Category: The Ranch

Tour around the Ranch

Leave a comment

Warm up:
Moseyed over to the Middle School. During the run we did high knees, butt kickers and karaoke.

SSH
Windmill
merkins
Broga for a few minutes

Then we moved over to the side of the school where we did three rounds of the following exercises.
5 Flying Squirels
bear crawl up the hill
20 LBCs
30 sec Wall Sit

Repeat 2 more times and switched out the movement up the hill to backward bear crawl and then forward crab walk.

Continued to move around the side of the school over by the football field where we ran a series of sprints (50%, 50%, 75%, 75%, 95%)

Then moved over to the playground on the backside of the elementary school
Split the pax up into 3 groups for 5 rounds

Group 1 – Pull ups
Group 2 – Swerkin Crunch – merkin and crunch on a swing
Group 3 – Run loop

Groups would start at 1 worked up to 5 adding one for each round of exercises for stations 1 and 2 and then run loop. Pax were told to stay with your group to encourage each other and to help those who may have needed the extra encouragement.

Got back to COT in time for the Airborne Specials (hip exercises)

TClap |
0

Charter Band-aids for Little Warriors – PreBlast

Leave a comment

As most of the PAX in the Fort and Rock regions knows my 5 year old daughter (Emma) is a leukemia survivor. We still make a trip every 4 weeks to get blood drawn to check her counts at Levine Children’s Hospital. We also stepped up and raised money last year (Christmas time) for a fellow brother bout-time out of Area 51 son Jennings who has leukemia also.

It has come to my attention that the budgets have been cut in some of the pediatric departments and the first thing to go is usually the character band aids. You say how important is to have these band-aids? Well as far as the cancer kids go every time the have their PORT’s (Port is a small medical appliance that is installed beneath the skin. A catheter connects the port to a vein) which for some kids is traumatic they get a band-aid over it. For others that are done with treatment such as my daughter Emma has to go back for the next 21 years to get checked (mainly blood counts). This not always easy for instance this past Wednesday she was poked 3 times. Well at the end the band aid can put a smile on a child’s face. This also goes for those kiddos that have to constantly get blood work done not just cancer kids.

So what I am challenging you to do is every week you go grocery shopping buy at least one box or more of character band-aids girls or boys. Also Spread the word in every COT. I will tweet out what AO’s I will be at and if anyone wants to step up and help me collect that would be awesome.

I also challenge others in different regions to pull together and do the same thing. My goal is to gather as much as possible and split it between Levine Children’s Hospital and Novant Health Hemby Children’s Hospital (St. Jude Affiliate Clinic) before Christmas.

Let a simple act of kindness put a smile on a little fighters face.

AYE. Lets do this.

TClap |
77

the BLIMPS Casino

Leave a comment

13 PAX and ideal weather conditions on hand.

Mosey run to front of middle school
Warm up:
SSH (IC 12x)
Imperial Walker (IC 12x)
Windmill (IC 12x)
Moroccan Nightclub (IC 12x)
LSS (IC 12x)
Merkin (IC 12x)
Peter Parker (IC 12x)
Plank stretches
Run to back side of elementary school
For a portion of this run: Railroad Ties routine: PAX low plank and person at back of line runs/jumps over them. Cycle through like an indian run.

At back of the middle school:
Thang 1: Blackjacks
start w/ 1 Merkin
run to other side do 20 LBC’s
Run back and do 2 Merkins
run to other side do 19 LBC’s
procced until 20 merkins and 1 LBC
The casino closed this blackjack table a bit early (at ten mins) to accommodate other events. Most Pax got to 15 merkins. Recommend doing Elevens (not 21’s) next time.

Run to next pain station (short distance)
Thang 2: BLIMPS (Cones spaced 15-20 yds apart)
Start at cone 1- B for burpee, do 5 of them
Run to cone 1 – L for lunge, do 10 each leg
Run to cone 2 – I for Imperial Walkers, do 15
Run to cone 3 – M for Merkins, do 20
Run to cone 4 – P for Peter Parkers do 25 (modification)
Run to cone 5 – S for Squats, do 30
rinse and repeat until time is called
Run to COT area

Thang 3: plank routine
Sally gets up/down (Moby song)
Start with low plank
High plank on the “up”
Low plank on the “down”
Thiry-one changes during the 3:22 duration of the song.

COT

Announcements: Fast 5k on 10/27; CAH charity event this Saturday 10/20.
Prayers for healing of loved ones and guidance to the healers in charge of their care.

Great words of encouragement shared amongst all PAX. Don’t forget these timely favorites:
“A word of encouragement during a failure is worth more than an hour of praise after success”
“Fall seven times, stand up eight”

TClap |
5

The Barnabas Workout

Leave a comment

7 Sons of Encouragement braved Tropical Storm Michael today. We mostly took refuge for safety reasons under the awning as we moseyed to the front of Springfield Elementary. A forewarning was given in the beginning at the parking lot that we would be moving the entire 45 minutes as well as the basic F3 disclosure.

We started with a warm-up run including high knees, butt-kickers, side shuffles, and toy soldiers. The paced picked up as we got closer to the awning.

Some additional warm-up highlights: everyone seemed to be breathing pretty heavily after warm-up, which included side lunges, squats, crucifix, full-body crab reach, SSHs, shoulder stretches, large arm circles, shoulder shrugs, backwards lunges, and, of course, merkins. I probably forgot a few more.

The Thang:

We broke up into 2 groups with a PAX in the middle. Each group did the same exercise from the middle of the front of the school to the end of the awning and back (at least once) while the PAX, I mean monkey, in the middle did full dips on an Equalizer set of bars until exhaustion and then KB swings until everyone was done with their exercises. As we waited on whoever was the six, we stayed in 6 inches plank. Each person rotated in as we immediately, and I mean immediately, started the next workout exercise(s). We did at least 14 rounds of exercises before we switched the monkey in the middle exercise and did almost another 14 rounds. The second go-round included an agility exercise focusing on concentration, stepping, higher knees and left-right and right-left movement followed by single arm thrusters with the 30 lb KB.

While the PAX in the middle was doing his thing, below are just a sample of the exercises we did today with several left off purposely so you will just have to experience them yourself next time! Most reps were in the 10-180 range.

  • Derkin into a opposite leg Tuck Planks
  • Single leg hops
  • Long jump hops
  • Frog walks
  • High toe touches
  • SSHs
  • X Jumps
  • Squat Jumps
  • Sprints
  • 50% sprints
  • Turkish getups
  • Lunges
  • Backwards lunges
  • The “Straight Up version of The Worst Merkin Ever” (lots of groaning on this one including from me)
  • Bear Crawls
  • Standard Derkins
  • Backwards Bear Crawls
  • Air Mountain Climbers
  • And we finished with Spiderman crawls

I will admit that the Spiderman crawls sucked the last bit of energy out of me. Big shout-out to Jedi and Cha-Ching who rocked the last exercise even in their exhausted state. One of these days I may become as flexible as Jedi and as strong as Cha-Ching . . . well, in reality, maybe not. Good goal to have.

Other highlights:

Dillweed: tough, tough workout partner. Thank you for your partnership today!

Jiffy: always love your consistency and superb attitude!

Love Handle: man, how you have improved! Keep up the progress and great work! You are starting to make things look easy!

Peabody: Always impressive, especially with the physical struggles that have kept him out from time to time. Solid, impactful example performance today.

So these were your 7 Sons of Encouragement today. Today’s theme: Encourage another today whether that is your gift or not. We had SUPERB encouragement from each other with this group. I challenge you to go out in your own little world and encourage someone today. And in your own Qs, bring the encouragement!

Lastly, I did not get to say this during the group this morning, but I was very encouraged by Drew Brees this week as I walked into the break room at work for a total of 5 seconds and heard on the tv a quote from him. I am a terrible memorizer but I was able to get this quote on one go-round. Thank you, Lord. I have always admired his efforts in the NFL but this encouragement quote really stuck out this week as I and many of you have had setbacks: “A setback is nothing more than a setup for a comeback.” Thanks for the encouragement and true words, Drew.

Go out this week and get at it in all you do. Praise to the One  who made you.

COT: Specific prayer requests: Some wives have really been struggling as of recent. Let’s support them in prayer, love them and be there for them. Prayer for all those working through Hurricane Michael issues today and yesterday and for safe travel for all.

I’m out for 2018. No more Qs. Look me up to Q at your site in Ft Mill/Rock Hill/Lake Wylie mid-Feb 2019+. Peace out!

MANY, MANY THANKS TO JIFFY FOR LETTING ME SERVE THE PAX AT YOUR SITE. Until next time, brother!

 

TClap |
2

Prepare for a White Out

Leave a comment

YHC was called off the bench to deliver the game winning pain. There was no weinke just some ideas floating in YHC mind in what to do…not a good way to lead, Wasn’t sure if any PAX would show up as well since competing with Reborn’s Beyond workout, just knew Bonsai HC earlier in the week.

Knowing that the annual Penn State White Out is three days away, what other way to deliver some pain at the Ranch then to do some crowd favorite waves!

Mossy to student drop off at Springfield MS for COP:

Windmills, IW, merkins, squats and one other just cant remember

First wave was the elbow plan burpee wave. PAX lined up in a line in elbow plank. First PAX did 2 burpees while rest of PAX stayed in plank. Once first PAX was done, down to plan and next PAX does 2 burpees, and so on. did 3 straight rounds. If we had more PAX it would have visually looked like a wave within a stadium.

Individual Dora 1-2-3: 50 merkins, 100 LBCs, 100 squats. Between each one, run the drop off loop.

finish at the driveway behind school and lunge walk up hill to first school entrance.

Mossy to Elem School drop off/front door. 20 step ups, 5 burpees, repeat twice.

Mossy to…..playground!

Elbow Plank Pull-up wave (crowd favorite). Plank with 5 pull ups per PAX, repeat 3x’s.

Ended with big boys situps, 6″ Moroccan nightclubs (lay on back, feet 6″off ground while doing MC), 5 burpees, and 5 more pull ups.

Mossy to COT, and since we had a few minutes to spare, run around the drop off circle.

Thanks Jiffy for bringing in the back up Q, it’s always fun to Q at the Ranch due to the number of places/things you can do.

Prayers: Bonsai and M in guiding their 2.0, Trucker’s M for going back to Grad School and patience within the house, Peabody’s M’s birthday, and colleague of Truckers in Raleigh who was just diagnosed with a brain tumor.

Trucker

TClap |
0

PRE BLAST F3 The Fort 6th Annual Invergence

Leave a comment

Men of  The Fort,

On Friday, September 21st, we will celebrate 6 years of Fitness, Fellowship, and Faith in the Fort Mill area with our annual F3 Invergence party.   Bring a beverage, some food to share, and enjoy a relaxing evening with your brothers.   We’ll have presentations from your local leadership, take a look back at the previous year, and look ahead to what’s in store for 2019  F3 The Fort and F3 Nation.     This is the premier 2nd F event of the year so mark your calendars now,  and plan on being at Rush Pavilion on Friday night, September 21st.

This is a great FNG opportunity!

This is a Pax only event.  Make it up to your M and 2.0’s next weekend.
What:  Fort Mill Invergence (6th anniversary party)
When:  Friday, September 21, 5:30pm – 10:00pm
Where:  Bruce T. Rush Pavillion at the Anne Springs Greenway
Bring:  Food, drink, chair, cash (to cover the pavillion rental/donations to the F3 Foundation)
Please use the link below to RSVP and list what food you will bring:
6th year F3 The Fort Invergence Food Sign Up:

https://www.signupgenius.com/go/10C0F4CAFAE2FA7FD0-f3thefort

 

 

TClap |
9

BB for #Beyond at the #Ranch – 8-23-18

Leave a comment

17 PAX joined YHC for something different at the Beyond edition of The Ranch. In the spirit of Beyond, I wanted to try something that would push the PAX beyond their comfort zone. Something that would require some mental toughness, perseverance, and grit.

Inspired by this video from SealFit Academy, I thought we would test the mental veracity of our PAX with a 45 minute plank.

Here are the rules:

  • Hold plank (in various forms called by the Q – regular, elbow, left arm high, right arm high, honeymooner, downward dog) for the full 45 minutes of the workout, starting immediately at 5:15, ending at 6:00.
  • If plank was exited, PAX would have to do 5 burpees as a penalty and join back in the plank. This became 5 hand release burpees for the second half of the workout.
  • Q would read an inspiring quote re: mental toughness & perseverance every 2 minutes throughout the workout.
  • PAX were encouraged to partner up at the beginning of the workout and rely on each other to push through the pain.

Quotes:

  1. “Mental toughness is spartanism with qualities of sacrifice, self-denial, dedication. It is fearlessness, and it is love.” ―Vince Lombardi
  2. “Concentration and mental toughness are the margins of victory.” ―Bill Russell
  3. “Nothing can stop the man with the right mental attitude from achieving his goal; nothing on earth can help the man with the wrong mental attitude.” ―Thomas Jefferson
  4. “It’s when the discomfort strikes that they realize a strong mind is the most powerful weapon of all.” ―Chrissie Wellington
  5. “Throw away all weakness. Tell your body that it is strong, tell your mind that it is strong and have unbounded faith and hope in yourself.” ―Swami Vivekananda
  6. “Strong minds suffer without complaining; weak minds complain without suffering.” ―Lettie Cowman
  7. “Strength does not come from physical capacity, it comes from indomitable will.” ―Mahatma Gandhi
  8. “Your toughness is made up of equal parts persistence and experience. You don’t so much outrun your opponents as outlast and outsmart them, and the toughest opponent of all is the one inside your head.” ―Joe Henderson
  9. “Make sure your worst enemy doesn’t live between your own two ears.” ―Laird Hamilton
  10. “You have power over your mind, not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength.” ―Marcus Aurelius
  11. “Champions aren’t made in the gyms. Champions are made from something they have deep inside them―a desire, a dream, a vision. They have to have the skill, and the will. But the will must be stronger than the skill.” ―Muhammad Ali
  12. Perseverance is not a long race; it is many short races one after the other.- Walter Elliott
  13. Grit is that ‘extra something’ that separates the most successful people from the rest. It’s the passion, perseverance, and stamina that we must channel in order to stick with our dreams until they become a reality. – Travis Bradberry
  14. ”I do not think that there is any other quality so essential to success of any kind as the quality of perseverance. It overcomes almost everything, even nature.”- John D Rockefeller
  15. ”Perseverance is also key to success in any endeavor, but without perseverance in combat, there can be no victory.”- Jocko Willink
  16. “Many of life’s failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.” -Thomas Edison
  17. “With ordinary talent and extraordinary perseverance, all things are attainable.” -Thomas Fowell Buxton
  18. “A hero is an ordinary individual who finds the strength to persevere and endure in spite of overwhelming obstacles.” – Christopher Reeve
  19. “Our greatest glory is not in never failing, but in rising up every time we fail.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
  20. “Our greatest weakness lies in giving up. The most certain way to succeed is always to try just one more time.” – Thomas Edison
  21. “Failure at some point in your life is inevitable, but giving up is unforgivable.” – Joe Biden
  22. “It always seems impossible until it’s done.” ―Nelson Mandela
  23. “You do what you can for as long as you can, and when you finally can’t, you do the next best thing. You back up but you don’t give up.” ―Chuck Yeager

Announcements

  • Invergence
  • #218in18
  • Q School

Prayers

  • Various health concerns for people close to PAX

Thank you to all of the PAX for posting and trying something new and different. Thank you to Jiffy & Maximus for the opportunity to lead.

– Ginsu

TClap |
7

Burpee Plank Chase at the Ranch

Leave a comment

Things got a little bumpy right from the start as the PAX arrived and learned that Jiffy is having some work done to improve the AO.  Cones everywhere and new pavement is going in.  Modification therefore stared early as the PAX were forced to park somewhere other than our normal place.

The PAX of 9 gathered near the entrance to the Middle School rather than the Elementary School and received their notification of the element of risk that laid before them.  With that we were off on a mosey to the front of the middle school.

Warm up:

  • Honeymooner and downward dog – the mumble chatter broke this one up pretty quickly…..
  • SSH x52
  • Windmill x10
  • Merkin x10

The Thang:

Burpee/Merkin/Plank Chase – The PAX lined up in a plank position with a 10 yard separation between each man.  The first man ran up to the next man in plank, performed a burpee and jumped over the planking man at the top of the burpee.  He then ran to the next member of the PAX and did the same until he reached the end of the line.  For the men holding plank, they performed a hand release merkin each time a member of the PAX on the burpee chase passed them.  When the last PAX passed them, they would start the chase.  This continued for the full drop off circle which is a quarter mile.  With the number of PAX in attendance, everyone had the chance to do the burpee chase 3 times for one lap around the circle.

Regroup at the front of the school and each man grabbed a bench for leg work.

  • Squat Jumps Slow – lower until your six is on the bench and then explode up.  Done slowly in cadence x10
  • One Leg Squats – Put one leg the bench and squat with the other leg x10 each leg
  • Squat Jumps Fast – Q yells out Down to lower six to the bench and then up for exploding into a jump.  Done in quick cadence (approximately 1 per second) X10
  • Calf Raises Straight x10
  • Calf Raises Out x10
  • Calf Raises In x10
  • Run a lap 1/4 mile

Line back up for another round of the Burpee/Merkin Plank Chase.

Leg work again:

  • Squat Jumps Fast x20
  • Calf Raises Straight x20
  • Calf Raises Out x15
  • Calf Raises In x15

Mary:

  • Dying Cockroach x25
  • Big Boy Sit-ups x15

COT

Announcements – Convergence this Saturday

Prayer Requests – Prayers to those traveling this weekend.

It was an honor to Q such a strong group of HIM!  Thank you to Jiffy for the opportunity!

TClap |
5

Walk Like an Egyptian

Leave a comment

5 PAX joined YHC in the early morning for a bag of mixed eggs. Unsure of how the Q had prepared for, we got right to it at 0515.

The Warm-up: all IC

  • SSH
  • Al Gore Nightclub- Hold Air Squat like normal Al Gore, but do Moroccan Night Clubs during
  • Fly Sun Gods- forward bend at waist, one leg straight back, doing arm circles
  • Chinook – Overhead arm cirlces
  • Peter Parkers

I wanted to get the PAX to the loop in front of the Middle School but didn’t want to just plain mosey there. If anyone knows me, I like to torture the PAX with lunges. The last time at The Ranch, we did 300 yards of lunges. Now I’m not sure how far the distance was to get there but I heard about “Walk Like an Egyptian” It’s an Indian Run style way to get there but instead of running, you hold a lunge on the right leg while the last PAX jailbreaks to the front. Once he gets to the front, switch and hold a left lunge until the last PAX jail breaks to the front. According to my rudimentary post-it note method of measuring the distance off the computer screen, it was around 1400 feet, or just over one-quarter of a mile.

Once there, we partnered up, and the PAX were told to hold their partners accountable for the reps they were performing. All PAX completed 25 reps of the exercise while their partner completed the same number of reps and they ran a lap around the bus loop. The exercises were, and in no particular order, are as follows:

  • Dips
  • Squats
  • Calf Raises
  • CDD
  • Flutters

There may have been others but you get the general consensus of it.  We did a couple of other exercises together over there before heading back to COT for some Mary and one final egg up my sleeve, if you will.

MARY- the last exercise I wanted to treat the PAX to is called Hands of Time. I saw the men of F3 Chicago doing something that looked fun on a news cast and was fortunate enough to find out what is was by reading through the website.

Hands of Time- PAX lay on their 6 in a circle with heads towards the center. Legs are raised at 90 degrees and 1 PAX jumps up, and throws the feet down of all the PAX in a circle. The PAX have to prevent their legs from touching the ground and hold their legs just off the ground until all the PAX have their legs thrown down. We repeated this until everyone had the opportunity to run around the circle, throwing down the legs.

Jiff also taught us a different exercise, the Elbow Plank Knee Taps. That one is pretty self explanatory.

Thank you to Jiffy for the opportunity to lead the PAX.

Wegmans-

TClap |
2

Beyond with Tinsel’s Utensils at the Ranch

1 Comment

Today I had the opportunity to lead a Beyond Workout, I’ve been to many of them and decided to share some of my personal stories. I was welcomed by all the PAX that decided to get better and a new name for my toys/props, Tinsel’s Utensils, great name Mainframe!!

We started the warm up with a short run around the parking lot with high knees and butt kickers and then circled up for a few warm up exercises:  Windmills, Moroccan night clubs, low slow squats followed by story sharing while on different variations of planks (regular, elbows, right/left leg up while on elbows, right/left arm up while on regular, back to regular), downward dog-honeymooner; with 9 minutes into the WO we split in 4 groups and each group went to a different station.

Station 1:

-> 10 diamond merkins

-> 15 wide arm merkins

-> 20 regular merkins

-> 30 battle rope wave SC

-> 40 plank jacks

-> 50 Shoulder taps

Station 2:

-> 15 boat and canoe

-> 20 Rosalitas

-> 30 Sledgehammer swings (15 each side)

-> 40 Heel Touches SC

-> 40 Dying Roach

Station 3:

-> 15 overhead press

-> 15 biceps curls

-> 25 dumbbell swing

-> 30 SSH

-> 50 Carolina drydocks

Station 4:

-> 10  Tire flips

-> 20  Monkey Humpers

-> 30 reverse lunges

-> 30 squat pops

-> 50 calf raises

After each group completed a station we met at the center for a brake and to continue my story sharing, on first brake we had a visit from Captain Thor (1 big boy sit up and 4 american hammers, 2 BBSU and 8 AH, 3 BBSU and 12 AH and so on) the plan calls for 10 BBSU and 40 AH but it’s looks easier on paper so we stopped at 8 BBSU and 32 AH. Back to the next station.

Time for brake number 2 and more story sharing, we did one of my favorite exercises the famous Worst Merkin ever, start with wide arm, down to regular and finish with a diamond merkin, that counts as one, we did 10 total. Back to the next station.

Brake number 3 came up and more of the story of my life was shared and since we were running out of time we went back to finish our 4th station.

I guess I didn’t take all the talking that I was going to do into consideration and we stopped at about 49 minutes, circled back into COT for a final chatter about my personal story.

We finished up with prayers, praises and announcements.

Thank you Straight up for lifting us up for the final prayer.

I think the best part of the WO was at the end when some of the PAX decided to skip the fist bump and switched it for a hug!!

Big props to Maximus for this great idea to go Beyond!

TClap |
9