7th Year Convergence for The Fort

The 7th Year Convergence for The Fort followed an exhilarating Invergence from the night before.  Hoping to continue that acceleration, the 4 Q’s had a plan to talk about the 4 Skills needed for Virtuous Leadership: Vision, Articulation, Persuasion, Exhortation.

CakeBoss to start us out with Vision: Recognizing advantage and the movement required to achieve it.

Disclaimer and welcome
“Go Hard or Go Home!”

Take off for 100 yard mosey up path, Get in 3 lines – Indian Run across WEP

Break into 4 lines, 2 groups of seal teams -20 seal team sit ups in cadence

Back into 2 lines , Everyone plank – Tunnel of Love (25 guys per line) – Plank series while guys army crawling under

Crowd pleaser for sure!

7 Burpees for 7 Years!

Vision is what I spoke about and the men that saw the advantage of F3 and planted it (moved towards it) in Charlotte, the The Fort and we continued to give it away in Rock Hill & Lake Wylie.

Hand off to Maximus

Articulation: Describing vision to others in a clear manner. Being able to tell others where we’re going and being able to describe that vision to others.

So, with that said, we’re going over to the top of the big hill to start with drill bits:

½ the group goes one direction while the other goes the opposite way

At each white post (drill bit), 10 Jumping Lunges (10 each leg)

10 Jump Squats

Mosey to the base of the other hill, the one with the statue on it:

NUR (backwards run) up the hill

3 Burpees at the top

Bear Crawl down

5 Burpees at the bottom

Hand off to Fun House for the “P”.

Persuasion – The initiation of first Movement.  Convincing people to move in the direction of advantage, abandoning their Status Quo,

YHC gave an awesome yet forgettable speech about Persuasion.  Then the Thang:

Circle Up – Duck, Duck, Goose – One guy runs around the circle the rest of us plank, the next guy goes when the running guy finishes.  Planking excercises were called out: High Plank, Low plank, Mountain Climbers….. Audible called to get the next guy running after 1/2 a lap around the circle of Pax….. Peter Parker, Parker Peters….. Audible called to get the next guy running after 1/3 lap around….. Mak-Tar-Jai, Left Hand High, Right hand high…..Done.  That took 10 minutes!  60 guys is a lot of guys to be running around in circles.

Stay in circle, 5 minutes left, Jack Webb: 1 Merkin to 4 Overhead hand claps.  We got to 8!

Hand off to Pusher for Exhortation!

Exhortation – Incentivizing The Breach Of Obstacles.

Burpees x 10 OYO
Flutters IC x 10
Mosey to a corner of WEP
Burpees x 9 OYO
Flutters IC x 10
LBCs IC x 10
Mosey to another corner
Burpees x 8 OYO
Flutters IC x 10
LBCs IC x 10
Rosalita IC x 10
Mosey to another corner
Burpees x 7 OYO
Flutters IC x 10
LBCs IC x 10
Rosalitas IC x 10
Hello Dollies IC x 10
Mosey to another corner
Burpees x 6 OYO
LBCs IC x 10
Flutters IC x 10
COT
Naked Moleskin – The name-o-rama took forever.  That is a good thing. When 60+ PAX post to celebrate something that has obviously changed their lives, then change is happening!  Thanks to Maximus who put this awesome weekend celebration together!  His leadership is not only Effective (Using VAPE) but he is a Virtuous Leader! (Check out the Q Source for the 5 C’s Virtues of Virtuous Leadership) Can’t wait to see what year 8 brings to The Fort!  More importantly, who it brings!  Time to go EH someone.  See you in the gloom.
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Sweatfest at The Colosseum

Humidity was think this morning – but that didn’t stop three strong men from joining me in a sweaty beat-down at The Colosseum.

Here is what we did:

COP

Windmills X10

Downward Dog/Honeymooner 10 second count X2

L:BC X30

Superman 10 second count X2

SSH X20

The Thang

We found a 100 yard stretch of grass and proceeded to repeat the following circuit. In between each 100 yards we ran the large lap around the parking lot of approximately 1/4 mile

Burpee Broad Jump 100 yards

Lunge Walk 100 yards

Bear Crawl 100 Yards

We completed more than two circuits.

COT

Announcements – Sweati CSAUP this Saturday. Read your newsletter

Prayers – travel and injured PAX

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Dora and Climbing Jacob’s Ladder

Today we had 12 brave souls that came out for my sophomore Q….hopefully I didn’t disappoint.  No FNG’s and the Disclaimer was given.

We started with a slow mosey around the parking lot and warmed up with :

Cherry Pickers, Imperial Walkers, Overhead claps and Windmills…with help from the group my Cadence will improve

DORA made an appearance and made us do:                                                                                                            100 Merkins                                                                                                                                                                           200 Squats                                                                                                                                                                             300 Flutters

When that was completed we were entertained with Jacob’s Ladder                                                            10 Pull-ups down the hill for 1 Burpee and back up the hill for more pullups and so on and so on until we finished.

Back to COT for announcements and prayers and we were joined by two ruckers.

Thanks Punch List for the opportunity to lead these men

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Hillbillies on the Loose at The Coop

Wednesdays are great. You’re in the middle of the workout week and your body and mind are prime to push things a bit. Today was no exception at the Coop.

No FNGs. Disclaimer was disclaimed. Off we went.

Slow mosey around the parking lot and pretty much back to the COT area for the COP:

15-30 of the following, keeping folks off balance:
* SSH
* WM
* IW
* MNC
* LSS

Then off to the track for the following:

Hillbilly 12s:

You vs you, as far as you can push it. 12 rounds of the following:

  1. 12 burping hillbillies (BH), then 1 humping hillbilly (HH), then one lap running the track (400m)
  2. 11 BH, then 2 HH, then 1 lap
  3. 10 BH, 3 HH, 1 lap
  4. 9 BH, 4 HH, 1 lap
  5. so on and so on until done.
  • burping hillbillies (BH) = a burpee but instead of a jump at the end you do a good knees to elbows hillbilly walker
  • humping hillbillies (HH) = a monkey humper transitioned to a hillbilly walker
  • Focus on getting the form right, don’t cheat yourself!!

Most completed 8-9 rounds, a few completed more. Everyone did great!! There was a lot of good mumblechatter as always with the Coop group, as well as some good ol fashioned complaining which means I did something right. If I can get Alchemy to slow down then I know I picked a good workout routine.

Kudos to those PAX who said they are not runners, that they do not like running –  they ran well the WHOLE TIME and pushed themselves. That’s how you get better at a weakness.

We do not do enough regular running / cardio in my opinion. We made up for that today. About 3 miles running plus around 80 BH and HH. Cardio health is the key to your longevity. Do not slack on it!!

Back to COT for Announcements, P&P.

Thanks Punch List for the opportunity to lead.

-NASA

 

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#LacesIn. 0515. It Pays To Be A Winner.

We played a little bit of “It pays to be a winner” this AM at Laces In in honor of GoRuck Team Selection which starts today.
If you aren’t familiar, this is a common phrase spoken in Selection, and it’s a great tool they use to get into guys heads to make guys feel pressure and push themselves.

Here’s what it looked like… The Thang:

We moseyed to the back parking lot behind the baseball field (the Band Practice Lot) for a little warm up. Some Mountain Climbers, Windmills, SSH… the usual fare.

Then we moseyed to the front of the school for some CDDs, lunges, and flutters. Spiderman made a comment at one point about losing guys because of the pace. I thought about that… With a crowd as large as we had this am, I wanted to get a sense of where their heads were. Who’s pushing, who’s trailing, who’s struggling…? Am I struggling? Am I trailing? Can anyone even really know these things…?

Anyhow, then we moseyed back the lot from whence we had just come, where we began every Pax’s favorite game show: “It Pays to Be a Winner” (at this point, the Pax didn’t know we were playing). We lined up at one end of the lot and got underway.

Round 1: Bear Crawl to the other end. Alchemy won this round. Because he’s 17. And quite fit. Since he won, he got to choose the method by which we traveled back to the other end. He chose Bear Crawl. He was disqualified from choosing anymore. Because he’s 17. And quite fit.

Round 2. Bear Crawl to the other end. Alchemy won again. Shock. So his prize was that he got to pick who chose the next method. He chose Moab. I don’t remember what he chose, but it was no fun.

We continued to play a few more rounds with Pax choosing sprints, Bernie Sanders (Nur, Backwards Run, whatever you want to call it), Power Skips, and finally Broad Jumps. J-WOW won that round and so he got to set the pace back to the bottom of the hill by the stadium (the driveway in). We made a stop at one point to let everyone catch up and did an exercise there… No recollection what it was… anyway, we finished our mosey to the bottom of the hill and partnered up. SIZE ALWAYS MATTERS. #TWSS

Bonsai won the sprint to the bottom of the hill, despite my best efforts to cheat, and so he picked the partner method of travel to the top of the hill. He chose wheelbarrow. Because he hates happiness. Funhouse and Jekyll tried to cheat to get ahead and despite my best efforts to pull them back and make it “fair” (which meant making them go back to the start so I could cheat instead), they still won. So we moseyed back to the bottom of the hill and since they were the winners, they chose the method of travel to the top of the hill. They chose Partner Carries. Because they hate Bonsai.

The winners this time were the come from behind, dark horse team of Zima and Dirty Harry. Turns out Harry runs faster under weight. Which confirms our suspicion that he’s not actually from this planet. One more trip up running backwards and that was pretty much it for us…

The party bus came, saw, and spread the love…

-DH

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Honoring the fallen @honeybadger

 

The count was 14 on this day…

On this day it was truly an honor to be able to remember my friend, Staff Sgt. Thomas J. Dudley. He Passed on July 7, 2011 near Helmand Province, Afghanistan. TJ was flying in a mission to deliver supplies, including three 150-pound Pelican cases containing communications equipment. Everything was going well until the crew thought they were in immediate danger. Scrambling to leave the area quickly which unfortunately was something they did not have to do, things quickly went wrong. In the haste to get back into the Osprey, the crew neglected to tie down the Pelican cases and also did not tether into their gunners’ belts so when TJ ran back to man the M240G machine gun the cases began to move about in the aircraft. A lance corporal was unable to contain the heavy Pelican cases when the aircraft began accelerate and two of the cases flew to the back of the aircraft, striking TJ and that caused him to flip over the gun and fall to his ultimate demise.

TJ was a great man, he was a firefighter, a soldier, and paramedic, and most importantly, a father. He is survived by his wife and three kids who were 13, 5, and 23 months old at his death. TJ loved listening to Bon Jovi and Bruce Springsteen and was always a joy to be around. Gone but never forgotten! My ability to go out and enjoy fellowship with other men at F3 is in part because of people like TJ and we should never forget what these men and women sacrifice for us! Thanks so much for your service!

Mozy down to 50 yard line on the field for a small warm-up in cadence

Side straddle hop, squats, merkins- 10 each

The Thang…

Partner up

My way of paying homage to TJ was to keep with the numbers associated with his death.

Dora-ish workout

150 per exercise in rotating fashion

1st round is squats

2nd round is Merkins

3rd round is LBC’s

4th round is Calf Raises

5th round is jump squats

6th round is fluter kicks-double count

7th round is mountain climbers-double count

P1 runs 50 yards to end zone and back while P2 does the exercise and then you switch until done.

We also had a kettle bell that we passed up and down the line so that each PAX member could carry it periodically.

rinse and repeat…

We listened to Bon Jovi and The Boss, of course!

Mozy back to COT for name-o-rama, announcements and prayers

 

Thanks to Dirty Harry for the opportunity to lead and thanks to all PAX who made it out!

-Slash

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Just a Mere Tune-Up

How in the world did I get the honor of Qing one of the most popular ruck workouts of the year? I don’t know but I didn’t want to disappoint. Usually, that last comment means it’s time to absolutely BRING IT. But the trick this AM was to find that balance of bringing it but not killing it since we’re dangerously close to being short on GRH/GRT/GRL PAX.

Alright, I’ve got my head right, Weinke written and little sleep. Yup, par for the course so let’s roll. 24 brothers joined me at the Fire Ant this morning which for those who’ve not attended, is building quite the strong brotherhood. Again, here’s my plug to try rucking for a month and see if you set the ruck down.

After we disclaimed and talked about the upcoming event this weekend, we made our way to the sidewalk to get in two lines with rucks opened on the ground for a mock inspection. Once complete, zip up, ruck up and fall into 2 lines for a ruck lap around the loop.

Once the lap was complete, stay in 2 lines and lay the rucks on the ground on the outside of the lines. In formation, Side-Straddle Hops, Imperial Walkers, Sumo Squats & Moroccan Night Clubs. Now for a little BEEP BEEP, I’M A JEEP!!

In formation, drop to a squat, hold the ruck out front and duck walk for a bit. Then some ruck curls. Then, drop to a squat, hold the ruck out front and reverse duck walk for a bit back to the starting point. Guess what? More ruck curls.

Now, rotate 90deg so you’re facing the outside, away from the other line for shoulder presses, upright rows and bent over rows. Then a nice set of flutters WITH the needed presses.

Line up on the left side of the 2 long straight-aways for an exercise with the ruck, leave your ruck and run to the far end, do an exercise then run back to your ruck. Here’s the set list:

10 Ruck Thrusters, leave the ruck and run to the other end

5 8ct Burpees then run back

20 Ruck Curls (great on paper), leave the ruck and run to the other end

10 8ct Burpees then run back

Back in our 2 lines of formation for:

12ct Merkins…sans Ruck

Flutters w/ the Press

LBC’s w/ the Rucks up

Box Cutters w/ the Rucks up

More Beep Beep, I’m a Jeep stuff

THAT’S IT!!!

See, not so bad. Just another Tuesday in The Fort.

HYDRATE HYDRATE HYDRATE

SYITG

Maximus

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US Army Staff Sgt / NYPD Police Officer James McNaughton

We had 23 PAX show up for my VQ this morning….the support was much appreciated.

The morning started with a quick jog around the NAFO parking lot and ended with a standard warm-up of  Imperial Walkers, Morrocan Nighclubs  and Hillbilly Walkers.

Today we Honored a Fallen Soldier and NYPD Police Officer and our workout consisted of :

10 Burpees and a 100 yard run

27 Merkins and a 100 yard run

10 Donkey Kicks and a 100 yard run

27 Big Boy situps and you guessed it a 100 yard run

10 Lunges and a 100 yard run

27 Squats and who would have thought another 100 yard run

We Rinsed and Repeated ….. Some rinsed and repeated more than others.

Thanks to Dirty Harry and Punchlist for pushing me to lead this great group of men and getting my VQ under my belt.

Shield

 

 

 

 

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The Ranch -pre spring break

Pulling into the parking lot I was thinking man we are going to have a solid crowd today. Then I remembered how many guys are prepping for the custom ruck in May. There ARE SOME OPEN SPOTS IF ANYONE WANTS ONE!!!!
We started with a solid six, 1 FNG from Pittsburg. Welcome.
Disclaimer was given and off we went.
Mosey with some karaoke, high knees, butt kickers etc.
Circle up SSHs, Mtn. Climbers, Moroccan night clubs, little arm circles forward/back.

Mosey around school to playground. 5 pullups/ 20 feet to fence, 4 pullups/ 20 knee to fence go down to 1.

go to swings feet on swings knees to chest/ 10 derkins.

Mosey to car loop bear crawl 15 feet 5 merkins keep going for about 7 times.

Wall sits while Pax bunny hops by. X 3

partner up 100 bomb jacks while partner runs loop get to 100 you done. Mosey to picnic benches 3 sets of 10 dips, derkins, step ups.
Mary for 4 minutes.

COT- prayers and praises, announcements.
Welcome Chicken Catchatore- thanks for bringing FNG out Pappy

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No foolin’ at The Honey Badger today

17 PAX attended (probably most of them by accident) Ass kickin’ April Year 2.  AKAY2 started at the Badger today with YHC on Q (to make sure I post for day 1).  AKAY2 is a different AO every day (excluding Sunday) for the month of April.  Get to know the region by posting somewhere else.  Here is the schedule (shameless plug):

Today we honored a fallen soldier and YHC modified his workout.  See below for the Thang (the run portion was .33 miles):

Rinse and Repeat – I think the leaders got to a second round of the Squats.  The doubling up on the Burpees was a crowd pleaser….

There was a Shovel Flag hand-off this morning from the scarcely-posting Cheddah to the ever-posting Dirty Harry! Proof (that Cheddah even posted) below:

Prayers for new job opportunities, surgeries, injured PAX and unspoken.

FunHouse

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