We’re Not, Not Trying to Have Fun!

Nine for a full-body workout and epic mumblechatter at Golden Corral. Here’s what we did:

Warm-up
* 10 SSH
* 10 Imperial Walkers
* 10 Windmills
* 10 Merkins
* 10 Mountain Climbers
Lap
* Serpentine run the lot stopping at each cart corral for 10 Irkins, 10 Derkins, 10 Dips (x5)
Triangle of Pain (3 pain stations – repeat exercises at each stop)
* 10 Burpees
* 20 Shoulder Taps
* 30 Hammers
* 40 Squats
* 40 Calf Raises
* 30 LBCs
* 20 Merkins
* 10 Overhead Claps
Lunge Walk back to COT

NMM
You can design a workout but you never know what chatter will commence. From the moment I stepped out of the truck, I knew today was going to be a good one.

We took turns giving The Pirate some unsolicited fatherly advice like, “Don’t worry, kids are surprisingly resilient. They bounce!” We also learned that no matter how old you get, fart jokes are funny.

Where else can adult men tell jokes and act like kids without judgment? It just proves that though we age, we never really mature. F3 is grown man recess, and I’m in for it.

-IJ

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Two Bags of Treasure

Chilly morning at the Corral..Most stayed in their vehicles until a few minutes before wheels up. We had a FNG, one of his buddies had mentioned our group. FIrst name Greg, went to ECU (Home of the Pirates). We all thought about the character in Dodgeball movie, Greg the Pirate.
We got started with warm-ups in the parking lot (SSHs, Imperial Walkers, Windmills, Plank, Peter Parkers, Parker Peters).
Next, we used the two sandbags. Two men carried the sandbags around the parking lot until the rest of the group ran around the parking lot and caught up with them. It was suppose to be a tempo run in the opposite direction, but it ended up being more like a catch me if you can. Remember – not a professional. We rotated until everyone carried a bag.
Next, we moseyed to the Pet grooming store, dropped the bags and ran to the oppose side of the parking lot. Two pax ran to the bags and did 5 reps of Manmakers (rd1+rd3), Squat Thrusters (rd2) while the other pax did various exercises. Flapjack – three rounds.
I did get a chuckle when Change Order said to the FNG, “Grab you ankles” as he describe how to do a Monkey Humper.
Few minutes left for some Mary.
Back to COT.

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Two Bags of Treasure

Chilly morning at the Corral..Most stayed in their vehicles until a few minutes before wheels up. We had a FNG, one of his buddies had mentioned our group. FIrst name Greg, went to ECU (Home of the Pirates). We all thought about the character in Dodgeball movie, Greg the Pirate.
We got started with warm-ups in the parking lot (SSHs, Imperial Walkers, Windmills, Plank, Peter Parkers, Parker Peters).
Next, we used the two sandbags. Two men carried the sandbags around the parking lot until the rest of the group ran around the parking lot and caught up with them. It was suppose to be a tempo run in the opposite direction, but it ended up being more like a catch me if you can. Remember – not a professional. We rotated until everyone carried a bag.
Next, we moseyed to the Pet grooming store, dropped the bags and ran to the oppose side of the parking lot. Two pax ran to the bags and did 5 reps of Manmakers (rd1+rd3), Squat Thrusters (rd2) while the other pax did various exercises. Flapjack – three rounds.
I did get a chuckle when Change Order said to the FNG, “Grab you ankles” as he describe how to do a Monkey Humper.
Few minutes left for some Mary.
Back to COT.

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Two Bags of Treasure

Chilly morning at the Corral..Most stayed in their vehicles until a few minutes before wheels up. We had a FNG, one of his buddies had mentioned our group. FIrst name Greg, went to ECU (Home of the Pirates). We all thought about the character in Dodgeball movie, Greg the Pirate.
We got started with warm-ups in the parking lot (SSHs, Imperial Walkers, Windmills, Plank, Peter Parkers, Parker Peters).
Next, we used the two sandbags. Two men carried the sandbags around the parking lot until the rest of the group ran around the parking lot and caught up with them. It was suppose to be a tempo run in the opposite direction, but it ended up being more like a catch me if you can. Remember – not a professional. We rotated until everyone carried a bag.
Next, we moseyed to the Pet grooming store, dropped the bags and ran to the oppose side of the parking lot. Two pax ran to the bags and did 5 reps of Manmakers (rd1+rd3), Squat Thrusters (rd2) while the other pax did various exercises. Flapjack – three rounds.
I did get a chuckle when Change Order said to the FNG, “Grab you ankles” as he describe how to do a Monkey Humper.
Few minutes left for some Mary.
Back to COT.

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Substi-Q Ladder-O-Pain

*WARMUP:*  SSH, Cherry Picker, Mosey
*THE THANG:* Ladder-O-Pain
#1, RUN, #1 & #2, RUN, etc…
1. Burpee x 1
2. Big Boy x 3
3. Shoulder Tap x 6
4. Flutter Kick x 10
5. Merkin x 15
6. Freddie Mercury x 21
7. Carolina Dry Dock x 28
8. LBC x 36
9. Overhead Clap x 45
10. Squat x 55
11. Baby Arm Circle x 66
12. Monkey Humper x 78
13. Moroccan Night Club x 91
14. Calf Raise x 105
15. Overhead Press x 120

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Tabata Wednesday

WARMUP:
Disclaimer, plank while we wait for Sawdust and Toto

THE THANG:
Slow mosey to the pullup bars, split into 2 groups. Group 1 does 10 pullups, while group 2 wall sits. Flapjack and rinse/repeat.
Mosey back to the start and circle up for Tabata:
8 exercises, 8 sets of each, 20s work, 10s rest. Today, we did the following exercieses:
1. Flutters
2. Carolina Dry Docks
3. Squats
4. Mountain Climbers
5. Hello Dollys
6. Merkins
7. Boat and Canoe
8. Burpees

Finish with 90s Body Destroyer

ANNOUNCEMENTS:
The Great Daffodil Field Hike (Sawdust coordinating this family friendly event – see your newsletter)

COT:
Prayers for Splinter’s mother with Cancer in Hospice and for Sawdust’s aunt Locy with cognitive decline.

NMM:
The Tabata is a challenging workout and keeping track of the exercises and sets as the Q takes some concentration. I lost track of a few counts today, but the Pax kept me honest and put out a great effort. It was a perfect, cool, dry morning, and a pleasure to lead the group as always. Having Toto with us was icing on the cake. Well done, gentlemen!

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Convergence Before the Invergence

It was rainy, cloudy, dark, in other words perfect weather for a convergence. We had roughly 55-60 PAX out for the variety of workouts that were about to be executed.  Disclaimer disclaimed, FNG identified (Randy from heaven on earth (aka Pittsburgh) , and we launched.

Bootcamp Q : Slapshot

Bootcampers followed me up the hill and towards the springs parking lot. After a quick plank for the 6 we moved onto to the parking lot across 160 behind the former bank and now drug store for the warm-up.

Warm-up:

50 SSH (IC)

20 Merkings (IC)

10 Michael Phelps (IC)

5 Windmills (IC)

20 Mtn Climbers (IC)

Stretch

20 Plank JAcks (IC)

Mosey to the other side of the parking lot.

DORA: Partner up with someone you haven’t worked out with. Run was around the drugstore and through the parking lots.

200 Plank JAcks

200 Toe Touches

200 SSH

150 Diamond Merkins

100 4-Ct Flutters

Recover Run Back towards COT.

Tabata Series

30 Seconds on 10 seconds off

4 Rounds 4 sets

  1. SSH
  2. Seal JAcks
  3. HR Merkins
  4. Am. Hammers

Last 7 minutes: 10 Burpess EMOM (which was reduced to a an 11 of sorts after minute 5 where we started going 10 burpees plus 1 BBS, then 9 burpees plus 2 BBS….etc… until we had about 20 seconds left.

I had everyone recover on their feet and then add 1 last Burpee.

NNM: I spoke today about one of the many examples of what F3 has meant to me. Specifically, the other day I was out for a pre-run where I started out at a “comfortable pace” already deciding in my head what I was “good” with that morning.  Then about 2 miles in I came across a fellow Pax who got to the AO early and decided to go find me. We started to run together and my “comfortable pace” got very uncomfortable very quickly. All told, when we got back to COT I had increased the pace I was running at by over 35 seconds. He literally found me where I was, didn’t leave me behind, and pushed me to accelerate. It is what I needed then, and it’s what I needed 5 years ago when I started F3. I never knew how fast I could run, until I started running with faster guys. That Friday morning was a great reminder that I can always push more, that I have plenty of gas left in the tank, and that somewhere out in the gloom a brother is willing to go find you and get you better. (Thanks Olaf)

Whether you are accelerating 1F or the 2nd and 3rd, run with faster guys and don’t just be comfortable. You never really know what you are capable of until you push just a little bit more.

AYE!

Running Q Bandcamp

Speaking of Running with faster guys…Bandcamp executed a 10K route where he was able to hit a PR. The route went all over the downtown Fort Mill area. Again, men surround yourself with HIMS you never know what you’re going to be able to do.

Ruck Q : JWOW

Ruck to Church of NAzarene

10 rounds –

5 merkins at the bottom then 10 squats at the top of the stairs.

Rucked to Print Shop

20 step ups and 20 dips

Rucked up Main STreet and back to Wep for the chair swing loop at each chair swing 5 squats and 5 CDD’s One more half loop to COT.

Kettlebell Q: 38 Special

Leg stretches for a couple minutes while us 40somethigns PAX complained about our joints

The Thang:

10 each of Arm Curl and Press, tricep ex. and overhead press. Grabbed bells and went for a stroll around the park. Bells always farmered carried. We used the park equipment to tell us what to do. Each Swing 20 swings, Statues 30 Standing Tesh with squat each arm Bathrooms = 20 squats same set as the start upon our return.

Paired up for a dora

100 Goblet Squats

200 Calf Raises

300 Flutter with chest press

6 minutes to go carry back to bathroom and back 1 minute of squats and 1 minute of swings.

IR Q: Kermit

Took a nice mosey around downtown Fort Mill and even down to the Peach stand and back. Big thank you for leading this piece and not leaving any men behind!

 

Post Workout  JWOW led us in prayer and we named a  FNG The name Cannonball.

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Q-School Part 1

Started this fine morning with Pusher leading the Disclaimer.

All key points were included.
Asking for new people
Declaration that you are not an expert
Stating that everyone there is assuming all risk by being there, every exercise is a suggestion and to modify if needed to avoid injury.

Pusher also made sure to note the leadership aspect of being a Q. How it links with the larger mission of F3 and how being prepared to lead is instrumental in having a successful Q.

With that we moseyed to behind the Oil Change garage.

Here we circled up and Pusher put us through the finer points of a warmup including how to call cadence, how to pace cadence, and a sample of exercises that are popular within a warmup. After this portion of Q-school Pusher handed it off to me and I called 5 burpees OYO. Because why not….

Well also, as I explained, it’s a good tool to use to silence mumble chatter and help corral the PAX. (a whistle also helps with this)

For my portion of Q school I introduced a couple of workout concepts that had are scaleable. Meaning that the PAX could modify these up or down as they saw fit during the course of the workout. The other key piece I mentioned here is the intention of time-boxing your workout. For me I like to divide my workout into pieces. This helps inform me on if I can modify up or modify down a set of exercises based on the time allotment.

The first two sequences were first a simple circuit using the wall behind the garage.

10 Irkins
10 Derkins
10 Dips

X3

Plank for the 6

Run to behind the grocery store

Using the two islands

A simple 7 concept with a run in-between the two stations

HR Merkins on one side and Squats on the other.

Again, these are concepts that you can leverage and elevate as needed. For instance the 7’s could become 11’s, 20’s or even 30’s if you are so inclined with any mode of transportation you see fit in-between like bear crawls or burpee broad jumps.

For the final 3rd piece of the WO portion I took us to the pavilion by the church. I talked about knowing the AO and what it has to offer. Specific for this AO we have cover and benches here. It’s a great spot for a tabata style workout leveraging the WOD app. And that is what we did. I called out a series of exercsies with a short rest in-between.

Again, this is a great way to use a small space but keep the hear rate up and engage the pax. Candidly some of my best Q’s were in this format because of the proximity of my fellow pax and the ability for PAX to push themselves in this type of format.

After this portion was over we took off for COT.

With just over 5 minutes left we did Mary but had newish pax attempt cadence. I’m happy to say we all settled on Starting Positions ….MOVE……and that all Pax did a good job of picking up on it quickly.

We ended on COT where Pusher did a great job of articulating why it’s important and why it makes F3 different.

To quickly recap

-A great Q starts before 5:15. Work with the Site Q and plan ahead. Always overplan because it’s easier to scale down than scale up if needed.
-When calling cadence practice if you are not used to it. Practice in your garage or wherever but perfect practice makes perfect.
-Be willing to alter your plan if needed. A big thing for me is to keep PAX together and keep Pax safe. In other words if you think that hill looks a little too muddy to run up maybe look to do something else. (burpees for instance)
-COT is one of the most important pieces of the Q experience (that and writing a timely backblast). Be respectful and thoughtful.

Thanks to the Pax who came out, and the Pax who supported this (Especially Fishtix and Olaf who shared tidbits of wisdom throughout)

If anyone has any questions or wants to view/access some of the documents referenced today please feel free to reach out.

SYITG!

Class dismissed!

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