Uptown Funk You Up

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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BEYOND at Sea Legs with Royale

I was honored that Maximus would reach out to me to Q the roaming BEYOND workout.  On a Tuesday choices were Golden Corral or Sea Legs for me, and with my new change in work schedule I needed the closest option, so our traditional running AO transformed into an ultra tough bootcamp for the day.  When I arrived the site Q Hauschka was there and let me know everyone was going to be doing the bootcamp…no runners today!

I’ve Q’d plenty, but this one left me with a pretty sleepless night.  Was my message going to be good enough?  I can make the workout as hard as I want?  I’ve been to several of the BEYOND workouts and the PAX before me have really done it justice.  Those men shared real stories and showed their vulnerability to others.  I needed to live up to that standard.  After the disclaimer I asked this question.

“What is the ONE thing you could alter in your life today that would make it better?”

The Thang

Started with a quick warmup lap around the parking lot with a short COP

-25 SSHs -15 Squats – 10 Merkins – 15 Mountain Climbers – 10 Diamond Merkins

Partner Up

1st partner was going to run over to the jungle gym for 10 pull-ups

2nd partner stays back and does jump lunges until you flip flop with partner 1

Get to 100 pulls ups each. (10 rotations)  This was a real crowd pleaser after the Memorial Day Murph yesterday…

We finished and from plank, I shared my “One Thing” – and that was my love of alcohol. It’s in my genes to want it…my father and most of his genealogy have been alcoholics, and I watched it destroy his productive life for decades.  It has a pull on me that I do not feel normal people get.  I have to make a conscious effort to maintain control when I drink or bad things happen.  It’s pervasive in my life – social events, my wife and I enjoy together, work events, Saturday nights when I don’t have to post Sunday – and I like all of those things!

We talked about the Jester, my favorite Q source read.  We talked about who he is, what he tries to do, and how he pulls you away from the proper path in your life.  I hope more will read of him here.  https://f3nation.com/2018/02/11/jester-q1-4/

Next phase mosey to the hill

7s on the hill

I learned a new exercise at the Memorial Day convergence in SouthPark from our Area 51 brothers.  The “True American” – 6 count exercise which is a hand release push up followed by a plank jack.

6 Trues Americans at top of hill

Run down

1 burpee – you know the rest!

As I crawled up the hill for the last round I was gassed.  I had one phase to go.

Wall sits

The PAX on the ends will bear crawl out to the road – complete 5 merkins – bear crawl back.  Continue down the middle until all PAX have bear crawled.

Mosey back to COT for 3 minutes of Mary

-Freddies – Flutters – LBCs

Closed my discussion with Hope: I know where I would be today, 3 more years down that path to failure…if it wasn’t for F3, my brothers in arms, and my PAX relationships that help me, guide me, point me on the right path in accountability and by who these men are.  I look up to all of you and have learned something from EACH of you! Continue to be my role models for success!

An honor to Lead…

-Royale

 

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Fiststix on Q

It’s been difficult for me to make it over to Quagmire on a consistent basis lately. It use to be my regular Monday morning hangout.  There were several great workout options this morning. It was great to see a good turnout.  After the standard disclaimer, we made our way over to the parking area near Jush Fresh.

COP:  SSHs, imperial walkers, merkins, squats, more merkins, flutters, LBCs

Next, we moseyed to the side of Books A Million for a sidewalk shuffle (plank walk between light poles).  Rinse and Repeat.

More running to the front of vacant Gander Mountain.  We partnered up for a few unique exercises.  The mode of transportation based on the number of hands and feet.

  1.  2 feet, no hands – Partner Carry
  2.  2 feet, 2 hands – Wheelbarrow
  3.  4 legs, no hands – Leg lunges (recovery from wheelbarrow)
  4. 4 hands, 2 feet – one-legged bear crawl

Jedi showed off his skills by walking on his hands….impressive!

Next, we jogged back to Just Fresh for a recovery wall sit while each person ran up and down the stairs.

The final ten minutes were spend running back to Office Depot for 7 minutes of rugby sprints.  We alternated with the following exercises:  CCDs, LBCs, Flutters, Calf Raises, Merkins.

Great job by all! We covered over 2.5 miles this morning.

Prayers:

Healing for family and friends suffering from illnesses

Families in Texas

 

 

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Of Relays and Dance Parties

Truth be told, YHC is losing his mind.

When I was asked to Q at the Deep for the return of the 0630 launch, my first thought was, “Hey! That AO is at a school. I don’t normally post at schools. I should do something to commemorate that.” Forget the fact that the majority of our AOs are at schools. That’s irrelevant. But, it does set us up for the dumb ideas that followed…

My memories of middle school in May involve basically two things: Field Day and the end-of-the-year dance. So, to harken back to the days of old, that became our theme for today. Twelve PAX (including one FNG) joined YHC for a baker’s dozen at Oakridge Middle. Here’s what we did (kinda):

Warm-up

Mosey around to the back of the school for our “field day” warm-up. Split into two teams for four relays:

  • Sprint (i.e., the basic relay)
  • Bear crawl
  • Broad jumps
  • Crab walks

That got our heart rates up and ready for the dance party. We moseyed back around to the front of the school for the fun to really begin.

The Thang

When I think of middle school dances, I think of songs you can’t really dance to, weird mixes, and lots of wallflower moments. So, we relived my childhood. Six songs. Wallflower between (people’s chair or balls to the wall each time). Today’s playlist:

  • Jukebox Hero – SSHs (slow and fast to match the music) during the verses, Rock Star jumps during the chorus/refrain/hook
  • I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles) – Imperial Squat Walkers during the verses, bear crawl and crawl bear during the “well I would walk” segments, and donkey kicks during the “da da da da” parts. You know what I’m talking about, because you’re singing it in your head.
  • The Middle – LBCs during the verses, flutters during the refrain, and some Freddie Mercuries during the bridge/interlude/guitar solo
  • Smooth Criminal – Plank jacks during the verses and a merkin for every “okay” (“Annie just freaking answer him already!”)
  • Sorry – Hold boat throughout, dropping down and completing one V-up for every “sorry”
  • The Devil Went Down to Georgia – curb dips during the “singing,” crab cakes during the musical interludes/fiddle or guitar solos
  • I Will Survive – lateral plank walks with merkins during the refrain (longest version of this song ever, but the brief rain made it a little more manageable)

We actually left out the song with the burpees. That’ll be reserved for the next dance party.

Quick mosey back to COT.

No earth-shattering announcements that can’t be found in the newsletter, so read your newsletter. Prayers for teachers (and students and parents) as school wraps up, and for Whopper in his job search/potential promotion. Late request added for the shooting that happened down in Texas.

Cofeeteria at Dunkin because it’s cheaper (in many aspects of the word).

As for the (somehow now infamous) FNG naming, well, that story can be saved for a verbal diarrhea run with Q*bert. You’ll also want to ask Cha Ching about his comment regarding the arrival of “Mr. Wood.” Um…………

I appreciate everybody participating in the stupidness of this morning. I wanted it to be fun and different. I think that happened. Thanks to Shakespeare for the opportunity to lead, for changing the launch time to 0630, and for the speaker to blast the music.

-Jedi

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Sea Legs

We ran…we ran fast and farther than any other Sea Legs!  5.4 miles in 47 minutes.  Great conversation with 4 of the 6 just completing the RuckOver event with Cadre Rad the Friday previous.  My legs really started to tighten up at the end of this run.  Good to have Bono out, but he still hasn’t posted to a bootcamp?  How does that happen?

-Fin Royale

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Broga, Tater Special, and Quagmire Handoff

The plan for several months has been for YHC to receive the shovel flag for Quagmire sometime in May. Eventually, the 14th came out as the best option, so it only made sense when the call for a substi-Q went out on Friday that I should rise up to the occasion. Given the recent arrival of two new Monday bootcamps in the region, you never really know how many to expect come 0515. We had a respectable size (with 4 respectable PAX), with 11 posting to what turned out to be a beast of a workout.

(Mostly) full disclaimer given, with promise of no crawling (especially low crawls) and no balls-to-the-walls. Promise was given to start slow, but no promises for the time after the warmup.

Warm-o-rama

Long-ish mosey around Home Depot, behind Target, and out to Books-a-Million.

Rather than the standard exercises, today’s warmup was a couple sun salutations, replacing with the manly F3 names for poses because, well, Broga.

Once warm and limber-ish, we did a short mosey to the fountain for

The Thang

Twelve cones were spaced somewhat evenly around the fountain parking lot, including one cone on each traffic circle. On each cone was an exercise with a rep count. I referred to the workout as the “Tater Special,” as I got the idea from one of Tater’s Qs several months back. Basically, PAX run to the first cone, do the exercise, and return to the start. They then run to the second cone, do the exercise, then the first cone, do the exercise, then back to the start. And so on. Pretty simple. Not super original. But it’s great for PAX who want to push themselves, those who are recovering, and those who are new. Everything was modifiable, and everybody got a good workout. The exercises that were reached (I’m leaving out the ones that weren’t in case I bring this back…):

  • Burpees x 5
  • Jump Squats x 10
  • Merkins x 20
  • Freddie Mercuries x 30 double count
  • Prison Cell Burpees x 5
  • Jumping lunges x 10 double count
  • Diamond Merkins x 20
  • Flutters x 20 double count
  • Breakdancer Burpees x 5

That’s as far as the fastest men got. For those doing the math, that works out to 45 burpees, 80 jump squats, 140 merkins, 180 Freddies, 25 PCBs, 40 jumping lunges, 60 diamond merkins, 40 flutters, and 5 breakdancer merkins, plus over 2.5 miles of running. It doesn’t actually look like that much, but we felt every rep.

Grab the cones and quick, er, modified quick mosey back to COT.

Announcements, etc.

  • Cannoli Run on Saturday, Patriot Run on Memorial Day, if not doing Patriot Run, do the Murph pseudo-convergence.
  • Prayers for MOAB and ChaChing’s Ms, both of whom are fast approaching due dates for baby #3.
  • Prayers for wisdom and discernment, as well as trust and confidence, for, well, all of us.

We handed off the shovel flag after that. DaVinci had some great words; YHC didn’t. No surprises there.

Honestly, though I’m excited to take over as site Q, DaVinci’s are some big shoes to fill. Great leader, quiet and would prefer to sneak by under the radar, he is not one to be underestimated. Loyal, reliable, and solid, all would do well to learn from this HIM. It is an honor to get to follow after him.

 

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Bucket-o-Pain – New and Improved With More Awfulness!!!

9 bootcampers and 7 ruckers landed at Golden Corral for a buffet of painful options.  Drummond brought an FNG (later named “Manifold”) to partake in the meal.  Don’t know about any of the other bootcampers, but YHC was thankful not to be part of the rucking group when Rad rolled the giant tractor tire out of the back of his truck. No bueno.

5:15 arrived, and after a disclaimer was offered, the bootcampers took off for a mosey around Rite-Aid, down to the auto-repair place, and back to the front of Harris Teeter.  Stops were made along the way for various warm up exercises, including:

  • SSH
  • Imperial Walkers
  • Mountain Climbers
  • Sumo Squats
  • Peter Parkers
  • Dips
  • Windmills

38 Special came in hot, and caught up with us after our second stop on the warm-up run.

The Thang

At the stopping point in front of HT was the bucket of pain.  But this time the instructions were different than previous BoP appearances.  Here’s how it went:

  1. First exercise was drawn from the bucket.  Pax did 5 reps.
  2. Second exercise was drawn.  Pax did 10 reps of it, then repeated the 5 reps of the first exercise
  3. Third exercise was drawn.  Pax did 15 reps of it, then 10 of the second exercise, then 5 of the first.

Routine continued until 5 exercises were drawn (which had 25 reps).  Once completed, pax took a run around the entire front parking lot of the shopping center.  We had time to do this twice.  Here were the exercises.

  1. Round 1:
    1. 5 merkins
    2. 10 burpees
    3. 15 squat jacks
    4. 20 POGO (10 each leg)
    5. 25 plank punches
  2. Round 2:
    1. 5 jumping lunges
    2. 10 low, slow squats
    3. 15 moroccan night clubs
    4. 20 flying squirrels
    5. 25 Crab Cakes

After our second round (and run around the parking lot) we had time for a few minutes of Mary:

  • Flutters
  • LBCs
  • Chopsticks
  • Alphabet Soup
  • American Hammer

Time was up, and we headed back to COT.

Excellent work by all men.  T-Claps to Mainfold for his first post, and to 38 Special for his second post (in as many days). Thanks to Decibel for the privilege of Q’ing.

 

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A Truckload of pain at Honeybadger

Great way to start a week, we had 14 PAX (2 ruckers, Cha Ching and Jedi) that decided to get better and honor “the seven” a group of 5 CIA officers and 2 Security contractors killed when al-Balawi detonated a bomb sewn into a vest he was wearing. Six other American CIA officers were wounded. The bombing was the most lethal attack against the CIA in more than 25 years.

Al-Balawi was a Jordanian doctor and jihadist website writer who was detained and interrogated over three days by the Jordanian intelligence service, the General Intelligence Directorate (GID), in January 2009. The GID and the CIA thought they had turned al-Balawi to penetrate al-Qaeda in the Pakistani tribal areas to provide intelligence for high-level targets. Instead, al-Balawi used this trust to gain access to the CIA base in Afghanistan unsearched and perpetrate the attack. The Pakistani Talibanand al-Qaeda claimed responsibility, saying they helped al-Balawi with the attack.

The names of our honored heroes are listed below:

CIA OFFICERS:

-Harold Brown Jr, 37, Bolton MA

-Elizabeth Hanson, 30, Rockford IL

-Darren Labonte, 35, Brookfield CT

-Jennifer Matthews, 45, Cedarville OH

-Scott Roberson, 39, Tolland CT

SECURITY CONTRACTORS:

-Dane Paresi, 46, Portland, OR

-Jeremy Wise, 35, Tigard, OR

After a quick disclaimer on the go we moseyed around the parking lot with some high knees and butt kickers, our warm up consisted of the following exercises with different reps each to total about 9 minutes into the WO :

Side straddle hops

Windmill

Moroccan night clubs

Squats

Arm circles

Merkins

Lunges

 

THE THANG:

I followed the book as much as I could but had to include a tire exercise (otherwise it wouldn’t be a Tinsel workout) and also replaced a couple of exercises from the book to focus on upper body strength. The main idea of “the seven workout” is to complete 7  rounds of 7 exercises with 7 reps each, each round took about 7 minutes to complete, after round # 3 we run down and up the hill to give our upper body a break and then continued with 4 more rounds, these are the 7 exercises:

THE SEVEN

7 handstand push-ups

7 thrusters with log

7 sledgehammer swing each side

7 worst merkin ever

7 burpees

7 log swings

7 pull-ups

Everything was planned to be completed under one hour and I’m glad everyone pushed hard to reach our time window. With a couple of minutes to spare at the end, straight up took over for some Broga and stretching exercises, much needed after the beatdown, thanks for your help!!

We ended up our WO with announcements, prayers and praises.

GRETA JOB EVERYONE!!

Tinsel out…

 

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Beyond – how selfish are you

The message for Beyond was around being selfish

 

Humans we are naturally selfish people.  As a child you grow up thinking everything should be centered around

you.  Even as I moved into adulthood I still didn’t completely understand what it meant to put others first. 

Because I never had anyone who was dependent upon me.  When I got married I was quickly called out that it is now “we”

and not “I” which was initially hard for me to understand at first.  Then several years later reality smacked me in the face

when we had our first child.  Now there was someone in my life that was 100% reliant upon me.  I quickly had to figure

out as all parents do how to adjust and make things happen.

 

In my life I am the most selfish with my time.  I don’t like to spend “my” time on things that “I” feel are not as important

as other things. 

 

There are 24 hours in a day

1440 minutes

 

Average person sleeps 7 hours

                       works 9 hours

                       spends 2 hours in a car

 

This leaves 8 hours for everything else (Wife, kids, Quite time, F3, Whetstone, etc)

 

How do you manage your time?  Is is the smartest way?

 

As I was preparing for this Q I kept going back to how do I manage my time and how I think I should be.  I will be

the first to say I am nowhere near the model, but I desire to be able to say that I will one day get there.

 

Time Priority:

1. God

2. Wife

3. Family

4. Friends

 

One of the most important things that I hope the Pax take from the workout is Kids spell LOVE – TIME.  The more time you

spend with them the more love they feel.  Think about that next time when one of your kids ask you to do something and you

would rather be doing something else.  They won’t always be around so enjoy the time you have with them now.

 

 

 

 

Warmup:

SSH 20 IC

Hand release merkins 10 IC

LBC 20 IC

–With being a beyond workout figured since it just rained we needed to embrace the suck and get on the ground

 

 

 

The thang:

 

Partner up

P1 – runs to end of parking lot and back

P2 – works on burpee / sandbag thruster (1 burpee / 1 thruster, 2 burpees, 2 thrusters, etc until 10)

 

Each partner does their own until they reach 10 of each

 

Next

P1 – runs to end of parking lot

P2 – pick up sandbag on shoulder and toss backward until P1 returns

 

rinse and repeat x 3

 

Exercises done holding either ruck, sandbag or cinderblock:

Squats 20 IC

Squat pulses 10 IC

Flutters 20 IC

 Thanks for the opportunity to lead.

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