Q-School Part 1

Started this fine morning with Pusher leading the Disclaimer.

All key points were included.
Asking for new people
Declaration that you are not an expert
Stating that everyone there is assuming all risk by being there, every exercise is a suggestion and to modify if needed to avoid injury.

Pusher also made sure to note the leadership aspect of being a Q. How it links with the larger mission of F3 and how being prepared to lead is instrumental in having a successful Q.

With that we moseyed to behind the Oil Change garage.

Here we circled up and Pusher put us through the finer points of a warmup including how to call cadence, how to pace cadence, and a sample of exercises that are popular within a warmup. After this portion of Q-school Pusher handed it off to me and I called 5 burpees OYO. Because why not….

Well also, as I explained, it’s a good tool to use to silence mumble chatter and help corral the PAX. (a whistle also helps with this)

For my portion of Q school I introduced a couple of workout concepts that had are scaleable. Meaning that the PAX could modify these up or down as they saw fit during the course of the workout. The other key piece I mentioned here is the intention of time-boxing your workout. For me I like to divide my workout into pieces. This helps inform me on if I can modify up or modify down a set of exercises based on the time allotment.

The first two sequences were first a simple circuit using the wall behind the garage.

10 Irkins
10 Derkins
10 Dips

X3

Plank for the 6

Run to behind the grocery store

Using the two islands

A simple 7 concept with a run in-between the two stations

HR Merkins on one side and Squats on the other.

Again, these are concepts that you can leverage and elevate as needed. For instance the 7’s could become 11’s, 20’s or even 30’s if you are so inclined with any mode of transportation you see fit in-between like bear crawls or burpee broad jumps.

For the final 3rd piece of the WO portion I took us to the pavilion by the church. I talked about knowing the AO and what it has to offer. Specific for this AO we have cover and benches here. It’s a great spot for a tabata style workout leveraging the WOD app. And that is what we did. I called out a series of exercsies with a short rest in-between.

Again, this is a great way to use a small space but keep the hear rate up and engage the pax. Candidly some of my best Q’s were in this format because of the proximity of my fellow pax and the ability for PAX to push themselves in this type of format.

After this portion was over we took off for COT.

With just over 5 minutes left we did Mary but had newish pax attempt cadence. I’m happy to say we all settled on Starting Positions ….MOVE……and that all Pax did a good job of picking up on it quickly.

We ended on COT where Pusher did a great job of articulating why it’s important and why it makes F3 different.

To quickly recap

-A great Q starts before 5:15. Work with the Site Q and plan ahead. Always overplan because it’s easier to scale down than scale up if needed.
-When calling cadence practice if you are not used to it. Practice in your garage or wherever but perfect practice makes perfect.
-Be willing to alter your plan if needed. A big thing for me is to keep PAX together and keep Pax safe. In other words if you think that hill looks a little too muddy to run up maybe look to do something else. (burpees for instance)
-COT is one of the most important pieces of the Q experience (that and writing a timely backblast). Be respectful and thoughtful.

Thanks to the Pax who came out, and the Pax who supported this (Especially Fishtix and Olaf who shared tidbits of wisdom throughout)

If anyone has any questions or wants to view/access some of the documents referenced today please feel free to reach out.

SYITG!

Class dismissed!

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The Darkest of ALLL Convergences

80ish of the Fort’s, Lake Wylie’s, and Rock Hill’s finest converged this fine Monday to celebrate and show our support for the Darkest of All Helmet’s becoming the new Nantan of F3 Nation.

After my usual disclaimer and a giving of thanks for those who all showed , Dark Helmet led the warmup. As any true leader would do he quickly refreshed (and reinforced via burpees) the core mission of F3 and our core principles. After a rough start we did eventually nail it. After some side straddle hops and merkins the Pax were released into their own unique workout groups.

HERO WOD(Honey Badger)

This was my Q and I’m always humbled to lead Hero style workouts. They should be hard but also purposeful. For me I have created two unique workouts to honor different men of my family who have served. They would be the last people to ever consider themselves heroes. But that’s why I honor them. They sacrificed more than I ever could and I will always be inspired by them. I hope that in this very simple way their stories help inspire others.

For the purpose of today’s workout I truncated both them in the interest of time.

The “Uncle Paul”

I encourage anyone to Google the USS Pueblo Incident to get the full details but the long and short of it is that my wife’s Uncle Paul was a member of the USS Pueblo crew when it was captured by North Korea in 1968. For 11 months he was help captive as POW. Tortured, sleep deprived, and subject to all sorts of propaganda he along with 81 of his ship mates were eventually returned to the US. As a result of his PTSD he hasn’t been able to sleep for almost 50 years.

The Workout:

82 SSH (IC)

11 Burrpees OYO.

1 LAP around the Earth Fare Complex.

As we returned to our starting position I began the Second Hero Workout of the day. The “Sgt. Major”. This one is a WOD I’ve done before for the Honey Badger and is about my father who was a Command Sgt. Major in the 28th ID. Again for the sake of time I limited the usual 3 miles I try and incorporate into this workout for 3 laps instead. The exercises are as Follows.

28 Burpees

1 Lap

28 Burpees

56 Squats

1 Lap

28 Burpees

56 Squats

112 HR MErkins

1 LAP.

(Pick up the 6 if you can)

This pretty much took us up to the bell after a brief visit by the ruckers. Thanks to all who broke off to me to indulge me and these workouts. They are supposed to be hard and challenging and I hope we all got our money’s worth.

 

Running Boot camp: Sweep the Leg – FishTix

Group was split into teams of 4. Relay race around the parking lot two stops with exercises. Two runners traveled to stop 1 and stop 2 respectively while the other team members did the exercises at the stops. Once the runners arrived the running duties were handed off. Process was continued until the closing bell.

Stop 1 Exercises: HR Merkins, Dips, Burpees, CDD, Mike Tyson Merkins

Stop 2: Jump Squats, Flutters, Mnt Climbers, Lunges, Box Cutters

Rucking – VA – Olaf

4 corners with low slow squats, merkins, Lunges, and shoulder taps. After round 1 got a 40 and a 60 pound sand bag to spice it up. The bags were rotated around by the Pax.

Kettlebell – Armory – BandCamp

4 Rounds:

16 clusters (clean, squat, press

16 single arm swings (alternating)

16 lateral lunge with a row (8 a side)

Short Mosey

Some overhead lunges and suitcase deadlifts when the heart rates got too high.

Running – Flight Plan – Bass-O-Matic

Ran a bunch 🙂

At 6:00 I blew a whistle and we all reconvened for the longest Namearama I ever conducted a brief reminder of the Rooster, to read the newsletter and to have our Nantan of the Fort Esso lead us out.

Best of luck to Dark Helmet in his new role! Let’s all continue the mission!

AYE!

 

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Not alone

I was not alone in this Thursday morning as five others showed up for an 0615 sunrise to run around Kingsley.

I placed three buckets full of adventurous exercises with -some- complaints about how surprisingly hard pain I seemed to be delivering via slips of paper that were randomly chosen.

We prob got in about 1.5-ish miles of running as we chased each bucket to reveal a rough painstation.

Thx for the opportunity to contribute to the cause.

___

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Complacency

WARMUP: stretch, ssh, merkins, mosey with dynamic movements
THE THANG: 100 merkins, 90 squats, 80 flutters, 70 cdd’s, 60 alternating lunges, 50 American hammers, 40 shoulder taps, 30 Bobby Hurleys, 20 big boys, mosey back to cot 10 burpees.
MARY:
ANNOUNCEMENTS: don’t get complacent and keep your form was our focus.
COT: DD and an issue at work, Old Bays M.

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Minimal complaining kinda

WARMUP: mosey to Lowe’s for SSH, IW, HW, Peach Pickers, Baby Arm Circles
THE THANG: AMRAP
45 seconds of PAIN
Merkins, Big Boys, Squats, Dips
Run
Hand Release, LBC’s, Lunges, Carolina Dry Docks
Run
Wide Arm Merkins, Flutters, Bobby Hurleys, Arm Lifts
Run
Rinse and Repeat
MARY: a couple abs and Trucker finishing with the TREE. (Just stand there waiting for 6). LOL
Praises and Prayers were shared and delivered and sent to the
Thanks PEACH. Your a hell of a site Q

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