Beach Ants

6 PAX made it out for the GORUCK beach challenge at the Tega Cay beach club’s volleyball court.

The challenge:
20 Flutters (with press for EC)
30 meter bear crawl w/ ruck drag (about x1.5 length of court)
20 Russian twists
…for six rounds of sandy fun.

Finished up with a mosey up the road and back to COT.

Talked about the new AOs coming to the region. The 3 mile+ bootcamp sounds fun. Read your newsletter.

Thanks Router for the opportunity to lead and shame on me for taking so long to write up a really short backblast.

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Life Skills with kettle bell babies at the Cannonball

Disclaimer disclaimed while in plank.
Start the party with an Indian run complete failure on my part.
Circle up with kettlebells for some suicide squats, Merkins, and circle of kettlebell rows.
Bring your kettlebells and make a lap around half parking lot. a crowd pleaser for sure.

Then time for life skills. Again a failure on my part of explaining the difference between two rows or columns and two lines.
For the record, a line is what you learned how to stand in back in Kindergarten. You find the back of someone’s head and stare at it. That’s a line.

A row is where you are standing shoulder to shoulder with a fellow PAX facing in the same direction. If anyone wants to correct me I welcome the discussion.

Sadly in today’s broken world, there are some terrible, evil individuals out there they want to cause harm to innocent people. This mornings life training was an attempt to prepare fellow men for such a situation.
The first row of PAX dropped down to a plank with head up facing the church with the kettlebells in front of them. These PAX are going to be jumping up from plank, grabbing two kettlebells, their own along with kettlebell belonging to pax opposite them in row 2, and sprinting away from the starting point as if an active shooter attach was taking place and the kettlebells were their shorties. Use your imagination people! This could save someone’s life.
The row 2 PAX were instructed to also start in the plank position but facing the woods. When YHC says “go” the row 1 PAX jump up, grab kettlebells, and take off towards the woods. PAX in row 2 perform 3 hand release merkins before jumping up and giving chase to PAX in row 1 that just kidnapped PAX 2 shorties. Think of it as a modified “catch me if you can” exercise set.

Finish it up with a more successful attempt at the fuel tank farmer carry Indian run.
I had plenty more planned, let this be a lesson to newer Q’s: always plan at least double the amount of exercises than you think you have time to complete, but given the rapid growth of the @F3_LakeWylie region I wanted to get some future Q’s in the spotlight. Let us not forget that we are challenged to invogorate male community leadership. Great job to those men for going along with being voluntold.

Finish up with Count-A-Rama, then Name-A-Rama, praises and prayers before BOM.
Thanks for the opportunity TwoFerns to lead such a strong group of HIMs.
Until next time “Stay Frosty My Friends”
OLAF.

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Keep it Simple

This will probably be the easiest backblast I ever write and it just goes to show, sometimes SIMPLER equals HARDER.

Got the text Sunday following church that we needed a substi-Q for Quagmire and I felt like I really wanted to just run Monday, but miss when I don’t do the boot camps, so what better way than to combine the two.

Let’s get to it:

Dynamic warm-up consisted of a quick mosey to Best Buy where we then lined up and did:

  • power skips half way down the building and then jogged to the end of petsmart
  • side shuffle half way, flip, side shuffle rest of the way
  • karaoke half way, switch, the same
  • back pedaled half way down then jogged to the end end

Did a quick 20 merkins, 20 big boys, 20 peter parker planks (on elbows) and 20 diamond merkins and then we started the real thang.

The balance was something like this:

  • Run a 1/3 of a mile, then do 10 bomb jacks, 15 burpees and 20 pulsating jump squats (half squat, full squat into jump squat = 1), then run another 1/3 mile and do the same 3 exercises / reps and keep doing it until time lol.  We did 4 of those back to back and then took a break to do the following:
  • Partner up at the Verizon by Target – partner 1 runs to rack room shoes (about 1/4 of a mile down) and back while partner 2 does non stop x-crunches (thank you ab app).  The jog was longer than I thought.  1/2 a mile kind of sucked right there.  Sorry not sorry.  65 x-crunches later we switched and partner 2 jogs.
  • From there, we went back to the every 1/3 mile do the 10/15/20 bomb jacks/burpees/pulsating/jump squats until we got back closer to COT.

Ended w/ an all out sprint the length of pet smart / office depot / best buy back to COT.  Props to Pot Hole for saving some in the tank and blowing by everybody.

Final #’s – 3 miles ran, 60 bomb jacks, 90 burpees, 120 pulsating jump squats and about 50-70 x crunches per person.  Not a bad day for a Monday.  Heard heart rates were excessively high which is always a good sign.  Thanks for hanging in there fellas – had a great time leading the pax.  Until next time.

Cha Ching

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Partner Work at Golden Corral – Tuesday, June 18th, 2019

14 HIM joined YHC for some partner work at Golden Corral. They were invited to bring some extra weight for extra credit…some took me up on this offer…probably a bad decision.

Mosey to top of the road next to apartment complex for Warmup.

Warmup:

  • 25 side straddle hops
  • 10 4-count windmills
  • 10 4-count peter parkers
  • 10 4-count parker peters
  • 10 4-count merkins
  • 20 Moroccan night clubs

Mosey to the bottom of the hill for the Workout.

Workout:

  • Partner Up
  • Complete the following total reps per partnership. One partner does reps, the other runs to the top of the hill, does 10 SSHs, runs back down and flip flops with partner.
  • Reps
    • 100 burpees
    • 200 merkins
    • 200 big boy situps
    • 300 air squats

Mosey back to COT.

Announcements: upcoming Sweaty.

Prayers/Praise: Prayers for Bates family in Columbia w/ loss of son. Praise for fighting complacency. Praise for one of the PAX’s health improvement.

Always fun to lead.

– Ginsu

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Quagmire- Where it all Started

14 plus an FNG  in the warm and muggy Gloom at Quagmire. This AO is where I posted for my first time back on 2-18-19. Bones’ Eh’d me for 12 full months before I gathered the gumption to get after it. Lutefisk had the Q for a coin flip beatdown. Couple of the regular Pax picked me up in the deep 6 for the next 3 weeks while I got my legs under me.  Will be eternally great full to those guys for keeping me going day after day.

Quick Disjointed disclaimer at 0515 and off we go on a quick mosey across the AO to the Tuesday Morning parking lot.

COP

20 SSH

20 imperial walkers

20 Hillbilly Walkers — At this point Cornhole did me a solid and advised the PAX we did have an FNG in the mix. Need to work on my Openers/ disclaimers and such- Thanks Cornhole.

20 fast and slow Windmills-Based on the Mumble Chatter the Pax like very slow windmills- I like to keep the pace up.

20 Weed pickers

15 Flutter kicks

Roll to Plank for 30 seconds then into 3 rotations of Downward Dog and honeymooners.

Mosey to Target for the fun

The Thang

Red Ball Workout with Suicides. Side Note- Had the Weinke all ready to roll last night when I stopped to cook supper and my son deleted the entire thing. So who knows what the comparison between what we did and what I had on paper would have actually looked like.

Rep Counts 10-20-30

Exercises

Ball 1: Burpees–Run to ball 3.

Ball 3: BombJacks- Suicide back to Ball 2 up to Ball 4.

Ball 4: Squats- Suicide back to Ball 3 up to ball 5.

Ball 5: Werkins- Suicide back to Ball 4 up to Ball 6.

Ball 6: Merkins- Suicide Back to Ball 5 up to ball 7.

Ball 7: Diamond Merkins- Suicide back to ball 6 up to Ball 8.

Ball 8: Big Boy Situps- Suicide back to Ball 7 up to ball 9.

Ball 9: LBCs- Suicide back to Ball 8 up to Ball 10.

Ball 10: Box Cutters- Mosey back to Start

Rinse and repeat  increasing as stated 10-20-30

Was shooting for 3 rounds. Most got in 2.5ish.  2-3 HIM completed all 3 rounds like the beasts they are. All accelerated. Non partner work but lots of guys picked each other up and worked together to make it happen.

Long Mosey back for COT right on time.

FNG- Jason Holland- LT. Colonel in the US Army now known in the Gloom as Cloggs.

Announcements

Newsletter- Sweati upcoming.

Prayers- Cloggs is taking his new command of the MEPs Facility in Chicago and traveling back today.

Sick/injured and traveling PAX.

Thanks Jedi for allowing me to lead where I got my start.

Duck Out

 

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We don’t need no stinking drill bits – we’re at Quagtastic!

Kicked off the fun with a short mosey to one parking lot over about 50 yards.  Started the warm-up with windmills (10x), low slow squats (10x), imperial walkers (10x), cherry pickers (10x), merkins (10x), diamond merkins (10x), downward dog 2x, and finally honey mooner 2x.  Laid on our backs and did some hamstring stretches and then stretched our backs.

On to more fun where we started off our tour “drill bit” style.  If you’ve been to WEP, then you know the drill.  Started off with a run to Petsmart and off we went…

  • Petsmart 10 bombjacks…run….
  • Home Depot 20 diamond merkins, then the 10 bombjacks…run….
  • Target 30 American Hammers (double count), then the 20 above, then the 10..run….
  • Verizon 40 squats (see above 30, 20, 10)..run….
  • BW3’s 50 flutters (double count and see the above)..run….
  • Kay Jewlers 60 calf raises, all 3 ways, then see 50-10 above

Next we toured over to the stairs where we found the gate to be zip tied so we improv’d.  Jacob’s ladder up and down the stairs where we did 7’s (exercises needed to add up to 7).  Started with 1 ranger merkin (or as Jedi refers to it as 1 real merkin) and 6 bupees.  To amp this up competition style we had semi-sick out of energy Bonsai go first and then Jedi trailed 8-9 guys deep.  If Jedi passed Bonsai, we would do a bonus exercise…and this happened so we got to do the below bonus.

Next tour was a short sweaty mosey over to the fountain which looked enticing enough to dive in.  Instead we did the below:

  • 3 Krakken burpees (for our bonus thx to Jedi)
  • 10 step ups (10 each leg)
  • 20 derkins
  • 30 dips
  • Rinse and repeat

Off to COT for name-o-rama and all things COT worthy!

Today’s message was inspired by what journey you are on as a man.  Are you just trying to get to a destination or do you have a mission and a purpose you’re focused on.  Are you inspiring those around you in a positive or negative way, do you need to make a change to what you’re doing, can you do it today?  If not, why?  Comments we make or actions we take can have a lasting impression.  Surround yourself with the right friends and make decisions that are impactful to your purpose.

Pleasure as always Jedi, thanks for the invite, and nice work out there men!

Shady

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Time to Get Some at Bermuda Triangle

It was only a matter of time until I was called to the deep uncharted territories of Lake Wylie, somewhere they call the Bermuda Triangle.

Olaf was nice enough to keep me company and take the 25 min ride from Lake Ridge this am, so wheels up at 4:20a got us to the AO by 4:45 w/ 15 min to set up some cones before the early 5a start time.  Was glad to see two Olaf’s participating at the same AO and a couple newbies I hadn’t met.

Warm-ups you know are optional for me – so we moseyed 15 feet and did some sun gods, windmills and then started the real warm-up:

  1. Every Minute on the Minute (EMOM) we do 30 SSH + 8 burpees for 5 minutes.  After knocking out a quick 5 minute 150 SSH and 40 burpees to the sweet sweet sounds of Dropkick Murphy’s, Buck Cherry and Motley Crue, we took it over to the field for some reverse Dora’s.
  2. Partner up and do the following Dora:
    • 200 jump squats – partner not doing jump squats was doing a 3 cone suicide (Duck Dynasty’s evil idea…I didn’t make them do burpees at each turn)
    • 100 mak tar jais – partner not doing MTJ’s was side shuffling down to the last cone and back
    • 50 burpees – partner not doing burps bear crawled to middle cone and back
  3. I had two more things on deck, but judging by the lack of bear crawling enthusiasm, I decided to start w/ the last thing we were supposed to do and hope there was time for the third.  Told the pax we’d start running the dirt track around the field (a little over a 1/4 mile) and stop 4 times per lap and do ascending reps:
    • 1st lap:  10 diamond merkins / 15 wide arm / 20 rangers / 25 merkins
    • 2nd lap:  10 jump lunges (10 per side) / 15 low low squats (hands need to touch ground) / 20 knee tucks / 25 high knees (25 per knee)
    • 3rd lap:  10 x-crunches (thank you ab workout app) / 15 big boys / 20 american hammers (20 per side) / 25 fast-slow freddie mercuries in cadence (equates to 50 per side)
      [I’ll save the 3rd thing I was supposed to do for next time I Q at BT]

From there, we only had 1 minute, so we hit COT and quickly knocked out 10 merkins / 8 diamonds / 6 merkins / 4 diamonds / 2 merkins no break before it being 5:45a on the dot.

Always a pleasure to lead these pax.  They don’t complain a whole lot (except White Snake and O’Reilly lol) and always bust their a$$ on every exercise.  Prayers for graduating seniors, kids on summer breaks (and the moms) and Flux’s M.  Had a great time guys – can’t wait to get back out there w/ you!

ChaChing

 

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Leaving Home

It was a Thursday morning gloom at Laces In…a Thursday in May when the temp was already higher than it should be…a Thursday when our Site Q was DR but his predecessor provided strong support…a Thursday after The Murph when mumblechatter still reflected stories from the experience…a Thursday after YHC (aka, Dan from Dallas) returned to The Fort following a long weekend trip to the land of his origins…a Thursday without any FNGs.  So, the Disclaimer was brief and the pax were off.

The Thang

Mosey to parking lot near tennis courts

Pause at first light pole — SSHs

Mosey to next light pole — Mtn climbers

Mosey to next light pole — Low slow squat

Mosey to next light pole — Imperial Walker

Mosey to next light pole — Hillbilly walker

Mosey to next light pole — Merkin

Mosey to next light pole — Peter Parker & Parker Peter

Mosey to baseball field, pick partner & muster on opposite sides of home plate for 60 second intervals

Cycle 1: Partner 1 runs to 1st base for Burpees AMRAP while Partner 2 runs to 3rd base for Bombjacks AMRAP (flapjack)
Cycle 2: Partner 1 runs to 1st for Merkins AMRAP while Partner 2 runs to 3rd for CDDs AMRAP (flapjack)
Cycle 3: Partner 1 runs to 1st for Sumo squats AMRAP while Partner 2 runs to 3rd for Monkey Humpers AMRAP (flapjack)

Plank + Al Gore sequence at home plate

Rinse & repeat 3 cycles 2 more times

Muster at home plate for some Mary — Hello dollies, LBCs, American Hammers, Superman

Mosey home

Plank it up for final 2 mins — shoulder taps, plank jacks

COT

NMM

Thank you to Cyclops for the invite to Q.  I can’t recall my last BC Q in The Fort, so it was a treat to be leading the pax.  Also a pleasure to connect with a handful of new faces.  It’s great to see pax of The Fort continue to #giveitaway!

The word from Funhouse (who posted to LO) after COT was that the LI pax returning to Shovel Flag looked gassed.  Music to any Q’s ears, for sure.  T-claps to the pax for pushing intensity throughout, especially to those who went to bed at Zero Dark Thirty and still posted (ahem…Slash).  The work was hard but the grass was soft and weed-free.

The workout on the ball field was built around the theme of “leaving home.”  Dallas is my place of birth but it’s no longer my home, physically or emotionally.  While my weekend trip for a nephew’s graduation proved to be fruitful on many fronts, I felt no nostalgia for the place.  I don’t say that with any disgust or anguish…it’s just a fact.  This was the first time in the 13 years since I moved to FM that I felt no emotional pull westward.  The realization prompted further reflection on whether I’d left behind certain habits and vices from my adolescence and young adulthood in Dallas — petty grievances with siblings and old friends, disrespecting parents, excessive drinking (and occasionally driving), strip joints and the list goes on.  Yes, I’ve turned a page since moving eastward, far from perfect, but further down the path of maturity.  How about you?  Are you still clinging to the past?  Whether your origins are in CLT/FM or elsewhere, might there be elements of the past, baggage from “home” or an earlier stage of life that you need to leave behind?  Marinate on that a bit as you recover and allow the sweat to evaporate.  And make a choice, take a step toward maturity and #Acceleration.

Thanks for being part of this Thursday.

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Q Kicks Own Butt at Quagmire on Memorial Day

Like most of my F3 brothers, If I’m in town and not already booked, I accept the Q.  When I agreed to take the Q on 5/27 at Quagmire, I didn’t realize it was Memorial Day and we’d maybe want to do a Murph.  Too bad for y’all  (and me) that I’d already planned to bring out my trusty paver bricks for the occasion.   Here is how it went down:

Warm – o – rama

  • 50 yard mosey into the light
  • 10 week pullers (some call them produce pickers) IC
  • 10 Wind Mills, IC
  • 20 SSH, IC
  • 10 Merkins, IC
  • 10 Low Slow Squats, IC
  • Downward Dog, Honeymooner

The Thang, Part 1

After the warm-o-rama, YHC led the pax to the trunk of the ’06 Caddie (it’s the 3.6 liter, not the 2.8) where I invited each man to take two paver bricks, weighing maybe 4lbs each?

  • We moseyed about 3/4 of a mile to the hill yonder near the Sun Trust bank
  • 11s  with the bricks, up the hill for 10 squats, the back down for one CDD at the bottom
  • Repeat until the reps were reversed

The Thang, Part II

Partner beat down, 100 reps of each, one partner running around the SunTrust bank –  Bricks in hands the entire time

  • Two arm bicep curls
  • Lunges (single count)
  • Two Arm Shoulder presses
  • LBCs
  • Squats
  • Flock of Seagulls
  • Flutter Kicks – bricks held up
  • Triceps Extentions

Rinse and repeat

  • 2nd time through we added shrugs after the lunges.  No team made it all the way through the 2nd time
  • Omaha for some ab work
  • Run back to COT with Bricks

Moleskin

I started the workout with a reminder of the US Military KIA and Wounded since WWII and told the story of my Grandfather’s WWII experience.   We closed in prayer with honor and in remembrance for those that served and continue to do so, and for their families;  We thanked God for this great country and for our salvation through Jesus.

It was an honor as always.  Thanks for showing up.

-Aye, Wolverine

 

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Olaf is evil

Snowman Celebrates America

22 Mericans joined YHC at #Abyss for some stars and stripes work.
Disclaimer was disclaimed very well and everyone was clear on my style of “fun” so to get the party started we counted off by twos but since nobody remembers their number we did stars and stripes. Then YHC’s paintrain was opened up and each PAX that was a star was asked to carry a tire carcass and the stripes had to pick logs.

Mosey over to back track and get artistic by making a flag with coupons from paintrain. Wish YHC would have taken a picture of the magnificently heavy flag.

Circle up for some COP/warmup
SSH x 13
Circle of hump x 13

Everyone grab a partner and grab something heavy and make a lap around the track AFAP.

Circle back up for more COP
Suicide squats x 17
Hip slap x 50 (crowd pleaser)

Everyone grab a partner and grab something heavy again and make a lap around the track AFAP.

Last little bit of COP
13 Bropees with high five at the top of the jump.

Now we storm the beaches and charge the back hill in memory of all the great men and women that have died protecting our great country.

One partner grabs a machine gun, aka log, while the other partner grabs a ring of belt ammo for the partner’s machine gun, aka tire carcass, and charge up the hill AFAP.

Starting at the top of the hill, lunge walk down to the middle light then backward lunge walk to the bottom. Then crab walk back up the hill to the middle light then bear crawl up to the top.

Grab all the coupons and rumble down the hill back to the track circle for some ring toss fun.

Broke PAX into 7 fire team columns of 3-4 men each. Starting at the end by the playground first pax up will ring toss tire carcass towards other end of parking lot, then run to where the ring stopped and perform 3 Kraken Burpees. Next man up grabs ring and tosses then chasses and performs krakens and so on until the team reaches the other side. Nobody was seriously injured so we ramp up the difficulty and with it comes more excitement and maybe more danger, remember the disclaimer….Same rules as first trip down but now ring has to be tossed overhead. Now as you can imagine the level of chaos and confusion got pretty intense. I can’t imagine the horror of being in a firefight with my fellow men getting dropped and scattered from a rain of machine gun fire from a superior position. Guys were ducking from other tires being heaved and jumping over their teammates and even jumping over other guys that were not even on their team but somehow there tire rolled into their path so they had to jump over them too, It was mayhem. Nobody died and there were some pretty good laughs so we continued.
All the coupons and logs were then distributed around the oval track for the final exercise. Deep squat expedition was about to start. Everyone started at a coupon around the track. Every time you encountered a coupon in your path you had to stop and perform three deep squats. If there were two coupons side by side, you guessed it, six deep squats for the double coupon. continue around the track until one minute to Endex then jailbreak to COT leaving coupons at the track.

Count-A-Rama,
Name-A-Rama,
Announcements before ball of man for COT with an open moment for PAX to lift up prayers and praises.

Great job by all the men gutting out a physical fast paced good old fashioned American beatdown in celebration of our wonderful nation.

Thanks for the opportunity Copyright to lead and Funhouse for the accountability to get it blasted.

NMM
If anyone has any suggestions or recommendations or comments on how I can offer a better beatdown please let me know. DM me or hit me in the gloom, I would love to discuss. I know that we are very fortunate to be AO rich and have multiple options on where we post each day so I want to make sure I am delivering a beatdown that is worth you unfartsacking yourself for. I don’t think I am alone in striving to serve up a beatdown that checks all of the 3S2T and if anyone has any feedback good or bad let me have it brother. Hit me with the hard truth, I demand it, because we can’t get better unless we get truthful. Here is your chance to work on your Candor, deliver a hard truth to me and let’s discuss like men how to make it better for everyone. I want to represent this region right when I have the opportunity to guest Q downrange so help me make us look good. Get out of your comfort zone and put yourself out there to become a better leader, be vulnerable and learn from the mistakes and analyze the feedback. I can’t wait until next time and I hope you feel the same way.

Stay frosty my friends,
OLAF

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