4×5 At Collesium

Cakeboss did warmup I’m sure he did the usual SSH and Merks. I was fashionable late as usual QT was calling my name, thank you Lord for such nice facilities! I did make it to his 10 burpees OYO and plank curb walk 10 steps to the left then 10 back to the right x 2.

The Thang

I had Q for this part of workout. Workout we did I call 4×5. Here’s how it goes: Each exercise counts off in 4’s all the way to 20. 4-8-12-16-20. Start doing 4 count one end of parking lot then a different mode of transportation to other end of parking lot (about 75 feet) away for every different exercise. Reps go up each end of parking lot. Here’s the different rounds.

1) Hand Release Merkins with Duck Walk in between

2) Sumo Squats With Bear Crawl in between. Every other Bear Crawl was backwards.

3) CDD with Lt. Dans in between

4) Burpees with Power Skips in between. Omaha was called after 12 burpees.

5) Monkey Humpers with Inch Worm Merkins in between.

6) Time was almost up so one last backwards bear crawl 75 feet then back to COT for 2 sets of ablab. Rosalita and Hello Dolly x 10 in cadence.

Sweati is coming up July 14th sign up. It’ll suck but most CSAUPS do! I’m doing a 10k that day on trails (surprise) so it will suck too!

Last but not least my two cents or my message. I’m guilty of this big time and struggle daily. PUT DOWN THE PHONES! Invest quality time with your wife and kiddos. No phones at dinner table. Do a puzzle together. Read a book. Take your kids outside they are only little for so long. Spoil your wife. MAKE MEMORIES! I love each and every one of you guys in F3. Let’s do life together men. If anyone wants anyone to talk to I’m your man! I love helping and being of service to others. Sorry so late for backblast!

LOVE IN JESUS, STANG

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Kicking Off ’18 Nantan Summer Tour at Block Party

On an unseasonably cool June morning, 41 #HIMs met to get an attitude adjustment and start the day out right.

Mosey to the big parking lot on 160.

WARMUP:

  • 20 4-count side straddle hops
  • Five Burpees OYO
  • 10 4-count Windmills
  • Five Burpees OYO
  • 20 Low slow squats
  • Five Burpees OYO
  • 15 4-count Merkens
  • Five Burpees OYO
  • 20 Mountain climbers
  • Five Burpees OYO
  • 20 Moroccan night clubs
  • Five Burpees OYO

The THANG

Four corners in the big parking lot. Count off into groups of 4s and rotate through the stations.

  • Corner 1: Mosey to the bottom of the hill (160) and sprint back to the top, rinse and repeat. LBCs when done.
  • Corner 2: 30 Hand release Merkens. LBCs when done.
  • Corner 3:  40 Monkey Humpers. LBCs when done.
  • Corner 4: 20 Burpees. LBCs when done.
  • Rinse & Repeat

Mosey to the wall for 20 4-count wall mountain climbers.

Mosey back to COT….NOT DONE YET!

Captain Thors in cadence to 8 x 32.

COT

1 Corinthians 9:24 reads “Don’t you realize that in a race everyone runs, but only one person gets the prize? So run to win!” Give everything you do your best effort. Sometimes, however, this requires an attitude adjustment. Be grateful for how God has blessed you and honor HIM by giving it your all. After all, the only difference between a chAmp and a chUmp is YOU!

Announcements: Hog & Coyote, Nantan Summer Tour, #218in18, Read your newsletter

Thanks for the opportunity, Shady!

– Ginsu

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Round and Round at Beyond

Sweatbox of a Monday. I was honored to be given the opportunity to Q a BEYOND workout.  BEYOND, the brainchild of Maximus acting on the very definition of reverse flow incubator.  See a problem/opportunity- create the solution.  Maximus so a need to push the men of The Fort not just physically but mentally as well.  Typically a bit of a deeper dive into what’s going on in a man’s life.

Theme of Concentrica was revealed to me through #collisionlearning only about a week prior.  I chose TCES as its a fountain of unlimited and varied painstations.  8 men answered the bell and after a disclaimer we went.

COP

More a of dymanic warmup with #Usualsuspects at either end of a short 70% run distance.  Although squatjacks and Imperial Squat Walkers created a voluminous amount of mumblechatter.  #crowdpleaser

Mosey to back parking lot.  Discussed Concentrica which is the conception of relationships, how they tie together and ordering them from most important relationship in the center moving outward to the “relatively” less important.  In order you have:

  • Center: M
  • 2nd ring: 2.0s
  • 3rd ring: Shield lock/brothers/horizontal friendships
  • 4th ring: Whetstone- mentor, mentee
  • 5th ring: Mammon (Work)

The THANG: Do exercise run a lap.  Simple enough

  • 5 Merkins/lap
  • 10: Squat/Lap
  • 15 Bombjacks/Lap
  • 20 Burpees/Lap
  • 25 LBC/Lap

We started with 5 laps and 5 merkins at each lap but I called audible.  STH and Gekko kept me honest up front, Double D, Rad, & Mr. Clean kept us moving and Pick 6/CB kept us motivated driving forward and never quitting

Naked Man Moleskin

Men- the concentrica model has been an incredible tool and roadmap for me.  I shared however that as someone who possesses an abundance of self awareness, I often know WHAT to do.  My problem is DOING it.  I’ll be successful in keeping the rings in good priority for a while, then slowly over time, I will revert back to an innately selfish being.  Before long, I have put work in the center, and yes even altruistic endeavors like F3 and Scouts in the center moving my M further out.  When conversations shorten, or happen less frequently, you risk the headspace of the most important relationship telling you they “don’t feel loved”, “don’t feel heard”, “don’t feel like a priority”.  This is the is RED ZONE men that you must pull the nose up immediately.  None of your relationships can truly flourish with out having the M in the Center. (Sky Q is inherent).  Remember that if we are pouring in to the M, have our alignment correct, she is much more likely to give you grace and latitude during your “peak work” times than when every work time is “peak”.

Go BEYOND and be the man at home that you are at the workouts and in the community.

Aye!

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Diamond at the Deep

I’m a little late posting this so I may be a little fuzzy on some of the descriptions, but here it goes…

We had 10 on a wet and somewhat rainy morning at The Deep.  It was good to see Cakeboss and Funhouse supporting Lake Wylie during their Ass Kickin’ April and we also had a couple of out-of-the-area guys Squirt and Ma Bell.  Ma Bell was 68 and was an inspiration to us all.

Speaking of inspiration, I took the family on vacation the week prior to this workout and needed a little last minute help to come up with some ideas.  Lucky for us all I stumbled across a Cha Ching backblast from the Abyss that looked pretty nasty so I’d like to give credit where it’s due.  I also don’t want to take full responsibility for all the suck we endured during this workout, there was a lot of it.

Warm-A-Rama

Even though its a PITA to load up a bunch of cinderblocks into your vehicle before the workout, it always makes it worth it when everyone sighs as soon as you open your trunk/tailgate.  So we all grabbed a cindy and carried it to our warm-up location.

No blocks required for the warm-up, but I went with random numbers of the below exercises (usually favoring more).  It keeps everyone guessing and is kinda like a guilty pleasure of mine because I usually do extra when people “think” I’m going to be done.

  • SSH
  • MNC
  • Windmill
  • Cotton/Cherry Picker
  • Low Slow Squat
  • Peter Parker
  • Parker Peter
  • Plank Jack

The Thang

We started with some Tabada’s.  Cha Ching recommended this great app called “Seconds” so I grabbed it and set it up the night prior.  I disappointingly couldn’t get the music to work, but I’ll fix that next time…

We had 1 minute to do the following x 5 sets with a small 12 second break between sets.  When all 5 sets were finished, there was a 20 second break and the next 5 sets started (12 seconds between sets)

1st Set

  • 50 Seal Jacks
  • 10 Merkins

2nd Set

  • 15 Merkins
  • 5 Burpees

I actually started thinking we would do 40 Seal Jacks and 10 Merkins, but the gang finished up with like 15 seconds to spare after the first set (and that was before the 12 second break between sets).  I couldn’t have that, so 50/10 for the next 4 sets…

So we ended up doing 240 Seal Jacks 25 Burpees, and 125 Merkins.  Ouch.

Now lets grabbed those blocks! We carried them a little further up the parking lot to the football field.  Sadly, the gate wasn’t opened.  I wasn’t about to have us all walk across the street to the other football field so I decided that we all needed to jump the fence.

1st exercise was “Bear and Block” which is exactly what it sounds like.  We all got in bear crawl position and kept the block between our feet.  We then pulled the block up to/past our head and bear crawled until the block was between our feet again.  Rinse and repeat until we covered the width of the football field.  I heard a lot of grumbles from the crowd so I was going to Omaha and have us throw the blocks back to the start point, but we were then worried about the damage to the field (rightfully so) so I Omaha’d the Omaha back to the original idea.  We were going to crawl back the way we came.  If there is a lesson learned here it’s that we shouldn’t complain.  I made everyone do 25 CDD’s when we got back to the start line.

2nd exercise, find a parter.  Partner A carries both cinderblocks the width (and back) of the football field while Partner B does squats, then vice-versa.

For the 3rd and what turned out to be final set of exercises, we played Catch Me If You Can with our partner.  We lined up so we were now traversing the length of the field instead of the width.

This is where my memory really starts to get fuzzy.  I started making this stuff up from here on out picking and doing whatever felt like it would be the worst at the time.  The numbers are lacking and I don’t remember all of the exercises, but hopefully I’ll pass enough along that you get the general idea.

I remember the 1st one.  Partner A did 20 LBC’s while Partner B NUR’d.  When Partner A finished he would chase down and tag his partner and then they would both do 50 more LBC’s together and then Broad Jump back to the finish line.  We then repeated this formula 5 more times (6 chase downs in all) mixing in ridiculous numbers of exercises and making our way back to the starting line in painful ways.

Here are the ways we made it back to the starting line:

  1. Wheelbarrow Walk
  2. Crawl Bear
  3. Crab Walk
  4. Lt. Dan
  5. Sprint
  6. Broad Jump

Some of the exercises that we did, either wile your Partner was NUR’ing or together included:

  • Squat Jumps
  • Lunges
  • Merkins
  • Diamond Merkins
  • CDD
  • American Hammers
  • Flutters
  • LBC’s
  • Burpees
  • Plank Jacks
  • and more…

Luckily time was running low and we couldn’t get to the next exercise.  Now we’ll never know how amazing Block Webbs would have felt after most of us could already not lift our arms past our shoulders.  We still had to get overcome the fence and make it back to CoT.  This time we decided to (poorly) build some steps with the cinderblocks to make it easier to get across.  It was pretty comical but we did it.

CoT

Consisted of the usually announcement, praises, and prayers.  I wish I could remember more, but as always, we continue to pray for others and put ourselves 3rd. F3 is an amazing thing, I am humbled to be a part of it and continue to pray that others will be led to it.

I apologize for less than stellar recollection of the workout and CoT.  I’ll do a better job of jotting it down somewhere post workout.  Some said it was the toughest workout they had in years, some couldn’t post on Monday because of how badly they still hurt, but there is no arguing we all got stronger and better on this day.

Until next time…

Flux

 

 

 

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Man in the Arena

Perfect gloom conditions.  15 studs out for a beatdown.  Opened with Teddy Roosevelt’s Man in the Arena.

It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.

Warm up:

  • warm up 70%  sprints between each exercise
    • SSH, Squat, SSH, Merkin

The Thang:

  • 4 corners- run in between- (abt 30 yards) Rinse/Repeat x 5
    • 3 burpee
    • 4 bombjacks
    • 5 merkin
    • 6 squat
  • Ark Loader Series- 30 yards, Rinse/Repeat x 3
    • Bear Crawl down, 10 merkins
    • Lunge walk back, 10 squat
    • crab walk down, 10 LBC
    • Backward Bear Crawl back, 10 CDD
  • 6 minutes of Mary
    • flutter
    • rosalita
    • protractor
  • Sprint Series
    • 2 x 70%
    • 1 X 85%
    • 5  X 100%

COT

Naked Man Moleskin

Jedi and Straight Up were out front today, all morning.  No surpise here.  Lots of great mumblechatter as the men answered the call for a beatdown and were all in.

 

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Laces In/Out 2018.11

This is the 3rd of 3 Qs where I’m catching up on backblasts…  I’m pretty sure I owe someone a thousand burpees by now.  I apologize.

Mosey to band practice lot for some leg work.

I did an extended warmup that us much out of my typical, because I planned sprints, and everyone pulls something during sprints so lack of warmup was not going to be anyones excuse.
SSHs, Windmill, Jimmy Carters, Wide leg stretch left/right, squat stretch groin, downdogs and honeymooners… Next toy soldiers 30 yards, mosey 70.  Buttkickers 30 mosey 70, did this 3 times…

Now for sprints, split into two teams of 6.  Split into groups of 3, 40 yards apart.  Relay race, 1 man per team running at a time per team.  (This took until the 3rd round to get right…  I’m pretty sure some would be clinically prescribed Aderol if sent to take a standardized test.)  When the last man comes in I yell out a random exercise and then we do it all over again.  We did this 7 times.

Mosey back to the parking lot for 6MOM from the Fort’s own JWoww.

 

I don’t know what the runners did… ask them.

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The Big Event – Shovel Flag Handoff

So the hype has been great, and the STRONG showing this morning proved it has value!  26 HIM’s all came out on what was a pretty cold 48 degree March morning (that WIND).

This was not an ordinary workout.  Barry Manilow was handing over the shovel flag to YHC, as I was stepping into the role of Site Q for Slow Burn.  Barry started the workout for the first half, and then we handed off the Q to me for the last half.

I’ll do my best to get Barry’s portion right:

Mosey all the way down to the far side of Lowes and circle up for the following:

  • OH Hand Claps 10x
  • Moroccan Nightclubs 10x
  • LBC 10x
  • Imperial Walker 10x
  • Travolta 10x
  • Dying Cockroach 10x
  • Hillbilly Walker 10x
  • HR Merkins 15x

Mosey to the Triangle Lot

  • Moroccan Nightclubs 10x
  • OH Hand Claps 10x
  • Grave Digger 7×2
  • Squat 10x
  • Mak Tai Jai 10x
  • Knee Tai Jai 10x
  • Calf Raise Regular 10x
  • Calf Raise Toes Out 10x
  • Calf Raise Toes In 10x

Mosey back to the side of Lowes

  • Wall Sit with Pop Out Burpees
  • Bear Crawl/Toy Soldier to the second island and back
  • Wall Sit with Pop Out Burpees

The official Q Handoff….Barry Manilow Done, Smithers is up…

Mosey back to the Triangle Lot for 4 corners, circle up and count off in 4’s

Three different rounds at each corner station.  Finish one round and rotate to the next corner.  Once returning to where you started, perform the next round’s exercises.  The Rounds looked like this:

Round 1:

  • Corner 1 (CORE) – 30 LBC’s in Cadence
  • Corner 2 (UPPER) – 20 Carolina Dry Docks in Cadence
  • Corner 3 (CARDIO) – 30 SSH’s in Cadence
  • Corner 4 (LOWER) – 20 Low Slow Squats in Cadence

Round 2:

  • Corner 1 (CORE) – 15 Flutters in Cadence
  • Corner 2 (UPPER) – 15 Shoulder Taps in Cadence
  • Corner 3 (CARDIO) – 15 Peter Parker’s in Cadence
  • Corner 4 (LOWER) – 15 Calf Raises in Cadence

Round 3:

  • Corner 1 (CORE) – 15 Wheezy Jefferson’s in Cadence
  • Corner 2 (UPPER) – 30 OH Hand Claps in Cadence
  • Corner 3 (CARDIO) – 15 Imperial Walker’s in Cadence
  • Corner 4 (LOWER) – 15 Jump Squats OYO

Mosey back to COT

Countoff (26), Name-O-Rama, Announcements, Prayers, and the Shovel Flag Handoff!

I’m really looking forward to this opportunity as Site Q for Slow Burn.  I will do my best to keep the Q schedule full and diverse, remember it’s a moderate site, but challenge us to push it just a bit more than comfortable (and beyond).

Smithers…Out

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Pantheon Tribute to Mr. Clean and His Bride

Warmup:  Indian Run with High Knees, Lunges, Karaoke, Side Shuffle

The Thang:

Split Soccer Field – one side = plyometric exercises and other side weight exercises for 9 reps each side to celebrate 2018:

Station 1:  Side Straddle hops to summersault to Station 2:  Pullups on Fence,

Station 3:  Bombjacks to Lunge to Station 4:  30lb kettlebell swing,

Station 5:  Burpees to Crabwalk to Station 6:  50lb Ruck Press,

Station 7:  High Knees to Bear Crawl to Station 8:  20 lb Sandbag American Hammer,

Station 9:  Squat Jumps to 1/2 Suicide to Station 10:  40lb Sandbag Slam,

Station 11:  Goofballs to Bear Crawl to Station 12:  20lb Ruck Upright Rows,

Station 13:  Roll Merkin to Gorilla Walkers to Station 14:  10lb KettleBell Mace

Men rotated to parking lot run when done to circle of power for superman pumps to merkins in Jack Webb Fashion.

Rinse and repeat.

Prayers:  For Mr. Cleans Family and his Bride Cindy for strenght and wisdom as they celebrate her life.  For Lutefisks mother to be cured of cancer.

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2018 Kick-off 1st F Convergence – #218in18 Sad Clown EH-a-thon

A brand new year is upon us! As we all know, it is a time for new beginnings, new goals, new habits, and renewed interest to break vices. For us, it is a time to celebrate another year focused on becoming better men through this organization called F3. To do that, we are going to CONVERGE on Friday, January 12th @ 0515 @ the Harris Teeter (Baxter) parking lot (1750 Highway 160 W, West Town Market, Fort Mill, SC 29708).

With the new year and our #218in18 campaign, its a perfect time to headlock the sad clowns around us, many of whom are setting goals to become better men themselves. We know these sad clowns are excuse ninjas (here are the top 5), but we were once them and have all the tools we need to break them down over the next 2 weeks. So, let’s each focus on getting at least ONE FNG out there with us that morning. You know who they are, work to get them there.

The format of the workout will be SIMPLE. One option (regular bootcamp) split amongst 3 Qs. Look for an announcement soon with the Qs.

Last, but not least, we will be having a 3rd F Convergence right after at Eternal Church (right behind Zaxby’s) from 6:15 – 7:00 led by Gekko. We’ll be reflecting on our #OneWord for 2017 and sharing our #OneWord for 2018. Look for the PreBlast soon!

Let’s get on this guys. NOW is the time to start EH’ing! Get ‘er done!

– Ginsu

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8

BB – Tempo – 12/28

See BB for runs do exist.

7 showed for a fun filled morning of running.

Originally had two routes planned a 7min group and an over 8 minute group.  As the cold hit us I think we all agreed lets just do the over 8 group.

So we knocked out 5 on a hilly cold windjammer, but hey as Nasa says, the view of the lake at the end was all worth it.

Came back and circled up and talked about all the great things coming, aka read your newsletter.

Prayers:

Traveling Families

Mr. Clean

Injured PAX

 

As always great time and thanks for the chance to lead!

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