Where’s The P?

On a rather comfortable June morning myself and 15 other PAX decided to get very uncomfortable at CannonBall. Last night as I was thinking up my weinke I was deciding between Kettle Dora’s or Escalating BLIMPS and I decided on the BLIMPS.  However, I noticed on the F3 Exercise page that the P in the BLIMPS are Mountain Climbers and one of the PAX rightly pointed out what was the P exercise so I changed the P to another M and we now have BLIMMS.

Started with a disclaimer and we did a mosey down the church driveway while holding our kettlebells overhead, then went into ketllebearcrawls then back to regular mosey up the other church driveway while also holding the kettlebell overhead till we circled up for some COP.

COP-KettleSSHx10/HALO’s clockwise/counter-clockwisex10/Hot Potatoesx10/Figure 8’sx10/Hold Kettlebell in front shoulder height and did 3 rounds of 10 counts

Main Event

BLIMMS-5 Burpees/10 Lunges/15 Imperial Walkers/20 Merkins/25 Mountain Climbers/30 Squats.  We started with 5 burpees then ran around parking lot with kettlebell then did 5 burpees/10 lunges in an escalating fashion till we finished with the squats.  The running with the kettlebell was the biggest challenge however as everyone was breathing heavy(even Flux!) You know the workout was good when Flux tells you that he hates you mid way through the workout.

With 8 minutes left on the clock I had us do 3 Turkish Get-Ups(each arm) then we grabbed some wall for some people’s chair. End Pax went out to do 3 burpees while the rest passed their kettlebells down towards the church shed where we store the bells. Our final exercise was putting the bells back in the shed.

Welcome FNG Dreadnought(real name Dave Redding-for real).  Hog and Coyote this weekend, Q school at Bermuda Triangle coming in July and other cool events happening around the region.  Prayers for Shakespeare and family moving to my hood and for those suffering with heart disease.  Thanks 2 Ferns for the opportunity to lead. Peace!

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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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Bucket Tour Stop 2

After I partook in a little Broga led by Cobra Kai I made my way over to the area where the fellas were congregating. A few of the Pax thought I was gonna be a no show since The “Two Ferns Tahoe” was not in plain eyesight (they did not know I parked over by “Books a Million” for a reason later to be visited). At 5:15 I gave the disclaimer which included the announcement that I could not administer a Tourniquet since I could not find my belt this morning.

We moseyed over to the Home Depot Parking lot where I led the COP with:
SSH (30 in Cadence)
Mt. Climbers (15 in Cadence followed by a Right arm High then Left arm High and then a 6″ hold)
Squat Jacks or Smurf Jacks (15 in Cadence)
Plank Jacks (15 in Cadence followed by a Right arm High then Left arm High and then a 6″ hold)
Low Slow Squats (15 in Cadence)
Ranger Merkins (which are correct Merkins) (15 in Cadence followed by a Right arm High then Left arm High and then a 6″ hold)
Some Mumbling about going to COT now!

The Thang Part 1:
After making our way over to the Stairs by “Just Fresh” I instructed the Pax that we would line up in two lines and at the bottom of the stairs and hold an Al Gore. The two front Pax in the line would drop and do a Flying Squirrel and make their way up the stairs to the top landing (the next Pax would go at this time and so forth giving time to those in front to complete the said task). At the top of the stairs on the landing they would perform a Burpee and then make their way down the other side of the stairs and perform a Kraken Burpee. The instruction to hold plank was given until the 6 completed the Kraken Burpee. We then did this again with 2 reps of each then 3 reps of each.

The Thang Part 2: ”
After making our way over towards the old “Books a Million”, now “Tuesday Morning”, the Pax saw the Tahoe and trailer with a crap load of buckets full of Ziplock bags of soils (not dirt). I then took a minute to talk about it is usually this point in my workout that my head becomes clear and the thought of my day to come starts haunting me. I begin to think about my problems, my issues, my stress what ever it may be. Another words……what am I carrying around in my bucket today. The thought here is that we all are carrying around something and how can you help your fellow PAX with their bucket. Is that a phone call one afternoon to see how things are going with that prayer request he had last week? Or is that an extra fist bump when it looks like he is trying to say something but ends up keeping it to himself. We all know our buckets get heavy and fill up faster than they empty. So we picked up our buckets and made our way over to the small hill behind the Oil Change place. Last time the buckets showed up it was the “Green Monster” at The Crows Nest. Today we did 11’s with Monkey Humpers at the bottom and Bomb Jacks up top. I was smoked but were not done. I instructed them to assume the Body Destroyer Position and grab a breathe and I briefly talked about how we then get thru our day and lay down and then start all over again the next day so we jumped up and moved towards the trailer but FIRST we got some “gassers” in not Suicides anymore. I challenged the guys to grab another bucket if they would like and push themselves. Most did! We mixed in some Ab work during the intervals between the gassers.

After putting the buckets back on the trailer we made our way over to COT where the Ruckers joined us. A few Prayers request (particularly Gears’ Dad who has returned home from overseas where he suffered a Stroke. God bless him and thank God that his Son I believe (Gears’ brother) was there and was able to help since he is a nurse. I didn’t know this story and later found out and was completely blown away by the story. God is GOOD!

Hog and Coyote coming up Father’s Day Saturday….Read your new Letter…….

SYITG
I AM Two Ferns

Thanks for the chance to Lead Cha-Ching!!!!

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‘Twas another beautiful Saturday morning at the deep, 21 pax including FNG Bobby Boucher came out to put in work.
COP
Produce pickers
Moroccan night clubs
Sun gods
SSH of varying speeds
Mosey to the picnic tables

11’s
partner Abyss Merkins and Dips
Mosey to playground
Partner pull ups and Makhtar N’Diayes
(Lots of mumble here, whining about forearms and such)

Main event
1/4 mile track mosey until Q says red light perform exercise until Q says green light.
Merkins
Monkey humpers
Lunge walk
Big boys
Squats
Burpees
Alternating arm planks
Dying cockroaches
I’m sure I’m forgetting a few.
Ended up with close to 3 miles for the morning
Rounded it out with some ultimate football and a brief 4 minute Ab lab.

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Millendian Run @ the Abyss

It was a beautiful morning for a “millendian” run at the abyss.
Quick mosey to the courts/track and circled up.
Windmills
Imperial walkers
Moroccan nightclubs
SSH
Then we began!
100 reps 10 exercises 2 teams
First pax from each team to complete the 100 “won” for their squad. The prize regular 1/4 mile Indian run, the consolation prize was a burpee Indian run.
Merkins
Crunchy frogs
Sumo squats
CDD
American hammers
Flutters
Shoulder taps
BBS
Monkey humpers
Ski Abs
That took us to 2.5 miles and 2 minutes left.
1 round of hello dollies and some Makhtar N’Diayes

It was an honor to lead and sweat with these men. Thanks for a great time.

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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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No Turkish Get Ups

16 PAX met in the gloom for my KB VQ. I wasn’t sure how it would go, so I came overprepared. The Q scheduled couldn’t make it, and I managed to get it from Two Ferns before Royale, who wanted to do 45 minutes of Turkish get ups.

After a thorough disclaimer, we mosied around the parking lot with KBs.

COP
Good Mornings x 6
MNC x 10
Sun God’s x 30
LSS x 10

The Thang
Had PAX pair up for the board of modified DORA (see picture). Run/farmer carry was with KB around one of the islands. Everything else was from one island to the next and back. Bear crawls/crawl bears with KB were more brutal than anticipated. I think everyone almost made it to the squats.

Thanks Two Ferns for the opportunity to lead (and for letting me borrow the KB). Welcome FNG Ricky Bobby (speeding ticket story/works on cars).

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Kettlebell Rounds

F3 Lake Wylie remembers Badger
Cannonball – May 21, 2019

I was a bit nervous coming up with a routine at Cannonball. I had never done a ‘Q’ at a place where we use weights so I pieced together a workout that would hopefully benefit chest, arm, back, leg and ab muscles. And as always I love to run during my ‘Q.’

We had a run around New River Church and then circled up for the warm up.

Warm-Up
15 Goof Balls (IC)
15 Windmill
15 Seal Jacks (IC)
15 Mountain Climbers

Run lap

The Thang

Round 1
15 up right rows (left and right arm)
15 shoulder press (left and right arm)
20 tricep press
15 kettlebell curls (left and right arm)

Run lap

Round 2
25 kettlebell swings
30 goblet squats
15 kettlebell lunges (each leg)
15 traveling swings

Run lap

Round 3
20 merkins left arm on bell
20 merkins right arm on bell
40 chest press
20 kettlebell figure 8

Run lap

Round 4
25 kettlebell American hammers (count each side)
25 kettlebell little baby crunches
20 kettlebell sit and press
15 kettlebell v ups

Run lap

We had about 10 minutes left so I decided to do some ‘Mary’ with each Pax picking a kettlebell exercise.

Circle of Trust
Royale shared some thoughts on the celebration of Badger who passed away a year to the date. He was a big Wisconsin fan and all Pax were asked to wear red.

Aye,
Radar

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Hour long Q’s are hard on everyone

Had a little challenge on my hands for this one – a group of the Deep regulars including the site Q were taking on the Savage Race course, so for those who were not peer pressured into participating in that, I had to make the Saturday boot camp just as awful (minus the ice bath obstacle).

Rolled up w/ my fellow Lake Ridge guys Lutefisk, Olaf and Pothole and we waited for what I thought would be just a few guys rolling in.  This is not the case anymore – these pax roll out in numbers and we had 22 including some very brave 2.0’s in attendance all ready to work, including 1 2.0 who’s 11th birthday it was this week.  Royale gave me a heads up a couple days ago, so the workout was made with that in mind, nothing but 11’s for Pierce, aka Lancelot.

1.  For those that know me, I’m not a big fan of warm-ups,  although I may need to rethink that during hour long workouts. Our “warm-up” – mosey over to the nice 400m track across the street and do 4 laps, stopping every 100 meters to do an exercise 11 or 22 times for birthday boy.

  • lap 1 – merkins (stop 1 – 11 merkins, stop 2 – 22 merkins, stop 3 – 11 merkins, stop 4 – 11 merkins)
  • lap 2  – squat jumps (stop 1 – 11 reps, stop 2 – 22 reps, stop 3 – 11 reps, stop 4 – 11 reps)
  • lap 3  – big boy sit-ups (stop 1 – 11 reps, stop 2 – 22 reps, stop 3 – 11 reps, stop 4 – 11 reps)
  • lap 4  – yep, burpees (11 reps per stop)

2.  With the warm of 1.2 miles, 66 merkins, 66 jump squats, 66 big boys and 44 burpees complete, we moseyed back across the street and hit the baseball field…all dirt, some rocks, no grass.  Asked all 22 to count off by 2’s so we had two teams then I explained the rules.  I set the 15 minute timer, blast some old school papa roach, and you try to score as many runs as you can in the 15 min.  How to score a run?  Like this:

  • lunge walk to 1st base, then do 11 diamond merkins
  • bear crawl to 2nd base, then do 11 jump squats
  • broad jump to 3rd base, then do 11 donkey kicks
  • crab walk home, do 11 burpees, then step on home plate.  That’s 1 run.

Believe Lutefisk scored 5 runs, otherwise everyone else was hovering around 3 to 4 runs.  The intent which I totally overlooked in the heat of exhaustion was to add up both teams scores and issue a penalty to the losing team:

Loser:  burpeee bounce from home to 1st base (ie. burpee where you go down, do a push up, but explode up and forward 3 times so that you cover some ground on the uptick, then up, jump and that’s 1 burpee.  Do as many as you need to, to get to 1st base.

Winner: mack tar jais along the first base line while the the poor saps do burpee bounces.

3.  From there we hit the hills behind the baseball field for some true 11’s.  Start at the bottom of the hill with 1 “worst merkin” (wide grip merkin, reg merkin, diamond merkin = 1 worst merkin), run up and 10 knee tucks, then back down for 2 worst merkins (ie. really 6 merkins lol).  This just about killed the group.  I was very encouraged to see at about the 5 or 6 count of worst merkins that every single pax was modifying lol.  I think I even saw some Pax’s faces face down in the weedy grass we were in.

4.  We had about 5 minutes left and we were at 2.3 miles, so I really wanted that 3 mile mark.  We moseyed to the gate near COT and I told the pax about the X crunch suicide we’d do.  For those of you doing the app based ab challenge that Nasa organized, there is a “X Crunch” that absolutely sucks.  Basically start in the v-sit position, go down all the way and make an X with your arms and legs and then back up to v-sit position.

  • 5 x-crunches at the start line (basically the gate) then run to the 1st corner at the back of the school
  • Do 5 more x-crunches on corner of school and run back to start line
  • Do 5 more at the start line, as you pass 1st corner in the back of the school, do 5 more, and then when you get to the next corner do 5 more.  Then run back to the start line.

That took us to exactly an hour which was good because I think I may have gotten beat up had we kept going.  Had a great time w/ this group again (second time in a week!).  Cannot believe how much they’ve grown this place in the last year.  Props to the EH’ing machines over there and the consistency with how often they post.

Hope to get back out to the Deep a little more consistently now that my third son is no longer a little baby.  Thanks Shakespeare for the chance to lead this great group.

ChaChing

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