What Lacks in Creativity…

Call it “coincidental”, impeccable luck, dumb luck, divine appointment, proper Site-Q planning or option “F”, None of the Above but I was fortunate to have the Q at the Swamp today; the morning of our region’s Invergence. If the PAX were grumpy this evening due to not having a decent workout to start their day, that would be on my shoulders. I was really hoping to not let that happen.

So when 19 other men rolled in for an even 20, I had to take note of who might need the extra push. Once the mental note was made (and it shall remain mental), I recognized we’d have to get some distance in before jumping right in and even try to gas people a little here and there.

Disclaimer was uttered and again, my request was made: “All of you are carrying something with you this morning. My request is that you be present for the next 45mins, engage, push and be present with us, here.”

We then…moseyed. Made our way the long way (as if there’s a short way) over to the Kohl’s parking lot mixing in Butt Kickers, High Knees, Toy Soldiers and a few rounds of Sprints (yes, on a warm up mosey).

Circle Up for 7 reps in cadence of each of the following:

Wide-Arm Merkins

Regular Merkins

Diamond Merkins

Mountain Climbers

Peter Parkers

Parker Peters

Then 5 Burpees

2 Lines for an Indian Run around the entire Kohl’s/Kirklands/Ulta, etc building coming back to the Ulta parking lot (can’t believe a beauty supply store just made its way into the BB…TWICE).

Then our typical warm up: Slow Wind Mills, Slow Squats

Catch Me If You Can with a partner and incorporating 10 Carolina Dry Docks and 10 Monkey Humpers when your partner catches you. Make the parking lot lap 3 times. Word to the wise, if you’re partnered with B.O.T., mandate that he jogs or shoot, walks…#speedy.

Circle Up for 7 more reps in cadence of each of the following:

Wide-Arm Merkins

Regular Merkins

Diamond Merkins

Mountain Climbers

Peter Parkers

Parker Peters

Then, mosey to the Old Navy parking lot and line up on a white line

Crab Walk 20 yards, 20 dips, crab walk back, 20 Dips

Repeat

Mosey to the Best Buy parking lot

3 reps each:

Wide-Arm Merkins

Regular Merkins

Diamond Merkins

Burpees

COT

See you at the Invergence tonight and the 1st Convergence tomorrow (Sat) followed by Q-Source.

Honored.

Maximus

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Back at it – Slow Burn

It was a “Full of Respect” group of Pax that showed up to start their Friday off the right way, with the DRP.  YHC finally made it to a workout to actually workout.  Good to see some new faces and old faces (Pusher).  Hootie Tweeted some corporate picture of YHC to either shame or promote…. the vote is still out on that. Disclaimer and we were off.

The Thang

Mosey to COP: SSH X 20, Windmill X 10, Squats X 10, Merkins X 10, Stretch, IW X 10, Moroccan Night Clubs X 15, 6 count Burpee X 5

Mosey to Indian restaurant for some curb work: 1 minute each X 2 sets: Curb steps ups, curb hops, calf raises

Mosey to Lowes for modified Jacob’s ladder: Bear Crawl to Merkins, Lunge back to Squats 1 and 5

Mosey to Garden Area of Lowes for Plank, Plank, Run.  Big circle in plank, one PAX runs around, other Pax yell at him to run faster.  Rinse and Repeat.

Mosey back to COP location. Mary – Slow American hammers, Freddy Mercury, Box Cutters X 10.

Mosey back for COT.  Prayers for recent deaths of teenagers in car wrecks and their families. Prayers for safe travels.

FunHouse

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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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Burpee Bonanza

It was a beautiful 60 degrees Fahrenheit (15 degrees Celsius for the Canadian viewers) at the Colosseum this morning as 10 PAX decided to show up and get right. I started off with a quick introduction and disclaimer, and then we were off. We did a Mosey around the front of the school followed by some toy soldiers and butt kickers to warm the legs up. We then headed over to the back of the school by the half wall for warmups.

Warmup:

  • 20 Side Straddle Hops
  • 10 Cherry Pickers
  • 10 Low Slow Squats With Air Hump (Aka Fun House Special / Aka 3 Amigos). Demo compliments of Fun House.
  • 10 Merkins
  • 10 Moroccan Night Clubs

We headed over to the half wall for some YouTube classics.

  • 10 Muscle Ups
  • 10 Wall Mountain Climbers
  • 10 Muscle Ups
  • 10 Wall Mountain Climbers

Moseyed over to the basketball courts for some cone work. Cones were setup with the same yard markers as a football field including the end zone. There were 11 cones each 10 yards apart.

Before we got started we briefly discussed the Q source purposefulness topic this week.

To live right a man has an ultimate purpose in mind.

To live right requires self-sacrifice.

Living right helps a man to stay right.

The Thang:

  • 10 Burpees. Run 110 yards. 10 Burpees. Run 110 yards back.
  • 10 Burpees. Run 10 yards. 10 Squats. Run 90 yards. 10 Squats. Run 10 yards. 10 Burpees. Run 110 yards back.
  • 10 Burpees. Run 10 yards. 10 Squats. Run 10 yards. 10 Flutters. Run 70 yards. 10 Flutters. Run 10 yards. 10 Squats. Run 10 yards. 10 Burpees. Run 110 yards back.
  • 10 Burpees. Run 10 yards. 10 Squats. Run 10 yards. 10 Flutters. Run 10 yards. 10 Carolina Dry Docs. Run 50 yards. 10 Carolina Dry Docs. Run 10 yards. 10 Flutters. Run 10 yards. 10 Squats. Run 10 yards. 10 Burpees. Run 110 yards back.
  • 10 Burpees. Run 10 yards. 10 Squats. Run 10 yards. 10 Flutters. Run 10 yards. 10 Carolina Dry Docs. Run 10 yards. 10 Plank Jacks. Run 30 yards. 10 Plank Jacks. Run 10 yards. 10 Carolina Dry Docs. Run 10 yards. 10 Flutters. Run 10 yards. 10 Squats. Run 10 yards. 10 Burpees. Run 110 yards back.

Since we were in the spirit of football in May, we continued the theme and did some lineman drills. We did 20 yard intervals of partner bull rushing (110 yards down the field and 110 yards back).

We line up for suicides. 50 yards and back. 110 yards and back.

Circled up for six minutes of Mary, then headed back to COT for prayers and praises.

JWow

 

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

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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Dynamic Duo Q at Alcatraz

It was a chillier than usual Spring morning at Alcatraz (43 degrees) and after setting up TinselUtensils with the help of Straight Up we were ready for an unusual co Q combo with plenty of coupons; at COP we welcomed Prosciutto, he grew up in Tega Cay but now he’s a big part of F3 Chattanooga. AKAY2 crew was there for day 18 of their journey.

The disclaimer was provided by YHC and Straight Up led the warm up with the following:

10 SSHs
Warrior 1
Runner’s Stretch
Deep Runner’s stretch
Sit-on-yer-leg stretch
16 U-gotta-see-it-to-believe-it stretches
4 back stretches
2 X-jumps
3 mins of 5 reps each:
Merkins
Air squat jumps
LBC Twists

after warm up it was time to play with TinselUtensils, PAX  were split into 4 groups and each group went to a station, after completing the station we bear crawled to the next one:

STATION 1:

-> 10 burpees (Fun House noticed that our visitor Prosciutto  clapped at the end of each burpee and we were told that they do that as a standard in F3 Chatt) 

-> 10  Tire flips

-> 20  Monkey Humpers

-> 20 lunges SC

-> 30 low squat (touch the ground with hand)

STATION 2:

USE WEIGHTS OR CINDY

-> 10 man makers

-> 20 biceps curls

-> 20 bent over row

-> 25 overhead press

-> 30 triceps extension

STATION 3:

-> 30 LBC’s

-> 30 Rosalitas

-> 30 Sledgehammer swings  (15 each side)

-> 40 Dying Roach SC

-> 20 slam ball to ground

STATION 4:

-> 10 diamond merkins

-> 20 wide arm merkins

-> 20 regular merkins

-> 30 battle rope wave SC

-> 40 Shoulder taps

-> 40 plank jacks

After all groups completed the full circuit of 4 stations we moved to the grassy area for some Captain Thor’s  Ab Lab: 1 Big boy sit up and 4 American Hammers, progressive to 10 BBSU and 40 AH, this is my favorite Ab Lab combination and even though there was lots of mumble chatter we all finished the exercises.

With about 25 minutes left on the clock it was time for Straight Up’s part of the Q:

Workout:
Grab a heavy item and run to pull-up bars.
We rotated through one round of 50 seconds on and 10 seconds of rest for each of the following stations:

First Round:
Jumping Pull-ups
KB Swings
Commando Pull-ups
Bear crawl up the hill, run down
72 lb sandbag run
Jumping Lunge into 2 SSHs
Mag-R-Tai
Low Slow Squat with 40 lb sandbag
Apollo Ohnos
Dips using a set of real dip bars
The “Worst Merkin Ever”

We then proceeded to run with the heavy items to the top of the hill.
We ran down the hill, broke up into partners and competed against Straight Up.

Second Round:
Goal: to beat Straight Up as a partner team to COT by doing the following:
Partner 1 runs the hill up and down while Partner 2 does slow kick-thru burpees as they wait to be tagged.
Then switch.
Then run up hill again to COT carrying a heavy item of choice (first come first serve).
Straight Up did 2 hill runs with 15 kick-thru burpees each side in between the runs, then ran hill again to COT.
Congratulations to all groups who beat him! Well done!

Unusual F3 event: 3 deer running across our running paths directly in front of us

COT:
Announcements (keep pushing FunHouse this month!), Praises, Prayer requests.
Army PT Test Wed at The Coop

Tinsel out…

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Preparing For the Storm

I was excited to be the Q at The Colosseum this cool morning and my attempt to push the Pax at one of The Fort well known challenging AO’s.  Being one of the older pax, I wanted to push everyone physically and also share what has been going on in my life storm and how I have felt the love and support of the Pax.

A short disclaimer was given since all of the Pax were well versed in F3.  Off we moseyed to the basketball courts and circled up for some warm-up.

  • Wind mill
  • SSH
  • Squats
  • Merkins
  • 6 inch hold 10 sec
  • Mountain Climber
  • MNC

Moseyed to the back bus entrance drive for some light pole work.  I arrived early and with the side walk chalk (borrowed from a neighbors child, DD made mention that my kids were to old for sidewalk chalk) I put an exercise at 6 poles.  Start at 1st pole, do the exercise and run to 2nd.  Return back to 1st and go 2nd, 3rd and return.  Continue this up the hill to the 6th pole and back.

Poles:

  • 20 Merkins
  • 30 Squats
  • 30 Monkey Humpers
  • 10 Burpees
  • 20 CDD
  • 25 Dips

Once all Pax completed then we went back to the 6th pole and worked our way back to the 1st pole.

Mosey back to the basketball court for Mary.

  • Freddie Mercury
  • Dynamic LBC (LBC with feet at 6 inches)
  • Hello Dolly
  • American hammer

This past week has been one of the toughest in our parenting years.  When we got a call at 1:30am from our 21 yr old daughter and she had a serious accident and her car flipped and then caught on fire, our hearts sank.  Thankfully through the Grace of God, all of the events of that night turned out to be ok for our daughter physically.  No injuries and just a loss of material items.  This has opened our eyes to a couple of things.  God’s love and protection of His children even when sometimes we have run far away from Him.  Mental Illness is real and when you see your adult age children struggle with this, it is heart breaking.  The relationships that we build in F3 are real and I have felt the love and support of the PAX.

In the QSource we talk about preparing for the expected and unexpected and the unexpected preparation was confusing to me.  I now understand that for me, this preparation was building the relationships with My Lord, My Shieldlock, Pax and having a good relationship with my M. When the unexpected storms of life come and crash on the beach, you have to have others around to help walk through the storm and lift you up.  I have felt this over the past week.

Thanks to Jekyll for the opportunity to Q and share!!!

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10 Accelerating Together

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SlowBurn – Wegman’s Send off to Chimbote

Today at SlowBurn it was about Wegmans and his choice to say YES to a calling to serve. He heard this calling and it spoke to his heart and he accepted the opportunity to be vulnerable, uncomfortable and go into the world for his creator Sky Q. The cool thing about mission trips is we think its about serving others, but in reality its about Sky Q working on us.

38 PAX came to show Wegmans support. They were running, rucking, boot-camp and even Broga was represented. for 45 mins everyone got better in some fashion, but for YHC I felt led to honor Wegmans by pulling some of his work from previous workouts. I felt the best way to respect a man is to use his material. So away we went.

The Thang:

Warm Up mosey to lower lot

  • Typical COP stuff 5-7 exercise moves
  • Line up at end of lot for some others
    • High Knees
    • Butt Kickers
    • Karaoke
    • Shuffles
    • sprints

Mosey to far side of Indian Restaurant

DMB from Wegmans Ranch workout

  • Duckwalk – 20 yards
  • Merkins – 10
  • Bearcrawl back – 20 yards
  • 3 rounds

Mosey to Far side of Lowes

From the Wegninator’s Coop workout

  • Partner up
    • #1 = Wall Sit
    • #2 =
      • 10 Broadjump Burpees
      • 10 Powerskips
      • 10 Plankwalks (right and then left)
    • Flap jack
    • 3 rounds

Mosey to opposite side of Lowes

From Wegmans’ Slow Burn workout – The Triple Check

Groups of 3

  1. Al Gore
  2. Plank
  3. Run Lap around parking lot
  • 3 rounds, with each person rotating position

Mosey back to COT

Wegmans’s shared his WHY during the workout and serving others and his willingness to be vulnerable in a strange place and open to see what Sky Q will do.

Many in the group have been on mission trips before and I believe that we all have intentions of serving and helping others, however these trips are about what Sky Q teaches us about ourselves. Gives us perspective and understanding that everyone around the globe are all children of HIS and we should love each other.

Best to you Wegmans and look forward to hearing the lesson’s learned.

Cake Boss

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BEYOND Badger – Passivity

Maximus offered me the opportunity to lead a BEYOND workout, and it only felt right to do it at The Badger… He told me to pick the topic and I got to work. I wanted to take it a step further since it was a BEYOND Badger… so instead of one long grueling workout, I chose a few. Makes sense, right?

My topic was Passive Leadership. Something I struggle with constantly. No matter how “great” I feel I am doing as a leader, I tend to slow down and mentally rest. I let my life lead itself and when I’m not behind the steering wheel, the wheels fall off.

Apathy/Indifference – feeling indifferent or lacking emotion
Passivity – accepting what happens without active response or resistance

Poor leadership has many faces… but passivity in my opinion is a main root of the issue.

COP (All Workouts Derived from the Exicon!)
11 of each for (Observed) Veteran’s Day
SSH
Sun Gods (Arm Circles)
Moroccan Night Clubs
Windmill
Hairy Rockettes (Reverse Windmill, Toes reach up to hands)
Tappy Taps
Carolina Dry Docks
Merkins
Peter Parkers
Calf Raises
Low Slow Squat

Al Gore’s in a circle while I talked.

Ephesians 5:25 – Husbands love your wives as Christ loves the church.

I made a vow at the time I proposed to my wife that I wouldn’t be the typical American male who is distant from his family and doesn’t love or support them if their needs aren’t being met. I was on fire at that point in my life, leading and loving like God designed me to do. I felt unstoppable at accomplishing a love that no man had ever felt. Then I started to get in the way…

The great part about the Honey Badger is we get to honor men who didn’t lead passively.

We finished the warm up and moseyed over to the badger den’s infamous pull up bars.

Ryan – Firefighter Hero WOD
5 Rds
7 Muscle UPS or Pull UPS/DIPS
21 Burpees

LBC’s while we waited for the group to finish. Gotta keep adding to the November count!

Drop down to Al Gore to keep the conversation going.

Somewhere along the way… I lost sight of my vow and decided that I wanted to pursue my own fulfillment over my wife’s. It ended up as you’d imagine. We fell away from each other while trying to conceive. I couldn’t think about her pain during the two years we tried, all I could think about was myself and how ready or not ready I was. We reached a point of pursuing fertility treatment – and by we I mean she decided and I didn’t really give any input. We were at the decision point to take hormone shots. Without consulting her or even thinking of her feelings, I backed out and decided for us to let it happen naturally. Needless to say I broke a lot of trust and I reaped the fruit of passive leadership. It was a hard fought battle to regain the trust I broke, but we made it back. All because I led apathetically.

Can you imagine how giving our all, all the time could have an impact? Would you rather be consistently good or inconsistently great?

Mosey to the track to take part in hero workout number two.

Griff 
2 Rds
800 m run forward
400 m run backward

Pick up the six and run with him to the end. The guys planked while we did so.

We ran short so couldn’t do our third hero WOD, but I’m pretty sure everybody was okay with that. We moseyed back to COT for my message to come to a close.

Drop into Al Gore once more to finish the conversation.

I took the difficult time and raw relationship to heart, and was really helped by God and a few good men at my Church in MD. We conceived our daughter and that really helped bring us out of the pit. I vowed not to let our family growth become a wedge and would do my best to lead my wife through whatever comes next. That doesn’t mean I’ve been without issue. Things are constantly changing, and I have to remain in the lead for my wife and children’s sake. If I fail, their chances of failing increase exponentially. I need to keep my head up and lead in a way that will bear the right fruit for all.

Ephesians 5:33a – However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself

A few thoughts…
My life and how fast things change… my daughter will be four in five days. How did that happen? How did I blink and she get this old? Where did I fail? Where did I succeed? How does apathy/passivity cause you to miss things?

A lot of the things that take my focus away have nothing to do with my family. Work, friends, social media, keeping up with sports, golf, hobbies, drinking beer, music, news and politics. Some things take my family time away that are very productive. Church, volunteering at church, F3, working out. Some may have a positive impact on my family life but most of the time take away from my time with my family.

What’s more important?

End with LBCs x 16 IC until the clock struck 6:00.

19 PAX showed up. Welcome FNG BACONATOR!

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