Tag: Austin Powers

Octagon of Pain

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It was an incredibly hot and muggy morning and the workout I had planned at the Crows Nest didn’t do it any favors.  We were all dripping with sweat and smoked by the time it was over.  I’m still tired as I write this a few hours later…

Mainly due to IR, DR, or Jedi’s postiversary, only 5 PAX showed up today at the Crows Nest, but they came ready.  We were glad to have NASA come out this way! He hasn’t had the opportunity to post at the Crows Nest so I even modified things a little to give him the “tour” so to speak, more on that later.

After practically no disclaimer, we took the long mosey towards the back of the school.  Along the way we did some karaoke’s, NUR’d, butt-kickers, and toy soldiers, before arriving in the back parking lot for warm-a-rama; which consisted of the following in cadence:

  • Windmill x10
  • Plank/Elbow Plank (30 count)
  • Elbow Plank Peter Parkers x15
  • Back to plank for Merkins x10

I was inspired by Sasquatch’s Q at the Swamp 3 or 4 weeks ago so I’ve been doing something a little different for warm-ups, it must be working because at least 1 PAX shouted that he is starting to hate my warm-ups.  Mission accomplished!

The 1st routine of the morning was supposed to get the blood flowing before the main event and I think that was accomplished.  We did “Eights”, which is basically just a modified “Elevens”, and also fit with my theme for the workout.  1 Pull-up at the playgroud and then a run to the top of the parking lot for 7 Diamond Merkins, back to the playground for 2 Pull-ups, and 6 Diamond Merkins at the top… you get the drill.

The 2nd routine was really supposed to the the last and final, but I called an Omaha before we even started because I had a surprise for Nasa.  I had 8 cones setup in the field in the shape of an Octagon with an additional cone in the center.  There was about 40ft. from center to each cone.  Each cone had an exercise taped to the top of it.  I had planned to partner up for this, purely for the push, but we ended up going solo mainly.  We all started at one of the points in the Octagon, performed the exercise and then broad jumped to the center cone and performed 4 burpees.  When finished with the burpees, we bunny-hopped back to a new point/cone and did that exercise.  We were to do this until we made it all the way around the Octagon, we always broad jumped to the center cone and bunny hopped back.  We always did 4 burpees in the middle.  As I mentioned earlier, I called an Omaha on this one to shave some time off so we only did half of the number taped to the cone and 4 burpees instead of 8.  It was still brutal because it was a leg/cardio burn for sure because of the exercises chosen:

  • 50 SSH
  • 50 Jump Rope
  • 25 Squat Jump
  • 20 Jump Lunges (each leg)
  • 10 Jumping Spiders
  • 50 Plank Jacks
  • 10 Donkey Kicks
  • 10 Bomb Jacks

And that was half!

So like I said, NASA was here, and probably the most amazing thing about the Crows Nest is the Green Monster so we were going to pay him a visit.

The last and final ad-hoc routine was a King-of-the-Mountain type exercise at the Green Monster.  1 PAX would stay at the top and perform Makhtar N’Diayes, while the remaining PAX run down and back up, twice (I quickly Omaha’d this to 1 time up and down to save time, it takes like a minute to go up/down this F@#%$!!! thing).  We then cycled through all the PAX, each one staying at the top for a rotation while the rest go down and up the hill.  Makhtar N’Diayes were to be OYO until the 6th made it back up the hill, then the next PAX would be “King”.  At one point I thought NASA might need an ambulance while he was laying on his back, practically motionless, at the top of the monster, but he recovered and finished! Well done brother!

We finished with about 5 minutes to spare and still had about a 4 minute mosey back to CoT so we ended up arriving just in time.

  • NASA on Q at Children’s Attention Home
  • Prayers for injured PAX, Homebrew, BTB
  • Prayers for safe travels (Austin Powers travelling to England Thursday, Whopper taking a job in Washington)

Until next time,

-Flux

 

 

 

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5

Murph Jr and Balls to Wall-Whoppers last Q at crows nest

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By a mixture of being out of town over the weekends and just staying up too late/laziness, I’d managed to avoid posting at crows nest despite it being literally the closest AO from my home.  What with me moving sometime between the 17-23rd, I was glad to get put on the Q schedule in advance so that I could have one last whirl for the time being. I wanted to do something unique and fairly painful for the pax.

Short mosey to closest parking lot, COP-

SSH
Sungods, forward and reverse, windmills, imperial walkers,

Musical Primer- At some Q’s they have brought speakers but NOT been playing 80’s headbangers, much less the one most appropriate to a classic exercise, Balls to the Wall!

Had the PAX get into peoples chair, one at a time run to walkway and perform burpee+shoulder tap, as the song played on shakespeares speaker via my phone bluetooth. At part right before chorus, We would go balls to wall. Fun little warmup.

Main Event- Murph JR

Mile run, 1 minute pushups, squats, pullups, with note taken to what max reps done by any of the PAX was.

Another mile run, and started running out of time so we didn’t go back to the pull ups. all together, did 66 merkins with a ten count break, and 60 squats, which was records from the 1 minute timed.

with two minutes left, mosey back to COT and did some ab lab, 10 bigboy situps, 20 4 count flutters and then time up.

Prayers for safe travels and england Godspeed in the world cup. humbled by the PAX and the support they have given me for over a year. At the end of this week I will know if my future is leading me to Greensboro, Washington state, or ft worth texas. Wherever I go, I know I will want to join or create fellowship like that I’ve had in F3. Thanks to everyone who has sweated with me and helped me grow as a man.

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5

Burpee Temple Of Doom

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Preamble:  On a cool summer morning with a breeze coming off of Lake Wylie, 8 brave Pax rolled on in to the PoopDeck for my second ever Q.  After watching the new Paramount Network on my cable TV and seeing them replay all 4 Indiana Jones movies over and over again add-nauseam, I got the idea for a Temple of Doom style workout, but with cones shaped into a pyramid, not an actual temple.

Right off the bat I had the Pax do 5 burpees OYO.  After that I had the Pax mosey on over to the COP for a nice relaxing warmup.

Arm Circles-1 Burpee

10 Cherry Pickers-2 Burpees

10 Windmill-3 Burpees

10 SSH-4 Burpees

10 LSS-5 Burpees

10 Break Dance ‘mericans-6 Burpees

20 Dips-7 Burpees

10 Mountain Climbers-8 Burpees

10 Imperial Walkers-9 Burpees

10 3 count punches-10 Burpees 

The Thang

I welcomed everyone to the Temple and told the Pax my reasons for the theme of the workout which I wrote about in my preamble above.  There were four tiers to the Temple with the first tier consisting of four cones with four different style of Burpee’s per cone.

1St Tier:

1st Cone: 5 Spider Burpees

2nd Cone: 5 Break Dance Burpees

3rd Cone: 5 Jack-Ass Burpees

4th Cone: 5 Plank Jack Burpees

We crab Walked to the second tier where more fun awaited us.

2nd Tier:

5th Cone: 10 Hand Release Burpees

6th Cone: 10 Punching Burpees

7th Cone: 10 Switch Burpees

We Bear Crawled to the third tier.

3rd Tier:

8th Cone: 15 SSH Burpees

9th Cone: 15 Mountain Climber Burpees

We partner carried to the pinnacle.

Pinnacle:

10th Cone: 25 Burpees

After surviving the Temple we mosey’d back to COT, where I realized we had 9 minutes left, time for an Ab-Lab!

Ab-Lab:

10 count American Hammer

15 count Freddie Mercury’s

20 count side planks

10 Big Boy Sit Ups

10 Box Cutters

Rip Cord to Boat

10 LBC’s 

15 Dying Cock-a-roach’s

Observations:  I was so wiped I forgot to do the video name-o-Rama, I will get better and stronger!  

Cancer and heart disease sucks, we are losing loved ones seemingly daily to these horrible diseases.

Prayers to those Pax looking for work.

Grateful to Peg for the opportunity to lead!

 

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Steal the flag, pop the balloon

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It started with bacon.

Well, really it started with Cha Ching’s Q last week, where fifth grade games were the theme of the day. In planning the weinke for today, YHC decided to stick with this theme, and the first game to come to mind was “Steal the Bacon.” So, six PAX posted in the gloom of Crow’s Nest for YHC’s take on an old favorite (that apparently nobody has heard of).

Disclaimer was given, and off we went on a mosey to one of the side drop-off lots for a quick warmup including knees-to-chest, quad stretches, side shuffles, karaokes, and toy soldiers. We also did a handful of side-straddle hops, low slow squats, windmills, merkins, downward dogs, and a honeymooner (just one…though, just one honeymooner sounds like a bad honeymoon).

Mosey back around to the front for

THE THANG

Five pink balloons, each with a card with an exercise tucked inside, were taped to cones at one end of a 50-yard stretch of road. PAX were divided into two teams and given the basic rules.

  • Complete the buy-in exercise, then go to far cone and back according to prescribed movement
  • Depending on round, assigned team member of winning team would pop balloon to determine group exercise.
  • Losing team on a given round would do five burpees before all PAX complete group exercise.
  • Rinse and repeat for all five balloons.

To add to the fun, every PAX was given a strip of fabric (cut up tee shirt) to serve as a flag/tail tucked into the back of his waistband. In addition to everything else, PAX were to protect their flag. If they lose it to another PAX, they were to immediately complete five burpees. They would then re-insert the flag and continue on. There was no limit to the number of times a PAX could lose his flag.

Round 1:

50 merkins, followed by a run down and back. First PAX back popped the balloon. Card exercise: 100 plank jacks.

Round 2:

40 monkey humpers followed by sneak gorilla down and back. Second PAX back popped the balloon. Card exercise: 30 breakdancer merkins.

Round 3:

30 CDD followed by bear crawl down and back. Third PAX (protect the six!) popped the balloon. Card exercise: 50 30 leg-cross squat turns. These apparently take some coordination. Who knew?

Round 4:

40 crab cakes followed by crab walk down and back. Third PAX back popped the balloon. We ended up popping both remaining balloons and choosing 50 hillbilly squat walkers as the final exercise (as opposed to 50 donkey kicks).

The flag football approach added a fun dynamic to the workout, leading to a killer workout that engaged the brain as well. The final round took a long time, as strategy played heavily into the completion of the crab walks. This actually turned out a lot better than anticipated. Look forward to bringing this one back around again.

Announcements:

  • PAINtheon on Wednesday
  • Hog and Coyote on Saturday
  • Sweati in July

Prayers and Praises

  • QBert and family back to the beach after the workout
  • Cha Ching and family and life with new baby

It was a hike to get to the AO, but man it was fun. Grateful for the chance to lead.

Jedi

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2

Uptown Funk You Up

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It was one of those crazy humid Carolina mornings where YHC actually had to turn on the AC on the way to the workout. You know it’s muggy when you’re already sweating with no sun, and no exercise. Bring 15 dudes into the mix and it got real sweaty real fast.

Disclaimer made, then circuitous mosey around the parking lot.
Circled up for: SSH, weed pickers, merkins, superman, low slow squats

The THANG
Uptown 50
I got this one straight out of the exicon. I read about it probably two months ago and had been looking forward to trying it since then. Two markers were set up (about) 50 yards apart on the basketball courts. PAX partnered up. The idea is to do 10 burpees then travel 50 yards via the prescribed means to the other marker, where you then do 10 more burpees and travel back to the start by the next mode of transport. There were 10 total lengths of 50 yards so 10 x 10 =100 burpees… plus whatever it took PAX to do 50 yards of burpee broad jumps. Lots of burpees.

Here were the modes of transport in order: Burpee Broad Jump, Crab Walk, Partner Carry (P1), Partner Carry (P2), Alligator Crawl, Wheelbarrow (P1), Wheelbarrow (P2), Nur, AYG (Sprint!), and Bear Crawl

Due to mumblechatter from PAX not wanting to scuff their fancy pants new running shoes up, Omaha was called on the Alligator Crawl, which was substituted for bear crawls. Great effort by everyone on pushing through this till the end.

Ab Doras

100 Boxcutters, 200 Big Boy Situps, 300 Freddies (double count)

P1 ran down and up the hill, while P2 did boxcutters. Flapjack and keep adding till you get to your number as a team. After boxcutters, runners went to end of the school and back for the big boy and Freddy rounds. Each pair made it pretty far into the 200 Big Boy Situps by the time 6:00 rolled around, and a couple of teams managed to break into the Freddies. Mosey back to COT.

COT
Announcements are all in the newsletter. Read it.
Prayers for Whopper’s job situation, Cha Ching with son #3 due to arrive any day, and safe travels for Tinsel’s sister who is flying to Ecuador. Very sweaty BOM.

Big thanks to Bones for the opportunity to lead.

Stay Classy,
Homebrew

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5

A Primal Beatdown

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On a warm sticky morning at the Crow’s Nest 7 Pax rolled into the parking lot while I was preparing for my first ever Q and I was pumped!  After about 10 weeks of following all the great Q’s of my past workout’s I was eager to prove my mettle and present a challenging workout with a theme of how animals move in nature.

Warmup

I had an instant COP to warm up the morning stiffness

20 SSH

10 Cherry Pickers

Arm Circles

10 LSS

Then I had the Pax do an Indian Run to the main event area with the rear Pax doing 1 Burpee to continue the warming up period.

The Thang

I pulled out a deck of playing cards for the beatdown

Spades were Bear Crawls

Clubs were Crab Walks

Hearts were Donkey Kicks

Diamonds were Pull Ups (Monkey)

Jokers were 14 Grasshopper ‘Mericans

Rep ranges were 2-14 depending on the card with BC’s and CW’s  going a certain distance corresponding to the card.  Thanks to Flux for the helpful modification on the BC’s and CW’s.

During the beatdown I pulled out 2 scripture readings, the first being on how our bodies’ are our temple’s to SkyQ from 1 Corinthians and with the word of the month being Accountability I knew a great passage from Ezekiel on being watchers on the wall.

After getting through most of the deck we moseyed back right on time for COT.

Thoughts and prayers for this country on yet another school shooting.

 

 

 

 

 

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2

Gambling in the Abyss

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What happens when you’re granted the honor of Qing at an AO you’ve not been to much and therefore, not to familiar with? Why, you scout it on Sunday with your kids after Church of course. Completely normal, right? For this group, you’re expected to “bring it” so you’d better know the turf. For those Ft. Mill’ers who’ve not frequented The Abyss, put it on your short-term bucket list. I didn’t explore much of it due to our card playing but this place is a gem.

Once the 16 of us rolled in on this beautiful Wednesday morning, I quickly noticed the footwear NASA was sporting and got a little concerned…for him. He let me know that he and a few other PAX would be breaking off to do a busted-foot-friendly-workout so I felt a little better about what we were getting into. The people-pleasing side of me wanted to make sure I had a little something for everyone so after typical butchered disclaimer, we took off for the basketball courts for our warm up:

Windmills

Side Straddle Hops of course

Super mans

Hand-Release Merkins

Jump Squats

Mosey back to the main lot and I had to grab the deck of cards I slipped under the cone. As many but not all were familiar with, each suit is a different exercise and the number on the card represents how many reps. Jack = 11, Queen = 12, King = 13 and the Ace = 14 (not 1).

Hearts = Wide Arm Merkins

Clubs = Carolina Dry Docks

Diamonds = Jumping Lunges

Spades = BURPEES (Yup, we did that)

After we recognized the deck must have been front-loaded with Wide-Arm Merkins and Jumping Lunges, it wasn’t long until we started getting smoked and a few 10-counts were necessary. In the end, we completed it all which totaled 104 of each, that’s right, 104 Burpees.

There was still a little left in the tank and on the clock so we had to round it out with Dying Cockroaches, descending 10ct leg lifts and the finisher…Lt. Dan’s. The latter was a lesson I would remember the rest of the week.

Bones, I appreciate the opportunity and I look forward to the next time.

Leave no man behind but leave no man where you found him.

Maximus

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5

Board of Bad Decisions…a week late

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Realizing this is a week late, it is readily acknowledged that the bulk of the information contained herein is probably incorrect. But, this is the first opportunity YHC has had to sit before a computer, and since realization of obligation outweighs desire to further procrastinate, the outdated and inaccurate backblast is hereby submitted.

The call went out a day early for a replacement Q for Poopdeck, and since I was leaving town for a week, I thought, “What better way to make sure I get one last workout in with the PAX than to Q before we leave?” So, I foolishly committed, and seven HIMs more foolish braver than I posted on a pleasant Thursday morning.

There was some mumblechatter leading up to the disclaimer, including discussion on the structural strength of triangles and parking on glass shards. It was special.

Disclaimer made, followed by a mosey around the parking lot a couple times. I think we stretched a bit, maybe did some windmills, some squats, and I know we did some merkins. Then we went up to the parking lot by the abandoned grocery store. I don’t know what it was. We were in cat lady territory.

In the parking lot, cones were laid out. Three cones marked “center,” with four cones lined up in 5-yard increments going one direction and four cones lined up in 10-yard increments going the other direction. PAX divided into two teams of two pairs each and the Board of Bad Decisions made its debut. The general guideline: teams compete in assigned exercise to determine who will choose from the board. Winning team would then pick a number (1-6; pushing exercises), a letter (A-F; static exercises) and a shape (I think we had circle, square, rectangle, oval, trapezoid, and triangle; movements). The numbered and lettered exercises would be performed in pairs, with partner A doing one set of the assigned number of reps of numbered exercise while partner B holds assigned letter exercise. Then both partners would perform the shape movement to the cone 5 yards away, run back past center to the 10-yard cone on the other side, back to center, movement to second cone on first side, run to second cone on other side, etc. It’s like a double-sided suicide cupcake. It really makes more sense when you’re DOING it, though double-sided cupcakes sound delicious.

You’ll have to trust me on that.

Round 1:

Teams competed in static crow hold. It lasted maybe 5 seconds. Do more yoga.

Exercises:

4 X 25 squat jumps per person

Hollow body rocks

Burpee broad jumps (these were only done to 5-yard cone each time)

Round 2:

Teams competed in 15 burpees. Same team won this round.

Exercises:

5 X 20 lunges per leg per person (this took FOREVER)

Planche plank (like plank, but with hands under hips)

Sneaky gorilla

Round 3:

No competition. The team that kept losing got to choose.

Exercises:

4 X 25 Makhtar N’Diayes

Al Gores

Walking humpers (walking in monkey humper position; we only did the 10-yard and 20-yard cones on one side and the 20 and 40-yard cones on the other)

We ran out of time to go any further. Quick mosey back to COT, where there were some announcements and some prayer requests. All I remember is, there are a lot of us with friends and family members with serious health issues. Please be in prayer for them, the people caring for them, and our brothers who are affected.

Thanks to Peg for the opportunity to do this, and to the PAX who showed up and dealt with my insanity. They learned mid-way through that this was originally supposed to be for one of my BEYOND Q’s, but I didn’t have a good place at the AO to do it, so it got shelved…and modified. There’s a harder version that will make an appearance sometime soon.

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Tires, sledgehammers, dumbbells and ropes

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I saw that Royale was on Q once again so I decided to step up and steal the Q from him, great opportunity to lead a group of 19 PAX that decided to get better. Jedi, Olaf and Cha-Ching went for a pre run unaware of the beat down that was planned staring at 5:15.

Quick disclaimer  and welcomed one FNG (Hawkeye)

We started the warm up with a 2 minute run around the parking lot and then circled up for the following:

20 Windmills

20 LBC’s

20 side straddle hops

10 worst merkin ever, non stop from werkin to merkin to derkin

We moseyed to the boat-trailer parking lot  for the real thing, quick explanation of the workout, we had 4 station/corner setup,  we split into groups 1 to 4 and one group went to each corner, from station  1 to 2 and 3 to 4 we run, from station 2 to 3 and 4 to 1 we bear crawled, exercises were listed as follow:

STATION 1

-> 15 big boy sit ups

-> 20 rosalitas

-> 30 Sledgehammer swings (15 each side)

-> 30 Heel Touches SC

-> 30 Dying Cockroach SC

STATION 2

-> 10 two hand triceps ext

-> 15 two hand biceps curls

-> 25 dumbbell swing

-> 30 Makhtar N’Diayes

-> 50 Carolina drydocks

STATION 3

-> 10  Tire flips

-> 15  Low slow squats IC

-> 20 lateral lunges  (10 each side)

-> 30 jump squats

-> 50 calf raises

STATION 4

-> 10 diamond merkins

-> 15 wide arm merkins

-> 20 regular merkins

-> 30 battle rope wave SC

-> 40 plank jacks

-> 50 Shoulder taps

Each group was able to complete 7 stations (one full round of all 4 station plus 3 stations depending on the order each group started), timing was of the essence, first full round was completed in about 17 minutes (26 minutes into the workout) but exhaustion sat in and second round took longer, everyone pushed themselves hard and that “extra 40%” effort was burned during the second round.

With 2 minutes to spare we sprint back to COT for announcements, prayers and praises.

Welcome back Brickhouse and FNG Hawkeye!!

Tinsel out…

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10

Fun times with Cable Guy

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9 Strong Men braved the cool weather and a Cable Guy Q

Brief disclaimer given and a nice warm-up mosey to the middle of he track

COP

20 Seal Jacks

20 Plank Jacks

20 SSH

20 Mountain Climbers

20 IW

20 Peter Parkers

20 Slow Squats with a calf raise

20 Parker Peters

20 Moroccan Night Clubs

Mosey over to the side of the track closest to the school

do 10 dips and run a lap

repeat 10 times

Bonus round for those who finished early!

Mosey over to the wall for some Peoples Chair and Burpees (wouldn’t be a Cable Guy Q without Burpees!)

Start from one en and do one Burpee each and back to the wall

Round 2 was 2 Burpees each

Round 3 was 3 Burpees each

Proper technique was suggested!!

Round 4 was a changeup of Ball to the Wall and 1 Burpee down the line

Mosey back to COT

Spoke about the tragedy at The Peach Stand yesterday. Prayed for both the victims family and the suspect for forgiveness. Also spoke about school shootings and Det. Doty. Prayed for peace!

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