Back and Forth and Back…

I had 13 PAX join me for a total of 14 at Veteran’s Memorial for the launch of Block Party. We had some regulars and even a few Welcome Back’ers. With a number of headlamps and a rendition of the disclaimer, we took off for the parking lot in front of W.E.P.

Brief warm up with SSH, Mountain Climbers, Jump Squats and a few hamstring stretches…touch your toes.

Run around the WEP path with 5 Burpees and 10 Jump Squats at each swinging bench

Run back to Veterans for 10 SSH

Run to intersection of Monroe White, Academy, Williamson.

Run up Monroe White to 160, 10 Diamond Merkins & 10 Flutter Kicks then run back to starting intersection for 5 Burpees.
Run out Academy to Forrest, 10 Diamond Merkins & 10 Flutter Kicks then run back to starting intersection for 5 Burpees.
NUR up Williamson to Watson, 10 Diamond Merkins & 10 Flutter Kicks then run back to starting intersection for 5 Burpees.

Run to base of Massey hill. NUR up to the gun shop then back to COT.

2MOM.

Good to be with you.
Maximus

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Changing of the Guard

28 PAX joined in the gloom for a brisk morning at Block Party. Though the temps were in the high-40s, the wind cut and made it feel much colder. Most were ready to get started and warmed up.

Bobber led off with the disclaimer, then we moseyed to the bank parking lot and circled up for 25 SSH IC. Moseyed to the Hobo’s parking lot for:
15 IW IC
10 Windmills IC
10 Cherry Pickers IC
10 Merkins IC
10 LSS IC
Held low squat for 10 MNC IC

Bobber, fighting back tears, then let go of his beloved BlockParty and passed the shovel flag to YHC. It was quiet as a mouse, absolutely no chatter was mumbled. So we did 5 burpees OYO to get back into it. 

The Thang
I explained to the PAX that I started F3 on a Monday at STL, where Pusher (in attendance) led a great workout, and I was encouraged enough to return the next day. The next day happened to be BlockParty, with CakeBoss on Q. It was a brutal morning, full of pain, so I thought we would do it again. 

3 lanes of bear crawls
5 burpees to exit the low side of the parking lot onto Main Street
Run up Main Street, back to the parking lot entrance on Clebourne Street.
5 burpees to enter the parking lot.
Plank for the 6.
This circuit continued, but the lanes changed to:
3 lanes Burpee Broad Jumps (a whole lot of mumblechatter and requests for a suggestion box)
3 lanes Duck Walk
3 lanes Toy Soldiers

Jogged back to Cot for 3 minutes of Mary.

Name-O-Rama, Announcements, Prayers & Praises. 

Thanks to Bobber for his leadership while Site Q, and providing the opportunity for YHC to continue the tradition at BlockParty. 

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4 Corner Dora @ Bushwood

Started with the PAX from Snake Pit on a cool and beautiful morning. Disclaimed the group no FNGs but a 2nd timer @dictator, welcome!

Mosey over towards the band field. About halfway we warmed up with the following:

10-25

SSH

IMPERIAL WALKERS

HILLBILLY WALKERS

MONKEY HUMPERS

MOROCCAN NIGHTCLUBS

WINDMILLS

PLANK POSITION

HONEY MOONERS

DOWNWARD DOGS

PARKER PETER’S

PETER PARKERS

OVERHEAD CLAPS -START AT 4 X 4 ROUNDS, DOUBLE EACH ROUND WITH 3 SECOND PAUSE ( CAN BE DONE STANDING OR KNEELING)

Mumble chatter was a blast, new shoes were creased and sore pecs were worked out again by some.

 

Mosey closer to band field, begin series of sprints to every other curb, all the way down to the school building,  switch to kareoke heading back down the parking lot. Finally last trip down back towards school running backwards and then over towards area of parking lot where cones have been set up for 4 corner work

AMRAP (10 MIN)

3 burpees each corner,  then bear crawl to first cone, 3 burpees, crab walk to 2nd cone, 3 burpees, lunge walk to 3rd cone, 3 burpees, recovery jog to 4th cone, 3 burpees

Mosey back towards COT for DORA work

Top of hill we stopped and PAX were each  given a choice:

100 MERKINS or BIG BOY SIT-UPS, Hardwood chose MERKINS

200 SQUATS or DIPS, Cohiba chose SQUATS

300 SHOULDER TAPS or JABS, Ltrain chose JABS

Quickly finish up and mosey back to COT, we hopped in for 1 minute of Mary and time was called 0600 hours.

YHC shared some post birthday thoughts on leading lives worth living and the ultimate importance of relationships, echoed by Esso.

Announcements: Golf tournament, Turkey donations, bourbon tasting…

Prayers: Shady’s Aunt and family dealing with loss of uncle, a friend of a Smoky dealing with finding out daughter has cancer, Sorry if I missed anything else

 

Band camp added some great pointers throughout the whole COT, Being somewhat new at QING the pointers were much appreciated! Awesome opportunity and morning!

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Way-Backblast – Pushing Through at Laces In

It’s been a long time coming, but finally stepped into the ring at Laces In and handled my VQ. 14 other PAX joined in the gloom for a little of everything, including an FNG.

Disclaimer

With one fresh face in the crowd, we went over the disclaimer, the Five Core Principles of F3 and the Credo. There was absolutely no mumblechatter during this disclaimer and the message was clear and concise.

Warm Up

We moseyed over to the band practice lot for 15 Low Slow Squats IC and 15 Cherry Pickers IC. Then began to mosey back to the student parking lot, but mixed in some Toy Soldiers, High Knees and Butt Kickers. Once in the student lot, CoP for 21 SSH IC and 10 Merkins IC.

The Thang

Utilizing the very large student parking lot, we did a modified 4-corners. The modification was to return to the center for 5 burpees between each corner. The 4 corners consisted of:

  1. Jump Squats & Fredie Mercury
  2. Derkins & Flutter Kicks
  3. Alternating Side Squats & Mtn Climbers
  4. Diamonds & Hello Dollys

We began with 20 reps, and increased the rep count by 10 each time around (round 2 was 30 reps of each exercise and round 3 was 40 reps).

After 2.5 laps, we circled up for one last set of burpees and moseyed across the parking lot to the hill. Since coming off a nagging injury, I have noticed “plateaus” during workouts even more. I reminded the PAX that when we’re faced with difficulty or plateaus in life, whether it’s our health, our relationships with our M and/or our 2.0s, or even at work, that’s when we should focus more and “push harder.” Here at the at the end of the workout, push yourself to sprint up the hill and get better.

After 3 trips up the hill, we moseyed back to CoT (merlot may or may not have been splashed by yours truly) for Name-o-rama, welcomed Battle Bot, announcements, prayers & praises.

Thanks for the VQ support, gentlemen.

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Varsity: new format: part 2

6 PAX, 34 degrees, #winning

Sasquatch set a pretty high bar last week with this new format of Broga followed by a Bootcamp. YHC fired up the core with some yoga and moved into a brief Vinyasa routine

Headed over to the pullup bars; arrived at 5:32.
3 rounds of, 30 seconds on with 10 seconds of rest. (I added 20 seconds of mercy between each round)
Burpees
Pull-ups
High Knees
Pistol Squats
Burpee Pull-ups
Hanging Knee to Chest with twist

That was hard…

I had my kettlebell collection setup:
Sasquatch 45lb
Skate 40lb
YHC 35lb
Shield used a cinderblock, because he’s the man. #respect
Cohiba 30lb
Bodywash 20lb

30 seconds each
2 minutes each hand

One-handed Swing
High Pull
Snatch
One-handed Thruster

This was hard…

5:54
American Hammers with the bell for 1 min

Great work by PAX not expecting bells to be there.
5:55
Finish with some more yoga, specifically pigeon lunge

0600

Lots of prayers:
Skate’s 2.0 looking at colleges
Bodywash’s dad and father-in-law
Shield’s mom dealing with cancer
Band Camp’s friend dealing with cancer
Shop Vac’s family (his funeral is tomorrow)

Lots of praise:
Skate’s 2.0 looking at colleges
Bodywash’s dad is improving
Sheild’s mom’s cancer is treatable
Band Camp’s friend’s cancer is treatable
Shop Vac’s family can see the IMPACT he had on all of us

An honor to lead

Band Camp dismissed

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Loopy Loop

Total of eleven pax for the third installment of Q-swap Thursdays in October.
Today, the Ranch swapped for Laces In. Bootcamp for Bootcamp.
Since Ruby Slippers’ shoulder is on the mend (TAPs), I covered for him today at Laces In.

Disclaimer given and began with some simple stretches.
Warmup: Motivators from 7 (thanks to Tesh for reminding me of a movement I forgot in these Motivators).

Run

Thang: Four corners loop
The routine is explained as: Four corners, cone in each corner, exercises noted on the cone. Will go through these four corners twice to cover a total of eight different exercises.
We do the exercise AMRAP-style for 1 minute
Pax then record the rep count w/ chalk
Pax run to the next cone together as a group
The eight exercises, in order, are:
Burpees
Squats
Leg lifts
SSH
Hand release merkins
Shoulder taps
Monkey humpers
Big boy sit ups
Then for variety, there is a ninth cone, which is:
Bear crawl forward five parking spots, then do 5 merkins, proceed to another five parking spots, then do 5 merkins…continue until time is called. Record distance traveled.

After the nine cones, had a slight break, talked about “if it’s worth doing, it’s worth measuring”
And read the two verses below. Point was: we are out here in the gloom working our butts off, we should be measuring it.

Then proceeded back to the cones for a last round of AMRAPs, with the goal of beating your prior number.

Time called, ran back to COT.

No Mary, got some in the thang.
Fini

1 Timothy 4:15
Take pains with these things; be absorbed in them, so that your progress will be evident to all.

Proverbs 13:4
Lazy people want much but get little, but those who work hard will prosper.

NMM: could have removed the ninth cone…would have permitted more time to complete the second loop.
This parking lot has a total perimeter of about 400 meters; so running a loop gets you a ¼ mile.

 

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700 Club

This morning the Pax participated in the kickoff of Football season by completing 700 reps of a few different exercises across the football field to become a member of the treasured 700 Club.  This is a special club to be a card carrying member.  Your prize for being a member will be soreness tomorrow so enjoy.

Warm up
SSH
Windmill
Cherry picker
Slow count merkin
Hillbilly walker
Big Arm circles

 

Thang
Ladder on football field.  Exercises performed on the numbers started at the Goal line
Burpees (1,2,3,4,5,4,3,2,1) (10 – 1, 20 – 2, 30, 3..50 -5, 40 – 4…10, 1)
Merkins (5,10,15,20,25,20,15,10,5)
Squats (10,20,30,40,50,40,30,20,10)
LBCs (10,20,30,40,50,40,30,20,10)

To wrap up the workout we Bear crawled 50 yds.

If you are trying to do the math the additional 50 exercises came from the warm-up.  Trust me we hit 700.

It was an honor to lead the men this morning and I appreciate everyone not cusing me out loud during the merkins and squats.

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eating our way through the air

19 PAX Gathered and it was so humid we had to “eat our way through the air.” (-Slash)

We started with a quick warmup
SSH – 19 to the number of PAX

Mosey towards the old Church of God parking lot
IW
HW
Moroccan Night Clubs
Merkins – slow count (everybody’s favorite)

Brief mosey to the other Church of God parking lot
Burpee Square (thanks Naperville)
Start in one corner
10 Burpees – bear crawl to next corner
9 Burpees – lunge walk to next corner
8 Burpees – crawl bear to the next corner
7 Burpees – reverse lunge walk back to the first corner
6 Burpees – bear crawl to next corner
5 Burpees – lunge walk to next corner
4 Burpees – crawl bear to the next corner
3 Burpees – reverse lunge walk back to the first corner
2 Burpees – bear crawl to next corner
1 Burpee

View the retaining wall and consider how it works…not by specific acceleration, but by staying put at the ground falls around it revealing all the bricks supporting the top layer

Mosey to the old middle school (banks st. community gym)
Some Yoga for the 6
10 Squats
10 lunge steps
10 Jump Squats
10 lunge steps back
Repeat

Mosey Back – I got gassed on the mosey back. Once your belly is full, eating your way back through the air is really difficult.

Flutters to 0600

NMM:

Sometimes, as the flux hits us all, we lack the motivation to accelerate of our own accord. But if we can call on discipline to continue moving, we can see ourselves rising even though we feel like we’re staying put–just like the top level of that retaining wall. I’ve been feeling that flux for a little while leading up to the big 4-0. And honestly didn’t know how to convey that message until I looked up at the end of too many burpees and too many bear crawls and saw that wall.

Grateful for the opportunity to lead and the support of all the PAX. Y’all help hold me up whether you know it or not. Thank you.


Band Camp Dismissed

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