Kettle Bells & Stuff at the Snake Pit (sort of)

I know it has been  said by many but man, it feels good to be in the gloom with the guys again. Once I got my logistics figured out and blew the dust off the ol’ rusty kettle bell, Fire Marshal Bill & I made our way to the relocated Snake Pit AO. Hopefully, all these temporary relocations will be behind us soon.
17 others joined us for a total of 19 socially-distant PAX in the gloom this morning. We had one of the original Redwoods (Santini), one of the youngest guys in the PAX (Lil’ John), our resident story teller (Spitz) and a whole bunch of other faces I like seeing in the gloom.
Once 3D finished his struggle-fest with planting the Shovel-Flag into the ground and I did an oh-so-brief disclaimer, we took off for our warm-up mosey. A few minutes later, we returned to our Kettle Bell and began the instructional portion of the workout, more of the modified high-intensity variety.

2min of Burpees
5min Kettle Bell with 20ea: Curls, Low Rows, Upright Rows (repeat until 5mins is over)
5min Run at a “go get-it” pace: 1/2mi route is out to light at Banks St and back. So interesting why my first 200 yards of this run was brisk yet the rest wasn’t so.
5min Kettle Bell with 20ea: Overhead Press, Chest Press, Tricep Extensions (repeat until 5mins is over)
2min of Burpees
5min Run at a “go get it” pace to Banks St and back.
5min Kettle Bell with 10ea: 4ct Flutters with the press or the KB in the air, V-Ups, Big Boy Sit Ups (repeat until 5mins is over)
2min of Burpees
4min Kettle Bell with 2 forward lunges, 2 reverse lunges, 1 left lunge, 1 right lunge, 1 deep squat (repeat until 4mins is over)

And just like that, we were already standing at COT, how convenient.
Announcements: Guys are clearly looking to slowly start posting again so please pay attention to Slack (and possibly Twitter) or text/call another PAX to find out where the AO’s are now if they used to be at a school or park. Those grounds are still off limits but hopefully not for much longer.

Prayers/Praises: Mental health right now (and always), health for a spouse. PAX on the road to recovery and joining us back in the gloom, for a friend battling illness and getting the care he needs, MARRIAGES, physical health of other PAX, , upcoming moves, kids taking big tests, small businesses during this time and many more.

Until next time,
Maximus

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World Domination Complete – The Hive comes to Saturdays at a socially distant location near you…

Well it was bound to happen and eventually it did, The Hive crossed over the last day of the week not yet occupied by The Hive…  Spitz led the first half and Tesh closed strong on an absolutely beautiful day in The Fort.  We are blessed to be in this great town and I am blessed to have the brothers of F3 here in Fort Mill coming out and supporting this AO.  We will soon be back to the new form of normal and I will definitely be ready to stop using Worship Planner…

IMG_0839

 

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“Quarantine Convergence” – Snake Pit 4.22.2020

Snake Pit 4.22.2020

Disclaimer – we had an FNG so I had to cross the t’s and dot the i’s.

My goal was to play a Queen play list because my current quarantine stache is making YHC look like Freddie Mercury. We decided against the music for the sake of the residents nearby. 

 

Warmup:

20 SSH, 10 IW/HW/Moroccan Night Clubs

Weinke:

I wore an interval timer that was set to go off every 3 minutes. Every time it sounded we did two things:

1. 5 Burpees at each beep
2. Go onto the next Circuit and pick up where we left off from the time prior

Each Group Rotate After Each “Burpee-Val”

Circuit 1
25 Calf Raises Toes Pointed Straight
20 Goblet Squats
15 UHAULS
10 Skull Crushers
5 Clean and Press Each Side
30 Flutters With Bell

Circuit 2
25 Calf Raises Toes Pointed Out
20 KB Swings
15 Kid Launches
10 Curls Each Side
5 Right Turkish Get Ups
30 LBCs With Bell

Circuit 3
25 Calf Raises Toes Pointed In
20 Reverse Lunges (10 Each Side)
15 OH Press
10 Lawnmowers Each Side
5 Left Turkish Get Ups
30 American Hammers With Bell

In all, we made it through each round 3 times. You can do the math to figure out the totals.

While we were cycling through, I asked the PAX one by one to tell the group how they’ve taken advantage of all of the added time with family/friends. Most have been able to take a step back from the hustle and bustle of the commute/work/busy life and have been able to focus on their families more. This is a huge blessing that we must not miss the chance to capture!

In all, we had 12 PAX and 850 total burpees. It got a little hairy toward the end, but I believe everybody enjoyed the work. Thanks for the opportunity to lead, 3D.

Announcements
Manion WOD this weekend – reach out to Maximus if you would like more details

Prayers/Praises
Be Intentional in this time – how often are we forced to spend more time with our family?
1 Peter 5:7 – “Cast all your anxieties on Him, because He cares for you.”
Praise for UHAUL’s Niece at Texas A&M for receiving a grant/scholarship to clear away most of her school debt.

Welcome, FNG: N-95!

Punch List out.

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Preparedness- Are You Prepared?

Attn #HIM of the The Fort and Lake Wylie,

Preparedness is discussed in Foundation Point F5 of the the Q- Source.  As Defined Preparedness is: Getting Ready for the Expected While being Ready for The Unexpected. This is an all encompassing need to us as men.  It is valid in all parts out our lives;  Father, husband, boss, team member, Site-Q, WO Q ect.

The purpose for this pre-blast is in regards to life saving measures that Pax can take in the event of an unexpected medical emergency at home, work, or at an AO.  We have talked about it in Site-Q Meetings and at the last Invergence.

Last week HomeBrew ,a Pax from Lake Wylie, who is near and dear to our hearts, had just this type of medical emergency come crashing down on him after his 2.0 suffered a Febrile Seizure and stopped breathing.  He had no training but HAD to ACT. So he mimicked what he had seen on TV and was able to revive her before EMS was able to arrive.  Good On Ya for maintaining a cool head and doing what needed to be done.  CPR and Faith in the Sky Q is what saved her life.  I have maintained CPR/AED/First Aid certification for 6-8 years now for work.  I feel better knowing that if I am put in that sort of situation I have at minimum the base knowledge to try and keep someone alive till EMS-Fire arrive on site to take over.

Here is what HomeBrew and I are proposing.  This will be a friendly competition between The Fort and Lake Wylie regions.  From 4-1 to 4-15 every PAX from either region that completes certification or re-certifies in CPR/ AED/First Aid he and I + the Nan’tan and 1st F Q will complete 5 burpees.   The region that draws the most new or recerts will pass that number on to the “Loser”, but honestly- Who really loses in this situation? IE The Fort get 30 pax LKW gets 20 pax = LKW will do 150 burpees. The Fort will do 100. As you all know, I HATE BURPEES, but have committed to drive action across the regions.

The Certification I have been using comes from NationalCPRFoundation.com.  It is Red Cross compliant and should take between 30 mins to 1 hour to complete.  It is free unless you decide to purchases the hard copy certificates.  We will require a screen shot/ picture Tweeted or slacked to both HomeBrew and myself of the completed training for a CPR/AED/First aid at the end.  It will be added to the spreadsheet we will use to document Pax completion. The certification is good for 2 years.

It is highly recommended that All Site Qs get on board with this effort, but all PAX can benefit from this training. What better way to show leadership than making sure the Pax that Post to your AO know you have that training and are ready to act in the even that someone goes down.

Please join us in this and lets Ensure we are Prepared for the unexpected. Stay tuned to TwEETAR for a message from Homebrew.

Thanks

Duck Dynasty  🦆👑and HomeBrew 🏠🍺

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March 11 at The Coop

Super creative? Absolutely not?
Wordy? Definitely not?
Recap of the work done? Absolutely

GQ on warm up for his first ever crack at Qing. He ran us to a spot, performed some warm up exercises, adapted to the feedback and received the AAR in true fashion. That’s how we all get better; if we could all get an AAR after completing objectives.

YHC now on Q and we rant to the football field.

.5mi around the track at a good/heavy-breathing pace.
36 Mak Tar Jah’s
.25mi at a “get after it” pace
35 Mak Tar Jah’s

Planks & abs & stuff

Line up on the goal line
71 Carolina Dry Docks
Bear crawl to the 50yd line
71 Merkins
Crawl bear to the goal line

Mosey to the pull-up bars

20 Pull-Ups
Run down the hill to the stop sign
Nur back up the hill

COT

SYITG

GQ & Maximus

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Guinea Pigs in The Swamp

What does that title even mean? Well, it means that I stole a workout plan from the boys in F3 Lexington as we put a twist on the customary deck of cards. And since I wasn’t sure how much time this would take or how difficult it would be, we’d test this, Round 1, on 10 of The Fort’s faithful this Friday morning at The Swamp.

After the disclaimer, we took a mosey over to the Depot lot for some SSH & Windmills & a few stretches. We then moseyed over to the water fountain to read through the exercises and attempt to explain how this would be different from previous versions. And this is what it looked like:

We made it through about 85% of the deck and I think there is room to modify these exercises next time, too. Soooo, until that next time…

Read ya d*mn Newsletter.

Maximus

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Runnin’ Long Laps at The Pond

Minnow Pond on a brisk 35 degree morning? Sure, I’ll bite. This one’s gonna be short on content but heavy  on work. First I must say that it was good to see some of the not-so-regular guys at this edition.

We had 2 post for extra-extra credit, a few more post at 0500 for the extra credit. Finally at 0514, 10 of us made our way over to Ol’ Glory for The Pledge Of Allegiance. Have I said that I do love this tradition ‘Shanks has established.

Ok, it’s 0515 and here is your brief disclaimer to cover the bases. After that, we took off up the Massey hill just to pull a U-turn at the Church and run it back to the Minnow Pond parking lot for a little more warming up:

SSH & some 180 degree jump squats…THAT’S IT, after all, you just ran up and down that hill.

We then took off on our 1.1mi loop that we’d get more comfortable with. Again, go up the Massey hill but this time, go down to the gas station.
Post up at the gas station for our first set of exercises. Every time we stop, we’d be doing the same 3 exercises and the same number of reps.

(20) 2ct Flutters
(15) Jump Squats
(10) Hand-Release Merkins

Take off to make a R/T on Harris St
R/T on McCammon St
Straight through the light to the Founders Bank parking lot for

(20) 2ct Flutters
(15) Jump Squats
(10) Hand-Release Merkins

Take off to make a R/T on Clebourne St
R/T on Main St
Back to the Veterans Memorial flags for

(20) 2ct Flutters
(15) Jump Squats
(10) Hand-Release Merkins

So that is 1 lap and the goal is to do this repeatedly to ensure you cover the 3mi minimum but also including the exercises at each of the 3 stops on each lap.

Some of the PAX got close to 3mi. Some got over 3.5mi but all pushed and got pushed.

READ YOUR NEWSLETTER

Maximus

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Bright Colors for #F3forFaye

Yesterday Spiderman & YHC had the realization that we were Qing at the same site today…I had the Golden Corral bootcamp which means he had the Fire Ant Ruck beat down. It’s always good to shake things up so we decided to do just that for this mornings edition.

As can be the case with our own lives, we sometimes over-complicate a workout and stray from the simple but effective model. I’ll go ahead and cut to the chase, I think this was certainly effective but it overshot simple pretty quickly. But hey, we were just looking to give the other 17 PAX that joined us an opportunity to chatter at our expense.

Enough rambling, here it is. We combined Ruckers & Boot Campers (wait, you can’t do that…oh yes we can) and split the combined group in half. We had 4 corners established covering most of the parking lot (corner of Harris Teeter to Red Bowl to the insurance office to the dog wash place). It was a large square-ish figure. Half went with Spider Man and half came with me.

Each corner had a sheet with exercises written on it but here’s the kicker, don’t just jog from one corner to another. Get on it. The ground is wet but “well lit” so you do you but GET IT.
For those present, you can remember all the fond times you had of poking the Q’s about how “things look better on paper” or “I bet these seemed easier in your head” or any number of other completely appropriate jabs that were thrown while trying to figure out the Ruck logistics but none of that matters ’cause you loved it and this is peer led (remember…we’re not professionals).

Corner 1 (with Rucks):
(5) 8-count Body Builders
(10) Squats
(15) Bent over rows

When your group is done, sprint

Corner 2 (w/o rucks):
(5) 8-count Body Builders
(10) Box Cutters
(15) Diamond Merkins
(20) Butt Kickers

When your group is done, sprint

Corner 3 (with Rucks):
(5) 8-count Body Builders
(10) Squats
(15) Bent over rows

When your group is done, sprint

Corner 4 (with Rucks):
(5) 8-count Body Builders
(10) Heels to Heavan
(15) Hand-Release Merkins
(20) Butt Kickers

Sprint back to Corner 1.

We did this full evolution about 3 times then brought the group back together for something we unknowingly stole from Tinsel (plagiarism is the finest form  of flattery, right?).
1 Merkin : 4 Shoulder Taps and we made it to 8:32 before having to cut it short for COT.

Important to remember today why we wore the bright colors. Remembering a little girl, Faye, whose life was too short but her impact will be far-reaching; to families and communities her or her family never knew.

Announcements: In the words of the eloquent Mainframe, “Read your da*n NEWSLETTER.” Hey, he’s right.

Prayers: Family members in battles for their lives. Communication in marriages. Cash’s recovery. Kids healing from broken bones.

Until Next Time.
Spiderman & Maximus

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Braving the “elements” at Slowburn

By now, it’s a well-traveled story about the threat of inclement weather for our Friday AM post at Slow Burn. Fortunately, 10 other men joined me as we decided to give it a go anyways. After some comments the perfect road conditions, attire and an assessment by Pusher, we circled up.

Greeting…check
Disclaimer…check.
Mosey…check

We got to our first spot for our oh, so creative warm-up in the Lowe’s parking lot:
Moroccan Night Clubs
Wind Mills
Squats
Side Straddle Hops
THEN DO IT ALL AGAIN
Moroccan Night Clubs
Wind Mills
Squats
Side Straddle Hops

Mosey to the Lowe’s wall (you know the one where we keep it vertical via our backs while in the seated position. Yeah, we did that but here’s the twist:
We started with a 60sec plank (plus/minus)
PAX on the wall and starting at one end, each man would come off the wall for 10 Merkins then return to the wall. We did that through our 11 PAX.
Another 60sec plank (plus/minus)
PAX on the wall and starting at one end, each man would come off the wall for 15 Dips then return to the wall. We did that through our 11 PAX.
Final 60sec plank (plus/minus)

Mosey to the “smokers” parking lot next to Persis for the first mini Ab Lab
Flutters
Heels to Heaven (or modify to knees to Heaven if needed)
Grave Diggers (left & right)

Dora (Persis to Empire): Get a partner for the following:
Partner 1: 100 Carolina Dry Docks
Partner 2: Run to Empire Pizza and back

Partner 1: 200 Dips
Partner 2: Run to Empire Pizza and back

Partner 1: 300 Bent Over Rows
Partner 2: Run to Empire Pizza and back

Back to the smoker’s lot for the rest of Ab Lab:
LBC’s
Peter Parker
Parker Peter

Mosey to the parking lot in front of Empire Pizza:
3-tiered gassers but upon the return from each tier:
Tier 1: 5 Merkins
Tier 2: 10 Merkins
Tier 3: 15 Merkins or 5 Burpees

Take it COT.
Announcements: Read your newsletter that comes out on Sunday cause there’s a lot in there. Doty Run, BEYOND restarting in March.

Prayers: Recovery for Cash, Marriages, Co-worker fighting cancer, Friend’s daughter

Hootie & Twister…THANK YOU.

Maximus

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20% More

Today was a day a long time coming, but more in the NMM.

10 Men showed for a soggy beat down at the Coop.  Here’s what we did:

The Thang:

Mosey, with some shuffle, to the practice field.

COP

  • SSH
  • Mountain Climbers
  • Windmills

Gassers, repeating 5 times with exercises below between

  • 20 yards
  • 50 yards
  • 100 yards

Squats till 6, then MNC till 6

  • 12 Merkins IC
  • 12 Burpees
  • 12 Monkey Squats IC
  • 12 Bombjacks
  • 12 CDD IC

Mosey to Rock Pile

  • Pick a rock, 12 Man Makers
  • Run a lap to sign and back
  • Repeat x3, upgrading rock after each

Mosey to covered area for some Boat and Canoe and American Hammer.

Mosey to Pull Up Bars

  • 6 Pack

Run to Bottom of Hill, Backwards Run Up the Hill then to COT

 

NMM

As we gathered for #BTP, I commented that my FNG workout was at the Coop 5 years ago and it was a VQ for One Niner (BB here) and how it would be neat for him to be there 5 years later.  As we finished the COP and were about to run the Gassers, a lone figure came trotting up in the gloom… none other than One Niner.

I charged the PAX with looking to push themselves 20% more throughout the workout today.  The idea was that we get complacent or comfortable in our routines, but imagine what impact you could make with just 20% more effort to break out of your plateau, regardless of the arena of life.  I saw lots of good effort today with guys really pushing it both on the gassers and the man makers.  This is how we get stronger… by pushing beyond where we’d normally stop.

 

Announcements:

Yeti, Doty Run, Q School – Check your newsletter.

 

Prayers up for Marriages, Punch List’s M with baby pending, and being willing to share with others when life is hard.

 

Honor to Serve.

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