Runs = Whole Lotta Pain

Started off the morning by unloading some Kettlebells and Dumbbells of various weight onto the ground behind my trunk.  Weights ranged from 10-20 lbs.  Also, a 50 pound sandbag was dropped beside the weights… and, of course, a speaker to blare some heart-pumping music in the Gloom (c’mon peope, bring your music too!… *unless it’s Nickelback/Creed*).

Started off with a Mosey.

Circled up for Warm-O-Rama… 20 SSH, 10 Windmills, 10 Imp. Walker, 10 Hillbilly Walker… We’re warm.

The Thang:

Tabata time!  Everyone grabs 1 weight of their choosing and we complete 8 sets of one exercise.  AMRAP in 20 seconds, followed by 10 seconds of rest, again, X 8.  After completing the 8 sets, drop your weight, we pick up the 50lb sandbag, and indian run a distance away and back to our workout area.

Exercises completed were as followed:  Jack Press, Goblet Squat, One Arm Curl, Woodchop (reach up to side, bend turn to other side, lifting/lowering weight), and American Hammers.

End with COT, Name-O-Rama, and Announcements/Prayers.  Prayers for students/teachers on the first day of school and beyond.

Thanks Flux for the opportunity to lead!

 

*Side Note*- It’s Wednesday and my body still aches from this workout.  I must have done something right!

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Burpees, Bearcrawls, and Barf!

A great crowd this morning at The Abyss.  We had a bunch of runners and a bunch of bootcampers and 1 FNG.  Those that stayed for the bootcamp probably wish the would have joined the runners, I know I did.  This workout was hard and we didn’t complete it, but there is always next time…

We started with the typical mosey to get the blood flowing a bit, we circled around the parking lot and did some shuffle steps, NUR, and back to mosey before circling up for warm-a-rama around the basketball hoops.  I decided prior that the warm-up was going to set the precedence for the workout (hard) and warm-up the muscles we’d be using a lot (shoulders, core, arms).

Warm-a-Rama

  • 10 Windmills
  • Elbow plank (called on random PAX for 10 counts, at least 2 rounds)
  • Back to regular plank – 10 Merkins
  • 9 Diamond Merkins (Q-Shame, I didn’t have one more in me)
  • Recover with 25 SSH IC
  • Back to Plank – 10 Peter Parkers
  • 10 Parker Peters
  • 6″ hold – Called on Random Pax for 10 counts (at least 2 rounds)
  • 25 Moroccan Nightclubs IC

We then moseyed to the grass hill for the next exercise.

For the first routine we paired up and started at the bottom of the hill on the sidewalk.  PAX A was to do Burpees while PAX B went backwards up the hill (NUR) and forwards down the hill x4.  After 4, we switched and PAX B continued the Burpees while PAX A ran backwards up/forwards down x4.  We did this until we reached 120 Burpees… a few of the PAX finished, most were over a 100 when I called it for time (I had another routine I wanted to get to).  Our Friendly New Guy thought this was a great time to splash merlot, so he did, but he kept on trucking right after.  He definitely brought the GRIT!

Congratulations and welcome Doubtfire! No better way to start F3, it’s all uphill from here!

We then took the short mosey to the paved hill the leads up to the rear gate to the school.  For the 2nd routine I brought back Paula Abduls, I’ve never done them on a hill so I thought that would be a nice (painful) new twist.  Paula’s aren’t really an exercise, its just a movement, 2 forward, 1 back, which is a nice metaphor on life.  Life isn’t a consistent line straight up, we all have setbacks, we all get knocked down, but it is how we respond to those set backs that contribute to our success.  We all know that through failure we become better, this is a nice way to build an exercise around that idea.  I didn’t have the energy to hammer that point home during the workout so I thought I would take the opportunity to point that out here.  In any case, back to the routine…

6 Cones were placed up the hill about 25 paces (50ft. or so) apart. We would always move in this order, 2 (cones) forward, 1 back until we reached the 6th cone and then we would work our way back. If you ever plan do this keep in mind cones will be hit multiple times depending on where they are placed, so plan accordingly.  Each cone had an exercise on it:

  1. True Americans x10 (hand release merkin & a plank jack =1)
  2. Donkey Kicks x10
  3. Squats x25 (this was meant to be a break)
  4. Crab Jacks (think plank jack, but in crab position) x10
  5. Diamond Merkins x10
  6. Absolution x10 – I haven’t done these before, but they will be back.  They were awesome and it was also a bit humorous watching the PAX get the coordination down for these.  It’s an 8-count exercise that goes a little something like this:
    • Start in plank position and perform a single Groiner (cadence “1” jump feet forward, “2” jump feet back), then Mahktar N’ Diayes to Chillcut position (cadence “3” & “4” with drop to each elbow), then Chilly Jack (cadence “5” feet out, “6” feet together), and finally Mahktar N’ Diayes to plank starting position (cadence “7” and “ONE, TWO, etc.” with rise on each hand).

Oh and I almost forgot to mention… we always went forward 2 by way of the Bear Crawl and backwards 1 by way of the Crawl Bear.  Brutal.

None of us made it back down, but we did all make it to the top, so I called it with about 5 minutes to spare to head back to CoT.

With only about 2 minutes left we did a couple of Ab exercises, I called LBC’s x 25 IC and called on Bones who did another 20-25 Flutters IC until we hit 6:00AM.

Announcements, praises, prayers

Read your newsletter!

Prayers for school teachers and our children as they head back to school.  Prayers for injured PAX and those with nagging injuries.

See ya’ll Monday at the Quagmire 🙂

-Flux

 

 

 

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Pre-Blast: September ’18 – Back to (Q) School

Men,

The Mission of F3 is to plant, grow and serve small workout groups for the invigoration of male community leadership. In order to invigorate male leadership, we must strive to invigorate and encourage new males to step up and become leaders. One of the best ways we have to accomplish this is to help new PAX learn what it takes to Q.

This is especially important this year as we push to expand the number of leaders in The Fort with our #218in18 FNG Campaign. We are encouraging SiteQs to schedule VQs throughout the remainder of this year. To support this effort, we need to make sure we provide the resources needed to these new leaders.

We’ll be launching Q School at Golden Corral (centrally located for everyone in the region) every Tuesday in September (4th, 11th, 18th, 25th). Q School will be led by a few of our veterans (who are also trying to get better at these opportunities to lead). Q School will feature both Q101 (perfect for new guys or those that want to get a handle on the basics) and Q201 (a more advanced session focused on some of the more detailed aspects of Q’ing).

Here is the schedule:

  • September 4th – Q101 – CakeBoss + Longshanks
  • September 11th – Q101 – Senator Tressel + Bones
  • September 18th – Q101 & Q201 – Double D + Royale
  • September 25th – Q101 & Q201 – Pusher + Dark Helmet

This is a great opportunity to work together to continue to develop leaders across the Fort Mill/Indian Land/Lake Wiley area. Contact Ginsu or any of the Qs listed above with questions.

– Ginsu

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BB for Colosseum 8-21 – New Twist on a Classic WOD

18 men joined YHC for a total of 19 for a late summer beatdown.

Mosey to back parking lot.

Warmup

  • 51 side straddle hops
  • 15 double count windmills
  • 20 double count mountain climbers
  • 20 double count

The Thang – LIGHTPOSTS!

  • Partner up & stay together
  • 10 lightposts, following workout at each, then hussle back to start
    • Round 1
      • 5 burpees
      • 5 hand release merkins
      • 5 jump squats
      • 5 big boy situps
    • Round 2
      • 5 burpees
      • 5 hand release diamond merkins
      • 5 jump squats
      • 5 big boy situps
  • plank and wait for six
  • 10 double count mac tar jais
  • reverse direction – 10 double count mac tar jais

Mosey back to COT

Announcements

  • #218in18
  • Invergence – Sept 21
  • Q School in Sept

Prayers

  • back to school
  • various med issues

– Ginsu

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Moderate? Is that french for ‘burpee’?

With no inspiration hitting me at home, YHC decided to show up and see what the AO would speak to me today.  It was angry and made us do stupid things.

Mosey, warm up with burpee countdown between exercises.

Mosey down the hill to the playground at the elementary school where we counted off into groups and did round robins of swing crunches, LBC’s and mountain climbers twice.

Then over to the wall for some relaxing wall sits and a couple bttw.

Who doesn’t love running in circles?  Partnered up and while partner ran lap, 2nd Pax did LBC’s, WAM’s and CDD’s – flap jack at each lap.

Back over to the middle school hill for 10 bomb jacks, run up the long windy hill and 10 more at the top.

Fairly gassed at this point I heard the words ‘Jack Webb’ in the wind so we did that too.

Mosey for a close of Mary and COT.

As always, an honor to lead the men of F3.  Thanks for being there.

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Fire Ants Conquer the Iron Ruck Challenge

I love the Fire Ant concept! Always a challenge for sure, pushes you to do more. When Spiderman put me on Q I knew what I wanted to do. It was not an original – I took a page from the Iron Pax challenge that has been going around lately. Week 2’s challenge was a beast. I had to work it into a ruck Q.

Great morning! 15 ruckers ready to roll……

We did not roll far. Super tough long ruck about 100 yards to one side of the Teeter parking lot where I wanted us to leave our sweat marks. Circled up for COP:

  • SSH x 20
  • WM x 20
  • IW x 10
  • HW x 10
  • MNC x 20

Then on to the main event. The Iron Ruck Challenge!

  • 5 sets of exercises, each done for 7 minutes AMRAP
  • Each exercise was using your ruck – note they were ALL weighted at least 35lbs, some had more
  • After 20 reps of an exercise, run about 25 yards and back
  • Continue, rinse and repeat exercise/run until 7 minutes are up
  • That completes one set
  • Rest for 1 minute
  • Move on to next set

Exercise sets were:
1. Thrusters
2. Curls
3. Flutters w Press (count on the press up)
4. Swings
5. Man Makers

Everything single count. Used a Tabata timer ap and speaker to keep things moving, audible time changes.

Folks complained about lack of music or a playlist of songs on my phone. I did not bring my boom box either. Hey, I am old – 2 years from 50. Got no time for tinker toys. It’s Pandora, Sirius XM, the radio, or nothing right now. Besides, when you have such epic mumblechatter like we had this morning, who needs music! Also – Cadre ain’t gonna play music while he is whuppin up on us. I’m trying to get my mind ready for that.

Not much talking from the Q. Too busy grunting, groaning, and being winded to talk between sets. Help make your kid’s minds as sharp as they can be is the only words I gave advice on. The kick-arse group of mean mother ruckers there this morning really ground through this. No mods. Good form. A lot of team encouragement and support. Grinded it out to the very end. Everyone ended up doing at least 80-100 of each exercise. Good livin!

Thanks Spiderman for the opportunity to lead. Excellent job by all the PAX there.

-NASA

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Prayer Convergence for FMSD

Matthew 18:20  For where two or three gather in my name, there am I with them.”

Calling All PAX of Fort Mill to step up and live out the 3rd F that is the “Dynamite” of F3. What better way to start off the school year than to go to the schools, physically go, and pray?!?  Most of us have children that attend these schools, neighbors, friends and family that work at these schools and some of the PAX work in these schools. Regardless of how we are connected to them, we are all impacted by what happens in these schools and this is a chance for us to live out what we are called to do.

What: The Fort PAX (at least 2, preferably 3 or more at each location!) converging at every school in the FMSD, to pray for the school leadership, every employee of the school, students, the safety of the school, etc.

When: Sunday, August 26th,  6:00PM

How (do I get involved):  Click the SignUp Genius below! Pick a school, grab a few fellow PAX and show up, ready to pray. We will post some details about format.  Post the number of PAX and where you posted with the hashtag #F3TheFortPrays4FMSD when you are done.

Why: Evil looks for every opportunity to cause chaos in schools.  We pray, in the name of Jesus, to keep any and all evil from these schools, administrators, teachers, children and families. We pray that God uses the believers in these school to be a light unto those that do not know him (students and adults alike).

We realize this is week after school started, but sometimes “better late than never” applies.

https://www.signupgenius.com/go/10c0e4da9a72ea6fa7-prayer

 

I was inspired by First Baptist North Spartanburg.  If you go to the (approx) 16 minute mark of the video below, you will see Pastor Mike Hamlet as he leads his church members through this entire process.  While we plan to lay out some specifics around the prayers, we will not have this type of set-up. This is for our reference.

 

 

Contact Beacon for questions. Aye!

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SlowBurn Send-off For Rooney

47 pax of TheFort posted this morning to show support for #HIM Rooney, who is moving to Seattle.  Rooney has not only impacted his brothers in F3, but many of our kids through his tremendous servant leadership as a principal in our school system.  There is no doubt he will be missed here, but that sadness is somewhat offset by the knowledge that he’ll be positively impacting families out west.

In anticipation (accurately) of a large crowd, it was decided the launch point and COT would be the Empire Pizza parking lot behind Chick-fil-a.  CakeBoss opened up with a few words about Rooney, then handed off to YHC.  We started with 25 side straddle hops, then moseyed up around Chick-fil-a (to pick up any twitterless pax that didn’t get the message).  We landed back at a parking lot near our launch point.

Warmup-O-Rama

  • Windmills (10)
  • Hillbilly Walkers (15)
  • CDDs (20)
  • Flutters (20)
  • Chopsticks (20)
  • Seal Jacks (20)

Mosey to parking lot in front of Lowe’s where a few cones had been set-up. Pax asked to partner up and told we’d be doing a Dora 1-2-3.  This was the same exercise Rooney had done during his VQ, which I had the privilege of posting to (was my 3rd post, I believe) at WEP back in November of 2014.  The turn-around point for the running was about 50 yards.

  • 100 Merkins
  • 200 LBCs
  • 300 Squats

After a 10 count, we moseyed to the parking lot on the west side of Lowe’s.  Cones were set up there for some “4 Corners” action.  Each cone had two exercises listed for each round.  Pax were instruction to alternate between the 2 exercises for the appropriate round (to 10 reps of each exercise).  They were told to move to the next cone when the group at the previous cone reached them.  No count-off by 4s done…pax could just pick a cone to be their starting point (lazy pax like YHC took the closest cone). Here were the exercises:

Cone 1
  • Round 1 – Flutters <-> Freddie Mercuries
  • Round 2 – LBCs <-> Heals to Heaven
  • Round 3 – Dying Cockroach <-> American Hammers
  • Round 4 – Chopsticks <-> Plank Jacks
Cone 2
  • Round 1 – Side-step lunges <-> Imperial Walkers
  • Round 2 – Bomb Jacks <-> Lunges
  • Round 3 – Monkey Humpers <-> Squats
  • Round 4 – High Jumps <-> SSH
Cone 3
  • Round 1 – Plank Punches <-> Dips
  • Round 2 – Merkins <-> 10 second Elbow Plank
  • Round 3 – CDD <-> Moroccan Nightclubs
  • Round 4 – Alternating shoulder taps <-> Parkers Peters
Cone 4
  • Round 1 – Box Cutters <-> 10 second Superman
  • Round 2 – Toy Soldiers <-> Speed Skaters
  • Round 3 – Donkey Kicks <-> Peter Parkers
  • Round 4 – Big Boy Sit-ups <-> Inchworm Merkins

We got through 3 rounds before time ran out and we headed back to COT

Naked Man Moleskin

After the workout, a couple dozen men gathered at Chick-fil-a to share with Rooney how he has impacted us (except for Dark Helmet, who served as a one-man roasting machine).  It was beyond evident that Rooney had a deep impact on many men, their kids, and their family, as a brother and a principal.  Rooney is an inspiring individual, and his courage to respond to God calling him across the country will undoubtedly also be an inspiration to those wondering if they should act on words from the Sky-Q.

Rooney, you have been an amazing example of “giving it away” everyday here in Fort Mill.  And now we have to let you give it away to another community (on the west coast, no less!).  But one thing is for sure: the world is a better place because of who you are and what you do.  No man, student, or family is left behind, nor are they left where you find them.  Strong work, brother.  Strong work.

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Inappropriateness got heavy at the swamp

8 Men must have not read the Twitter insult by ChaChing and posted to The Swamp for the inappropriatness that is YHC.
Pulled into launch at 5:15 and started immediately into a detailed disclaimer before challenging the PAX to get uncomfortable. The goal was simple: get uncomfortable in order to get better. Ask the PAX to move random heavy things from starting location to other side of AO. Sounded simple enough on paper, mumble chatter confirmed it was much harder than originally planned. Had to make a pitstop half way to get in a quick “Circle of Hump” and two rounds of “Circle of Merkins”. Once in front of Michaels PAX dropped coupons and attention for focused on wonderful list of exercises written in parking spots:
One person per spot with 6in plank hold member being the timer. Exercises were:
– 45 degree lunges
– dot drill
– curls with a coupon of choice
– overhead shoulder press
– spider merkins
– jump squats
– shuttle run
– 6 in plank hold
– burpees
– Mike Tysons

Made it through one round of exercises before calling a coupon less jailbreak back to COT for some cha-cha merkins to keep the serratus shredded.
Count-A-Rama
Name-A-Rama
Announcements and prayers

NMM: Not gonna lie coupons got heavy quicker than expected and at one point was questioning if all PAX were going to make it, YHC included. Greatfull for the motivation and harassment from the PAX to push it and encourage each other to embrace the shared suffering. I’m always trying different things in an effort to challenge everyone to get outside their physical and mental comfort zone BC I feel that’s where true growth occurs. It would be much easier for YHC and probably the PAX to roll through a typical bootcamp beatdown but I enjoy switching things up and hope the PAX doesn’t mind. Thanks again ChaChing for the opportunity.

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