Tag: Nasa

Lots of wallsitting at the Deep

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I fluctuate between wanting to do something super original and brutal and just going with repetition. Saturday I did both. I had COP fairly close to COT, saving the moseys for later. I had us go to the hill but instead of elevens, I entertained the idea of low crawling up the hill. We did it twice, running back down both times. Has potential but lots of anthills. Decided to mosey us to the nearest corner of the school to do indian wall sit. All of us lined up on the wall and sat it, with caboose bearcrawling to the front. we did this till the end of the western wall of the school.

I underestimated the length of the far end of that middle school.

took about 30 minutes to make it to the end. Moseyed to the football field for the main event.

BLIMPS x2, the second set of blimps in reverse order of reps, to get the burpees in hardcore. 120 yards each way, 1440 yards total. Took long enough leave us with time for  5 minutes of ab lab, started with my favorite, Freddy had a fat girlfriend.

Felt really sore sunday in my shoulders, given that we didn’t go super hard on shoulder stuff, not sure why haha.

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Gambling in the Abyss

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What happens when you’re granted the honor of Qing at an AO you’ve not been to much and therefore, not to familiar with? Why, you scout it on Sunday with your kids after Church of course. Completely normal, right? For this group, you’re expected to “bring it” so you’d better know the turf. For those Ft. Mill’ers who’ve not frequented The Abyss, put it on your short-term bucket list. I didn’t explore much of it due to our card playing but this place is a gem.

Once the 16 of us rolled in on this beautiful Wednesday morning, I quickly noticed the footwear NASA was sporting and got a little concerned…for him. He let me know that he and a few other PAX would be breaking off to do a busted-foot-friendly-workout so I felt a little better about what we were getting into. The people-pleasing side of me wanted to make sure I had a little something for everyone so after typical butchered disclaimer, we took off for the basketball courts for our warm up:

Windmills

Side Straddle Hops of course

Super mans

Hand-Release Merkins

Jump Squats

Mosey back to the main lot and I had to grab the deck of cards I slipped under the cone. As many but not all were familiar with, each suit is a different exercise and the number on the card represents how many reps. Jack = 11, Queen = 12, King = 13 and the Ace = 14 (not 1).

Hearts = Wide Arm Merkins

Clubs = Carolina Dry Docks

Diamonds = Jumping Lunges

Spades = BURPEES (Yup, we did that)

After we recognized the deck must have been front-loaded with Wide-Arm Merkins and Jumping Lunges, it wasn’t long until we started getting smoked and a few 10-counts were necessary. In the end, we completed it all which totaled 104 of each, that’s right, 104 Burpees.

There was still a little left in the tank and on the clock so we had to round it out with Dying Cockroaches, descending 10ct leg lifts and the finisher…Lt. Dan’s. The latter was a lesson I would remember the rest of the week.

Bones, I appreciate the opportunity and I look forward to the next time.

Leave no man behind but leave no man where you found him.

Maximus

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A Sunny Saturday Afternoon at CAH

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20 posted for a Saturday afternoon game day at the Children’s attention home.  The boys were already playing basketball before we got started, but they still had some energy to burn.  So, we did a slow mosey/walk to the field up the street from CAH and got to it.  Here is what we did:

The Thang:

Mini- COP

SSH x 20, merkin x 10,   windmill x 10, squat x 10, mountain climber x 10

We split the group up and played a friendly, but competitive game of kickball.  There were some good plays, some not-so-good plays, but we all had a lot of fun on a beautiful, late afternoon spring day.  I think the score was 8-7, but it wasn’t important who won the game.  The time we spent together, getting to know each other better and learning from each other, was what it was about.

Welcome FNG/Trek Star who is a friend of  Man of Steel (my son), and also, who we found out today, a neighbor of NASA’s.  He said that he enjoyed himself today and wants to come again.  I was very happy to hear that and hope that he can join us any time we come to CAH.

I told the boys about a news story I saw this week about a high school boy named Gerald Hodges who swam for his high school swim team in Texas.   It’s an amazing story about a young athlete, who could have easily played for just about any sport team at his school.  But instead, chose to join the school swim team.  Gerald could barely swim, but decided to join the swim team because he wanted to learn how to handle failure if it happened (it didn’t).   Being able to handle failures and learn from them, Gerald thought, would make him successful.  This to me, was an incredibly mature thing for an 18 year old to do, and was a powerful message for anyone.  The link to this story is below.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R0tjVEncJyg

My thanks to NASA for the invitation to Q.  I have been absent from the CAH for too long and plan on getting there more regularly this year.

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Where is Spring??

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18 Men showed up on a very chilly April morning. The pre-ruck was very well attended, and the ruck portion was being Q’ed by Olaf and there seemed to be several implements of torcher that were assembled for the rucking PAX to carry around.  5:15 came and the disclaimer was given(in spirit if not actually) and the entire group was challenged to begin thinking of prayers that needed to be shared at COT. No prayers for your neighbors sick cat, what do YOU need your brothers to know and pray for in your life?  With that the Ruckers were dismissed and the rest of us circled up for some COP.  SSH, IW, Squats, on your side for some hip flexing and strengthening – Jane Fonda – Leg Circles forward and reverse, back kicks.  All on your side 5 count then flip sides. Strong loose hips are key to injury prevention.  Mosey to lay out the cones for a 5 corner workout tour around the Golden Corral. 1st cone at the bottom of the hill(10 Bomb Jacks) Cone #2 at the top of the hill(20 LBC) Cone 3 around Auto Parts and Oil change(10 CDD) 4th cone at COT(15 Squats) Cone 5 at Dominos(15 Merkins) You vs You workout, you choose how fast you want to push it, how hard you want to work.  The PAX did awesome, everyone finished at least 4 full laps and a few did 4 plus, Mileage count was over 3 miles, pretty strong for a 45 minute boot camp.  Final mosey to COT

Announcements – Strawberry Fields, Guidance & CAH, Bonsai has Beyond next Tuesday at GC

Prayers & Praises – Continued prayers for Badger – Prayers for patience and wisdom with young kids(especially boys), Prayers for healing for the young kids in our community growing up in dysfunctional or non-existent homes, prayers for patience and energy to continue dealing with the racial injustices that many of us don’t want to admit exist.  I appreciated the hearts of the men who shared this morning, and challenge the PAX to press into being vulnerable with our real struggles and needs so that we can properly car for each other.

 

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Our 2 Year Celebration for F3 in Lake Wylie @ the Deep!

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I was privileged to get the opportunity to lead (with Dark Helmet) the 1st workout at the Deep, and on this Celebration Day to get the opportunity to lead once again! We’ve seen a lot of new and consistent faces over that 2 years and I truly feel there is something special about the guys that come from the west side of Lake Wylie.  It was really great to show up 10 minutes before the 7am launch and see so many of the tenured Fort Mill PAX already there to support us at this celebration!

I used that opportunity to open with a little message.  3 of the PAX were FNGs, so I gave the long disclaimer, but then I asked for a show of hands for how many years each PAX had been posting at F3.  It was awesome to see guys like Cornhole, Sen Tressel, Maximus and Spitz who have been posting 4-5 YEARS now.  All of those guys have had a direct impact on my life so I was really honored that they came out to support our Lake Wylie PAX.

The Thang

Quick mosey around the parking lot for a dynamic warmup

Made it over to the soccer field for our COP

SSHs – Imperial Squat Walkers – Windmills – MNCs – Merkins – Mountain Climbers – Yoga – Plank Jacks

Before we got into the next evolution, I shared several messages about the foundation of F3.  Started with the Mission, T-Claps to NASA for knowing it by heart! Then I shared one of my favorite Q Source Posts, the Daily Red Pill.  (Link Below)

The Daily Red Pill Feb 2017

1st Exercise Evolution

4 corners – PAX counted off by 4s

There were 4 cones set up at the corners of the field.  1 in the center. What would a Lake Wylie celebration be without the original exercise FOUNDED AT THE 1ST WORKOUT? That’s right, 5 Kraken Burpees (check the lexicon if you do not know this favorite).  That was our center cone.  The groups would split up and run to their assigned number, complete the exercise, run back and do 5 Kraken Burpees

1st corner = 20  Worst Merkin Ever (Wide Arm Merkin, Regular Merkin then Diamond Merkin = 1 rep)

2nd corner = 40 Flutter Kicks double count

3rd corner = 30 Jump Squats

4th Corner = 30 Imperial Squat Walkers

Took a break and shared some more about Sad Clowns, and how F3 is the antidote to Sad Clown Syndrome from the DRP post.

2nd Evolution = Mosey over to the big hill

Partner Up

1 partner down and up the hill, 2nd partner says and does the exercise I call until I’m tired of it.

They were: CCDs – Burpees – SSHs : This lasted a lot longer than 2 sentences gives credit.

More discussion around DRP

3rd Evolution = Mosey to the back of the school

Lt Dangers to the 1st basketball goal That’s a lunge – lunge – squat – merkin (crowd pleaser)

Bear Crawl to the 2nd BB goal

Lt Dangers back to the end of the school

That’s like 200 yards, little Link (Bones 9 year old 2.0) crushed us all – including his Dad!

4th Evolution = Mosey to the front of the school

Time was running short, I had two boards with 5 exercises set up, audibled to just 1 board.  We did the five exercises in cadence.

5th Evolution = Saved 6 minutes for my last favorite – Captain Thors!

1 big boy sit up to 4 America Hammers, go to 10…we ran out of time at the 9 rotation.  It hurt anyways!

COT was great with 3 new FNGS, two were 2.0 of regular PAX and they held their own!

Cross Check (Peg’s 2.0 Logan) for his lacrosse skills

FIFA (Flux’s 2.0 Evan) for his soccer skills

Wesley our 29 year old previous college pole vaulter so his F3 name forever shall be Bubka!

It was really a great time with great friends and great mubblechatter.  I hope everyone else enjoyed it as much as I did.

(and we got 16 out to Coffeeteria, our best part of Saturdays)

An Honor to Lead

-Royale

 

 

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Too much work at Golden Corral

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Here’s what the bootcampers did after the ruckers took off with Wild Thing.

Dynamic Warmup around parking lot

Then COP

20 SSHs – 20 MNCs – 10 Slow Cotton Pickers –

10 WA Merkins – 20 Moun Climbers – Yoga – 15 Plank Jacks

 Partner Up

 Dora 1-2-3

100 Burpees

200 Sumo Squats

300 SSHs

While other partner ran around the parking lot triangle

 To Fort Mill BBQ Lot

11s with Bear crawls

11 WA Merkins

1 Bomb jack

Run backwards to start

I had 2 other evolutions on the Weinke, but I miscalculated on how much 11s would suck with the distance and number of bear crawls.  Most of the PAX got to 11, but it hurt!

During our 10 counts I shared some quotes and insight that I’ve been gathering from my most recent reading, Jordan Peterson’s “12 Rules for Life.”  The rule I reviewed was Rule #8 : Tell the Truth – or at least Don’t Lie!

Attached are the quotes:

Tell the Truth or at least Don’t Lie

An honor to lead…

-Royale

 

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4 Corners . . . with some “Elders”

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I will keep this backblast shorter, but I will say it was a lot of fun today at the Pantheon! Thanks to Fishsticks for letting me Q.

Some Pre-work:

1 group of runners headed out to who knows where at 4:45.

Fishsticks and I did some extra ab work that I call high octane abs. It hurt.

Disclosure given. Lots and lots and lots of chatter. Completely dark. Did I mention there was lots of chatter?

Short mosey to the lighted area for a different dynamic stretching workout after some high knees and butt kickers.

Some confused minds about what we were doing since very few had done this style of warm-up before (~8 exercises). Eventually I shifted to some traditional SSHs and the crowd went wild. It was like the PAXs’ bodies woke up.

At this point I inconveniently forgot a few demos of a few of the exercises to come for the main event.

The Thang:

We broke up into 4 teams of 5 and went to each respective corner on the soccer field. Fortunately, it was not very muddy.

I’d tell you the 20 different (and difficult) exercises that we did, but  . . . that means I’d have to type them out right now and I feel lazy after a long day of work. So if you are reading this, feel free to retweet it and comment what your favorite one was even if you don’t know the name of it. We did do Tunnel of Love and People’s Carry between cones.

I had a second round prepared, but, oh well, . . . time slipped away from us. Beware of next time. Round 2 was scheduled to be harder.

COT: Main Announcements: Convergence coming up; Praises: Lutefish’s daughter rocked it; Prayer: let’s continue to pray for children going through difficult times and Badger and his family.

Thanks to everyone, including the “Elders” for their hard work today!

Lastly, I think I missed one of you on the list. So sorry. My memory can only remember 19 out of 20 without a recording. Feel free to identify yourself.

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Motivation Monday @ Quagmire: by Shakespeare

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I had the honor of leading 7 men (1 FNG!) this morning at Quagmire.  The drive in was a bit of a shock as rain drizzled down the entire way.  According to the weather report, rain was supposed to start a bit later in the morning.  I wasn’t much worried about the rain for the workout, but more that some of my writing on paper would smear off and make it a bit harder for us to read the writing on my cornhole bags (more on that later).  But, the Big Man Upstairs was nice enough to get rid of the drizzle and save the smearing for another day.  Note to self: always use ziplock bags… no matter the weather report.

Warmup:

Begin at COT with disclaimer for our FNG and started with some light stretching.  After a day of rest on Sunday (I’m sure many were in the same boat) some light stretching definitely helped to loosen the body up for the work we were about to do.

  • Mosey around Home Depot to Target Parking Lot.
  • Circle up and completed following routine…
  • SSH x20
  • Imperial Walker x10
  • Hillbilly Walker x10
  • Moroccan Night Club x20
  • Mountain Climbers x15
  • Parker Peters x10
  • Merkins x10
  • Honeymooner/Downward Dog x2
  • Warm-up Over… mosey over to Foutain

The Thang:

1st)  Find a bench. Completed the following routine twice….

  • Step Ups x10 each leg OYO
  • 1 Legged Lunges x10 each leg OYO
  • Tricep Dips x10 double count (in cadence)
  • Derkins x10 double count (in cadence)

2nd)  Partner up.  Four Corners with partner.  Exercises written on notecards, duct-taped to cornhole bags (needed something that wouldn’t fly away in the wind… total MacGyver move on my part).  All groups start in center with 5 burpees, run to a corner of the businesses around us.  After completing a corner, return to center for another 5 burpees.  Wash, rinse, repeat until all 4 corners were completed with 25 burpees.  Corner exercises as followed:

  • 50 Seal Jacks (double count)
  • 30 Wide Arm Merkins
  • 50 Flutter Kicks (double count)
  • 50 American Hammers (double count)

3rd) Mosey back over near COT to drop of cornhole bags and find some wall.  Completed the following exercises with same partners.

  1. Partner A) People’s Chair until Partner B) completes 25 squats… switch positions… x 2 (two People’s Chair per partner/50 squats each)
  2. Partner A)BTTW until Partner B)completes 20 Carolina Dry Docks… switch positions… x 2 (two BTTW per partner/40 CDD each)
  3. Bonus Set w/ extra time!  Partner A) People’s Chair until Partner B) completes 20 Monkey Humpers… switch positions… x 2 (two People’s Chair per partner/40 Humpers)

Mosey back to COT

Name-O-Rama followed by the naming of our FNG… Welcome Kenny G!

Announcements:

  • Read your newsletter. Carolina Beer Temple Tuesday!
  • Strawberry Festival, Operation Sweettooth 8K, Whetstone, the usual.

Praise/Prayers:

  • Students/teachers returning to school following Spring Break.
  • Lutefisk’s mother, praise for making into town for Easter, prayers for continued healing as she continues her fight.
  • MOAB for upcoming job interviews this week.
  • NASA… him and the M’s anniversary. (Congrats!)

Takeaways:

  • Thanks DaVinci for the opportunity to Q!  Enjoyed coming up with this routine… hope that the BackBlast isn’t too long (it probably is… my bad guys).  I wanted to push myself with a tough workout to get the week started off on a great note.  I knew going into this one I was going to have to reach deep; the adrenaline from the Q sure helped!  All in all, everyone tallied a couple miles of running in addition to some high numbers of leg, shoulder, and core exercises.
  • Getting close to my 1-year F3 anniversary, I finally got the chance to name my first FNG… looking forward to getting more opportunities to do that!
  • P.S.- Cornhole bags really do work to write down exercises.  DaVinci gave me kudos for the last minute idea.  The next prototype might need a little work in the event that it rains!

-Shakespeare

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Fun with Big Balls and Little Balls at Guidance

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One of the things you have to appreciate about serving, I don’t mean sending a letter to a service member oversees or collecting cereal boxes kind of serving… rather I’m talking about roll your sleeves up and get into the trenches kind of serving with the people that you are serving… is the reality that you can’t anticipate what the twists and turns and speed bumps and hurdles that will experienced along the way.  Not to mention what God will show you along the way.

This post at Guidance started out surprisingly divided as the great divider was working overtime with these young men with a little in-fighting and much negativity of those moping around not wanting to participate.  It was apparent that even one of the boy’s that is new since our last visit was spewing negativity and didn’t want to participate.  This day required an overdrive of positivity and encouragement with a dose of peer accountability and expectation set by the Pax.  By the end of our time with the boys the mood changed materially and the boys had fun and were much more engaged and participatory.

What is the lesson?  First, I’ve noticed that currently amongst the boys there is lacking leadership within that has positivity rather there is more negativity that is infecting the home.  In reflection, this is a reality in my daily life that in my home, work, F3 or any group I participate in I can be that person that takes the group to new heights with my positivity or I can be the cancer that infects the group and at worst infects others or at best stagnates the group at mediocrity.  I challenge the Pax to be a light in the circles you run in but also take your light into the world, into these darker places in our community to be a light, a beacon of hope and encouragement.  Serving the least of us is not easy, comfortable or always safe but we are called to step out of our comfort zones and serve.

The Thang:

Mosey to the church at the top of the hill (slow but steady).  We had some fast pacers and some slow anchors to get to the top of the hill.

COP:

It is not abnormal to have varied participation amongst the boys but today they were going to hold each other accountable to participate because we weren’t going to stop until they could string together three exercises in a row with full participation and effort.

SSH – 10x – Not all participated so exercise didn’t count

Squats – 10x – Again not all participated …

Imperial Walkers – 10x Now we’re talking!  All boys are in!

Mountains Climbers – 10x Best yet!

Windmills – 10x Mission accomplished

In the spirit of Easter we dispatched the boys to search the property (aka Easter Egg hunt style) to find the supplies for the next event.  Searching for 4 bases and two balls the boys scoured the grounds, secured provisions and returned to the field.

Ended the work out playing kick ball with a twist.  Playing one round with a large 20″ exercise ball and the other round with a dodge ball.  Each time the kicking team got on base the fielding team had to do a burpee and each time the fielding team got an out then the kicking team had to do a burpee.

COT and mosey home!

Editorial Comment:  The beginning of the workout shows me that these boys need the men of F3, they need more men to invest in their lives, to give them direction, accountability and hope. Consider how you can invest your time in their future!  They don’t need more prayers… they need  men to be in community with them on a consistent ongoing basis.

Chicken Hawk

 

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