Tag: River Rat

The Prodigal GRT

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It was nice returning to Fire Ant after a loooong hiatus. By long I mean I haven’t been there since the week prior to the DSM. Thankfully, the commute to Huntersville is to blame – not the lack of desire to be at Fire Ant.

I showed up about fifteen minutes early and began to get my stretch on. River Rat showed and followed suit. Gotta be honest – I look up to that dude. He’s got a boatload of kids and he still finds time to make himself better in the gloom.

Bonsai and Router pulled up, and circled up with us. I whipped out my two 60 lb sandbags and disclaimed the disclaimer.

We picked up the sandbags and got to walking 2×2, each PAX holding one side of a bag.

COP

Ruck Around the loop to warm up w/60 lb sandbags
Walk onto soccer field, drop bags, circle up
Slick
SSH x 30
Tappy Taps x 10
Al Gore night club x 11
Low Squat pulses x 20
Yoga

Rucks on – time to put in the work.

Partner Up

Movement 1
P1 Beep beep I’m a Jeep, clank clank I’m a tank to goal posts
P2 does ruck curls
Flap Jack once P1 reaches goal posts

Movement 2
P1 bear crawl to end of field while P2 overhead hold ruck
Once P1 reaches the end, P2 bear crawls to the end while P1 holds ruck overhead

Movement 3
P1 duck walk half way across field
P2 bent over rows
Flap Jack

Movement 4
Grab the sandbags
P1 bear crawl sandbag drag to mid field
P2 Curls
Flapjack

Formation – ruck off of the field to the shovel flag with sandbags – changing side that PAX held. Walking 2×2

Movement 5
Catch Me If You Can
Each PAX keeps ruck on, running PAX carries sixty pound sandbag
Once around parking decks with 7 low squats

Movement 6
Rinse and repeat around parking decks with 7 ruck merkins each time

Mary
Lay in a circle formation – heads pointed in
Holding rucks up, legs at six inches
Press one at a time, clockwise
10 reps each while calling out your reap
Switch directions – flutter kicks with 10 presses
Switch again – dollies with 10 presses
Switch again – Rosalitas with 10 presses

BBS position, rucks on lower legs.
Sit ups in rotating order x 20
Reverse protractor – torso makes the angles instead of the legs – 10 degree hike for last 10 seconds.

And that’s time. Very Fair.

COT
Announcements –
Guidance is back in action – Monday and Wednesday from 4-5. Reach out to Deacon or Crabcakes for more info.
Q v Q is coming
Something special coming in November between Fire Ant and Golden Corral.

Prayers/Praises
Pray for River Rat and his parenting. He’s a HIM with many 2.0’s and wants to lead them well.
Pray for Bonsai’s wife – started a new position with her company and is still making the adjustments. Pray she can find peace through Jesus in the midst of the anxieties in this transition.
Pray for Router – family friends have a daughter of the same age and their daughters aren’t getting along like they used to.
Pray for my me as a father/husband and for my M who is raising three kids alone on most week days while bearing another beautiful baby.

Had I been on Q ten months ago and only four PAX show up, my pride would have been hurt and I would have been mad, honestly. My perspective has taken a 180, though, and I really enjoy the small group – as it creates a better atmosphere for what F3 is all about. That’s why I came to F3 in the first place.

It was a solid morning with good chatter between the few of us. Happy to have had the opportunity to Q Fire Ant. Another notch in my belt!

Punch List out.

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Olaf is evil

Olaf deck of death at the FireAnt

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Disclaimer was disclaimed and we were off for a short warm-up mosey around the parking lot. @chaChing would have been proud.
A few hip and lower back hula-hoop dance moves before starting the real party.

The Thang:
Olaf’s deck of death,
a modified version of the famous Cadre Cleave crowd pleaser.

Each PAX drew a card from the deck and completed the exercise based on the cards suite and the rep count was determined by the value of the card. Instead of face cards being all a value of 10 we started with
Jacks=11, Queens=12, Kings=13, and Aces=14

Exercises were as follows:
Spades= 8 count bodybuilders
Clubs = Flutters, only count one leg, (right leg then left leg equals one), double-count I think? and don’t forget the ruck press
Diamonds = Thrusters, proper form required, (Ruck starts horizontal under the chin with elbows out, squat until elbows touch quads, press until arms fully straightened overhead.
Hearts = Overhead Single Leg Lunges. (right leg, left leg, equals one).

For added excitement, there were two jokers mixed into the deck. When pulled everyone stopped in the middle of the set and grabbed a tire carcass out of the back of my couponmobile, and shuffle a lap around the soccer field.

For the second joker, we added some cute little pieces of wood in addition to the tire carcass.

Everyone had a great time and we all learned a little bit about playing the hand we are dealt in life.

Thanks for the opportunity Router,
Stay frosty my friends!
OLAF

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Light on mileage, Heavy on the push

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While the research may vary, the average ant can lift/carry 10-50 times its own body weight. Luck for us at the Fire Ant AO today, we were only carrying ourselves and our Rucks, which varied from 30lb-45lb. So, to that I say, you’re welcome.

We had a small yet might group of Ruckers this morning as 4 others joined YHC. Once disclaimed, we Rucked to the playground for:

50 Pull-Ups (slick)

50 Push-Ups (with Ruck)

Ruck to the soccer fields for bit of a 4-corners covering half the entire field. Once we figured out the appropriate sides of the field for transportation between corners, it would be Bear Crawls (with Ruck) on two sides f the field and walk (with Rucks overhead) for the other two sides. In the corners:

Corner 1: 25 Ruck Curls

Corner 2: 25 Bent over Rows

Corner 3: 15 Hand-Release Merkins

Corner 4: 25 Upright Rows

We completed the circuit twice then made our way over to the flag pole:

15 Flutters w/o the press

15 Freddy Mercury’s with Rucks up

10 Flutters w/ the press

Ruck back to COT to hold the Al Gore position while each PAX recounted where they were when they learned of the events of 9/11.

Remember. Never Forget. Be Present

Maximus

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7th Year Convergence for The Fort

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The 7th Year Convergence for The Fort followed an exhilarating Invergence from the night before.  Hoping to continue that acceleration, the 4 Q’s had a plan to talk about the 4 Skills needed for Virtuous Leadership: Vision, Articulation, Persuasion, Exhortation.

CakeBoss to start us out with Vision: Recognizing advantage and the movement required to achieve it.

Disclaimer and welcome
“Go Hard or Go Home!”

Take off for 100 yard mosey up path, Get in 3 lines – Indian Run across WEP

Break into 4 lines, 2 groups of seal teams -20 seal team sit ups in cadence

Back into 2 lines , Everyone plank – Tunnel of Love (25 guys per line) – Plank series while guys army crawling under

Crowd pleaser for sure!

7 Burpees for 7 Years!

Vision is what I spoke about and the men that saw the advantage of F3 and planted it (moved towards it) in Charlotte, the The Fort and we continued to give it away in Rock Hill & Lake Wylie.

Hand off to Maximus

Articulation: Describing vision to others in a clear manner. Being able to tell others where we’re going and being able to describe that vision to others.

So, with that said, we’re going over to the top of the big hill to start with drill bits:

½ the group goes one direction while the other goes the opposite way

At each white post (drill bit), 10 Jumping Lunges (10 each leg)

10 Jump Squats

Mosey to the base of the other hill, the one with the statue on it:

NUR (backwards run) up the hill

3 Burpees at the top

Bear Crawl down

5 Burpees at the bottom

Hand off to Fun House for the “P”.

Persuasion – The initiation of first Movement.  Convincing people to move in the direction of advantage, abandoning their Status Quo,

YHC gave an awesome yet forgettable speech about Persuasion.  Then the Thang:

Circle Up – Duck, Duck, Goose – One guy runs around the circle the rest of us plank, the next guy goes when the running guy finishes.  Planking excercises were called out: High Plank, Low plank, Mountain Climbers….. Audible called to get the next guy running after 1/2 a lap around the circle of Pax….. Peter Parker, Parker Peters….. Audible called to get the next guy running after 1/3 lap around….. Mak-Tar-Jai, Left Hand High, Right hand high…..Done.  That took 10 minutes!  60 guys is a lot of guys to be running around in circles.

Stay in circle, 5 minutes left, Jack Webb: 1 Merkin to 4 Overhead hand claps.  We got to 8!

Hand off to Pusher for Exhortation!

Exhortation – Incentivizing The Breach Of Obstacles.

Burpees x 10 OYO
Flutters IC x 10
Mosey to a corner of WEP
Burpees x 9 OYO
Flutters IC x 10
LBCs IC x 10
Mosey to another corner
Burpees x 8 OYO
Flutters IC x 10
LBCs IC x 10
Rosalita IC x 10
Mosey to another corner
Burpees x 7 OYO
Flutters IC x 10
LBCs IC x 10
Rosalitas IC x 10
Hello Dollies IC x 10
Mosey to another corner
Burpees x 6 OYO
LBCs IC x 10
Flutters IC x 10
COT
Naked Moleskin – The name-o-rama took forever.  That is a good thing. When 60+ PAX post to celebrate something that has obviously changed their lives, then change is happening!  Thanks to Maximus who put this awesome weekend celebration together!  His leadership is not only Effective (Using VAPE) but he is a Virtuous Leader! (Check out the Q Source for the 5 C’s Virtues of Virtuous Leadership) Can’t wait to see what year 8 brings to The Fort!  More importantly, who it brings!  Time to go EH someone.  See you in the gloom.
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Fire Ant Q – 9/3/19

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Training for a Go Ruck HTL is a little different than training for a long race – everything takes a lot of time when you’re not moving at an 8 min mile pace.  You get miles in when you can, so at this point in the training, I’ve pretty much acknowledged most days I get out, there needs to be some pre-ruck miles.

Mainframe arrived at 4:40a so we set out for a couple miles sharing the 60 lb sandy I’ve borrowed from Nasa.  The other 3 pax arrived a few minutes before 5:15 so we got right to work.

Warm-up was a quick ruck over to the bottom of the hill on Hubert Graham Way where we then started the fun:

  1.  Partner up hill work (group of 3 and 2 pax)
    • Set 1:  Partner 1 double times up the long hill while partner 2 does jump squats (ruck on).  When partner 1 gets to the top, they wave their arms around like an inflatable flailing armed guy and then partner 2 begins his ascent while partner 1 does jump squats until their partner arrives.
    • Set 2:  Partner 1 double times down the hill w/ ruck overhead while partner 2 does plank pulls w/ their ruck.  Once Partner 1 gets to the bottom, they give the signal and partner 2 begins their overhead jog down the hill while partner 1 does pulls
    • Set 3:  Partner 1 double times up the long hill again while partner 2 does ruck LBC’s.  Same thing as before, switch when partner 1 gets to the top.
  2. Ruck back to the front of Tega Cay Elementary and use 100 yard straightaway between cross walks to play a quick game of modified catch me if you can.
    • Partner 1 begins lunge walking while partner 2 does 12 merkins w/ ruck on.  Once finished w/ merkins, they run to catch their partner and they switch.  Finish when you get to the end of the straightaway.
  3. Head over to the parking lot for some ascending rep man makers
    • crab walk w/ ruck on lap 3 parking spaces, and do 2 man makers
    • crab walk 3 more spaces and do 4 man makers
    • crab walk 3 more – 6 man makers
    • crab walk 3 more – 8 man makers
  4.  Time hack – throw the ruck on and do a mile in under 13 minutes.  We crushed it with an 11:30 pace!

Upon finishing the time hack, we rucked back to COT and finished out some some mary for a couple minutes.  Great job today guys – appreciate you making it out when you had so many good options to choose from Tuesday.  Until next time.

Cha Ching

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Running, Hills, Sand Bags…Complete

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No glitz, just guts. (Similar to the writing of this BB.) That’s all we needed today to get some mileage, some drill bits, some hills and a couple of sand bag exercises. Now for the evidence it actually happened this morning at Block Party:

Long mosey to the Massey St hill and back to the upper corner of WEP.

Warm Up exercises consisting of things like Wind Mills, Squats, Merkins and Mountain Climbers

Explanation of the Drill Bit Tour: The path around WEP has these white posts. In our world, we call them Drill Bits and at each of of these Drill Bits, you’ll perform the following exercises:

20 American Hammers (20 ea side)

10 Lunges (10 ea side)

20 Dips

We then made our way to the base of the big grass hill for an explanation of the first sand bag exercise:

With your partner, you will suitcase carry either the 80lb or 60lb sand bag up to the top of the hill and back down. While the partner teams are waiting for their turn on the bag, the PAX did:

10 Burpees, 20 Jump Squats, 30 4-ct Flutters

The next sand bag exercise was for you and your partner to bear crawl-drag the bag out to a tree about 20yds away. Meanwhile, the PAX did the following:

10 Flying Squirrels, 10 Peter Parkers, 10 Parker Peters

Then, as a group, we NUR’d up the hill and Jogged down the hill for 4mins.

COT.

Maximus

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Sweati or Not, #CSAUP is Saturday

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0515 on a crisp…wait! This is not the Yeti preview!

0515 on a gloom-filled morning, moisture in the air, 22 Pax rolled in to get a little preview of #TheSweati. A lot of familiar faces. Nantan, Lakeridge Clowncars, Dirty, WWL, Senator, Double D…even the Weginator was there. There were more. I’ll tag them in the BB. Several came to get a little peek of the Sweati. I gave some “details”. Some true. Some false. All will be revealed this Saturday. Get your head right. Hydrate! Be Safe! Don’t Die! We did some exercises that may or may not happen this Saturday. They probably will…over a 3 hour period, not 45 minutes. So here we go:

THANG
Mosey around the parking lot and circle up for an abbreviated COP
-SSH
-10 Burpees OYO
-Imperial Walkers
-10 Bombjacks
-Mountain Climbers

Head to the curb for a short circuit (Part 1)
-25 Dips / Run across parking lot and back
-50 Merkins / Run across parking lot and back
-75 Squats / Run across parking lot and back

Mosey to the freshly repaved and striped Hive Parking Lot (Part 2)
-Burpee Broad Jump the entire length of the parking lot*
-Run Back
-Lunge Walk the entire length of the parking lot
-Run Back
*This is starting to become a thing. It should be stopped!

Mosey Back to Laces In parking lot for Reverse Pyramid (Part 3)
(Run across the parking lot and back between sets)
-40 LBCs
-30 Mtn Climbers
-20 Peter Parkers
-10 Burpees
-20 Parker Peters
-30 4-Ct Flutter Kicks
-40 Side Straddle Hops**
**Tclaps to Maximus for leading the pax in some Mary while waiting for the 6

In the interest of time, we stayed put and completed the next series of exercises in the LI parking lot versus the Hive (about 1/2 the distance planned) #yourwelcome
Bear Time (Part 4)
-Bear Crawl Across the parking lot
-NUR back
-Crawl Bear across the parking lot
-RUN back

I blew off Part 5, which would have been a repeat of Part 1, for some Mary. Thanks to the PAX that lead the last few sets of core.

0600 Arrived and YHC was #smoked

Appreciate all the PAX that came out to one of my quarterly Qs. I hope you gained some insight on what is to come this Saturday morning at the #Sweati

No NMM means no more details for the PAX. See you Sat.

Announcements
-Sweati this Saturday at the Armory (Forest Hill Church): 0530 Ruckers/0600 Runners, Q-Source to follow at Forest Hill (Charis Room)
-Stuff the Bus at Tega Cay Walmart (Look for details from Wegmans)
-A couple of 2ndF options at Carolina Beer Temple and Amor Artis
-Read your Newsletter

Prayers & Praises
-Prayers for Rock Thrill’s Father-in-Law who is having several medical issues
-Prayers for a friend of the Pax who’s marriage is struggling
-Prayers for Nasa’s wife who is struggling with some severe headaches
-Prayers for Repeat’s mom who is fighting cancer
-Prayers for discipline in the 3 F’s and to continually make sure our Concentrica is in order (something I struggle with)

Gentlemen, it’s been a lot of fun and an honor to serve you. Hope to see you at the Sweati!

Aye!
Zima

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Kettle Bell VQ for this Guy

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8 Pax started the week off right with the DRP and came to an unknown KettleBell VQ from YHC. Rule 1: Running at a Minimum.  Ok, but leg day will not be skipped!

The Thang – 4 exercises, 45 seconds Go, 15 seconds stop, repeat 3 times. We have 3 sets…

Set 1 – Left arm bent over rows, left arm overhead press, right arm bent over rows, right arm overhead press

Set 2 – Squat, Squat with a curl at bottom and press at top, Tricep Press, Merkin with row (alternate arms on row)

Set 3 – KB swing, Squat with an upright row, Mountain Climber, Skull Crusher

That’s all.  Finished right at 0600.  COT

FH out

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Conveyor Belt of Pain 2

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YHC had just spent a stressful weekend in which we threw a birthday party for our eldest at Adventure Air (and the rest deep cleaning our house). They let me jump, and jump I did. So much so that my back was incredibly sore the day before my Q.  That just meant that everyone would need to do some more back stuff with me to help keep me in shape.  Thanks, everyone!

9 PAX gathered in the parking lot of the Armory.  Started out by dragging out the disclaimer while Tesh and River Rat pulled in.  Yet another PAX showed up at the last minute, but I don’t recall who it was..  Went for a quick mosey up the side lot and half way back to wait for… other guy… sigh… and got in a quick 20 SSH and some windmills to get us stretched out.

We then moseyed over to the bells and ran to the far end of the parking lot where some of the toys were arrayed, and chalk was drawn all over.  Stations were set up every 3rd parking space down the line, then at the end, over two rows, and back down the line forming almost three sides of a square.

The stations were as follows.

  1. KB Swings
  2. Upright Row
  3. 3/4″x72″ Black Iron Staff – Tip ups
    1. Holding the staff at least at half way, the more above your hand the harder it is
    2. Let the tip drop to parallel with the ground and use only fingertips and wrist strength to bring it to vertical.
  4. 3/4″x72″ Black Iron Staff – Rotations
    1. Holding the staff straight forward, rotate to the left and right
    2. Speed of rotation controls the work required to slow and reverse direction
  5. Box jumps (20, 24, and 30 inch sides)
  6. 10lb Training  Mace – barbarian swings
    1. Swing the mace to align it with the chest at shoulder height to the left and right, when the arm close to the ball crosses the body, it’s on the bottom.  When it’s on its own side, the top
  7. Kettlebell Pendulum Swings – R
  8. Pendulum Swings -L
  9. Deadlift
  10. Seated chest press
    1. Six on the ground, legs straight out, torso leaned slightly back
    2. Chest press while leaning back with legs not leaving the ground
  11. Standard Kettlebell Row

Timing:
There is always a traveling PAX. Two PAX started at station 11 (Chicken Hawk and Shin Guard).  Chicken Hawk spent about 10 seconds doing rows and ran with his bell down the parking lot, turned 90 degrees and ran to station one.  Each PAX was to bear crawl with the bell to the next station, however after one round it was apparent that the timer was going to kill our ability to hit all the stations multiple times.  Changed it to a quick walk.

After the first complete round, we met in the middle and did about a minute of broga to stretch out the back and went back to the conveyor.  We made it half way through the second round before time was up and it was a quick mosey back to COT for announcements and prayer.

Everyone worked hard.  Everyone got better.

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12 started their week at The Armory for some Workouts of the Day dedicated to the brave men who stormed the beach in Normandy. After a brief warm up we got to the heart of the day:

20 Minutes AMRAP

-60ish Meter Suitcase Carry (switch hands midway)

-60ish Meter Bear Crawl/Bell Drag Back (switch hands midway)

-44 American Hammers

-60ish Meter Suitcase Carry (switch hands midway)

-60ish Meter Bear Crawl/Bell Drag Back (switch hands midway)

-44 Burpees

 

Following this we had about 13 minutes so we adjusted another WOD

6 Minutes

-Ladder count up of curls, overhead press, goblet squat & high pull (1 of each then 2 of each then 3, etc)

6 Minutes

-Reverse ladder count from the amount you had completed previously of 4 count flutters and 4 count mountain climbers. The original weinke called for man maker burpees instead of the flutter kicks, but I decided to modify that…

 

Mosey back to COT for announcements and prayer.

 

Thank you for the opportunity to lead

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