Eight Inmates came out to the prison yard for an old school beat down.

The Thang:

Mosey around the round about for a quick warm up lap.

Mosey to the well lit field (thank you Tega Cay taxpayers)

High Knees, Butt Kickers, Karaoke, Karaoke other direction.

Circle Up: IWx25, Merkins x10, Windmills x15, Slow Squats x20, CDD x15, WA Merkins x10

Mosey to playground: pull-ups x10, 25 dips, 25 freddies, rinse and repeat, rinse and repeat

Mosey to wall: People’s Chair, Balls to the wall, Walking Merkins, People’s Chair, Balls to the wall

Pass to Spitz:

Mosey to half wall: step ups 25 for each leg and 15 jump ups

To Hill: Jacobs Ladder: descending burpees on bottom start at 7 and ascending bomb jacks starting at 1.

Community service trash pick up.

Great group of guys today.  The 1st half had plenty of mumble chatter but if done correctly we should be feeling it tonight or tomorrow.

Check the email for events.

Be conscience to pray for you kids and other F3ers kids!

As always a pleasure!

YHC had the honor of co-Qing with the never-tired and always prepared Senator Tressel at an AO that I have not spent enough time attending.  Rolled in a it early with only 2 other cars in the lot and a little spitting drizzle…was thinking it would be a small number with the wetness looming but they started rolling in steady.  Earlier in the week, ST let me know his basic plans for the first half and he, as usual, delivered.  Here’s how it went…with increasing rain early on and wet fields all around.

Dynamic Warm-up (ST)

• Soccer knees;
• Knee pulls;
• Ankle pulls;
• Hip lunges;
• Knee down/arm-ups;
• Toy soldiers;
• Inch worms;
• Walk with rotating shoulders and elbow pulls;
• Short mosey to adjacent field for COP

COP – all in cadence (ST)

• SSH x 50;
• Merkins x 10;
• Squats x 10;
• American Hammers x 25;
• Imperial Walkers x 25;
• Diamond Merkins x 25;
• Jumping Lunges x 15;
• LBCs x 25;
• Pushorama
  •  Carolina Dry Docks x 10
  • Merkins x 10;
  • Plank Series
    • hold;
    • left arm;
    • left leg;
    • flip over to dips x 10;
    • right arm;
    • right leg;
    • flip over to dips x 10;
    • Back to regular plank
    • RINSE AND REPEAT (no rest)
• Mosey to playground

Playground – break into 3 groups (ST)

• Group 1 = 10 pull ups
• Group 2 = reverse step-ups on picnic table
• Group 3 = get on six and hold feet at 6″
• ROTATE THROUGH THEN RINSE & REPEAT

Hand off to YHC for a little something different…

• Mosey to the main field and begin moseying in a circle
  • While moseying in the circle reach down and to the side (ankle picks left and right)
  • Leg extended good mornings – slow and balanced (10 each leg extended)
  • Stop and drop to planks in a circle
    • Double legs jump over the planked Pax
    • Side jumps (facing in) over the planked Pax
    • Side jumps (facing out) over the planked Pax
  • Recover, take a step in towards the circle and lay on belly, legs opened to touch the Pax’s toes next to you – fast feet through the outside of the star circle
• Mosey to one end of the field and form a line
  • Inch worms stretching out as far as you can hold before walking it up x 5
  • Gator Merkins x 10
  • Seal sit-ups x 10

At this point, it was time to get muddy and begin the portion of the workout based off the US Freestyle Olympic Team’s warm-ups (this entire series provided some fantastic mumble chatter, some…ummm….”original” takes on the drills)

• Line up again
  • Straight forward rolls x 5
  • Right shoulder rolls x 5
  • Left shoulder rolls x 5
  • Straight roll to back roll x 5
  • Straight roll to dive roll x 5
  • Alternating knee drag shots x 5
  • Straight roll to sprawl x 5 (Sprawl = think a burpee without the hop at the top – the intent is to keep your legs from the opponent’s grasp)

1. Time was running short so we moved to the real fun…pair up!Swim drill to establish underhooks.  The underhook is a dominant position in stand-up wrestling wherein you have your arm hand locked under the arm of your opponent and around their shoulder.  This drill is a constant fight to establish and re-establish that underhook on both sides while maintaining balance and pushing and shifting against the opponent to have them lose their position.  Typically called the swim drill due to the most effective method of re-establishing that position.
2. Establish a secure underhook and drive your legs while pushing your partner backwards (approx. 30 seconds…seems much longer);
3. Flapjack

Circle back up – Sprawl Circle – couch and chop your feet going around the circle with the PAx yelling “Shot.”  When “shot” is called you sprawl and pop back up to keep chopping. Around the circle one time.

Line Back up – Sprawl and then sprint across the field.  Rinse & Repeat.

COP

Announcements:

Nun Run, Cannoli Run, Fastest 5K, Mud Run, St. Pauls – Ft. Mill  BBQ Fundraiser (4/16), Ragnar Trail Race at Anne Springs,

Prayers:

Traveling Pax and those running the Bridge Run, People recently laid off, Shoulder surgery,

When we worked out? At Alcatraz? Like a week ago? Yeah… I’m just now writing the BackBlast… So sue me…

It was a beautiful morning and our numbers were strong (twitter marketing gets them every time), so 16 men gathered to get to work.

The Thang:
Warm up lap around the Park with some dynamic stretching mixed in.
Circle up for a few of each of the following:
SSH
Merkins
Squats
Moroccan Nightclubs, etc.

Having just returned from the P200, and having such a good experience on a relay team, I thought it would be fun to do a series of relays with the Pax…
– SO (!) we headed over to the hill, er, excuse me THE HILL on the back side behind the park and got into teams. Then we relay raced down THE HILL and back up while the Pax who were waiting did shoulder taps.
– Then over to the field for a hairburner relay with 50lb sandbags – waiting Pax for each realy did… um… stuff… Squats, plank, stood there, LBCs, etc.
– Backward run relay
– Bear Crawl Relay
– We repeated a few of these… then we wished we hadn’t, then we did some Mary…

NMM:
– ALWAYS some of the finest mumblechatter when you have BOTH Funhouse and Jekyll there. I love a good Jekyll Heckle…
– I told a couple of P200 war stories, and of course we gave a HUGE congrats to Jekyll for winning the damn thing!
– Best part of P200 is that there was an Easter message in it for me. My legs gave out about 16 miles in on my last leg of the course. I had 2 miles left and just was DONE. So, Slumlord jumped out of the van and did my last 2 miles (even though he was feeling ill). Then, later that day my teammates heard me call my daughter to tell her that it didn’t look good for us to get home in time for the Daddy-Daughter Dance that was going to be held at church that evening. (Geronimo, on our team, also was to be at the same dance) They heard the tears. Then, they told Geronimo and I that we had to abandon the team prior to the finish so we could get home in time. I was prepared to finish with the team. To share the drive back duties, etc. and to miss the dance. They were NOT going to have that. “Dad first”, they said.
So, in those two scenarios, something happened that I found Easter in. These Pax, my friends, the men I bonded with in the gloom and then on the race course, did something for me that I was unable to do for myself, but was to my great and undeserved benefit. Maybe you’ll think it’s a stretch to say this, but they acted as Christ would have, in my estimation. They did something for me that I had no ability to do on my own. They made possible for me something that I was going to have to try and make up for later. In much the same way that Christ did in Gethsemane and on the Cross… It was amazing. I felt loved. Accepted. Lifted. I was made better. It was awesome.
Yes, it may seem like a stretch to say that, but you didn’t see my daughter’s face when I walked into that room and started doing “The Chicken Dance” with her…

Helmet, out…

The new lights were on at Alcatraz this morning.  You can see them from miles away.  Hopefully it will be a beacon for FNGs.  Attendance was down from last week’s record breaking 27 PAX, but the 8 men were ready to sharpen their skills.

Warm – up:

Knee stretches, butt kickers, hip circles out and in

Light jog around the park

COP

SSH x30

Imperial Walker x15

Windmill x15

Morrocan Night Club x 25

Merkin x10 (6” hold)

Peter Parker x10

Back to plank with a 6” hold

Mosey to the brick pile to test our dribbling and shooting skills.  Each person dribbled to the basketball hoop, made a shot, and returned to the group performing exercises with the bricks.  We saw some impressive dribbling and shooting (a few air balls).

Brick exercises:

Arm curls

Merkins

Overhead Presses

LBCs

A quick hand-off to Decibel who posed a question to us.  “Do you want to do option A or option B?”  He put together two different plans for this morning’s workout.  We selected “A” which was a bad choice.

Mosey to playground for a series of exercises.

50 Pull-ups

100 Merkins

150 Dips

Plus, three laps around the park to help you forget about the pain in your arms.  It seemed we had enough time to start option B. Decibel was marketing a new workout video, “How to complete 60 minutes of exercises in 30 minutes.”

Mosey to the retaining wall for 20 Step-ups

Mosey to the hill

75 LBCs

75 Freddy Mercury

75 Hello Dolly

Two hill laps (running backwards halfway up the hill)

COT

Announcements:

Spring Fling – Sunday 2 – 6pm

Mud Run – Register by March 20^th

Nun Run – April 9^th

Cannoli Run – Coming soon

Get ready for BRR signup coming soon

Camp Care 5K, a BRR alternative

Prayer Requests

P200 & P70 participates finishing and safe travels back

Health and wellness of family members

Noah’s great progress walking and school transition

Always an honor to serve!

Saturday morning was a perfect 60 degrees…was it the weather? Was it the 6am start time for Sasquatch to share his wisdom around proper stretching techniques? (Which was excellent by the way, make sure you post next time he shares this!) He also shared new dynamic warmup stretches and the proper technique of some of our favorite exercises. It certainly could not be for myself and Gears on the Q…but we had 27 PAX post for the extended Saturday morning stretch and beatdown.

I gave the disclaimer and we began.

The Thang

We used some of this morning’s lesson and started with some dynamic stretching. Knee to chest pull ups, ankle pull to chest.

Mosey around the outer loop of the ball parks.

Circle up in the outfield for COP

20 SSH 15 IWs 10 Windmills 10 Merkins 20 Seal Jacks 15 Squats

Mosey to parking lot count off by 10

There were ten cones in the area, each with an exercise to complete. We spent the next 20 minutes rotating around in our smaller groups. Everyone completed 2 rounds of 10 or more.

1. 30 Paver Bent Rows

2.  20 Paver Curls

3.  15 Durkins

4.  10 Pullups

5. 20 Dips

6.  10 Bombjacks

7. 20 Merkins

8. 30 Morrocan Night Clubs

9. 10 Burpees

10. 10 Diamond Merkins

We circled up before I handed it over to Gears, I shared a little something on my mind.  I haven’t been out to Alcatraz for several weeks, mostly because I’ve been posting at the Dragon to help support F3 York.  It has been really refreshing to see the light go on for these new members of the PAX at the Dragon.  It’s easy to keep posting at your same locations but I challenged everyone to start EHing new PAX and getting them to post in new locations.  Then I shamelessly plugged the launch of “The Deep” on 4/9/2016 to start F3 Lake Wylie! BE THERE…

Gears took the lead, and mosey we did…to our favorite Tega Cay hill.

Next, Heartbreak 1-2-3.

Partner up, we were going to perfect the 3 exercises Sasquatch showed us the proper technique for.

First partner runs the hill while 2nd partner does the following, then switch while adding to your partners count.

100 Merkins

200 Big boy sit-ups

300 Squats

After what seemed like an hour, the PAX elbow planked until the 6 finished.

Mosey up that darn hill one last time to a good amount of mumble chatter. 5 minutes left (somehow) so we finished with a few ab exercises circled up in the baseball field.

Gears led us on Flutter Kicks – Heels to Heaven – back to Flutter Kicks

Announcements: Mudrun 4/30, F3 Dads Saturdays for Middle School 2.0s, Children’s Attention Home today, Charlotte Leadership Forum Tuesday with Santini.

Prayers for Families, Bing, Royale (YHC), Stang and all those unspoken prayers we all have…

Gears lead us out, thank you!

Moleskin:

What a great day to be out with 27 #HIM! It truly is an honor to be asked and able to lead, when one year ago I would have laughed at the thought! These are the men I know as the veterans of F3 through my last year posting. Many of these men where there the first day I posted.  I have learned so much about how to be a better father, husband and leader with this group.  And now we have to pay it forward. I’ve started posting in York over the last month, helping those men learn about what F3 is and why it is so much more than a workout.  Last week they started weekday workouts, and already three of the new PAX in York are picking up the torch, running AOs and leading workouts in less than a month!  I’ve gotten to know the men from Rock Hill who have led this expansion and helped launch this group.  We’ve helped explain the mission, purpose and priniciples of F3 to these men…and after one COT Chappie said to myself and Apache, “Thank you to you veterans of F3 for bringing this to York.” Veterans? That’s not me…those are men from Alcatraz!  But I am proud to be able to share this thing we call F3.  Make sure to join me with new FNGs on 4/9/2016 at the Lake Wylie launch of The Deep!