Litter pick up – Community Svc

March 18th is tentatively set as our first pick-up for the US21 adopt-a-Highway litter pickup! We will have 4 opportunities in 2023. Once a quarter is the plan.  All supplies provided ( bags, gloves, safety vests, pick up sticks, eye-wear, and fellowship) All that remains is YOU.
Plan for about 1 hour and 30 mins – 2 hours maximum. We will meet at the Harris street park around 7:45am.
We will walk up the hill to US21 and split up into 2 groups.  One group will head north to the Peachstand and back and the other group will head south to Sutton Rd and back.  (1 mile each direction)

We could use 10-12 guys to keep this an efficient and timely process. 2.0s and Ms are welcome as well as anyone who would like to participate in our community svc event.

Thank you to all who participated in 2022. Looking forward to seeing new faces as well as the HIM who assisted last year.

US 21 from the Peachstand south to Sutton Rd ( Circle K – gas station) is the road that we adopted!!

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F3 Dads 2021 Closing: Kickball

F3 Dads lots of fun was had

It was great to be out in community with so many PAX and their families this summer. It’s one for of bonding to suffer a bootcamp or run hills alongside your fellow PAX. It’s even cooler to see your kids run alongside their kids. Was also fun (for me) to have a circle of pain and call just 2 merkins when everyone thought we were just there for kickball.

To be honest the Kids vs. Dads kickball game was a bit of a cluster. (Charlie Foxtrot). My boys were very excited to compete against the dads. But I underestimated how many 2.0s would understand any semblance of the rules or strategy… T-Claps to all the dads for basically playing against them and coached them at the same time. If we do something like this again, we’ll have dads and kids along side each other.

I’m glad we had the parachute there as well. Unlike a normal F3 workout, kickball can feel more like a clipboard workout than something we do together. It was fun to see to be on the parachute towards the end and see CareBear start to exert her natural desire to lead (Grassy Knoll is going to have his hands full with that one).

Ended with water balloons courtesy of Hardwood and Floppy Disk. Prefect ending to the session. And T-Claps to Peabody for picking up the broken balloons so I could tell my M that we did!

I jotted down a quick AAR in Slack:

What you saw today if you drove by WEP was men enjoying time with their kiddos and being present. F3 is an organization not with leaders, but of leaders. That was on display today in a silly (bit of a cluster) game of kickball with parachute popcorn springing up on the side. And closing with a water balloon fight (props to @F3Hardwood and floppy disc for the assist on that)

:clap::skin-tone-2: :clap::skin-tone-2: :clap::skin-tone-2: T-Claps to all the men that Qed F3 Dads this summer. @JWOW, @g_purve_olaf, @Tootie, @Lutefisk, @UHaul, @maximus, @Michael Pysher(F3 Slapshot), @Peabody :clap::skin-tone-2: :clap::skin-tone-2: :clap::skin-tone-2: and T-Claps to all the guys who came out with their kiddos early on a Saturday to be in community

Until next summer….


Band Camp dismissed

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Intervals at the Swamp

I have been on a motivated 1stF acceleration tear recently and this continued with some relentless pain. Some might even say it was terrible. Introduced multiple uncomfortable exercises that targeted those obliques and hips. Penguins were a crowd-pleaser. Cookout Squats were also a fan favorite. Nut crushers took the cake. See the Workout summary if you are like me and get geeked out on the data. Stay Frosty my Friends! OLAF
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7 of Diamonds

There were 3 runners and 9 PAX joined YHC for the boot camp portion.  Was thankful for the help as this was my VQ for a boot camp.  Wanted to make it memorable…

After a quick reminder, gave the disclaimer and we were off.


Warm Up

Moseyed toward the back of the school stopping at first parking lot for Moroccan night clubs (x15) and merkins (x10).  Then moseyed past the back of the school to the next lot where we did low slow squats (x15) and mountain climbers (x10).

The Thang

As we headed up toward the field the PAX saw the chalk on the ground with the 7 of diamonds exercises laid out…I explained each exercise is done at the four locations I pointed out around the loop that goes around the field – about 1/3 mile loop.  All exercises were oyo.  Then it was time to get to it.  Gears was out the gate first and the rest eventually joined in on the fun.  The exercises were:

Burpees (7, 28 total)

LBCs (14, 56 total)

Lunges (21, 82 total)

Flutters (28, 112 total)

Jump Squats (21, 82 total)

Diamond merkins (14, 56 total)

Burpees (7, 28 total)

 

Only a couple made it all the way through and after the six was in we had about 2 min left.  Found a curb and did 30 dips (IC) and 10ish LBCs with a very irregular counting cadence.
Headed back to the shovel flag for COT.
Thanks 38 Special for the opportunity to lead.

 

 

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PreMurph weird exercises at Quagmire

Disclaimer was disclaimed to these seasoned veterans.

Brisk Mosey from StartEx to Kohls parking lot, lots of complaints already.

Circle up then instruct the PAX to assume the FLLP, forward-leaning-listening-position, some people call it a high plank but I don’t hang out with those kind of people.
Read first fun fact about Memorial day:

Sprint around the Kohls and Ultra back to circle up.

Introduction to the new “weird” exercises:
First exercise is the “Side Straddle Burpee”
“The what?” disgruntled PAX
you heard right ladies. Now start Side Straddling and when I say down you perform a burpee. Its not in cadence so get moving.
We did that for a few burpees past when everyone wanted to quit so everyone got better.

Time for another loop around the shops.

Circle up again for some “Cha Cha Merkins”. It’s a simpler form of the breakdance merkin because you don’t have to bring your leg all the way through but you do have to cha-cha your feet in order for the outside of your hip to be able to touch the ground. Its a merkin that instead of your chest touching the ground you’re letting your hip droop so the outside touches which also makes one shoulder work harder than the other. And that’s why we alternate hips. It’s all about finding that right balance.

Then we did some “Suicide Squats”. It’s three squats in one, the gift that keeps on giving like Russian stacking dolls, Start in the original starting position then lower into a little baby squat, then return to standing, then go down to a proper parallel squat, then return to standing, then finally go down to a deep ankle squat, then return to standing. Congratulations thats one rep.

Time for another lap around the shops.

Next up was some “Cookout Squats” Think about having to put your knees together to balance a full plate of food at your grandma’s backyard while you sit in a rickety lawn chair. Only you don’t get the lawn chair and there isn’t a plate of food on your lap. Start standing with your knees together and your toes slightly in. Then squat down as far as you can go. It only takes about 6-7 of these evil guys to get the IT band and your outer hips to feel the fire.

Then bear crawl for about 10 or so parking spots to do some derkins before bear crawling back.

Now its time for the “NutCrackers” a truly crowd-pleasing experience. Drop into a low slow squat and hold at the bottom. Now rotate your knees inward until you hear the nutscrack then rotate them outwards until you can feel it in your hips. I dare you to try and do more than 10. (Its a four-count exercise)

Time for one last lap before the final exercise.

Final exercise was the “Penguin”

Stand upright tall with hands by your sides. Then in cadence you are going to reach down and touch your right knee but you can’t bend forward at the waist, Its all obliques. Then rotate over to the other side, Now you understand the name right? If you don’t you are probably doing it all wrong. This also is one that will sneak up on you 24-36 hrs later.

Finally finished with new and exciting exercises so its time for a quick suicide in front of the shops before heading back to COT.

Count-A-Rama, Name-A-Rama, Announcements and last but not least Prayers and Praises.
Now whos coming over to my house for the Murph? Shoutout to @ChaChing for pushing me to do the Murph and for Larell Lake Ridge Hood for joining us.

Thanks for the opportunity Mile High to lead such a great group of guys.

Stay frosty my friends!

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In honor of Yoshi turning 13

I had the privilege of Qing for the first time in quite some time. Thank you for the opportunity, 38 Special!

In honor of my son turning 13 soon (an American teenager!), most rep counts today were 13 in nature, single count for most of them.

4:45 was a run to Palmetto West and back

5:00 was more running past Lakeshore Christian Church and through the stairs backway to the Pantheon

5:15 boot camp and runners split. Disclosures stated.

Small warm-up with SSHs, various leg stretches, and windmills.

Ran to backside of TC Elementary to gradually rotate around the school and did 3 exercises per random location to include:

Reverse Lunges, Bench Jumps, Incline Merkins

Turkish Get-ups, Air Mountain Climbers or Goofballs, Lunges

Merkins, Jump ups (super high), Bear Crawls

Pull ups, Broad jump, Cross jumps (creating a cross)

Mountain climbers, High knees, Spiderman crawls

More bear crawls, Jump down from benches focusing on solid landing, Dips

75% effort level sprints X 2, Bear Crawls

Thought about stealing the Broga-boyz shoes – (yes, this was an exercise)

 

Then on to Circuit Training: The timer was the jump rope to 100 and then we rotated.

Shoulder press with a Spartan bag

Sandbag pickups and over the shoulder throws

KB individual curls

Band curls

 

Ended with various ab exercises as a group to include, but not limited to: Starfish crunches, Side crunches, Cockroach, and everyone’s favorite, Russian V-twist get-ups.

COT to include announcements, LOTS OF PRAISES, and some prayers.

Blessings to all!

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Warm and Wild

A few Ruckers and a few Bootcampers for a nice one

Warm-up included a short run about .3 of a mile

COP

SSH

Diamond Merkins

Seal Jacks

MC

PP

Slow Squats

Mosey around back and partner up

One man BTTW while the other runs and does 1 Burpee, Flapjack. all the way up to 10. on even numbers it was wall sits, odd numbers it was BTTW

Keep your partner and mosey to the cones

at each cone do 10 partner hand slap merkins fo 3 cones and return doing 10 big boy situps partner hand slap

Repeat this time do 5 Diamond Merkins hand slap and 10 Squats on the way back hand slaps

Mosey to a curb and do 15 Dips, 15Derkins, 15 LBC’s 15 Mac Tar Djai (Excuse the spelling error) Repeat 3 times

Mosey to COT area for a little Mary then COT

Great workout and glad to be back! Hopefully everyone got their money’s worth!!

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In memory of 24 / 8

After hearing the news yesterday of the passing via helicopter crash of one of the GOAT’s Kobe Bryant, YHC felt the need to honor him AND the lives of the other 8 individuals with a beatdown full of 8 and 24, his jersey #s.

Standard disclaimer preceded by the following message: Friends, let us not become fearful when confronted with life’s impending expiration. Rather, let us live with a fullness and an intentionality that recognizes the value of each breath given.

Mosey for warm-o-rama:
– At each crosswalk, burpee jump shot (just a regular burpee, but instead of both hands up on the jump, it’s one hand up to drain the 3).  Accumulator burpees at each crosswalk (we did 5 crosswalks to total 21) then circle up for the last 3 = 24 burpee jump shots.
– 24 SSH in cadence
– 12 imperial walkers + 12 hillbilly walkers, in cadence = 24
– 24 single count merkins
– 24 toe touches on the curb

Mosey to distant parking lot and partner up with someone similar in speed. Not your partner, your opponent.  2 cones are 24 parking paces apart.  Partners will start at opposite ends and complete 8’s (similar to 11’s, but #Kobe).  One end is squats, the other end is merkins.  After you complete the first exercise, bear crawl to the other end. Complete that exercise then mosey back. Repeat until you flapjack and complete the 8’s.  That’s right, that’s 7x bear crawl 24 parking spaces.  Doesn’t seem like much?  #try it.  To encourage PAX, YHC reminded them that I’d rather be doing this than losing family members.  Our pain is nothing compared to their pain.

Mosey back to Best Buy wall for 24 seconds BTTW, 24 dips (ouch), and 8 jump shot burpees.  Repeato.  YHC then reminds PAX of a famous quote: we’re not guaranteed tomorrow.  While true, we’re also not guaranteed the rest of today.  So what are we going to do about that?  Hop into plank to go around the circle and mention something they’re grateful for and/or something they’re going to do different TODAY to make an impact.  Unfortunately, 38 felt the need to grace us with his inner smells.  Fairly certain he ate something that was not real food the night before… I digress.

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Black Diamond at the One Word Convergence

If you’re going to call it a Black Diamond, well then I owe it to the guys who show up for it to give them a true Black Diamond.  Even if that makes 12 guys hate your guts for 40 min.  They’re mad because it sucks, which they willingly signed up for.  I think the below was sucky and vomitty at times, but we’re all better men because of it.  Here we go:

“Warm-up” – 5 exercises, 5 rep counts, we do 1 exercise every minute on the minute (EMOM).  Translation, the faster you finish the one exercise, the more rest you have until the next minute starts up again.

Minute 1 – 20 burpees (do it, its possible)
Minute 2 – 30 jump lunges
Minute 3 – 40 toe touches
Minute 4 – 50 carolina dry docks
Minute 5 – 60 side straddle hops

From there, we broke into two groups.  I informed the pax that we’d be doing a good old fashioned indian run, but notched up a level since it’s a Black Diamond.  Call it a “competitive” indian run.  3 laps around the full Harris Teeter complex (behind the store and then out to the road near Wendy’s).  Measured the lap online and 1 lap was 0.33 miles.  3 laps = 1 mile Indian run.  Guy in back drops and does 3 burpees and then has to haul a$$ back to the front of the group and the last guy drops again.  Do this for all 3 laps.

One team starts on the far side of the parking lot (near Pizza Hut), the other team starts on the opposite end of the parking lot (Moe’s).  Goal is beat the other team to the finish w/ loser having to burpee broad jump 100 yards.  Since the two groups ran in opposite directions, at one point every lap you had a good feel for how your team was performing vs. the other team and the hope was that it would speed up the laps…you can say it worked.

For the first lap I knew we’d have a better understanding of how competitive this was going to be – we passed the other team coming towards us at the same exact spot in the lap (going opposite direction) and both teams were going hard and I’d say were dead even.  This was the point when things got a bit vomity.  Fast forward 3 laps, and without really seeing the other side of the parking lot, I think team Pizza Hut won it out.  In an effort to compromise and make everyone feel equally terrible, we shared the punishment.  We did about 80 yards of burpee broad jumps, turned around and bear crawled back the 80 yards.

Next up – a Jack Webb spiced up for a Black Diamond.  2 exercises w/ a 1:4 rep ratio, up to 10 reps of the first and 40 reps of the second.  Mack Tar Jai / Jump Squats.  1 mack, 4 jump squats, 2 macks, 8 jump squats.  Somewhere around the 6 mack tar jais and 24 jump squats is when I got the feeling some guys might lay down.  I challenged the pax to give it all they got and finish strong, by doing some sort of rep, even if the jump squat was modified to a squat.  Some needed it, others didn’t.  We all finished.  Final rep count – 55 mack tar jais, 220 jump squats in about 10 minutes.

We had 5 minutes, so as promised, we ended where we started with a repeat of the every minute on the minute (EMOM).  Going down for that first burpee of the 20 in minute 1, after 220 jump squats almost ended me.  Arms went down, legs froze and wouldn’t move.

The Black Diamond takers finished and limped over to CoT to close it out.  Great effort fellas.  My only requirement was to make it harder than most workouts we get on a regular basis, so hopeful it met your expectations.  Until next time!

Cha Ching

 

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4 big boy corners

Upon arrival, Darkest of All was already in 2020 form with the newly coined “traveling pants” extra credit.  A handful of brave (stupid) souls joined him for a 3-4 warmup prior to 0515.  As 0515 quickly approached, 10 was the number that came to play for what was an extremely warm late December morning.  Quick disclaimer and a short mosey over to the neighboring parking lot for some warm ups.  Started out with SSH, windmills, merkins, low slow squat, parker peters, then some stretching…yes, stretching.  Quad stretches followed by some shoulder and arm stretching.  Now that warming up was out of the way, YHC quickly mapped out where the 4 corners were going to take place.

Corner 1 – Old Navy; Corner 2 – Ulta; Corner 3 – Home Depot; Corner 4 – Best Buy / COT…this made for a 1.5 mile loop around the grounds we call Quagmire.  At each corner, the following exercises we performed:

  • 10 bomb jacks
  • 20 diamonds
  • 30 CDD
  • 40 jump squats
  • 50 flutters

Oh ya, the goal was to get to the corners via bear crawl….j/k, that would just be insane (please don’t anyone do this or Jedi may complain a little bit).  We used our legs and ran, but the goal was to run quickly.  Jedi and Cha Ching were the pacesetters while the rest of us mortals made sure we could still see them.

Once all had completed the one loop and all the exercises, making it around again with exercises in 15 min was not going to be worth the price of admission.  So we moved the 4 corners into closer range and proximity.  In the bigger Best Buy parking lot, we did a mini-4 corners but with a center starfish idea.  In each corner we did the merkin exercises with the center being 5 burpees (go do the corner, come back to the middle, repeat until all corners complete).

  • 20 wide arm
  • 20 diamond
  • 20 ranger
  • 20 partner derkins

With 7 or so minutes remaining, we did the same concept / idea but in MARY style.  In the center was 5 LBC.

  • 10 flutters
  • 10 hello dolly
  • 10 rosalita
  • 10 American hammers

Wrapped it up at 0600 and headed over to COT for name-o-rama, announcements and prayers and praises.  YHC didn’t bring any words of wisdom (like I have any…lol) today as this was a non-talking, mimimal mumblechatter, no-10 count kind of morning.  Yes, there was the occasional Jedi rib shot and DH “encouragement”, but pretty calm given the constant go.  Prayers go out to Milehigh who is nursing a knee injury.  Thanks for the call to lead, always appreciate it!

Shady

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