Hero’s don’t get a say in “tough”

Start your week right began with a quick mosey around the parking lot with some:  SSH x40, Cherry pickers x10, moroccan night clubs x30, mountain climbers x20, peter parker x5, parker peter x5, downward dog x2, honeymooner x2, imperial walker x10.

We then gathered ourselves to pay tribute to the real Hero of the day, Sr. Airman Mark Forester, aka “Jag 28”.

We honored him by doing the following:

800M run

28 kettlebell swings

28 pull ups

28 kettlebell clean and jerks

28 pull ups

800M run

Since honey badger doesn’t care and we had 30 minutes remaining, we then honored Gunny Sgt Justin Schmallstieg, aka Schmalls.  The honoring was as follows:

800M run

50 burpees

40 pull ups

30 one legged squats

20 kettlebell swings

10 handstand / balls to the wall pushups

800M run

(this was mixed up as needed OYO)

We finished right at 0600, name-o-rama, prayers, praises, and passed the book to the next week Q.  Had a great time with these HIMs, left it all out there, and looking forward to joining again for weeks to come!

Aye!  Shady

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‘Watch’ Your Trajectory

The preview was we will do lots of dumb things together. YHC hopes the advance billing lived up to the hype! We had a good discussion on trajectory and how many missteps does it take to get you off course. Surround yourself my PAX that will keep any missteps in check…plug for Whetstone. We need an accountability partner. Seeing that I have lost a few friends over the years to addiction, as recently as this week, take a look around and see how you can make an impact on others trajectory.

With that, we did a nice warm up that got us sweaty in an already humid environment quickly.

Mosey around the bus loop twice with dynamic stretching.

Circle up.

SSH
LS Merkins
LSS
Peter Parker
Parker Peter
CDDs
Some downward and upward dogs and some other goodness.

Now that was behind us we were ready for the main course.

The bus loop has three light poles about 30 yerds apart.

Rd 1 – 10 burpees, bear crawl to the light, 15 jump squats, crab walk, 20 merkins
Rd 2 – 10 burpees, lunge walk, 15 jumping lunges per leg, bear crawl, 20 CDDs
Rd 3 – 10 burpees, sumo walk, 15 LSS, bunny hop, 20 dips
Rd 4 – 10 burpees, single r leg hop, 15 calf raises, single l leg hop, 20 arm circles

Mosey to front of SFMS

Rd 1 clock merkins on the curb at 12, 3, 6, and 9 10 merkins each position
4 corner box jumps going clockwise x 15
4 corner box jumps going counter clockwise x 15

Rd 2 clock merkins on the curb at 12, 3, 6, and 9 10 merkins each position
15 single r leg hops over the line
15 single l leg hops over the line

Mosey to the backside of SFMS
Wall sits while each pax counted to 10
15 wall tar jai

Indian run all the way back to COT.

5 MOM with Pax pick your poison.

COT.

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Seis Rancheros

A motivated group of 6 men met at The Ranch for another test of their strength and endurance.  Here is what they did:

The Thang:

Warm up with walking knee pulls, ankle pulls, toy soldiers, and lunge twists.  Take a short mosey and circle up for COP:

All in cadence:

SSH x 30, potato pickers x 10, merkin x 10, IW x 20, mountain climber x 30/hold/6”/regular/6”/low plank/regular.  LBC x 25

Take a short mosey and stop at the entrance to the drop off circle at the elementary school entrance.

ST400 – (5 rounds, 4 exercises/round, 20 reps/exercise, run a lap in between).  Today, we cut it to ST350

Round 1:  Merkins, Freddie Mercs, squats, burpees, run a lap

Round 2:  Diamonds, flutters, alternating lunges, burpees, run a lap

Round 3:  Wide arms, hello dolly’s, sumo squats, burpees, run a lap

Round 4:  Staggered merkins (L/R), Rosalita’s, monkey humpers, burpees, run a lap

Round 5:  Dips, pretzel crunch – stop here.  We ran out of time.

Take one last Indian run around the loop and head back to the starting point.

End with the body destroyer ( lay on your back, breathe deeply, stare at the sky, and don’t talk)

COT

This is a pretty tough workout and everyone got after it today.    The 20 burpees followed immediately by the run kept the heart rate up quite well.   Sasquatch ran at  a swift pace around the loop this morning.  I left a sweat stain on the asphalt during the warm-up and Change Order’s shirt came off after round one.  Yes, it was humid.   Not a lot of mumble chatter today, but Sasquatch did manage some slightly sarcastic encouragement to the group during round 3 or 4 of the burpees.   We were running a bit short on time so we avoided the 5th round of burpees.  We may or may have had time.  Or, perhaps the Q was gassed after round 4 and could not call out another round of 20 burpees (maybe).     In any event, it was a great day at the Ranch and a privilege as always to lead such a fine group of men.

Announcements/Prayers/Praises

Read your newsletter!  Need a Q for Guidance (CAH on May 26), also need Q’s for F3 Dads in June (Change Order)

Continued prayers for Badger and his family and for the Jennings family

Praises for Sasquatch’s sister graduating from college.  Safe travels for the Sasquatch and Wegmans to NY this weekend.

 

 

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A Truckload of pain at Honeybadger

Great way to start a week, we had 14 PAX (2 ruckers, Cha Ching and Jedi) that decided to get better and honor “the seven” a group of 5 CIA officers and 2 Security contractors killed when al-Balawi detonated a bomb sewn into a vest he was wearing. Six other American CIA officers were wounded. The bombing was the most lethal attack against the CIA in more than 25 years.

Al-Balawi was a Jordanian doctor and jihadist website writer who was detained and interrogated over three days by the Jordanian intelligence service, the General Intelligence Directorate (GID), in January 2009. The GID and the CIA thought they had turned al-Balawi to penetrate al-Qaeda in the Pakistani tribal areas to provide intelligence for high-level targets. Instead, al-Balawi used this trust to gain access to the CIA base in Afghanistan unsearched and perpetrate the attack. The Pakistani Talibanand al-Qaeda claimed responsibility, saying they helped al-Balawi with the attack.

The names of our honored heroes are listed below:

CIA OFFICERS:

-Harold Brown Jr, 37, Bolton MA

-Elizabeth Hanson, 30, Rockford IL

-Darren Labonte, 35, Brookfield CT

-Jennifer Matthews, 45, Cedarville OH

-Scott Roberson, 39, Tolland CT

SECURITY CONTRACTORS:

-Dane Paresi, 46, Portland, OR

-Jeremy Wise, 35, Tigard, OR

After a quick disclaimer on the go we moseyed around the parking lot with some high knees and butt kickers, our warm up consisted of the following exercises with different reps each to total about 9 minutes into the WO :

Side straddle hops

Windmill

Moroccan night clubs

Squats

Arm circles

Merkins

Lunges

 

THE THANG:

I followed the book as much as I could but had to include a tire exercise (otherwise it wouldn’t be a Tinsel workout) and also replaced a couple of exercises from the book to focus on upper body strength. The main idea of “the seven workout” is to complete 7  rounds of 7 exercises with 7 reps each, each round took about 7 minutes to complete, after round # 3 we run down and up the hill to give our upper body a break and then continued with 4 more rounds, these are the 7 exercises:

THE SEVEN

7 handstand push-ups

7 thrusters with log

7 sledgehammer swing each side

7 worst merkin ever

7 burpees

7 log swings

7 pull-ups

Everything was planned to be completed under one hour and I’m glad everyone pushed hard to reach our time window. With a couple of minutes to spare at the end, straight up took over for some Broga and stretching exercises, much needed after the beatdown, thanks for your help!!

We ended up our WO with announcements, prayers and praises.

GRETA JOB EVERYONE!!

Tinsel out…

 

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WHETSTONE…Relaunches at THE FORT

Several weeks ago, it was announced that our region, THE FORT, would be closing all Saturday AO’s and holding a convergence at FMHS to get the PAX together as we thank Rebel for his leadership of Whetstone and relaunch it under Repeat and World Wide Leader (WWL). I was excited to hear we’d be getting many of the region together but I wasn’t expecting what came next. It was a text asking if I’d Q the workout.

Q, like part of it, half of it or …? The response was, THE WHOLE THING. I love to Q every chance I get but to do so on a day like this, well, I better make sure it includes a little something for everyone. Or, almost everyone.

————————————————————————————————————–

And this is where I let life get the better of me. I try to follow the 48hr rule on posting a BACKBLAST, especially when they’re significant but I let life and travel get in the way. It is now Saturday, one week later, and I’m just finishing this BB. Life can get challenging, it can get stressful, it can get you riding the highs or down in the lows. And this past week, our family has experienced some of each. Maybe this was the week where I really came to realize how valuable having a Whetstone partner can be. Someone that I can share the highs with and someone to help get me out of the lows; or to keep me honest when it’s my own doing that has me on the outside looking in on the joys of life.

That said, I’ll take you back to last Saturday, April 21 where we had a a few pre-ruckers and a total of 58 PAX converge to re-kick off this critical program.

We got ourselves into an odd-shaped kidney-like shape for the disclaimer, the announcement of why we were there this beautiful morning and to acknowledge our 2 FNG’s in the PAX. We counted off in 4’s then took off toward the big parking lot for a warm up jog in 4 lines. This jog included some karaoke’s and 4 lines doing an indian run which was way harder than it appeared on paper.

In these last 2 years, Whetstone has brought together some extremely HIM. One of those men has gone through a tough 18mos and he was gracious enough to share some of his story to include the impact Whetstone had on his life as we circled up to hear his words. I know he wouldn’t endorse this comment but anytime Mr. Clean wants to share experience or wisdom, the PAX listens. And listen we did.

After backing the group back out to a circle-like shape, I was giddy to honor Santini in the only way I knew how…with a deck of cards. However, on this day we utilized 1/2 the deck and considered it our warm up:

Hearts = Side Straddle Hops

Diamonds = Carolina Dry Docks

Spades = Squats

Clubs = Merkins

Then a little action from the Burp-Merk: Standing, we then dropped to a plank, did 5 merkins then jumped up. That equals 1 and we did 5 total.

This was when we got to listen to our very own Nantaan, Cake Boss, as he shared the impact Whetstone has had on him. Yet again, another powerful testimony.

Then off to do 4 corners in the lot with:

Corner 1 = Dancing Crabs x 15ea and Dips x 20

Corner 2 = Dying Cockroach x 15ea and Flutters x 20ea

Corner 3 = Burpees x 10 and Jump Squats x 10

Corner 4 = American Hammers x 25 and Freddie Mercury x 20ea

Mosey over to the wall for B2W while doing 5 “push ups” followed by 15 calf raises. We did this 3 times.

To close out our testimonies, my man Chicken Hawk laid it down for us. He shared the impact Whetstone has had on him, his marriage, his family…his life. Life isn’t meant to be traveled alone. Well said brother.

6ct Burpee which I needed a little help from the Helmet of Darkness to remind me the steps. Remember the line, “If you can’t Q it, don’t do it?” Yeah, me too but I obviously didn’t follow that too closely here.

This is where the cat-herding became evident. The PAX exhibited patience with me as we attempted a modified DORA series consisting of:

50 Flying Squirrels, 50 Diamond Merkins and 50+ Flutters

We then took off for the main entrance to the football stadium and lined up in 4 lines facing down the hill. Once everyone readjusted, it was 15 American Hammers, 15 Flutters and 15 Hello Dollies. This was done several more times.

Well, that put a bow on the workout portion of this convergence and after the COT, FNG naming of RBG and Whiskers, we then handed it off to World Wide Leader and Repeat to lead the Whetstone discussion.

Announcements: The relaunch of Whetstone. Thanks to Rebel for getting this off the ground 2 years ago and to Repeat / World Wide Leader for taking the reigns.

Prayer Requests: Badger. Camp Care 5K. Jennings Palmer’s transplant. Olive’s 8K in memory of Sweet Tooth. Elmer.

Honored and appreciative of your patience.

Maximus

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Cone heads

First I want to thank Jiffy for the opportunity to lead the PAX today. 15 guys showed up and this was the biggest group that I had Q’ed for . I spent an hour or so the night before reading up on the exercise database found in the F3 website. The first exercise I introduced was the kimono dragon. It’s best described as a Peter Parker but you actually move forward. Note: very hard to execute backwards. This new move was implemented in the warmup.

Then we moseyed to soccer field for the main event. We started on the goal line and I had placed cones 10 yards out .First we did DMC. It’s a duck walk, merkins, and a bear crawl. Duck walk to the first cone, 5 merkins, and bear crawl back. Duck walk to the next cone(20 yards) and do 10 merkins and bear crawl back with increasing by 5 merkins every cone until we reached 50 yards.

The next thing we did was lunge walked to the first cone and did 10 squats and lunge walked back and progressed through each cone adding 10 squats each time. This was painful. A total of 150 squats and 300 yards of squats .

Next we paired up and partner 1 ran to the first cone, did 5 merkins and ran back. Meanwhile partner 2 is doing flutters . Each partner ran to each cone and did 5 pushups and ran back .

6 minutes of Mary and then the end .I looked up a new ab exercise called Dr . W .I still don’t fully understand what that is so you should go look it up .

Thanks agaun!

Wegmans

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#RPG

11 PAX posted to RPG for some Broga and miles.

Beautiful spring morning with a temperature of 54 degrees.

Disclaimer, disclaimed.

The Thang:

20 minutes of Broga (courtesy of Sasquatch) loosened up the PAX before we headed off on a 3.5 mile run through Regent Park.

NMM:

As the Q, one of my main goals, was to keep everyone together, or at least on course.  It goes without saying, running at 5am, through neighborhoods, on a newer AO, posses a challenge.

I fell short of my goal and had a couple of the PAX get lost in the neighborhood. I’m thankful for the opportunity to have the PAX give YHC the opportunity to develop and become a better leader by allowing YHC to make and learn from my mistakes.

In the end, everyone made it back to COT. YHC’s lesson learned: ask a PAX (or two) who is familiar with the course to pick up the six so QIC (YHC, in this case) can keep oversight of the other PAX.

F3 does develop leaders. For that opportunity, I am thankful.

COT – Prayers/Praises

Bass-o-Matic, thank you for the opportunity to Q.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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CSPAN Returns to The Coop for flutter kick freenzy

Perfect weather and 52 degrees

disclaimer in detail because we had 2 FNGs (T-claps Paul Bunyon and Sasquatch)

and we were off

mosey around until I got tired…

Warmup-O-Rama

Mosey around until I got tired…

Some abs and some core

Mosey around until I got tired…

partner up – 3 rounds of flutter, squats, and LBC while your partner ran the parking loop

Mosey until I got tired…

Same partner 4 rounds flutter kicks and pull-ups

Mosey until I got tired…

10 flying squirrel countdown with sets of 10 flutter kicks…

and I ran out of time…

COT/prayer or praise/BOM

welcome Llama and Puppy…weird that they were both animal names today…?

read your newsletter, and make a difference today, and my abs still don’t look Tesh…

AYE!

CSPAN

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Hump Day… Whatever… Pantheon 4/4

11 came to Pantheon ready to tell Hump Day to go pound sand. Too often, men look at Hump Day as the day that they check out and coast to the weekend. We aren’t those kind of men, so we will push hard and make it count everyday…

Warm-up:
1 lap around the lot to the side lot
Windmill x 10
IW x 10
Merkin x 10
PP x 10
Moroccan Nightclub x 20
Squat (with a hop) x 15
SSH x 20

On to the fun…
Mosey to playground (in parentheses are the mods)
20 burpees (15)
400M run (down and back)
20 Pull-ups (Supine pulls)
400M run (down and back)
20 Handstand push-ups/CDD (20 or 10-10 or 20)
400M run (down and back)
20 Swerkins (LBC)
400M run (down and back)
20 Knees to Chest

Once complete, we headed to the back lane for Hair Burner Relays
2 teams
Each team performs an exercise while the front men do a hair burner of 100M (50) then Overhead carry back
Exercises will be determined by the winner of the heat…

Mosey back to COT

=================================

NMM:
A couple of thoughts…
– If you are at a workout with Cha-Ching, Straight Up, Longshanks, and/or Jedi, you will likely be behind them. You should know that going in, so you don’t feel bad when it happens.
– Straight Up may not actually be from this planet. Dude is fit…
– CSPAN is still one of the wiser men I know, despite his current injury-related inability to do a proper Merkin…

Helmet, out.

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No Saggy Middles @ The Ranch

PAX: Wegmans, Cable Guy, Senator Tressel, Decibel, Jiffy, Geronimo, Funhouse, Cake Boss

16 PAX showed up to The Ranch on a relatively chilly morning. 7 joined Dark Helmet for a BEYOND workout… the remaining fools joined me (Sasquatch) for a lesson on core… and it was hard. -Hardcore- It is in my nature to look around and see how people move, and oftentimes, it’s sloppy- too many SAGGY MIDDLES or rears to the sky. Focus was to perform several of the exercises we do day-to-day at bootcamps (i.e. peter parker, plank jacks, etc *see below) and to do them with GOOD FORM. Maintain a flat lower back that is aligned with your upper spine and buttocks. Think about pulling your navel up in towards your spine. Any plank-type exercises (including Merkins) should be performed with your hands aligned directly below your shoulders for optimal stability… any other position will compromise the shoulder joints and take away from CORE strengthening. No SAGGY MIDDLES!

The Thang

Front Plank during long disclaimer

Dynamic Warm-up on the Field
Knees to chest / High knees
Heel to butt / Butt kickers
side shuffle / side shuffle other way
Inch worm / bear crawl

Mosey to Playground Parking Lot

Circle-up
Imperial Squats
Static Lunge with Moroccan Night Club
upward dog/downward dog
Mountain climbers
Peter Parker
Parker Peter
Elbow Plank Jacks

Mosey to Playground and Partner-up
Sit-ups holding feet x20 and switch
Toes to bar x10 (Partner 1) and supermans x10 (Partner 2) then switch
REPEAT x3

Mosey to front of school
Bench Jumps x10 (Partner 1) and Curb Burpees x5 (Partner 2) switch
Wheelbarrow ~30 yards and then switch
REPEAT x3

Mosey to COT and MARY

Announcement/Prayers
Honey Badger officially opens Monday at 5AM NAFO.
RPG on Fridays at 5AM Food Lion Parking Lot for some Broga and Run is a thing.
Prayers for family and friends suffering with cancer.
Attend CAH workouts, especially since new kids are showing up.
Still need volunteers for Strawberry festival booth.
Witbeck Golf Classic begins tomorrow but you have until April 22nd to sign up to join the league and play round 1. Message Wegmans on the Twitter machine for more information.

Thank you, Jiffy, for the opportunity to Q at the Ranch. Thank you, Dark Helmet, for not stealing my thunder and having everyone go BEYOND. Good lesson from him. Check out his Backblast when you get a chance.

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