Tengo at The Ballroom

It was a thick humid morning in The Fort, but eleven HIM decided to get out of the fart sack and take their daily dose of the red pill and accelerate. FNG Red Card posted so the disclaimer was thorough and so was the pain!
Warmup:
20 Side Strattle Hops
10 Windmills
10 Tappy Taps
10 Merkins
Down/Up Dogs 🐕
LBCs

Mosey/Toy Soliders/Kareoke over to the bridge of pain for a Tengo with Dora.
Partner 1: Run across the bridge to the locker room and back.
Partner 2: 100 Merkins, 200 Squats, 300 Flutters

Next lunge over to the bleachers for some bleacher work. I took a deep dive into the archives of the exicon for this next exercise called the Aiken Legs. Was it named after Clay Aiken or Aiken SC? That is the deep mystery of the exicon (from the exicons lips to God’s year).

Aiken Legs:
20 Squats
20 Step Ups
20 Clave Raises

Aiken Chest:
20 Merkins
20 Derkins
20 Incline Merkins

Aiken Abs:
20 V-Ups
20 Crunches
20 Lowe Back Raises

Moseyed back to COT for prayer ans praises.

– JWow

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7 of Diamonds

WARMUP:
SSH, Moroccan Nightclubs, Low Slow Squats, Cherry Pickers, Merkins, plank, downward dog, honeymooners

THE THANG:
Had a variation of the 7 of diamonds
7 rounds, various exercises starting with 7 reps at round 1 with increasing by 7 reps up to round 4 then back down 7 reps. Round 1 is completed when you do the first exercise at all 4 corners. Repeat for remaining rounds.

Corners 1 & 3
7 Burpees, 14 Merkins, 21 Squats, 28 Flutter kicks, 21 sumo squats, 14 dips, 7 burpees
Jog from corner 1 to 2
Nur from corner 3 to 4

Corners 2&4
7 Burpees, 14 Dry docks, 21 lunges, 28 Peter Parker’s, 21 calf raises, 14 shoulder taps, 7 burpees
Karaoke from corners 2 to 3 and from 4 to 1

Wrapped up the last 5 minutes with some Mary’s led out by Twister

ANNOUNCEMENTS
Check the newsletter

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Locking Shields, a how to…

Great Invergence today at WEP to close out an entire month of acceleration.

Now that we have finished a month of accelerating HIMs all over the Fort, how do we maintain that acceleration?

Answer? ACCOUNTABILITY!

Best way to execute accountability? Locking shields with fellow PAX.

Best way to consistently lock shields? Join a Shield Lock.

Today we heard from some 🛡🔒 PAX sharing experiences, advice and offering up themselves to their fellow PAX to learn the power of 🛡🔒.

To know more, ask a PAX that was present.

Need guidance or advice moving forward?  Reach out to @Pusher and he will point you in the direction of success and accountability.

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RESPECTABLE DROPTHRILL

Drop Thrill bday Q
Warmup
16 SSH
19-7-2 =10
Windmills
Cherry pickers
Moroccan nightclubs
Baby arm circles
Down dog stretch calves
Stretch arms across front and then behind head

Start walking

April 16, 1972
Leap year
16 Bobby hurlies

Sunday
7 imperial walkers

2 giant pandas arrive in US. The first. Ling Ling and Hsing Hsing
2 Burpees

Apollo 16, 5th moon landing launched 1254 pm
16 squats
5 lunges
12 OH claps
54 sec Al gore

Cubs rookie pitcher hurls 4-0 no hitter against Phillies
9 Merkins
4 BBS

2 British soldiers killed by IRA
2 Burpees

Chinese year of Rat
Rat Crawl

Star sign Aries
First 30 degrees of the celestial longitude
30 LBCs
Also The Ram
16 Ram Kicks

Pope Benedict 16 born 1927
16 OH press
19 imperial walkers
27 hillbilly walkers

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Using a Sandbag Timer at The Ranch

IT was a warm windy morning (but dry) as we all gathered at The Ranch.  We began with a quick warm-up of SSH, Monkey Humpers (for Bobber as he drove in), Imperial Walkers, Hillbilly Walkers, Windmills and Moroccan Night Clubs.

We then moseyed over the the front of the school to be a bit protected from the wind and did 2 sets of wall sits with a 10 count down the line followed by plank-45 degree, BTW each for about 20 seconds.  It should be noted that during this portion Bobber seemed very confused that further movements would follow the pervious one and seemed to be trying to get a jump start heading back to the parking lot each time.  The look of confusion as he returned to the wall was priceless… each time…

The body of the work consisted of AMRAP of the following movements with the timer being a PAX shuffling with a 60lb sandbag (120 for Bobber) to the painted rock and back. Several PAX commented that this list seemed similar to Tuesday only without the set number of reps, to which I pretended not to have heard… I mean there are only so many options right? Plus I’m sure I added at least a few new things… I hope…

  • Squats
  • Merkins
  • Monkey Humpers
  • Donkey Kicks
  • Calf Raises
  • Mountain Climbers
  • Side Straddle Hops
  • Al Gore with Moroccan Night Clubs
  • Box Cutter
  • Plank Jack
  • Dry Docks
  • Seal Jacks
  • Flutters
  • Shoulder Taps

We completed about 3 rounds and then returned for COT

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Insider baseball

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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Richard John Webb, Esq.

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

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

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

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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