10 for the quarterly Tomahawk Test. 3D led warmup. Polaroid led test.
Welcome special guest Thumbelina from Greenville!!
I was excited to Q Block Party after the co-Q at The Fort on Sat. I arrived early and saw 7 runners take off at 5:00 sharp with Bird Cage leading the way down the back trail. Cars began to file in and the cars kept coming. I wasn’t expecting a large crowd and then I heard that CSPAN was still in town and was coming to Block Party so I knew there would be a big and rowdy crowd on hand.
Once we hit 5:15, no FNG’s were present so a short disclaimer and off we moseyed. Since the park has several obstacles littering the grass from the festival, I was going outside of the park. We moseyed to the first parking lot up front and circled up.
Mosey over to the sidewalk and wall near Springs Global. 3 exercises , 3 sets, decreasing reps each set.
Mosey to the big hill and meet at the top parking lot. 3 excercises, 15 reps each, then run to bottom of the hill and come back up the hill backwards.
Mosey back to the sidewalk and wall where we started and do one more set of dips and derkins 20 & 15. Mosey back to the park. Since we had a few minutes left I decided to take a lap around the park on the path for an added bonus. We ended back at the parking lot for set of LBC’s.
This was a great morning and I enjoyed the chatter and hard work. Through the Q Source, I have been motivated to look for ways to continue to accelerate in all areas. I shared with the group that I have been successful in accelerating in King, Queen and Jester control, but the last 4 weeks the QSource was focused on Faith. I was convicted that I am not accelerating in study and recognize the need to have my shield locks there to hold me accountable and provide the push I need. I asked everyone to think of where they need to accelerate and who are they going to have beside them to hold them accountable.
Thanks Esso for the opportunity to Q and lead the Pax.
Rebel
Disclaimer
Short Mosey
Warmup:
SSH (IC 12x)
Windmill (IC 12x)
Imperial Walker (IC 12x)
Cherry pckers (IC 12x)
Low Slow Squats (IC12x)
Merkin (IC 12x)
Peter Parker (IC 12x)
Plank stretches
Downward dog
Honeymooner
Thang 1
Honoring the 31 Heroes of Chinook flight Extortion 17, shot down in Afghanistan in 2011.
Routine
Partner up
Partner 1 runs 400M loop
Partner 2 begins exercise routine:
31 LBCs (switches to heels to heaven about half way )
31 CCD’s (switches to Dips)
31 Squats (switches to Calf raises)
P1 picks up where P2 left off
Cycle through for 31 mins
Run to Pull up bars
Thang 2
Honoring Senior Chief Petty Officer Kraig Vickers (one of the 31 heroes aboard Extortion 17). Kraig was a Hawaii native.
10 L pullups
10 toes-to-bar
10 chin ups
10 knees-to-elbow
10 Burpee pullups
Mosey back to COT area
Five minutes of Mary
COT
Prayers/Praises
Goruck went well and no injured PAX
Prayers for Stang and his family with the loss of his grandfather; prayers for those in medical care; praises for PL’s baby getting past eczema.
Welcome FNG Alchemy, who is Dirty Harry’s nephew in the CLT area for some weeks and will be posting with us.
15 men joined YHC to make 16 total at the Coop this morning. Simple weinkie…important concept.
Mosey to football field.
Warmup
Kept it short…we would need the time.
The Thang
Simple…partner Murph. Straightforward exercise, but the key was to stick with your partner and encourage/push him along the way.
COT
Announcements – Memorial Day CSAUP, Ruck Heavy this weekend.
Prayers for travelers, UNCC school shooting, teachers in general.
Thanks for the opportunity to lead Punch List.
MOLESKIN
The partner theme was appropriate this morning. During the course of the morning with the PAX, I learned about a member of The Fort that has had marital troubles and subsequently split from his wife and another whose marriage is in a difficult patch as well.
It may or may not have been the case with these men in particular, but as sinners, we are incapable of living up to the standard that Christ set for us and as a result, we make poor decisions that often lead to terrible consequences. The funny thing is that often times, these decisions are made at times in our lives where we think we are at our best (pride comes before the fall). Our pride and self-righteousness blinds us to the efforts of the enemy that is constantly looking for ANY opportunity to tear down, separate, and destroy.
One of the best ways to fight this lifelong battle is to find a partner to do battle with. Someone that will push you, lift you up, and most importantly, hold you accountable (just like you will do for them). Someone that will recognize your pride and the small poor decisions that always lead to big poor decisions and check you before they tear you down. Someone that will constantly encourage you to put yourself 3rd, serving Christ first and your wife and family second. This is what we are called to do for each other.
If you don’t have a partner that believes in the same set of values and has similar goals as you do, do yourself and your family a favor and find one. We are not designed to go through our lives alone and unchecked.
– Ginsu
WarmORama–
Mosey around the full parking lot. Intermittently throwing in toy soldiers, high knees, and butt kickers.
Exercises not necessarily in this order:
Windmills, SSH, Merkins, Imperial Walkers and Mountain Climbers
The Thang-
Everything in cadence slow and intentional (except where noted SC).
20x SSH SC
5 Burpees SC
20 Mountain Climbers SC
A mosey around the parking lot
Asked for a couple of favorites since we had time. So we performed more LBCs and rows.
We all need to slow life down a bit. Everything pulls at us from all directions. Work with productivity/work efficiency, family, children events etc. I asked for things that we do to slow it down a bit. Moving appointment to avoid family time and putting down our phones was mentioned to help.
We finished with a Round of Mary
COT
Count off
NameORama
Praises and Prayers
Prayers for those on IR; Ruckers and their 24 hour event coming up, praise for healed collarbone.
Thanks for the opportunity to Q JWow
About a year ago, YHC successfully evaded a request from Tesh to Q at the Hive, citing lack of experience at a kettlebell AO – and a lack of a kettlebell – as sufficient reason to decline. He never asked again. Band Camp comes along and won’t take “no” for an answer, providing sufficient responses to all my excuses. So, here we are. Jedi’s first post at a kettlebell AO ever, and he’s given Q responsibilities. This’ll be interesting…
0514:45 rolls around and just as I’m about to give the disclaimer, 38 Special rolls in without any sign of urgency, so we patiently waited for him to gracefully park the car and meander to the group. A disclaimer was given with a half-hearted apology that I truly have no idea what I’m doing, and off we went on a mosey around the parking lot. Threw in some knees-to-chest, heels-to-butt, and toy soldiers to get some mobility in before circling back up where we started.
COP
Slowly walk a few feet over with the bells to line up with the cones that I had (apparently mysteriously) laid out across the parking lot. Basically, every row of parking spots had a cone, making for 6 cones (no cones were placed in the lines where we parked, since I didn’t know where people park at the Hive). Anyway, lunge walk with bell held inverted goblet style, twisting and lowering the bell to both sides before standing up and taking the next step. This was to be our mode of transportation forward. When we got to a cone, lose the bell, run back to the curb at the edge of the parking lot by the school, then back to the cone where we would all do the exercise together-ish. Then lunge walk to the next cone (as before), run to the curb and back (as before), exercise, etc.
Exercises on cones:
That was fun. We still had maybe 6-7 minutes left, so we did a little AMRAP Gorilla Complex until time was up.
One arm at a time, do:
That brought us to 0559, so we grabbed the bells and returned to COT to wrap up at 0600.
Fair amount of mumblechatter, lots of quiet. Slow and steady, but we still pulled in a mile of running. For those wondering, holding the bell “bottoms up” style engages more stabilizer muscles through your forearm and makes you focus on good form. Most of us realized a significant difference between our two arms when holding the bell differently, as our non-dominant arm usually lacks the stability of the dominant one.
So, that happened. I can now say I’ve done a kettlebell workout. See you again in two years.
Jedi.
Sometime in the last couple of weeks, YHC’s youngest 2.0 wanted to watch a Disney movie that I never wanted to see. I did my best to pick apart the plot holes and inconsistencies to keep myself entertained, and the thing that stuck out the most was the fact that the main character, some lady with absurdly long hair, could wield a cast iron frying pan as if were a hair brush or whiffle ball bat.. I walked into my kitchen and picked up my iron skillet and noticed that swinging it around would require someone to be JACKED…
The night of the 23rd, a plyometric box, 3 bells (20, 25, and 30), as well as a cast iron skillet (with lid) were loaded into the back of YHC’s suv. The M was very confused. The morning of the workout, I arrived around 0505 and had to navigate through half a dozen runners who answered Polaroid’s call for a pre run. It’s alway encouraging to see such bad-assery so early in the morning. Today would be a good day to Q.
During setup PAX continued to arrive in droves. I plunked down the plyo box in a parking space and held onto the cards I made to deploy depending on group size. Thankfully, Polaroid threw his slam ball into the COT, so I grabbed it and threw it into the plyo box space so everyone would be able to have fun
Overall, 20 PAX appeared in the gloom at The Tomahawk. A lot of faces were new to YHC, and so we quickly talked about the 5 core principals and disclaimed.
Started with a quick mosey around the parking lot to warm up those whom had not already accumulated a couple miles, circling up on the east side (more of an ellipse).
2 sets of single-leg stretches (one leg bent, six close to the earth, other leg straight with toes up) Lots of mumble chatter already
Hands down into plank
10 werewolf merkins – The chatter continues
Back into plank
Mosey to pick up the bells and count off by 5’s.
Four stations were created including that of the plyo box.
PAX worked on their station exercise while the timer group grabbed the cast iron skillet and walked to the other end of the lot and back. The skillet was to be held with arm at a 90 degree angle, holding the handle with the skillet extended (in theory but not often in practice). At 15lbs it’s not that heavy, but holding just the handle makes for a sneaky bit o pain. The other PAX of the group would distribute the remaining bells and walk with the skillet holder, trading off as necessary. Optionally, the PAX could do lunges at the station.
Genuinely cannot recall the ORDER of the exercises, but below is what was available to the non plyo spots.
Snatch and squat
Plank Row
American Hammer
Goblet Squat
Upright Row
Man Maker
Plank Pass Through
Lawn Mower Pulls
Swings
One station was dedicated to the plyometric box (20x24x30) and the slam ball.
After each group visited each station the PAX were pulled aside for some group exercises.
Between sets 1-2
10x Imperial Walker
10x Merkin
Sets 2-3
10x Imperial Walker
10x Hillbilly Walker
10x Straight leg kicks (each leg)
One station short of a full third set and it was time to hit COT. Name-o-rama revealed the presence of an FNG, now named Tricycle (WELCOME!!!).
Polaroid got the former site Qs together and handed off the shovel flag to 3D.
Announcements were announced and the COT ended with a prayer. Great work by all the PAX. YHC is truly humbled and honored to have gotten to Q this day.
17 strong at The Armory. The weather was great and the iron was aplenty.
As always, I appreciate the opportunity to lead and associate with such a great group of men. Good work today from everyone.
18 #HIM’s chose to avoid the fartsack on a mild Thursday morning. YHC called his own number and brought out a PAX favorite from the past and, thanks to the efforts of Esso, a FNG joined us for the festivities. After disclaimers were placed, a welcome given to the FNG and a brief description of what F3 is, we moseyed off through a few parking lots to COP…..but just a few.
COP – YHC was reminded through various events of this week what makes F3 what it is. In light of those experiences, it seemed appropriate after 20 MNC’s in cadence to hold the pose and go around the circle of #HIMs with each taking a few moments to talk about who brought them into F3 and what keeps them coming back. After a lengthy hold, we proceeded to do 10 more MNC’s in cadence…..just because. Then we did the following:
Imperial Walkers x 15 (I/C)
SSH X 30 (I/C – varying speeds)
Merkins X 15 (I/C)
Staying in the plank, moving to Mountain Climbers X 10 (I/C)
Hold the plank – right arm high and left arm high, regular holds, and 6 inch hold with Stang administering a dubious 10 count, YHC’s interpretation of its duration was called into question and, as a result, excessive mumble chatter by the PAX threw YHC off. Therefore, penalty burpees were called. After which……
Low Slow Squats X 15
Mosey to the Main Event
Main event – YHC’s first Q at Laces In seemed to provoke not so subtle comments from various PAX – some of whom were in attendance this morning. Only appropriate to call a Jacob’s Ladder consisting of Burpees at the Bottom, Carolina Dry Docks at the top (2nd lightpole up the hill toward Munn Road), and lunge walking to get there (Mosey back down to bottom after each sequence). All exercises added up to 10 since 10 PAX were present – 9 burpees, lunge walk two poles, 1 CDD, mosey back down, 8 burpees, lunge walk, 2 CDD, mosey down, you get the idea.
10 additional burpees were called at the end…..just because. In addition, planks or Al Gores were held until the 6 was in. The main event (always popular) took us until 5:53 so time to mosey back to COT for a little Mary:
American Hammers X 15 (I/C)
Protractor (varying degrees with holds of varying lengths of time)
Rosalitas X 10 (I/C) – YHC was not so subtly reminded of the proper angle from which this should be done – thanks was given to the PAX for keeping YHC in line.
Boxcutters X 10 (I/C)
Body Destroyer for 40 seconds and we put a wrap on things for the morning.
Welcome FNG – Heathcliff and T-Claps to Esso for the EH.
Announcements – Read your newsletter, Custom Ruck event 5-4-19 and Travis Mannion W/O at WEP on 4-27-19.
Prayers – for families, those traveling for the spring break holiday and prayers to remember the true reason for celebration of the Easter weekend and what it should mean to all of us.
Honored to Serve,
Cyclops
10 at the hive for a Go Ruck inspired Kettle Bell workout
Warm-up began with:
We then moved to the side of the parking lot to complete the body of the workout
10 sets of:
Finished at exactly 6:00… Just like I had planned…