Saturday, September 30th 2017 was a special Convergence for the PAX of The Fort. On that day we celebrated 5 years of using these small workout groups to invigorate male leadership in Fort Mill. To honor the occasion, 88 PAX gathered at one of our favorite AOs (Nations Ford HS) to celebrate the day and the leaders that made it all happen.

We also celebrated 6 Friendly New Guys that joined us that morning. Welcome Tubs, Band Camp, Jughead, Atari, Hat Trick, and Saul.

It wasn’t all sunshine and rainbows, however. Here’s how we got better:

Warmup (led by Ginsu)

• Mosey to the football field
• 30 Side Straddle Hops
• 10, 4-count windmills
• 30 Moroccan night clubs
• 10, 4-count merkins
• 10, 4-count Peter Parkers
• 10, 4-count Parker Peters
• 10, 4-count LBCs
• 20 low slow squats

Split into groups (Run, Regular Bootcamp, Black Diamond, Ruck, Moderate Bootcamp)

Run (led by Birdcage)

• 800 meter indian run
• 1000 meter 10k pace with 1 minute rest x2
• 200 meter 1 mile race pace 200 meter cool down x4
• 400 meter sprint corners recover straights
• 1600 meter cool down
• 5 miles total

Bootcamp (led by Royale)

• Mosey over to the concrete football field
• 10 merkins
• Lunge walk 10 yards then do 3 burpees
• Next ten yards bear crawl then 3 more burpees
• Rise and repeat until we hit the other goal line
• 10 count – going over the Five Core Principals of an F3 workout
• Next phase we broke into 4 groups
• At each corner of the end zones there were 5 exercises written on a board.  We would complete in your group and then run to the next corner. Everyone would hit al 4 corners.
  • Corner 1
    • 20 Merkins
    • 30 Lunges
    • 30 Dying Cockroaches
    • 30 Ski Abs
    • 3 Kraken Burpees
  • Corner 2
    • 20 Ranger Merkins
    • 30 Squats
    • 40 Freddy Mercurys
    • 40 Shoulder Taps
    • 10 burpees
  • Corner 3
    • 20 Durkins
    • 20 Jump Squats
    • 50 American Hammers
    • 30 Monkey Humpers
    • 10 Mountain Climber Burpees
  • Corner 4
    • 20 Wide Arm Merkins
    • 20 Sumo Squats
    • 20 V-Up Twists
    • 20 Bombjacks
    • 10 Squat Burpees

• Mosey over to the round about
• Each man would take a lap around 1st doing Lt Dans
• Finally we would bear crawl.
• Mosey to the football field for the last 30 seconds and some LBCs

Black Diamond (led by Backdraft)

• Mosey from warm up top pull up bars
• Pull ups/ Burpee challenge – 9 pull ups 1 burpee., 8-2 , 7-3 until finished.
• Mosey to stadium run the bleachers
• 10 derkins
• 10 dips
• Mosey to track run 1/4 mile as fast as you can. U vs. U
• Mosey to end zone. Count off by 2s. split into groups first person flips tire 10 times than run end zone to end zone while next person flips tire everyone else continuously do 10 merkins, 10 squats, 10 big boy sit ups. Keep going until all of group is finished.
• 10 min 100 burpees. Do 10 burpees every minute on the minute. U vs. U
• Mosey to 50 yard line 5 minute of Mary
• Sideline sprints x 2 first set after you run 10 tuck jumps. 2nd set 5 hand release merkins

Ruck (led by Trucker)

2 20lb, 3 40lb, and 3 60lb sandbags were snagged from back of car as 8 PAX tucked down to the elementary school and dropped the sandbags next to the telephone poles. The 8 PAX carried the telephone pole around the parking lot. Left telephone pole where we found it and rucked backwards up the hill to the pull up bars. What’s a WO by Trucker without pull ups? YHC challenged the 8 PAX to do 2 sets of 5 pull ups with ruck on.

Rucked into stadium and lined up in 2 columns for sandbag throws from one end of football field to other and back. Then rucked up and down the football stand stairs from one end back. Rinse and repeat with sandbag throws and stadium stairs. Threw sandbags again down to other side of endzone and then formed 2 lines abs flipped tires from one end to other. Sandbag threw back to other endzone and climbed stadium stairs one more time. Finished with a 20 count flutters. Great work by seasoned and rookie ruckers.

Moderate (led by Short Sale)

• MOSEY to Elementary School
• Grab some Wall. Wall Sits while Pax at each end jumps out of line for 5 squats
• Repeat with 5 Bombjacks.
• Count off by 5’s and mosey to back of the parking lot
  • Number 1’s go to station #1
  • 2’s start at Station3, etc.
• Stations: 3 minutes/station. Q calls stop & go
  • 1: 10 Merkins, 20 Calf raises
  • 2: 20 LBCs, 20 Monkey Humpers
  • 3: 10 SSHs, 20 Moroccan Night Clubs
  • 4: 10 Scorpion Dry Docks, 20 Squats
  • 5: 20 Imperial Walkers, 10 Apollo Ohnos
  • 6: 10 Broad Jumps, 20 Flutters
  • 7: 10 Bombjacks, 20 squat jabs
  • 8: 10 handclap merkins w/partner, 10 partner Derkins- Beloved by veteran Pax and FNGs alike
  • 9: 10 Jump Squats, 10 CDD’s
  • 10: 10 Dips, 5 jack Webbs
• Mosey to Stop sign at bottom of hill for some Mary- Hello Dollies, Flutters, Protractor

MESSAGE ON LEADERSHIP- F3 gives us a great platform to grow our leadership skills and build confidence as a leader. The Pax will let you know if/when something has gone wrong but will also be there to lift you up. Also, the best leaders don’t focus on their ROLE, they focus on the GOAL. So, be the leader you were called to be.

Great group of men came to work. Veterans guided the FNGs and encouraged them at every step of the way. YHC kept reminding the group that it is UvsU out here. Some quality mumble chatter about what moderate means. Smiles all around when moved on from the stations.

Wrap Up

What we have at The Fort is special. It is a strong group of PAX led by men who live with intentionality. I am sure that each of us would agree that it has impacted our lives in ways that we will never be able to describe. At some point for each of us, we were gifted F3. We were headlocked by someone who recognized the impact that F3 had on them and how it could help us. With that in mind, let’s pay this gift forward. Be the leader you were called to be and use your influence to headlock the sad clowns around you, FNGs and Kotters, that are where you once were. Be a leader.

Ginsu