Tag: Backdraft

The Hive: Kettlebells, rain, tabata. What could go wrong?

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0505 show up to the hive for prep. Layout cones and other various gear needed.
0510 see cars and trucks and more cars and trucks pulling into parking lot.
0514 Disclaimer and see another truck pull in (its Stang, we start to mosey for warm ups.)
0515 Warmups of various types.
0522 Start a Tabata that has to called out by Q due to speaker not working. ended up being great. I love mumble chatter and it was rolling good this moist morning.
8 stations- 2-3 PAX per station they went as follows.
Goblet Squats
Figure 8s
Shoulder presses with rucksack
Jump Rope
Alternating bicep curls
American Hammers
1 arm KB swings
Alternating hand on KB merkins
0600- Mosey with gear back to COT. The rain really started to pour down.
Prayers and Praises.
AkA- if you don’t know you better ask somebody.
Q Source
prayers for marriages and kids.

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3

Return to the Gloom

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15 PAX Strong posted to the Fort on Saturday. It seemed fitting that my return to the Gloom would be where it all started back in October of 2012. The Fort! I started that workout  an FNG and finished it almost spilling merlot! Got a “cool” name. I also found a brotherhood of guys who aren’t that much different than me. Found something I never knew I needed too. I went all in, with a small hiatus of a hernia repair surgery, brought on by all this new activity. Fast Forward several years and several CSAUPs later. Life happens. New job. Life challenges. Deceleration. I went full #kotter there for quite some time. Sure I went to an occasional workout here and there but in my heart I knew I was decelerating.

So I recently moved to a neighborhood that is populated with quite a few F3 brothers. They really laid into me strong and got me back out to the gloom. I can’t even remember why or when the deceleration started, but this is what makes F3 great! Your proximity to other men. They’ll get in the weeds with you and stay on you and won’t leave you behind. All this to say, if you haven’t seen a guy around in a while, reach out to them. Call them out on twitter. Chances are it’s what they need!

Now onto the 1 hour CSAUP that I crammed down their throats:

Prior to the beatdown Dirty Harry and Punchlist did the 12 Mile Time Hack #weirdos #rucking #330starttime. A couple of us pre-rucked, which was nice.

0630 Time to Roll, this was referenced as a ruck “friendly” workout. So some had rucks, others did not, it was difficult either way.

THANG
-Mosey around the park, stop for some SSH, Merkins and Windmills
-Mosey some more and stop for some Mtn Climbers and a few others I forgot
-Mosey to the…wait for it…

RING OF FIRE
Large Circle comprised of 8 cones. Each cone has an exercise and count. There’s also a cone in the middle.
-Start in the middle and do 5 burpees
-Walk to first cone, do the exercise
-Bear Crawl to the center cone, do 5 burpees
-Walk to the next cone, Repeat
-After completing the ring, run around the playground, return and start over…see how many times you can complete the ring

Here were the exercises and counts (memory is fuzzy):
1. 15 Merkins
2. 20 Lunges (10 each leg)
3. 30 Flutter Kicks (2-count)
4. 15 GTOs (Ground to Overhead) w/ 40# sandbags
5. 20 Squats (either w/ Ruck or Block)
6. 30 Big Boy Situps
7. 20 CDD
8. 30 Mtn Climbers

Half the PAX did it with Rucks on. It was equally difficult for all though. If you had a ruck on you probably got 2 rounds in. No ruck probably got 3 or close to it.

Some notable take-aways:
-Pax get punch-drunk when the workout gets rough
-Apparently noon is not the time to go to a certain type of club
-Tesh kept his shirt on
-Geronimo took his shirt off 😐
-Each round represented 40 burpees and 2-3 rounds were completed…do the math #ouch

I think we were all glad when this one was over.

COT
Announcements
Prayers and Praise
BOM

Thanks to Bonsai for the opportunity. And thanks to my brothers for encouraging me to get back after it. Glad to be back in the Gloom!

Aye!
Zima

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Shorties – Freedom and Lawnmower Parents

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With this weeks QSource focus on Shorties and the recent college scandals, I thought I would look at how parents are preventing their children from growing up.
Mosey to parking Lot
The usual variety of COP exercises
Q Source 1.6 Spur
    • A man gives everything he has for his children
    • The IMPACT (for good or bad) that a man has on his children cannot be underestimated
    • The HIM’s Commitment provides his children freedom
Mosey to Gun Shop
  • Kids aren’t growing up: Shocking new poll says parents are killing kids’ life skills
  • Parents are preventing their adult children from growing up by doing things for them, including making appointments and intervening where they work
  • Note: percentages are the numbers performed.
  • SSH – 76 % reminded their adult children of deadlines they need to meet, including for schoolwork
  • LBC’s – 14 % helped them get jobs or internships through professional network
  • Squats – 22 % helped them study for a college test
  • MNC – 74 % made appointments for them, including doctor’s appointments
Mosey to Parking Lot
  • Growing up means making mistakes
  • Parents never let their children grow up. Growing up means making your own decisions, and sometimes, mistakes.
  • “The point is to prepare the kid for the road, instead of preparing the road for the kid,”
  • Bomb Jacks – 15 % of parents with children in college had texted or called them to wake them up so they didn’t sleep through a class or test.
  • Hello Dollies – 16 % helped write all or part of a job or internship application
  • Monkey Humpers – 14 % told them which career to pursue
  • Merkins – 11 % helped write an essay or school assignment
Mosey – to another parking lot
  • “If you’re doing it in high school, you can’t stop at college,” she said. “If you’re doing it in college, you can’t stop when it comes to the workplace. You have manufactured a role for yourself of always being there to handle things for your child, so it gets worse because your young adult is ill-equipped to manage the basic tasks of life.”
  • Parents eventually have to take a back seat and let their kids drive their own lives. “You can’t just arrive them at the future you want for them. They have to do the work to build the skills,” she said.
  • Burbees- 11 % of parents with adult children will call their child’s employer if he or she had an issue at work
  • Freddie Mercuries -12 % gave more than $500 per month for rent or daily expenses
  • Lunges – 8 % of parents said they had contacted a college professor or administrator about their child’s grades or a problem they were having
  • Dips – 4 % wrote all or part of an essay or other school assignment
  • If need time – Head to power light hill
COT
  • When it comes to rushing things down to the school,   If there were no smartphones, would the child feel his or her request was enough of an emergency to use the school office phone to call the parent about? Then it might be a legitimate rescue scenario.
  • Scripture: Fathers, do not exasperate your children; instead, bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord.   Ephesians  6:4

Always an honor to lead.   Appreciate the opportunity.

Cornhole, Out

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3

Preparing For the Storm

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I was excited to be the Q at The Colosseum this cool morning and my attempt to push the Pax at one of The Fort well known challenging AO’s.  Being one of the older pax, I wanted to push everyone physically and also share what has been going on in my life storm and how I have felt the love and support of the Pax.

A short disclaimer was given since all of the Pax were well versed in F3.  Off we moseyed to the basketball courts and circled up for some warm-up.

  • Wind mill
  • SSH
  • Squats
  • Merkins
  • 6 inch hold 10 sec
  • Mountain Climber
  • MNC

Moseyed to the back bus entrance drive for some light pole work.  I arrived early and with the side walk chalk (borrowed from a neighbors child, DD made mention that my kids were to old for sidewalk chalk) I put an exercise at 6 poles.  Start at 1st pole, do the exercise and run to 2nd.  Return back to 1st and go 2nd, 3rd and return.  Continue this up the hill to the 6th pole and back.

Poles:

  • 20 Merkins
  • 30 Squats
  • 30 Monkey Humpers
  • 10 Burpees
  • 20 CDD
  • 25 Dips

Once all Pax completed then we went back to the 6th pole and worked our way back to the 1st pole.

Mosey back to the basketball court for Mary.

  • Freddie Mercury
  • Dynamic LBC (LBC with feet at 6 inches)
  • Hello Dolly
  • American hammer

This past week has been one of the toughest in our parenting years.  When we got a call at 1:30am from our 21 yr old daughter and she had a serious accident and her car flipped and then caught on fire, our hearts sank.  Thankfully through the Grace of God, all of the events of that night turned out to be ok for our daughter physically.  No injuries and just a loss of material items.  This has opened our eyes to a couple of things.  God’s love and protection of His children even when sometimes we have run far away from Him.  Mental Illness is real and when you see your adult age children struggle with this, it is heart breaking.  The relationships that we build in F3 are real and I have felt the love and support of the PAX.

In the QSource we talk about preparing for the expected and unexpected and the unexpected preparation was confusing to me.  I now understand that for me, this preparation was building the relationships with My Lord, My Shieldlock, Pax and having a good relationship with my M. When the unexpected storms of life come and crash on the beach, you have to have others around to help walk through the storm and lift you up.  I have felt this over the past week.

Thanks to Jekyll for the opportunity to Q and share!!!

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The Fort: Flat Tire & Band Camp

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8 PAX gathered in the gloom among many more vehicles than the represented by the posting. Clearly some P200 Runners were  training in our midst.

Flat Tire on Q

Disclaimer

Clockwise Mosey full-loop around jogging path.
COP IC
SSH
Imperial walkers
Windmill
Wide arm merkins
Low slow squats with calf raise
Bomb jacks
Overhead claps

Mosey down jogging path to mile marker for group work
At each marker, start with 1 exercise, 5 count.
At each subsequent marker do that again and add next exercise plus 5 more IC.

We did:
5 burpees
10 Scorpion Dry Docks
15 Freddy mercury
20 jumping lunges
25 mountain climbers

Mosey to the dreaded hill

Pick a partner around the same size
Wheelbarrow up hill
Walk back down and switch Back up

Handoff to Band Camp

Monkey Humpers x10
Howling Monkeys

Mosey down the hill towards set cones

Lateral Slalom through cones

Bearpees (OYO 1 Burpee followed up by 4 count bearcrawl forward) from cones to bottom of the hill

10 squats, 10 leg thrusts, 10 Merkins, 10 leg thrusts, then up (Deconstructed Burpee)

Bearpees back to cones (2 burpees, 8-count bear crawl). YHC had more of this planned but was smoked after two rounds…..If you can’t Q it, don’t do it….so I modified.

Plank–>Honeymooner–>Downdog–>High Lunge–>rinse repeat
Message during sequence

Lateral Slalom through cones x4

Plank–>yoga quad stretch (Crescent Lunge: Anjaneyasana)

Bear Crawl Slalom through cones x2

Slow mosey towards the hill (called out for walking by the returning-from-a-9-mile-run Gecko)
Crawl Bear up the hill

Mosey towards Calhoun St. field.

Bear crawl back to COT (this was a long way to bear crawl)

Plank
Shoulder Tap x10
J-Lo x6

Saved just enough time for some Pigeon Lunges

NMM

In my professional life as a music professor, I’ve been thinking about language and the way we talk to ourselves. After attempting something for the first time or a skill that is still developing, I often hear students say, “I can’t ______.” As if saying “I can’t” excuses them from needing the skill/competency/etc.

My response is often a little pithy at first. “Well you know what Abraham Lincoln said. If at first you don’t succeed. . . . . . just quit. You’re done.” This usually gets a little laughter. Then we redirect to more constructive language. E.g., I’m still developing that; I’m not there yet; (or if “can’t” must be in their vocabulary) I can’t do that yet. The yet makes all the difference; it allows for progress to happen in the future.

We would never talk to a friend the way we talk to ourselves. If a friend attempted something for the first time and failed, no one would seriously respond, “Oh well, guess you can’t do it.” But we tell ourselves that or something similar all the time. And what’s even worse: we believe it! By believing it, we make it true! Living out the definition of self-fulfilling prophecy.

In our inner monologue can we treat ourselves like a fellow PAX? Strive to create an internal language that leads to encouragement and acceleration. A language that allows for disruption rather than just perpetuates the status quo.

-Band Camp dismissed

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The Black Diamond “Webb Jiffy”

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This semi-warm morning started with YHC running up to the eager PAX at about 5:14 and 30 seconds.  Bonsai and YHC took a nice little detour on our way as we were engaged in conversation and your truly was on autopilot driving to WEP.  After dropping off the giant wienke and the tune machine, Bonsai and YHC hustled over.  After a very quick disclaimer, we jumped right into the warmup where we stood.

Warmup included: SSH x25, Windmill x8, low slow squats x10, merkins x10, big arm circles forward and backwards 5x / arm, Moroccan night clubs x20, downward dog and honeymooner, and last but not least mountain climbers x20.  We also did some shoulder stretches and you’re about to see why if you keep reading…

Medium paced mosey to the back of the school where the fun was about to begin.  As we gathered at the playground, we circled around the giant cardboard wienke which laid out a board of pain of sorts “Jack Webb” style…but with a “Webb Jiffy” black diamond twist (named Webb Jiffy b/c of Jiffy’s creation of the Dick Webb)!  I think this was my first (maybe second) black diamond Q, so I was excited to see how this played out.  I think it delivered once the reading ensued and was followed by groans and “you’ve got to be kidding me”.  There was no kidding, but there was music so that’s worth something!  Music got cranked on, we partnered up, and off we went!

The Thang – “Webb Jiffy” black diamond

This workout was “Jack Webb” inspired, and more notably Jiffy inspired for the comments noted above.  For anyone saying, “what is a Jack Webb”?  A Jack Webb is 1 merkin, 4 overhead claps; then 2 merkins, 8 overhead claps; 3 merk, 12 OC…all the way up to 10 merk, 40 OC.  So you get the idea…

Exercise 1 (again, Jack Webb based) – Name “Dick Webb” (black diamond version)

  • 1 chin up
  • 1 diamond merkin
  • 4 overhead claps
  • Repeat all the way to 10 chin up, 10 diamond, 40 overhead claps

Exercise 2 – named “Crack Webb”

  • 1 cracken burpee (1 burpee + 3 hand release merkins for the pushup part of the burpee)
  • 4 squats
  • Repeat all the way up to 10 cracken and 40 squats

Exercise 3 – name “Plank You Webb”

  • 1 merkin
  • 1 mak tar jai
  • 4 plank partner hand slaps
  • 4 plank jacks
  • Repeat all the way to 10 merkins, 10 MTJ, 40 hand slaps, 40 planks

PAX made it to “Plank You Webb” but we ran out of time.  Looking back to the workout, there was no stopping, no 10 counts, no stop for a message from the Q (which YHC should have done something).  From a positive light, this workout was very 1st F focused so there was mumblechatter during times of taking personal breaks and YHC considers that a win.

Mosey’d back to COT, took a quick pic for evidence, counted off with the Pennywise crew and name-o-rama followed by announcements, prayers and praises.  In the end, we pushed ourselves past what YHC would be close to categorizing as “looked good on paper”, but where you’re planning for black diamond and trying to #accelerate, no one quit and the partners ensured accountability.

Thanks to Jiffy for the opportunity and the push for YHC to challenge myself for this idea. Had a great time and actually still feeling the aftereffects…which may also be coming from Deacon’s Q at The Hive or the beating YHC just took from Band Camp and Flat Tire at The Fort.  Either way, I’m beat as I’m writing this!

Shady

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Cindy meets blackdiamond

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I am always looking for opportunities to push myself out of the ordinary and this was no exception, thanks to Jiffy for hosting the black diamond series of events at The Ranch, this time I put together a simple routine but hard enough to have everyone engaged for the majority of the time.

We started the day with a disclaimer with no FNG’s, then we moseyed around the parking lot for the warm up:

Windmills,

cherry pickers,

moroccan night clubs,

low slow squats,

low slow merkins

We moseyed around the side and back of school about 1/3 of a mile to meet a row of cinder blocks at the back entrance of the middle school, toy soldiers, butt kickers, high knees and NUR were included in the run.

The thang, ALL exercises had to be done with cindy:

10 man makers

push cindy 20 yards bear crawl style

10 flutters

push cindy 20 yards hairburner style

10 squats

push cindy 20 yards bear crawl style

10 big boy sit ups

push cindy 20 yards hairburner style

10 biceps curls

push cindy 20 yards bear crawl style

10 american hammers

push cindy 20 yards hairburner style

10 overhead press

push cindy 20 yards bear crawl style

10 bent over row

push cindy 20 yards hairburner style

10 triceps extensions.. rinse and repeat starting with man makers

Lots of mumble chatter, it was a crisp 28 degrees but most PAX decided to shred a layer or two of clothes since we were all sweating buckets (especially me) it was a non stop series of exercises and all PAX pushed really hard to stay together. GREAT WORK EVERYONE!! We were able to complete 2 full circuits and the third circuit we cut down on the block pushing and only did all exercises one more time:

10 man makers

10 flutters

10 squats

10 big boy sit ups

10 biceps curls

10 american hammers

10 overhead press

10 bent over row

10 triceps extensions

With about 10 minutes to spare it was time to go back to COT, we carried all blocks back to the truck, about 1/3 of a mile taking turns since we had 12 blocks and only 7 PAX.

We circled up for announcements, prayers and praises and ended our journey with a ball of men and the Q’s prayer.

Till we meet again, Tinsel out….

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Black Diamond #3 at the Ranch – Get Some

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Expected rain all morning, but instead we got a comfortable 40 degrees with wetness all around us.  Perfect for what we were about to get into.

Reminded the Pax that this was a Black Diamond workout and immediately had a reaction that made it clear that some were unaware lol.  Since I dislike warm-ups, I got right to our “warm-up”.

1 – I’ve done this before  w/ my speaker & the Seconds app on my phone (get it if you don’t have it – it’s an awesome timer / tabata app w/ the ability to add music).

  • First 5 minutes of warm-up:  each minute on the minute, we’re all going to do 35 really fast side straddle hops and 8 burpees.  Every minute.  End result is 175 ssh’s and 40 burpees in 5 minutes.
  • Next 5 minutes of warm-up:  no break, right into merkin mode.  11 merkins, 10 diamonds, 9 merkins, 8 diamonds, 7 merkins…down to 1 merkin.  I think we were warm.

2 – 1/4 mile burpee fun:  we moseyed over to the circle in front of the Middle School, which is a perfect 1/4 mile loop w/ some hills in it, which I failed to recognize when throwing this together.  We partnered up and I gave the Pax the bad news.  I set up my phone w/ it’s bright light stop watch timer to help.

  • Sprint with your partner the 1/4 mile loop as fast you can.  Why you might ask?  Because when you finish and see your time for that loop, you both have that many burpees to split halfsies on.  Back in High School, low to mid 50 seconds was acceptable for the 400m dash.  That’s not what we’re capable of anymore – ranged from 70 seconds to 85+ seconds, which meant each partner had 35 to 45 burpees to do apiece.
  • Round 2 – do it again.  Only this time, the challenge was that if you beat your prior lap time, you can cut the burpees in half.  Well no one beat their time, haha, so we still cut it in half anyway.  Most laps were in the 80-90 seconds range this time, which meant, 40-45 burpees to split w/ your partner, or 20-25 a piece.

3 – Pretty sure after this the Pax hated my guts.  From there we hit the longest straightaway I could find.  Same partners as before.  This time Partner 1 lines up 10-20 yards away from Partner 2.  Partner 1 starts back pedaling as fast as they can while Partner 2 has to sprint to catch them.  Wherever they are caught, you stop right there and do an exercise, then a mode of transportation back to the starting line.  We did 4 of these (each partner chased 2x and back pedaled 2x):

  • First round (once caught) – 15 bear crawl merkins, followed by broad jumps back to starting line
  • Second round – 25 lunge jumps (do each leg and that’s 1), followed by bear crawl back to starting line
  • Third round – 35 american hammers, followed by lunge walk back to starting line
  • Fourth round – 45 wide arm merkins, followed by bunny hop back to starting line

4 – We had 5 minutes, so had to make the most of it.  Quick DORA against the Elementary wall by CoT.  Partner 1 does Jump Squats and the timer was Partner 2 running to wall and doing 15 Mike Tyson merkins (those are honestly some of my least favorite merkins:  feet flat on wall at base of wall, merkin position, bring you six to the wall with feet staying put and then all the way forward so that your hands are almost at your ribs as you go down for merkin).  Once Partner 2 finished their 15 rep count, the partners switched.  Think most teams got to 100 or so jump squats before our time was up.

2 Ruckers, 1 Runner and 16 Black Diamond Boot Campers was the count.  Thanks to Jiffy for the chance to do whatever I want without having to worry about how terrible it sounds.  Appreciate everyone kicking a$$ and finishing it all.

Prayers:

  • Dark Helmet’s M is traveling this weekend – travel mercies
  • Dirty Harry’s M has last day of work / transitionary time for new opportunities / jobs
  • Olaf’s continued progress on limiting ADHDs adverse impact on his life
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#Varsity

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7 PAX joined YHC on this cool 30 degree morning for a tour of #NAFO.

NAFO has a large AO. We explored a good part of it.

Disclaimer – Disclaimed.

Mosey – Dynamic stretches; Karaoke left/right

COP: 45 SSH; in cadence

10 Widmills; in cadence

Mosey–> bear crawls ~25 yrds

Mosey–> 10 merkins; in cadence / Peter Parker / Parker Peter / Downward dog / Honeymooner

Mosey–> COP; hold plank while one PAX does a lap around the Round-About.

Mosey–> Lung walk to light post, bear crawl to next light post. Turn Around – Crawl Bear, broad jump back to starting point

Form 2 Teams:

~25 yard wind springs (loosing team 10 burpees / winning team: 10 flying squirrels)

~25 yard bear crawls (loosing team 10 burpees / winning team: 10 flying squirrels)

~25 yard wheel barrows; switch partners half way (loosing team 10 burpees / winning team: 10 flying squirrels)

Mosey to back of school:

Cinder-block work: 3 sets of 12 overhead press / 15 bicep curls

Mosey to chairs: 2 set of 20 box jumps / 20 dips

Mosey to COT –> ~3 min of Mary

COT

Thank you Harry Carry for the opportunity. I love this AO!

 

#CoopStrong

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The Workout!   16 Boot Campers and 2 Runners

After a lengthy disclaimer, we began the workout with a warm up –

  • 20 LSS
  • 25 SSH
  • 10 Merkins
  • 15 Seal Jacks
  • 10 WAMs

Mosey across 160 and down to McAllisters.  Here we took a break to talk about committing to a word of the year!

Dora #1

With partner run up stairs, across top of building, back down stairs and execute

  • 150 Merkins
  • 200 LSS
  • 300 Gas Pumpers

Dora #2 

Same running pattern with

  • 100 calf raises
  • 200 SSH
  • 300 LBC

A wee bit of stretching with a mosey back to COT.  This was perhaps a bit more than a “moderate,” but the admonition to moderate was liberally announced.  Good work by all and I think Maximus had worked up a sweat by close.

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