Tag: Band Camp

Start of May at the Coop…the Murph, partner style

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15 men joined YHC to make 16 total at the Coop this morning. Simple weinkie…important concept.

Mosey to football field.

Warmup

  • 20 side straddle hops
  • 5 burpees OYO
  • 10 windmills
  • 5 burpees OYO
  • 15 big arm circles
  • 5 burpees OYO

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.

  • 1 mile run
  • 100 pull ups
  • 200 push up
  • 300 air squats
  • 1 mile run

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

 

 

 

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7

Slow and Intentional now at Armory

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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).

  • Right arm curl 5x
  • Left arm curl 5x
  • Right overhead tricep extension 5x
  • Left overhead tricep extension 5x

20x SSH SC

  • Goblet Squat 10x
  • Right leg lunge 5x
  • Left leg lunge 5x
  • Calf raises 10x

5 Burpees SC

  • Merkin with bell in RH 5x
  • Merkin with bell in LH 5x
  • Bent over row RH 5x
  • Bent over row LH 5x

20 Mountain Climbers SC

  • Shoulder Press RH 5x
  • Shoulder Press LH 5x
  • Carolina Dry Docks w bell in RH 5x
  • Carolina Dry Docks w bell in LH 5x

A mosey around the parking lot

  • American Hammers 5x
  • LBCs 10x
  • Kettlebell lateral swings RH 5x
  • Kettlebell lateral swings LH 5x

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

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5

Bottoms Up at the Hive

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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

  • 10 Windmills IC
  • 20 Moroccan Night Clubs IC
  • 12 Hillbilly Squat Walkers IC
  • 10 Merkins IC
  • Downward Dog with cross-body reach, through to honeymooner, then recover

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:

  • 20 Renegade Rows per arm (somehow this was a new exercise to the PAX; maybe they know it by a different name?)
  • 50 Toe touches (on your back, legs straight up, hold bell “bottoms up” style and touch toes)
  • 20 Bottoms Up Arnold Presses per arm (hold handle with the bell sticking up rather than resting on forearm, hand facing in at shoulder level then forward at the top of the press)
  • 20 Single Leg Deadlifts per leg (holding bell in same side arm as leg that goes up behind)
  • 50 Overhead V-Ups (um…hold the bell overhead and do a V-up)
  • 30 Crush Chest Presses (kneeling, squeeze bell between open hands rather than holding it with the handle or even using your fingers, then press straight out in front and bring back to chest)

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:

  • 8 bicep curls
  • 8 upright rows
  • 8 strict presses (preferably bottoms up)
  • 8 triceps extensions
  • Lose the bell and do 8 normal merkins
  • Switch arms and do it again

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.

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15

Frying Pan Fun

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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 Setup

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.

The warmup

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

The workout

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.

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3

Beep beep I’m a jeep, clank clank I’m a tank

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17 strong at The Armory. The weather was great and the iron was aplenty.

Warm up

  • SSH 25 I.C.
  • Windmill 10 I.C.
  • Leg stretches
  • Merkins 10 I.C.
  • Mountain Climbers (foot all the way up to hands) 10 I.C.
  • Moroccan Night Club 15 I.C.
  • Imperial Walker 15 I.C.
  • Hillbilly Walker 15 I.C.
  • Mosey over to the middle of the parking lot

The Thang

  • 10 Man Makers
  • 10 Turkish getups (5 each arm)
  • Split into Teams Alpha and Bravo
  • 1st timing mechanism: mosey with bell while other team does exercise
      1. High pulls
      2. Curls
      3. Triceps
  • 2nd timing mechanism: bear crawl drag bell
      1. V ups skull crusher
      2. Thrusters
      3. Calf raises
  • 3rd timing mechanism: “Beep beep I’m a Jeep, clank clank I’m a tank” (“Jeep” is a duck walk with bell close to chest. “Tank” is a duck walk holding the bell out in front.
      1. Flutter presses
      2. Dead lift
      3. Around the world

As always, I appreciate the opportunity to lead and associate with such a great group of men. Good work today from everyone.

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3

Leg Day

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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

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10 at the hive for a Go Ruck inspired Kettle Bell workout

Warm-up began with:

  • Short mosey
  • SSH
  • Moroccan Nightclubs
  • Hillbilly Walkers
  • Imperial Walkers
  • Windmills.

We then moved to the side of the parking lot to complete the body of the workout

10 sets of:

  • Suitcase carry of bell to far end of parking lot and back AFAP (switch hands at far end) *Tesh estimated this to be 80 yards each way.. Far more than the 50 that I had intended…
  • Once back 10 Goblet Squats and 10 Swings then repeat
  • Final 5 sets had 10 Lunges, 10 Plank Pass Through, and 10 Overhead Press added to reps due to mumble about how easy the back-blast would be to write

Finished at exactly 6:00… Just like I had planned…

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4

Smokey VQ

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“Final 4” NCAA theme workout to work 4 muscle groups.  Freezing 32 degrees, but we got warm fast!

Tomahawk (Kettle Bell)

 

Warmup: (10 minutes)

  • Side-straddle Hops (25)
  • Windmill (25)
  • Low Slow Squats
  • Moroccan Nightclub
  • Cherry Pickers
  • Jog around the parking lot

Exercise: (35 minutes)

  • LEGS
    • Lunge (1 min) Exercise group A
    • Squats (1 min) Exercise group A
    • Run to the end of the parking lot!
    • Calf Raises (1 Min) Exercise group B
    • Sumo Squat (1 Min) Exercise group B
    • Run to the end of the parking lot!
  • ARMS
    • Curls L (1 min) Exercise group A
    • Curls R (1 min) Exercise group A
    • Run to the end of the parking lot!
    • Skull Crushers (1 Min) Exercise group B
    • Chest Press (1 Min) Exercise group B
    • Run to the end of the parking lot!
  • CORE
    • Big Boy Sit-ups (1 min) Exercise group A
    • Flutters (1 min) Exercise group A
    • Run to the end of the parking lot!
    • Freddy Merc (1 min) Exercise group B
    • Box Cutters (1 min) Exercise group B
    • Run to the end of the parking lot!
  • BACK
    • Kettle Bell Swings (1 min) Exercise group A
    • Upright Row (1 min) Exercise group A
    • Run to the end of the parking lot!
    • Bent over Rows L (1 min) Exercise group B
    • Bent Over Rowes R (1 min) Exercise group B
    • Run to the end of the parking lot!

 

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5

UNO (a VQ dream)

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3D’s VQ premiered an UNO workout with 12 guys.

(3D finally got access to post this.  Sorry for the delay.  It was so popular DropThrill has used it since.  Some of this is copied from his BackBlast.)

Shuffle the deck of Uno cards and whatever the number is, you perform that number of reps with the exception of 0 being 10. The color of the cards determines the exercise. You have to play your cards just like in Uno. Color on same color, or same number on same number.

Blue = Kettlebell curls
Green = LBC’s
Yellow = Squats with or without bell
Red = Upright rows
Skip = Run a lap
+2 = Two reps of 2 exercises from the list (player’s choice)
+4 = Four reps of all four exercises
Reverse = Do the same exercise you just performed
Wild = Change color

Sounds simple right? It is, until you get stuck on a color or number for a while.

If you dont have a card to play, you draw another card and have to do a Burpee.  The crew flipped this and in the spirit of camaraderie, everyone did a Burpee for every card drawn.

Folks tried to call out Uno, but we didn’t have a contingency for this.  Something to add for next time.

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4

Philly Inspired Psy-Ops CSPAN at the Coop

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34 was the count at the coop and it was a great morning at the Coop with the temperatures near perfect and a special guest visit by Grand-Tan, CSPAN himself.  It was great to catch up with a #HIM and for his presence in the PAX.  But you can’t have  Grand-Tan return without a little engagement in the routine.  CSPAN honored us with his slightly angry, Philly version of a warm up.  The good news is that the PAX was angry at him and not me.
Prayers for Shady and his spill on the sprint back to COT and subsequent trip to the MD.  Grateful for Dirty Harry and his field ops specialty and coolness under pressure.  The highlight of the morning was watching guys step ups and do their part when another brother was in need.  That my friends is F3!
Message: Be Still
  • Where does your mind go in the stillness?
  • Regrets for the past, fears of the future, how many of us were thankful for the moment, how often do we use stillness in the moment to experience God’s voice and direction … I don’t do being still well because my mind constantly has chatter.
  • Be Still- observe the mind – become conscious to what is going on in your mind – results in your ability to be present and to own the thoughts in your mind
Warm up/ COP – CSPAN  maybe I will just summarize it at as a Nascar like (right turns though) sprints with up/downs with flutters, and more flutters and a few more flutters and then some flutters.  I think that covers it.
Mosey to band parking lot:
Suicide Sprints: 10/20/30
  • 50% sprint
  • Karaoke
  • Side shuffle
  • Full length full speed
  • Power Skips back
Rugby Sprints to the 50 and walk it back
  • SSH
  • Merkins
  • Mule Kicks
  • Flying Squirrels
Every 5 to the 50
  • Bear crawl 5 yards then 5 CCD increments sprint to the end
  • Burpee Broad jumps 5 yards then 5 merkins
Wall sits with burpees
2 minutes of MARY
Prayers for Shady’s recovery and quick return. Prayers for Bailey (CSPAN’s daughter) and the birth of their son today at 12:30. Many unspoken prayers known and unknown are put at the foot of the cross and we ask that the Lord tends to them according to his Will.
Aye!
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