Category: Crows Nest

Memorial Day at CrowsNest

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Crows Nest – May 27, 2019

I was not sure how many Pax would show up for a Pre-Murph event, but I planned what I thought was a gentle workout before some Pax completed the Murph.

We started off with a run with some high knees, butt kickers, etc prior to the warm up.

Warm Up
Windmill x 10 IC
Produce Picker x 10 IC
SSH x 20 IC
Sun Gods x 10 (IC) each direction
Seal Jacks x 20 IC
Hillbillies x 15 IC
Imperial Squat Walkers x 15 IC
Merkin x 5 IC
Nolan Ryan x 10 (IC each direction)
Stretches

W.A.S.H.
50 Wide Arm Merkins
Run
100 American Hammers (count each side)
Run
150 Step Ups (unfortunately the benches were moved, so we did Rocky Balboa’s)
Run
200 Hydraulic Squats

Once we wrapped up with the W.A.S.H. we bear crawled. Using the island as a place marker we performed one burpee for one tree, two burpees for two trees and so forth.

With a few minutes to spare we ran to COT for some Mary.

Mary:
Captain Thor (Big Boy Sit up x 4 American Hammers)

A special thank you for Mysterio who took us out with a moment of silence, followed by a prayer.

Aye,
Radar

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A Q of Ice and Fire

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Firstly, there are no spoilers contained in the backblast. YHC had been thinking about doing a GOT themed Q for a while. When I was offered to Q Crows Nest within 12 hours of a new episode dropping, I knew that winter had come.

14 men showed up and were disclaimed. Before we moseyed, the first game was explained.

Where are my Dragons?!

PAX were told that there were 3 toy dragons (dinosaurs if we are being honest) hidden around the AO. If any man found a dragon they were to let the whole group know and everyone would stop what they were doing and complete 20 Flying Dragons [flying squirrels] OYO. If all 3 dragons were not found with 5 mins left in the workout all the PAX would have a penalty – winter had arrived early and we would all have to do rounds of Climate Change. After this was all explained, we moseyed. Before the warm up began, Peg found the first dragon. So 20 Flying Dragons.

Wildfire Warmup

Lord Tyrion Leaps [SSH], Braavosi Night Clubs [MNC], White Walkers [imperial walkers], Gendry’s Hammer [American hammers], Benjin Starks [ranger merkins], The Hound [downward dog]

The Kingsroad

The Kingsroad connects the capital of the 7 Kingdoms, Kings Landing, all the way North to The Wall. It actually starts at Storms End, but whatever. PAX received a raven that white walkers were marching for the Wall and they needed to journey up the Kingsroad with reinforcements, or really bad stuff would happen. The Wall was on the opposite side of a parking lot from Kings Landing. PAX had to Lieutenant Bran (he don’t got no legs) there. At each pillar they passed they had to do 5 Iron Borns (Carolina dry docks AKA Pike pushups).

Once at the Wall, we needed to defend it. This entailed several rounds of Wall sits with PAX taking turns going beyond the Wall to do abyss merkins. Fortunately, for the realms of men, the White Walkers were defeated by the valiant efforts of the PAX. Flux also found the second dragon – so 20 more flying dragons. We then had to return to Kinds Landing. But as we had already found 2 dragons by this point we did not need to Lieutenant Bran – instead we did Welsh Dragons back, which was much shorter as the crow flies… though not necessarily less painful. Check the exicon; these ones are tough on the shoulders.

The Nobel Houses of Westeros

Stations were set up, each with the sigil, words, and name of a house of Westeros. There was also a corresponding exercise for each house. The lexicon came in real handy with this one. Complete station 1, run a lap. Complete station 1 again, then 2, and then run a lap. 1, 2, and 3, then run a lap… you get the idea. Here were the stations:

  1. House Greyjoy – 3 Kraken Burpees
  2. House Baratheon – 20 Leaping Stags (power skips)
  3. House Stark – 10 Dire Wolves (Werewolves)
  4. House Lannister – 20 Lion Kings
  5. House Frey – 20 Oblique Bridges (10 each side)
  6. House Martel – 30 Sun Gods
  7. House Targaryen – 20 Flying Dragons
  8. House Arryn – 3 Tony Hawk Burpees

We didn’t make it through all the houses before time ran out, but enough to get the sweat going. YHC also conveniently found the last dragon – sparing the PAX from global warming session, as we really didn’t have time for that anyway. I may work that into a future Q. We all moseyed back to COT, dragons in hand.

This was the most fun I have had creating a workout yet. Thank you to all the PAX who came out and endured a bit of nerdy fun, especially those who were up late watching GOT last night. And thanks to Iced Tea for the opportunity to lead.

Valar Dohaeris,

Homebrew

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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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What’s in Your Bucket?

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9 men started their Easter Week off right on a cool morning (I was gonna bring my 2.0 this morning who turns 13 today but there was no luck getting him up).  A couple guys showed up that were up late watching some TV Show about Games or Thrones or the combination of the two.  Thanks to those who did and to bad to the others that didn’t.

I showed up with a trailer full of Buckets filled with Ziplock of Dirt.  A couple of the Pax seemed intrigued while a couple were confused.  Since I work for a Civil Engineering Firm I get paid to play in the dirt.  Typically I have to carry buckets full of Dirt around on a jobsite and no matter how good of shape I am in It always gets the best of me.  So I instructed the Pax to grab a bucket and lets mosey.  I did challenge them to grab  2 Buckets if they felt brave.  We took a short mosey to our normal area to circle up and do our COP: Nemo was running behind but caught up quickly after with his bucket.

Moroccan Night Clubs (10 in Cadence)
Cherry Pickers (10 in Cadence)
Sun Gods both ways (10 in Cadence)
SSH’s (30 in Cadence because it should always be 30 – I think I heard DOAH say that)
Merkins (10 in Cadence) – Hold into Downward Dogs into Honeymooners

I then explained  that the bucket of dirt is to symbolize what you are carrying around with you daily in life like Bills, struggles in marriage, children, Work and so on.  I wanted the Pax to carry the bucket around whole work out. If someone struggles then another Pax will take a couple bags out of their bucket and put them in their bucket to help them out. And when they start doing better we put the bags back into their bucket. Sometimes on my job sites I have to carry buckets of dirt around and it challenges me. Just like when you think you’re in good shape and you have everything under control in your life your bucket seems to get heavier.  I had a couple other small talks about this message that I threw in there for some 10 counts.  Fill your buckets with Joy and not Burdens.

So we went over to the Loading dock where we split up into 1’s and 2′ so we didn’t get over crowded on the dock and did 15 of the following while we jogged back and forth from the Dock to the Curb: Big Boys, Burpee’s, Mt. Climbers, Merkins and Monkey Humpers.

We then took our Buckets over to the Big Green Monster and did a 12 Ladder.  Bomb Jacks up top and Sumo Squats at bottom.  Lots of Slipping and Slidding today on the Green Monster.  It showed it’s teeth this morning.  Nemo went down along with some nice shoes turned into old mud shoes.

Had a few minutes left so we did a little Nascar Circle (sorta like Duck Duck Goose).  Each Pax would run around the Circle of Pax while each held a Bucket Squat and the second time while we held the Buckets over our heads.

Long mosey back with the buckets.  Not Fun!!!

Announcements about the Savage Race and Cannoli Run, Prayers for Injured Pax and traveling Pax.  Closed in Prayer remembering what this week really is about.  Oh and Homebrew announced that Me, I Two Ferns is getting Baptized this Easter Sunday!!

 

 

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Incentive

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Spring is definitely here and so were 11 PAX ready to push themselves at the Crows Nest.

After giving a quick disclaimer we took the long mosey around to the back of the school where we circled up for a QUICK warm up.

  • 8 Windmills
  • 20 SSH’s
  • 10 Low Slow Squats
  • 10 Tempo Merkins

So a little backstory, not long before I took off for my 1st leg of the P200, I realized I forgot to sync some music to my watch.  So in a hurry, I quickly downloaded some “curated” playlists from Amazon.  I actually liked what I ended up running too, but there was one song that didn’t really fit the vibe, however, it had a great message.  The song was called “Perspective” from the Artist Blueprint.  It’s all about being equal and aware of what’s going on around you.  Being thankful for what you have and being considerate to everyone’s different cirucmstances.  In God’s eye’s we’re all equal.

I wanted the PAX to hear the song, however looking back on it, most of them we’re probably concentrating on not touching the ground than listening to the lyrics, but it was a nice follow-up to the quick warm-up and definitely setup the theme of the workout to follow nicely.

I told them that for the duration of the song we would plank (about 3.25 minutes).  If any one of us touched the ground, picked and arm up, etc., we would do 5 Burpees at the end of the song for each person that didn’t make it all the way through.  He only says Perspective 4 times during the song, but when we heard it we would drop to six inches, then back to plank the next time.  It turned out to be about 2 minutes of straight planking and then 1.25 minutes of 6″ to finish out the song.  4 of us didn’t make it, 20 Burpees for all.

So that theme I mentioned earlier, it was all about pushing us together, to go faster, and harder.  We would either succeed as a group or fail as a group.  “NoOYO”

1st routine: (timed)

  • 10 merkins
  • 25 yard Crab Walk
  • 10 diamond merkins
  • 25 yard Crab Walk back
  • 10 Merkins

I actually called an Omaha on this one, not really intentional, but the Crab Walks kept hitting my lap timer on my watch, so I lost track of our group time.  Crab Walking can be tough on some of the PAX so we just moved on to the next routine.

2nd routine: (timed)

  • 24 Merkins
  • 24 Squats
  • 24 American Hammers
  • Lap around the parking lot island
  • x2

It took ALL of us 3:50 seconds to complete this set.  So we did it again, this time advising the PAX that we would do 1 Burpee for every second passed 3:50… everyone responded with a time of 3:01.  Knowing that the PAX really pushed it to beat the  1st time, I said we were going one more time and boy did they respond, 2:45!  Amazing what a little incentive will do.  I wonder what would have happened if I said one more time??

3rd and final routine:

  • 10 SSH
  • 10 Lunges
  • 10 Flutters
  • 5 Burpees

We had 90 seconds to complete this, which I knew was generous, but we had plenty of time left… if we went over 90 seconds, 1 Burpee per second team penalty.

As soon as the last man was done, we repeated, this time adding +1 (cadence), so 12 SSH, 12 Lunges, 12 Flutters, 6 Burpees.  This took us 1:12, still well under 90 seconds.  Lets do it again, +1.  We continued this until time was almost up, we managed to get to 9 before passing the 90 second mark and came in at 1:42, so 12 Burpees before heading back to CoT.

I really enjoyed this workout, it came off really well and loved how we all pushed ourselves and picked up the six to continue to beat the buzzer.

I’ll be bringing this one back in one form or another.

We ended up the usual way, sent up some Prayers for Peg’s daughter who’s been dealing with some concussions, and also for Rocket, an F3 brother from Lake Norman, who is having a biopsy on his lungs today.  We pray that everyone is OK.

Thank you for the opportunity to lead these men today Iced-T.

Until next time,

-FLUX-

 

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Flag Day

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15 High Impact Men rolled up to the Crow’s Nest for a very humbling day for myself.  I did a quick disclaimer as we did have a FNG in the house and we moseyed on over to one of the side parking lots for some COP.

SSHx20/Windmillx10/Reach To Sky,Touch Toes, Down Dog,Honeymooner/Annie’s/Produce Pickersx10 

We then moseyed on over to the back playground which where all the fun toys are.  With the crowd at the Nest this morning I decided against having each individual PAX doing monkey bars swings while the rest of the PAX did Burpees as it would have taken forever and most of the PAX would’ve beed smoked within the first 15 minutes of the workout, so I went right into the …

Main Event

My very first post was the Crow’s Nest during the very first time there was an F3 workout there and in honor of this I borrowed from Flux’s workout all the way back from last March 5th, 2018.  He had us do crazy 8’s so I followed suite but with a little modification.  We all did 8 Pull Ups/ 8 Merkins/ 8 Squats for 8 rounds.  In between each round we traveled in between the parking lot islands in a figure 8 pattern but each time there was a different mode of travel. First was a normal run, then bear crawl curb to curb, then Crab Walk curb to curb, then bunny hop around islands, then pylo skip around islands, normal run, bear crawl, finishing off with a run.

Co-Main Event 

Bear Crawl up ramp to park area with plenty of stone seats where I had us do Elevens of Step Ups(each leg) and merkins.

Moseyed on over to side wall for some people’s chair while end Pax did 3 burpees each. Much to the chagrin of Flux, Qbert had the best burpee form though Flux’s bear crawl is second to none. Moseyed on back for COT.

Observations-never drink a protein shake before a workout or it might splash back up on you.  Luckily I was able to hold it down as it would have been real embarrassing to splash merlot while Q’ing.  Also welcome FNG Meltdown!  Someone wanted to name him Chernobyl but that would have been just wrong(LOL).

Grateful and honored to receive the Crow’s Nest shovel flag from Flux.  He has truly been a great leader. The 13 months I have been a member of F3 have been some of the best months of my life.  To many more adventures with you crazy people! Prayers for the families of some high profile murders that have been in the news lately, God give them strength.  Till next time, peace.

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Being Vulnerable is not a sign of weakness but a sign of strength

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P.S.A attendance is highly recommended. March 27th mark your calendars. F3 St. Louis very own Miyagi and Aerobie has brought light to a sensitive subject that’s right Suicide-mental health awareness. A subject we try and avoid talking about at all or till it’s to late. YHC will be on Q at the Panethon if you can’t make it to the west side of town Stang is on Q at Tomahawk and will also discussing the subject.

I am encouraging you to step up and share your experience. Whether it be about yourself or family member or even a friend. YHC will testify how this subject has effected my life. Please remember what we talk about in COT stays in COT it’s okay to be vulnerable. We are stronger together rather than alone.

Quotes
Don’t be ashamed of your story it will inspire others. Author Unknown

“You don’t have to control your thoughts. You just have to stop letting them control you.”

”I hide all my scars with an I’m fine.”

The bravest thing I ever did was continuing my life when I wanted to die. – Juliette Lewis

The world is a better place with you in it.

Suicide doesn’t end the chances of life getting worse, it eliminates the possibility of it ever getting any better. – unknown

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Constant Movement @ Crow’s Nest

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A week late… but it’s here!

(I don’t remember everything… this was my first Q without writing stuff down and just going with the flow.  The template is accurate… the exercises on the other hand, probably not)

 

Started with a quick disclaimer and some light static stretching.

Mosey to the facing the building left side of Crow’s Nest (that I don’t think gets used very often?).  Warm-O-Rama in quick succession… Windmills, Weed Puller, SSHs, Hillbilly Walker

1st Workout-

Partner up- A runs the loop and back to starting point, B completes AMRAP of the following… 1st Round- CDD , 2nd Round- Squats

Long Mosey to opposite side of building (facing front right side of building)

2nd Workout-

Exercises completed in quick succession…  LBC, Prison Cell Merkin Burpees x3, American Hammers x 20, Prison Cell Merkin Burpees x3, Flutters x20, Prison Cell Merkin Burpees x 3

Mosey to the very back loop of the parking lot

3rd Workout-

Hold People’s Chair while going 1×1 down the line, person jumps out and completes 10 Curls with 50 lb sandbag.

BTTW x 2

Return to COT by means of Indian Run with person in front carrying/trading off the sandbag

Name-O-Rama/Announcements/Prayers

Thanks for the opportunity to lead Flux!

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Love Hurts

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Maybe it was three days early, but YHC thought it would be fun to do a Valentines Day Q. It was 37 degrees and raining – love was in the air.

9 of the regular LW crew and 1 FNG (this must be the winter of the FNG) showed up to feel the love. After a full and complete disclaimer, we moseyed to the back of the school.

Warm-o-Rama

A bunch of the normal stuff. Merkins, low slow squats, produce pickers, downward dog. Probably some others.

The Thang

 

Cupid Shuffle

YHC had his speaker in tow so all the PAX could have a romantic Valentines dance. First, the song Cupid Shuffle was played. When “down” was said we did a merkin. “Kick” = donkey kick. “Left/right” = side plank to the left/right. Mountain climbers were done in the intervals.

 

Get Lucky

Next on the Valentines playlist was the Daft Punk song Get Lucky. Because, let’s face it, we are all hoping to get lucky on V-Day. “Up” = bombjack, “get lucky” = burpee. Crab cakes to the rhythm during the rest of the song. Lots of mumble chatter by this point. Repeatedly going from a bombjack directly into a burpee is a great crowd pleaser.

 

Heartbreak 1,2,3

Sometimes playing the game of love you get your heart broken. This routine is like Doras, but with a heartbreaking hill to run. And they don’t come more heartbreaking than the Green Monsta. We moseyed to the Monsta and PAX partnered up and as a team completed: 100 diamond merkins (diamonds are forever), 200 boxcutters (boxes of chocolate), and 300 monkey humpers (the ideal end to Valentines Day). Originally YHC had thoughts of playing 80s love ballads during this segment, but I decided against it and went for 90s rock instead. Who knew Two Ferns was such a Pearl Jam fan?

 

Rosham-Burpees

The final segment of the morning. Sometimes in a relationship you need a tie-breaker, and a little rock-scissors-paper is as good a way as any. In pairs, PAX played RSP. First round: winner does 1 merkin, loser does 1 burpee. Second round: winner does 2 merkins, loser does 2 burpees. Go all the way to 10 rounds. We managed to get to about 8 rounds each before time was up and we headed back to COT.

 

COT

FNG AJ was asked to tell a story that he would use to impress people at a cocktail party. After a detailed account of getting conned by an old man, he revealed that the whole thing was a fabrication. He hoodwinked us. Therefore, we welcomed FNG Ponzi to the crew.

 

Thanks for making a rainy morning fun fellas. And thanks to Flux for the opportunity to lead.

 

Stay Classy,

Homebrew

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Omaha

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I had our 1st F Q Royale lined up for the Q this morning, but got the word late the night before that he wouldn’t be able to Q dueto a family emergency.  Life happens, but we’re all brothers here and this was a perfect opportunity to step in so YHC took the Q.

After a quick disclaimer we got moving for a FAST mosey towards the back of the school that included some toy soldiers and karaokes before circling up.

CoP

  • SSH x20
  • Windmill x10
  • MNC x20
  • Merkin x10
  • Downward Dog/Honeymooner
  • Peter Parker x15
  • Parker Peter x15

Quick backstory, as soon as I announced I was Q’ing instead of Royale a collective sigh was heard and then Iced-T made a quick run back to his car to get a pair of gloves… good call.  It’s like he knows me or something… which leads us right into…

Routine 1:

So I had each PAX get on a parking space line and we did ascending bear crawls.  Starting at the curb we did 1 derkin and then bear crawled to the opposite curb (maybe 10 yards?) and did 2 irkins, bear crawl back and do 3 derkins and so on until we hit 13.  Nice and painful routine to start with.

Routine 2:

Staying in the back of the school there are some landscaped islands at the top and bottom of the parking lot so  so we did something I like to call Crazy 8’s.  This is a homegrown routine created by YHC that includes your choice of 3 exercises followed by a figure 8 style lap around the parking lot planters and then repeated 8 times.

  • 8 Boxcutters
  • 8 “Big Boy” Sit-ups
  • 8 Burpees
  • Figure 8 lap
  • Repeat 8 times

Routine 3:

The first 2 routines were made up on the fly, the 3rd routine was the only one I planned after Royale messaged me so I stuck a couple of high powered flashlights high up on the fence in front of the “Green Monster”, a Crow’s Nest landmark, before the PAX arrived.  I didn’t actually plan what we would do, only that we would do something on this one-of-a-kind, incredibly nasty, and poorly lit hill.

Slow mosey to the bottom (because it is super steep and somehow still wet at the very bottom).  I made the PAX partner up and we did wheelbarrows up the mountain, err, monster and then 10 Wheelbarrow Merkins, swap and repeat.  Kudos to Iced-T, because I told him I would call him out in the backblast for being the only one to make it up in this way (along with, ahem, YHC).

To finish it up, I made everyone NUR UP the monster and then do 8 Burpees, x2.

Mosey back to CoT with about a minute to spare and our newer PAX gasping for air, so I called on them for a little Q lesson and had Chop Block call 20 LBC”s IC and O’Reilly followed with 10 Flutters IC.

Nice job to all!

CoT

Get ready for the Yeti and sign up! Joe Davis & P200 coming up as well.

Prayers for Royale and his family (father-in-law) and that he may recover fully.  Prayers for all PAX who may be injured or sick and that the may find health soon as well.  Also, continued prayers for F3 and what we have together and that we may never take for granted the ability and privilege to be able to do this.

Until next time (Friday),

-FLUX-

 

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