Tag: Senator Tressel

Insider baseball

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Kaiser took the lead and started us off with the warmup.

We then proceeded to bear crawl together across the field. No one could pass the Q, and we stopped at regular intervals for some pain.

Next up was some Dora. Partnering up, one partner ran down the field and back, while the other worked on Merkins, squats, and LBCs. After LBCs for the 6, Kaiser passed the torch to Battle Bot.

Starting with reps of 10, we hit 10 burpees in the field and worked our way counter clockwise around the path. Pain stations were as follows in the map below

Lap 2 was 15 reps of each.

Some quick Mary, followed by COT, then coffeeteria at Tega Cay Deli

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1

Richard John Webb, Esq.

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5 PAX

Disclaimer
YHC added, I’m not taking responsibility for you following my suggestions until 0600.

1 mile buy in. Spiderman pushed the pace to 7:30/mi

Bobber joined us. 6 PAX

Warm-up
Wall sit for 6
Tibialis Raise
SSH x40
IW x40
HW x40
Yoga
Monkey Humpers x10

Mosey
Leg Sequence
1 burpee
2 bomb jacks
3 jump squats
4 jumping lunges (2 each leg)
5 Bobby Hurley’s (also renamed to every Duke basketball player I could think of on the fly for Mainframe’s “benefit”)
6 split squats
7 Carolina Dry Docks (on of these things is not like the other ones)
8 lunges (4 each leg)
9 monkey humpers
10 squats

Mosey
Leg Sequence
Added Bulgarian Split Squats in cadence x11
Added 1 pistol squat

Mosey
Bear Crawl the car rider line at the elementary school
Leg Sequence

Mosey to playground
Dick Webbs (Richard John Webb, Esq.)
We made it to 7 rounds. That’s:
– 28 pull-ups
– 112 merkins
We did another leg sequence in there to mitigate the lactic acid in our arms
Getting to ten rounds of this (with legitimate form) seems difficult. Challenge Accepted

Mosey back towards COT
Stop for Bulgarian Split Squats on the way

Finished the 28 merkins at COT
Flutters in cadence
Pigeon Lunge to hit 0600

Great to be out at The Ranch. Solid mumble chatter and Tressel proved he can still respectfully hand us our rear ends. (I’m paraphrasing Mainframe’s spot on observation)

NMM:
Here’s an actual text thread of me texting stream of consciousness:

Poppins: So whatcha thinking for tomorrow? Wanna hype appropriately lol
Me: Angry college professor takes out aggression on non-syllabus reading students
Poppins: So same old?
Me: Pretty much

(Then I was struck by a little more and I’m getting the vision of an eventual video trailer promo here)

Man who loathes the phoniness of Disney World is forced to pre-book meals at places he cares very little about visiting much less eating. And his only solace is an ability to bear crawl and perform burpees in the school parking lot before the sun rises.

I’m thinking the trailer ends with a clip of the man saying,
If it were up to me, I’d drink a nice whiskey neat and stare into a fire. But it ain’t about me, so I’m trying to live third and watch my kids have a good time. What a great opportunity to work on not being a selfish a-hole

I think there’s something here…I’ll keep work shopping it a bit

Thanks Bobber for sharing the Gaffigan bit on Disney. It will seriously be a good opportunity for me to work on not being selfish. If I’m gonna spend the cash on Disney, I might as well not ruin it with my attitude, right? https://youtu.be/eYacdfsORec

Prayers for wisdom when dealing with teenagers
Praise for my M being named Teacher of the Year at GHMS

Thanks Poppins for the opportunity to lead:

—
Band Camp dismissed

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3

Celebrities, Cinder Blocks, Disney…a perfect morning at BAOPS

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The threat of snow did not intimidate as a total of 14 PAX converged on the Rock, er BAOPS, er Alcatraz. In addition to the Nation representation, we were graced with the dulcet(er) tones of Funny Bonz, er…Hello Kitty. Man, if only we had CSPAN, Repeato, Tommy Boy and Bones in attendance, we would’ve had all the Podcasting staff present. Next time.
Right from the jump, the chatter was strong, exactly how it should be. We had snow jokes, road jokes, hugs, rookie jokes, Q-Source jokes, age jokes and a whole bunch of things not made for print. A morning that will live in infamy, or, maybe not.

With the first half of this morning’s installment brought to you by Maximus (3rd person), I (1st person) did give the disclaimer. You could imagine how that went. Something to note, I did advise the PAX who got there early, they should stretch and warm up as necessary ‘cuz ain’t no side straddle hops, imperial walkers or windmills were to be had.

So, we made our way to the top of the park to the pull up bars. Every member of the PAX had to complete 10 pull ups and while you weren’t pulling yourself up, you were completing your best rendition of the American Hammer. Go until completion.
Next, run to the bottom of “the hill”; don’t worry, I scouted for slick roads ahead of time.
At the bottom of the hill, 10 Burpees and 10 Carolina Dry Docks
Run up for 5 more pull ups
Run back to the bottom for 10 Burpees and 20 Merkins.
NUR back to the top for flutter kicks until the 6 rolled in.

To the parking lot and grab a cindy out of my truck bed (or a KB)
10 Overhead Press
20 Staggered Merkins (10ea side)
30 Curls
40sec count while holding legs out at 6″ and cindy overhead

40 Overhead Press
30 Merkins (15ea side)
20 Curls
10sec count as done above

50 Bent over rows
10 Thrusters

My job is done…time for Italian Job

Short mosey to the field for:
11’s from foul pole to foul pole with the exercises consisting of
Mickey Mouse Merkins (Walt Disney World Merkins) at one end and squats at the other.
No doubt at this point, the PAX had a severely confused puppy dog look on their face because IJ was all like, “Ya know, Disney…WDW, Wide-Arm, Diamond, Wide Arm.”
And all of us were like, “Oh yeah…of course”…eye roll.
This my friends, is a sure-fire way to make a statement. It became very clear that unless your name is Italian Job, Senator Tressel, Trucker, Olaf and perhaps Mainframe, your form was garbage come about Disney Merkin #6.

Carry on

Now, run around the entire field then 25 Calf Raises.
Next up, run another lap then 25 Freddy Mercury’s.
Finally, another lap.

NMM (In the words of Italian Job):
“Always a pleasure to share the gloom with you men. A question for you, What’s holding you back? Is it time, energy, money, expertise – all of these? Excuses only sound good to the person making them. Whatever you desire is on the other side of effort. If it was easy, everyone would do it. If you want it, go get it. Dominate the day!”

And like that, we’re out. Until next time…
Italian Job & Maximus

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2112

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Eleven of Ft. Mill’s finest met at the corner of route 160 and Gold Hill Road for another edition of the Golden Corral.    Here is what they did:

The Thang:

Before the workout began, there was some discussion about the exact time of day and apparently, my watch was about 2 mins slow.  So the Pax were disclaimed at 5:17 rather than the designated start time of 5:15. Today, though, that worked out for the best as we found one straggler rolling into the parking lot as I was finishing the disclaimer,  and that guy turned out to be an FNG!  After some minor ribbing for being tardy, we moseyed over to the ‘alley’ between Harris Teeter an O’Reilly Auto Parts for COP.

COP (all in cadence):

SSH x 40, windmill x 15, IW x 40, merkin x 10, LBC x 20, Mountain climber x 35, low, slow squat x 20, Morrocan night club x 40 while walking to the front of Harris Teeter.

Split into two groups for suicides using the 3 light posts as the stopping points.  We did 4 rounds and it was a crowd pleaser:

Round 1:  Group 1 run, while group 2 does merkins

Round 2:  Group 2 run, while group 2 does LBC’s

Round 3:  Group 3 run, while group 2 does monkey humpers

Round 4:  Group 4 run, while group does dips

Mosey back to the alley between Harris Teeter and O’Reilly.  All Pax in people’s chair and one by one bear crawl from one end to the other until we cycle through all the pax.  Shake ‘em out.  Now all pax in balls to the wall and then one by one, jog from one end to the other.

Mosey back to the main lot for a true 6 minutes of Mary:

Freddie Mercury x 20, Pretzel crunch x 10L/10R, Hello Dolly x 20, Superman hold x 3

COT

I was a last-minute sub for Decibel last night so just pulled an old Q from the archives.  This one was from September 29, 2014 and we had 20 guys back then.  Here is a little bit of F3 The Fort history:  Golden Corral was THE Tuesday workout in Fort Mill and we used to get 15 plus pax week after week so it wasn’t long before we needed to add the other Tuesday workouts (Colosseum, Ballroom).  Funhouses was the original site Q.

Big fun from the group today and plenty of mumble chatter.  Leading the charge (no surprise) was Jekyll and Twister.  At one point during COP, I could hear my own cadence count, but could not make out the count from the Pax because only 1/3 of the group was counting the other 2/3 were discussing how the beverage industry is changing (among other topics).    Everyone seemed to have a comment about something.  My favorite came from Airwolf who recognized that with our latest FNG Tailwind, F3 The Fort has met our EEOC requirement for 2022 – hahahaha.  All in jest of, course!

This morning exemplified what we all know and love about F3.  And that is, despite all that is going wrong in our communities (the death of a son, a local teacher robbed and shot, a worsening pandemic, and the huge political divide in our country), getting together to break a good sweat and have some laughs can keep all the bad stuff from getting to us.  Our bodies are stronger, we feel better physically and emotionally, and we know we have guys to lean on when we need them.

It was truly a pleasure to lead the group today and I look forward to next time. And BTW, the title of the backblast is a continuation of my effort to work Rush song titles into this website (RIP Neil Peart).

Announcements/Prayers/Praises

  1. Dam to Dam 10K bar (check your newsletter)
  2. Prayers for Aquaman’s family, Covid victims, cancer victims, local teacher in hospital.
  3. I neglected to get Tailwind’s contact info this morning. If anyone reads this (which will be a very small number I think), please reach out to him if you happen to see him or hear that name at a workout.

 

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Power of Ranch

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Another split Q for two IR guys: Ruby Slippers (restricted arm movement) and Harry Carry (restricted jumping-related exercises).  Total of eight pax in attendance.

Ruby started and did:
Took the PAX to the front of the school for some leg work. Planned 4 laps around the car rider loop with an exercise to be completed in each turn of the loop. At the completion of a lap the PAX were instructed to head to the benches from some Bulgarian Split Squats and Step Ups.  Here was the flow:  Lap 1 – 10 Jump Squats in every turn and then complete 15 BSSs per leg and 15 Step Ups per leg,  Lap 2 – 10 Jumping Lunges in every turn and the complete 15 BSSs per leg and 15 Step Ups per leg,  Lap 3 – 10 Squats in every turn and then complete 15 BSSs per leg and 15 Step Ups per leg,  Lap 4 –  10 Alt. Lunges in every turn and then complete 15 BSSs per leg and 15 Step Ups per leg.  Legs were definitely pumped after those 4 laps.  The PAX were passed on to HarryCarry for more torture.

Harry Carry (focus on arms) :
Thang 2.1: grab a bench and derkins (20X IC)

Thang 2.2: Suffer in place:
Pax split into two groups (P1 & P2): half ‘suffer in place’ while the other half do the exercise noted for 1 minute straight.
Suffragettes do Low plank, Exercisers do Merkins
Suffragettes do wall sit, Exercisers do bobby hurleys
Suffragettes do Balls to the wall, Exercisers do leg lifts
pax swap places and we go through the above again.

Thang 2.3: Fish tracks
move forward per the below, then stop and do exercise noted
bear crawl – merkins
crab walk – LBCs

Run to COT and do Big Boy Sit ups and mak tar jais. Fini.
Prayers for Senator who has since contracted COVID.

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4

Beyond The Lighted Stage

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Ten of Fort MIl’s finest met at the newly remodeled Walter Elisha Park for a combined boot camp (The Fort)  and IR/walk and ruck(Milkshake).  I heard that the milkmen did a tour of downtown Ft. Mill holiday lights.  Here is what the boot campers did:

The Thang:

Senator Tressel on Q

After the standard disclaimer, the group moseyed around the parking lot and headed into the park before doing a 180 and jogging back to the pavilion stage for COP.

All in Cadence:

SSH x 25, windmill x 15, merkin x 10, IW x 20, squat x 20, CDD x 15, Freddie Mercury x 20, jumping lunge x 20, wide arm merkin x 15

Mosey to the playground:

Round 1:  10 pullups, lunge walk from the playground to the side walk, 20 merkins, lunge walk back

Round 2:  10 pullups, run from the playground to the walking path, 10 burpees, run back, 10 bomb jacks

Round 3:  10 pullups, bear crawl from the playground to the walking path, 20 diamond merkins, karaoke back

Boat and canoe x 5.

Hand off to Grinder

Dora 1, 2, 3  (100 merkins, 200 calf raises, 300 LBC).  Partner runs around the playground.

Mosey to the small lot at the park entrance and circle up.  With the pax in a circle, one person in the center did a modified American Hammer (20 count with a brick) while everyone else performed an exercise.  Everyone took a turn selecting an exercise and sitting in the center.  Today, we did merkins, flutter kicks, burpees, and others I cannot remember

We finished off with the ACDC hit, ‘Thunderstruck’.  Every time the band sang the word ‘thunder’, the pax did a burpee.   It was a crowd-pleaser and now I don’t like that song as much as I used to.

COT

Naked Man Moleskin

What a pleasure to be back at the Fort on a Saturday!  Alcatraz is my usual Saturday stop, but Grinder asked me to Q this past Sunday and I gladly accepted.   It’s been close to a year since I’ve been back to Walter Elisha Park and well over three years since I’ve Q’d a workout here.  Wow – how different it looks now! The town did a great job with the upgrades to the park and it was pretty cool to do COP from the stage of the pavilion.  I see many more there on future Saturdays.

It was a pleasure to be back at WEP and to lead the group on a beautiful morning.  Good to see my brother Cable Guy back in action after an extended absence, and yes, I just put another reference to my favorite band Rush into an F3 backblast (RIP Neil Peart).

Announcements/Prayers/Praises

  1.  Adopt a Highway starting today (way to go Fogerty and F3 for continuing to give back to the community).  #HIM
  2. Prayers for ST’s friend Joe with cancer, and for those suffering from Covid 19.
  3. Praise for DD’s friend (a single parent) who raised a son graduating from HS.
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The Deck at The Corral

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It’s Golden Corral, there were 9, and we worked in the following manner:

Disclaimer
Warm up run around Harris Teeter and post in the top parking lot for a few warmup exercises then the Deck of Cards

Spades: Diamond Merkins
Clubs: Jump Squats
Hearts: 8ct Burpee
Diamonds: Mountain Climbers
Jokers (there were 4): 25 Flutter Kicks I/C

That’s 104 of each suit and 100 Flutters I/C

We had a few minutes to spare so we did 2 rounds of a 3-tier suicide and a plank series consisting of Peter Parkers, Grave Diggers, Dips, Grave Diggers.

SYITG
Maximus

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Thanksgiving Convergence 2021

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68 PAX in attendance for a pre-thanksgiving beatdown and some fellowship on a brisk morning Thursday 11/25/2021.

 

With the anticipation of fried turkey, oreos and coffee brought by @Change Order, @Smuggler and @RubySlippers, mumble-chatter abounded,  until @Hardwood took the center and called attention at 0600 hours. Disclaimer was disclaimed and the call for new FNG’s was made, no new FNG’s was the lone blemish on the otherwise fantastic morning in my humble opinion.

Run options led by @Gekko and a Moderate group led by @TripleLindy set off as the rest of the PAX moseyed towards back of Springfield Elementary. First Destination was in parking lot way back by the Middle School.

Circled up and @Hardwood called out the following exercises:

SSH- 40

Windmills

Downward Dogs and Honeymooners

Low & Slow Squats

Cyclops: Stay in Squat Position and complete Moroccan Nightclubs

 

The Thing

Series of Webs

Starting with Merkins and Overhead Claps

1×4 for 10 rounds of excruciating shoulder pain, mumble-chatter becoming more focused on the task at hand

more SSH 🤮

Next we completed ANOTHER WEB, worse than the last,

Shoulder Taps and Moroccan Nightclubs

1×4 for 10 more rounds that was never ever going to end

Lots of requests for Burpees strangely or anything other then arm workouts!

 

YHC began the 2nd half of the workout with more SSH

Mosey around to front of Middle School with 3 stops for 5 Burpees OYO, at the request of the PAX

Line up at bottom of small hill in front of school and explain the workout, AMRAP LEG CIRCUIT

Teams of 4 ish men cycle through three exercises at bottom of hill individually:

2 Squats

2 Split Lunges

2 Bomb Jacks

Next Broad Jump up Hill to top and complete the following:

2 V-ups

Bear Crawl to bench

2 Step Ups

Run around and down to bottom of hill stopping at cones for 2 burpees (two stops per lap)

Meet back at bottom of hill and repeat, only this time DOUBLE ALL REPS TO 4X

Goal is to complete 5 rounds or AMRAP, almost completed but just short of time before we had to get back to COT

YHC shared a article on Gratitude, and then @Shady shared the heart of the Fort, the success of @Seamstress initiative with the help of the PAX, @Seamstress shared his excitement and appreciation for the success of the event! Great job by all T-claps!

Finally we had a shovel hand-off YHC taking the Ranch from a long line of great site Q’s which I hope to make proud.

Then we were finally able to enjoy the fried delicacies and coffee! Cheers!

 

 

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3

Noisy Frog

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Alcatraz 11/20/21
Disclaimer
Mosey around to fire station driveway for
10 windmills IC
20 SSH IC
Then mosey back around to bracket all courts for
8 cherry pickers IC
15 low slow squats IC
15 MNC ICBuy in:
Apple Turnover: bear crawl/crab walk across B-ball court (baselline-key-half court-key-baseline) with 5 merkins at each stop. Then CrawlBear/Walk Crab back with same merkin count.The Thang:
Partner up.
Partner 1 does 20 squats, 10 merkins and LBCs until partner 2 returns.
Partner 2 runs to pull up bars, 5 pull ups and returns.I think we got 7 rounds in:
70 merkins
35 pull ups and countless LBCs.Hand off to Decibel.

Start things off right with:

SALLY- Merkin style

Mosey to the wall at the baseball field and partner up

P1- Peoples Chair P2-Run to Fence, 20 Bomb Jacks and run back- Flip Flop

P1- Bear Crawl to 2nd Base Line- 5 burpees-NUR back- Flip Flop

P1- BTW P2- run to Fence, 20 Apollo Ohon and run back- Flip Flop

P1- Bear Crawl to 2nd Base Line- 5 burpees-NUR back- Flip Flop

Circle Up for 7 minutes of Mary:  15- Boats-Canoe,15- Missionary Planks, 15- X-O’s and 20 Hello Dolly.

Mosey to Parking lot for a round of Burpecides.

Circle up on the Cement Pad (Old School) for COT

Great Group of guys out there today.  Always a blessing to lead!

Prayers for Families and Senators buddy Joe.

 

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6

My Navy Story

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A gang of four converged at Pleasant Knoll middle for the third installment of Veteran’s month at the Ballroom.   Here is what they did:

The Thang:

YHC greeted the group and thanked them for coming out this morning.  After a quick disclaimer, we made a formation of 4 and moseyed to the parking on the side of the school.

In formation:

SSH x 20, windmill x15, IW x 15,  merkin x 10, Morrocan nightclub x 15, squat x 20, mountain climber x 15/hold/6″/regular/6″/regular/right arm, right leg high/left arm, left leg high/walk up to CDD x 15/regular/recover.  (all done while holding plank)

Form 2 pairs and do 50 yd sprints:  2 at 50%, 2 at 75%, 2 at 100%

Go back to formation for pushorama

10 regular merkins, rest 10s, 10 diamond merkins, rest 10s, 10 wide arm merkins, rest 10 sec, 10 CCD.  Rinse and repeat for total of 3 sets.

In formation, bearcrawl20 yds, sideways crawl 10 yds, backwards bearcrawl 20 yds, sideways crawl 10 yds

Form a single file and do an Indian run around the parking lot twice.   Mosey out of the lot and along the front driveway to a spot under one of the lights for some mini-Mary:

Big boy situps x 15, Freddie Mercury x 15, American hammer x 15

COT

NMM:

When Triple Lindy asked me to represent the Navy during Veteran’s month, I told him there surely there was a better person out there to represent the Navy than me.  Honestly,  I never really considered self a true Navy veteran because  I served just about 18 months and was in school the whole time.   I never felt worthy being grouped together with others who have actually served their country, particularly those who served in a time of war.   As it turned out, though, I was the only guy he knew who was in the Navy, so I told him I would gladly do it.

As we worked through the exercises this morning, I paused several times to tell them about my experiences when I joined the Navy in college,  and my16 weeks at Officer Candidate School.  One of the things I remembered vividly was was when I was saying goodbye to my family and getting ready to drive to Newport, RI from Ohio.  My dad, who was not an emotional man, gave me a big hug and just broke down sobbing.  I think it was a mixture of pride and maybe fear for what I was about to do.  I lived at home while attending school and this was my first time away from home.

Upon arriving at OCS, after a friendly check-in by an admin officer, I was met by a senior student and told to ‘face the bulkhead.’  For the next week,  the ‘Indocs’ (junior students), were put through a series of mind games, semi-verbal abuse, physical challenges, horrible personal hygiene (1 minute to shower and shave),  all coupled with total exhaustion from the lack of sleep.  For a few folks, Indoc week was too much and they dropped out (one guy had to be put in the brigg for insubordination).  For the rest of us, we were relieved to be finished, but we still had 15 weeks to go.

I told the group that the recruiters did not prepare me (or many others, I suspect) for OCS (a little heads up about Indoc week would have been helpful).    I did very little to prepare and arrived there not in the best physical shape.  I couldn’t pass the standard required for push-ups and sit-ups so had to attend extra PE sessions at an ungodly hour of the morning (about same time that I have gotten up for F3 the past 9 years -haha).   Time was the enemy and it seemed that every waking hour was filled with either school, studying for tests, having a watch, or getting ready for inspections.   I was not used to that and struggled sometimes to get everything done.   Time management is still not one of my strong suits.   I can’t say I enjoyed OCS, but I came away from it a better man and with a long-lasting friend.  JP Tennant was the first guy I met during Indoc week and we still keep in touch.

After graduating from OCS, I went to the Nuclear Power School in Orlando, FL where my Naval career would end, unfortunately.    It was a really tough school academically and I struggled from the start before eventually flunking out.  I had to option to stay in the Navy in another capacity,  or go to inactive reserves which is what I opted to do.  As a 22-year-old kid, it felt like the right decision, but I shared with the group that it’s one decision that I regret.

I had not thought about OCS in a long, long time and as I prepared for this Q, it was petty cool to go back and think about that time 34 years ago (man, I’m getting old).  It was also fun to share my story with Triple Lindy, Assasin, and Bitcoin.  Thanks for listening, guys and I hope you got your money’s worth this morning.

Announcements:  read the newsletter

Prayers and Praises:   Triple Lindy’s wife (wrist injury), ST’s friend Joe with Cancer, Cornerstone with a kidney stone.

 

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