The Swamp is quickly becoming a ‘Pick your Pain’ AO. We had 27 HIMs show up for a variety of punishing activities. 11 for the Ruck, 3 for the run and the remaining 13 reluctantly followed YHC for a bootcamp beatdown.

When I picked up the Q from Boehiem at Tempo on Thursday, there was some mumblechatter about no burpees.  Is a workout without burpees really a workout? Not for YHC. My wienkes come pre-selected with burpees involved. So with that here we go.

Quick mosey to the back of Just Fresh for COP:

Seal Jacks x25
Hillbillies x20
5 Burpees
Imperial Walkers x15
Plank Jacks x15
5 Burpees
Moroccan NC x30
Mountain Climbers x10
(Shout to CSPAN – Turned the tempo of the climbers up to 11)
5 Burpees
Slow Merkins x10
Low Slow Squat x15
5 Burpees
Cherry Pickers x10
Windmill x10
5 Burpees

Now that we had a nice sweat going, we took a quick mosey to the front of Pet Smart for the pain.

The Thang

4 crosswalks cover about 100 yards from Pet Smart to Best Buy.

Round 1:

All members start at the 1st crosswalk, and do 4 reps of exercise A.

They they move on to the the 2nd crosswalk and do 4 reps of exercise B.

They they move on to the 3rd crosswalk and repeat 4 reps of excercise A.

They they move on to the 4th crosswalk and repeat 4 reps of excercise B.

After that, they run 50 feet to a cone and the head back to the 1st crosswalk and plank for the six.

Rounds 2 and 3 are identical to Round 1, but the reps increase by 4 each time (Round 2 has 8 reps and 3 has 12 reps.  No 10 counts between rounds, once the six is in start the next round. Round 3 proved very challenging.

We got through two pairs of exercises:

1st Pair:
A: Burpees (crowdpleaser)
B: Reverse Lunge

2nd Pair:
A: Carolina Dry Docks
B: Diamond Merkins

Then we finished with a run to COT where the ruckers we graciously waiting with Rucks overhead for us to join in the circle.

It was great to see all the support the PAX provided each other.  The cheering of the six to finish strong. So many coming back to pick up the six or support there fellow Pax to power through the pain. Having the leaders push the pace to challenge the Pax.  Amazing and humbling to see.

Gecko – Thanks for the constant support of the six. True HIM. Sorry for the Burpees
Nasa – Getting better everyday. Keep pushing
Fish Sticks – One day I’m going to catch you. Thanks for pushing the Pax.
Wild Thing – Come so far since your first post. Continue the journey
Training Wheels (FNG) – Awesome 1st Post. Embraced the suck
Da Vinci – Always a smile. Love the positive energy you bring to the Pax
Puddles – Love the mumble chatter. Always keep me on my toes
Cable Guy – Always pushing the pace and challenging everyone to go harder.
Bones – Grinder. Never complain. Always comes to give 100%
Mr. T – You never quit and push a little harder everyday. Embrace your success.
Royale – Always holding me accountable and providing Pax with encouragement
MainFrame – Silent but deadly. Always out pushing the Pax.

Thanks again for the opportunity to lead. Always a humbling experience.

Gotta get back to the Hunt, its Witch Season…

Another fine day at the Swamp. Hot and humid, but the PAX started gathering and stretching before 5:15am. We took a count of the ruckers splitting away from our bootcamp group. Looked like 12 coming with me and 3 ruckers moving out with Cornhole. Zima and Cornhole stole Router from us and EH’d him into that terrible rucking thing! (Kidding, I just bought an expensive backpack to join them) Quick fumble in the disclaimer and we’re off!

We start our warm-up lap and like many weeks Vinny peels into the parking lot on two wheels, slams it into park, and sprints to catch up with us. I’m glad I cut our route to double back and pick him up. We moseyed over to the jewelry store where we have a nice background music playing for our warm-up.

COP
15 IWs 30 MNCs 25 SSHs 10 Merkins
20 Mtn Climbers 15 Peter Parkers 12 Windmills

Quick mosey over to the Big Red Balls at Target ( I never miss a chance to use these!)
This Week I’ve learned a few new moves from our PAX (thanks Orvis and Witch Hunt) and thought putting them together would make for a terrible time…from the mumblechatter it seems I was right!

At each Red Ball –> 10 V-Up Twists (Witch Hunt)
description = lie prone on your back arms above your head – legs come in while your torso comes up – then switch to American Hammer = 1 rep
Between each Ball –> Lt Dangers (Orvis)
description = Walking Lunge – then squat – then down for 1 ranger merkin

This took a while, and was miserable…which means we had a lot of fun!

For my ten count I wanted to talk about Leadership & Community:
I spoke to the 12 PAX about taking their shot at the front of this group. We’ve mentioned it a lot recently, and several guys have had there VQ…but we still have more! F3 helps give you the chance to lead, which may not be what your accustomed to…which is all the more reason to do it! I discussed what your concentrica looks like, and that we need to find those things in our community that we can help make better. The F3nation is not going to give us those ideas, we have to bring them to our group! I mentioned supporting our PAX members that are riding in the 24 hours of Booty this weekend, or the Children’s Attention Home that NASA and other PAX have worked so hard with. We need to have more of that 3rd F!

Enough of my mouth…time to mosey

Made it to the fountain
Pair up
1 PAX would complete the below exercises while the other ran the half loop around the round-about.
Step Ups
Calf Raises
Derkins
LBCs

Quick 10 count from Mainframe time to head back to COT

We made it there 3 minutes early SO…
15 Dying Cockroaches
15 Hello Dollys
20 Freddie Mercuries

Announcements
Support the PAX completing 24 hours of Booty this weekend
3rd F convergence around Financial Responsibility happening NOW, if you haven’t been before these are great and try and make time (sorry we missed it)
Support Da Vinci on his VQ tomorrow at the Deep

Prayers & Praises
Mr. T shared a big praise for Vinny getting him out to F3!
Prayers for Puddles and his memory issues
Prayers for safe travels from several members of the PAX

We couldn’t make the 3rd F Convergence on time, so 5 PAX stuck around for coffee at Chick-fil-a. Great way to start our Friday men!

22 HIMs showed up to The Swamp today ready to work. And work is what we did.

I need to thank Cobra Kai and WWL for the idea. They reached out to me early in the week to see if I wanted to join them on the APFT challenge. In typical F3 fashion, before investigating what that is I signed up. (Sorry Pax. My F3 motto is always commit before you research, otherwise you will say no.) So it was set and I can save my wienke for another day.

After a quick disclaimer we moseyed to Gander Mtn with some high knees, butt kickers and knees to chest thrown in.

THE THANG

Army Physical Fitness Test (APFT) consists of the following:

2 min Max Push-Ups – A demonstration was necessary for a proper push up  (chest to partner fist). Also, rest position is up, no knees. If you go to your knees then you are done,

2 min Max Sit Ups – Another demonstration was necessary for a proper sit up and rest position is up.

2 Mile timed run – No demonstration neccesary

Push ups and Sit ups were done with a partner (Glad the run wasn’t a partner drill because Photo Bomb would have killed me)

T-Claps to all the Pax for their hard work. This was a much tougher challenge than it appeared on paper, but all Pax brought it and completed the test. I have included the results below for future reference.

Also T-Claps to Gears for doing the record keeping and timing the run. This would not have been a success without your help. Get healthy for next time.

Lesson Learned – Next time we will start the Test closer to COT. We had a fairly long mosey from Gander Mtn to COT after the test was over. Sorry.

Announcements
Happy Hour – 7/7 Pintsville in Pineville & 7/6 Sweetwater in Lake Wylie
F3 Dads – The Patriot 9 a.m.
Spitz Army

Prayers
Zima’s Grandmother
The passing of Royale’s Grandmother
Travel mercies for the July 4th weekend
Nasa’s father-in-law as he recovers from spinal surgery
Cornhole’s new job
Twister’s job

Thanks again to all the Pax that showed up. It is always as honor to lead this group of men. #ISI

RESULTS:

17 Strong HIM’s with 15 Running and Burpees and 2 Ruckers

Disclaimer was given by YHC

Then 10 Burpees OYO to get started

Yog 1/2 mile to COP

50 SSH

40 MC

10 Merkins

20 Peter Parker

20 Parker Peter

40 IW

10 Diamond Merkins

Partner up and go to the Red Balls

Partner 1 and 2 do 1 Burpee then do 3 Burpees at each ball and 1 back at 1st Ball together

Remaining partner does SSH while partner 2 does his Burpicides then swap

Then run a lap and do 20 Dips, 20 Derkins, 20 calf raises

Rinse and repeat

Mosey back to the COT

Welcome FNG The Mandarin

21 pax, with 6 ruckers and a strong showing from 2.0s. As a fill-in last minute Q, I had to come up with something quick – f3nation.com has a great list of exercises. Global Warming and Burp Back Mountain jumped out at me.

Cobra Kai started us out with 22 push-ups; a reminder of the price paid by so many of the men and women fighting for our freedom. We are grateful.  

The Thang: 

We started out with a mosey, karaokes, and shuffles.

Indian run to Target with bear crawls and lunge walking for variety. Circled up for MNC, Windmills and IWs x 20. There was some creative counting by YHC and a new exercise is born – The Imperial Tater Walker.

Mosey to Buffalo Wild Wing for Global Warming – Circle up and assume the Al Gore position and shuffle left and right merkins, werkins, Peter Parkers, Parker Peters, Mtn Climbers and Carolina Dry Docks x 15. The circle got tighter the more we shuffled.

On to the hills of Suntrust for Burp Back Mtn. Paired up – size does not matter. 100 burpees was the target for each pair.

Back to Target – grab a car stop – hops, toe taps, step ups and calf raise (toes straight, in and out). Mosey to the fountain for Step ups and derkins x 20.

Mosey to Office Max and circled for ab lab – Hello Dollys, flutter kicks, LBCs, Freddie Mercurys, Rosalitas and Never Cross Dollys x20

We are done, mosey back to the COT. 

BOM 

A plug for Hog and Coyote on June 18 

NMM 

I introduced the Pax to Mansfield’s Book of Manly Men by Stephen Mansfield. There is a chapter on Humility – the June theme. The chapter revolves around the life of Booker T Washington. From the book “He (Booker T Washington) agreed with William Mountford, who wrote, ‘It is from out of the depths of our humility that the height of our destiny looks grandest.’ Washington was no coward and did not think humility the best posture of his people because he feared another course. Instead, he believed humility won the favor of God, caused a man to live simply and genuinely rather than merely to impress and freed him from vanity so he could know himself and know the world as it was, rather than as he wished it to be. “ 

Pride and Humility cannot coexist.

It is always a privilege – Tater

It’s so muggy, it’s sweaty and heard to breathe… And the workout starts in a few minutes…
Seriously. It’s like a sauna and my original plan had to be adjusted because the Google Map of the AO isn’t accurate at the moment. Construction/progress has torn up the grass I wanted to use. Oh well… I’ll just be minute or two late. Which is good. Because then Cable Guy has more to give me crap about (like he needed any help there?)…

So I was 2 minutes late to my own Q. No, I don’t have a good excuse. Yes, it did all work out. As I am hustling from where I parked my car so I could set up all my coupons and cones, I met the Pax as they were rounding the corner, our fearless leader, Pusher (#Mantan), in the lead. I wave them down, and after I was given assurance that they had more or less properly disclaimed, we warmed up a little with some SSHs, IWs, Merkins, Windmills, etc., then we moseyed to The Thang…

Triple up, size doesn’t matter. 6 stations set around the parking lot/grassy area in the back of the Gander Mtn. lot. AMRAP for 30 minutes. After each station run a long lap around the lot.

Station 1: 25 Cinderblock Squats
Station 2: Hairburners with 50lb. sandbag (down and back or down and carry back)
Station 3: 25 Medicine ball slams
Station 4: 25 Cinderblock Curls
Station 5: 25 Plyo Merkins
Station 6: 25 Gator Merkins

Mosey back for a little Mary and COT…

NMM:
I may or may not have been just a couple of minutes late for the start. Google Maps isn’t the most reliable, and the locale I had planned on using was torn up for construction. I had to search quickly and find a new spot which was further away, and it threw off my game… Moral of the story? Same moral it always is. Plan ahead, leave extra time, ask for help if you need it. You’d think that I’d have this 100% figured out by now… Sadly, I still forget or get over-confident and then get burned.

Cable Guy didn’t pass gas once that I am aware of for a whole workout. Someone can correct me on this, but I think that’s the case. I think he may need to seek medical attention…

We covered close to 3 miles. So, yeah… it sucked. However, no partner carries, no bear crawls (my usual go-to’s).

Always a pleasure gents…

Helmet, out.

5 pax grabbed a ruck and followed HYC entrusting him to keep them safe and hive free… So they thought.

The Thang:
Warm up ruck lap
COP- SSH, merkin, squat, IW, squat-merkin, moraccon night club

Mosey to grassy area between Chick-fil-a and 49… Aka hives breading ground.

Line up, lung walk to each tree, 3 in total, 5 body builders at each tree, COP- 15 squats, 10 overhead presses, 10 ruck curls

Rinse and repeat with bear crawls, crab walks, and arm crawls (start of hive infestation).

Last round of COP

Shoulder to shoulder, forward leaning position… Tunnel of love.

So if u weren’t already completely F’d … You were after this.

6MOM to round it off and ruck back to COT.

COT- 25 was the total Swamp count, 3 more pax HC’d for the Fort Custom Goruck Challenge 2017, if you are even thinking you might want to do a Goruck challenge, now is the time to get in on the action, this will be a Fort pax exclusive event!

Until next time

WWL