Glorious Gloom at the GC

WARMUP: Mosey behind Red Bowl to stink central for a COP: SquatS, IWs, Mtn. Climbers, LBCs, SSHs. All IC and interrupted by a burpee ladder, 5 down to 1.
THE THANG: head to the hill behind Express Oil change. Count adds to 10, started with 1 Big Boyat the bottom & 9 Bombjacks at the top. Omaha after 5 rounds as traffic was getting heavy. Head behind the Oil Change garage for a partner Dora. Derkins, Dips & Step ups. Finish up with a crowd pleaser, “Tote The Rock”. 1 pax runs around O’Reilly’s carrying a Cindy while Pax do the exercise listed on the sheet. Round 1 was Kraken Burpees and it went downhill from there.

MARY: No time
ANNOUNCEMENTS: Another Blood Drive (god bless @3D, he’s a marketing genius), D2D fundraiser
COT:Prayers for various family members.

I’m off and amazed how nervous and sleepless I am the night before a Q. Must be because it’s an important role to play. We all wanna do a good job for the Pax that show up. Always an honor to lead.
“The” Shortest of All Sales.

TClap |
0

Q-School 101 and 601

It’s time to head to school or maybe even back to school for some continuing education credits.

If you haven’t Qed, if you’ve Qed a tad, if you’ve Qed a few and want to add some pizazz to your next weinke, then Q-School 101 is for you. Band Camp is leading a tour-de-force course on the nuts and bolts, ins and outs, brass tacks, and the tidal wave of minutiea that go into creating, executing, managing, and adapting the leadership opportunity that is Qing an F3 workout.

If you’re a Site-Q, if you’ve been a Site-Q, if you’ve delusions of grandeur, then Q-School 601 (graduate level) is where you belong. Slapshot is going to bring the the power play and guarantees afterwards you will lead with a hat trick of all 3 Fs.

Both the 101 and 601 will launch from the following AOs on the dates listed:

2/21 – Ballroom (Tues)
3/30 – Matterhorn (Thur)
5/1 – Honey Badger (Mon)
6/14 – Bushwood (Wed)

More dates to come in the fall. Stay tuned. Keep EHing, encourage the FNGs to make a second/third post, support the VQs, and let’s get after the business of being better.

TClap |
0

A gear WO broke out @ The Stockade

WARMUP: Arrived early and set-up the Harris Teeter parking lot as a battleground to deliver pain. Gave the disclaimer and we moseyed from COT to the battleground where I had 5 stations set-up. We moseyed to 4of the stations and completed SSH/IC/x20 and then made sure the PAX understood each exercise to be performed at that station. Last mosey was to the 5th station, where exercises were explained, enough talk, time to get to work!
THE THANG: Broke the PAX into 4 groups. Groups were dispersed to each of the 4 perimeter stations. At each of the 4 perimeter stations there were 4 exercises. Each PAX had to complete the reps for all 4 exercises before their group could mosey to the 5th station located somewhat in the middle of the 4 perimeter stations. The 5th station was a list of ab exercises. Here’s the flow: Group 1 performs the workout at Station #1, once completed the group goes to the middle Ab Station and completes the reps for the 1st exercise listed. Once the group finishes the ab exercise they travel to Station #2. Once the exercises are completed by all PAX at Station #2 the group travels back to the middle Ab Station and completes the reps for the 2nd exercise listed. So forth and so on, you get the idea.
All perimeter stations were set-up utilizing the grocery cart storage areas in the parking lot.

Station #1
10 – Pullups ( use grocery cart storage equipment, there is a place to modify to inverted rows as well )
20 – Overhead Presses w/ Cindy
20 – KB swings with 45lb. KB
30 – Unilateral Waves w/ Heavy Rope ( just count how many times you throw an arm up for reps )

Station #2
10 – Chin-ups
20 – 10ea arm – bent over rows with 45lb DB
20 – Lat Pulls w/Cindy
20 – Curls w/ Cindy

Station #3
10 – Switch Grip Pull-ups
10 – Overhead Sandbag Toss w/ 45lb sandbag
20 – CDDs with feet on the rail of the grocery cart storage equipment
20 – Tricep Extensions w/Cindy

Station #4
10 – Switch Grip Pull-ups
20 – Bent over rows w/Cindy
10 – Slam Ball throws w/ 30lb slam ball
10 – Man Makers w/Cindy

Station #5 ( Abs )
100 – LBCs
90 – Flutters ( single count )
80 – Freddy Mercury’s ( single count )
70 – American Hammers ( single count )
60 – Mountain Climbers ( single count )
50 – Reverse Crunches
40 – Big Boys
30 – Straight Lower Leg Lifts
20 – V-Sits
1 minute Plank
The group who tolerated my presence almost made 2 complete trips around the battleground, so it’s safe to say PAX completed 6-8 perimeter stations and made 5-7 trips to the Ab station. Great work fellas!!!

MARY: No time left for Mary
ANNOUNCEMENTS: D2DB10K, D2D, Rooster, upcoming CSAUPs, Bethel Men’s shelter
COT: Prayers were lifted up! God bless!

TClap |
0

Mentorship Has Its Privileges

WARMUP: COP – SSH, Mtn climbers, Peter Parker, Parker peter, inperial Walker, Merkin

THE THANG:
Grab partner and discuss a non-F3 mentor who helped you in life while doing partner leg throws

Different partner, now discuss non-F3 man you helped mentor in life while doing partner planks/merkins/shoulder taps

Different partner, now discuss missed opportunity to share a mentor relationship with another man in your past

hand off to Long Duck

Series of exercises marked in parking spaces. each pax chooses a space, completes exercise, runs 1 lap, then moves to next space/exercise and repeats the cycle.

Run home

ANNOUNCEMENTS: Long Duck is The Fort’s Whetstone Q. Don’t be confused by the lexicon…Whetstone=Mentorship. it’s that simple. Long Duck shared his experiences (which are vast considering his long service as a sponsor in AA). Tap this HIM to learn more about starting or improving in the area of Mentorship.

COT: Prayers for Slash’s dad and Escargot’s son and Long Duck’s friend Tyler struggling with drug addiction.

thank you Shower Curtain for the opportunity to lead the pax!

TClap |
0

Lack of Oxygen Edition

WARMUP: The morning started out rough as my cadence count was a bit off for around the 15th SSH. Then again with Windmills and Imperial Walkers. Made it through the Hillbilly Walkers okay though. I must be really out of practice.
THE THANG: We did a modified Dora where one partner started did squats while the other partner ran the parking lot triangle and at the 2nd corner did 20 merkins. We did that x 4 rounds. The next round was calf raises and the running partner did 20 Bobby Hurleys for 2 rounds. Then we went to do 4 corners with 25 burpees (a requirement b/c @slaptshot is the Site Q, then bear crawl the to next corner and did 25 squats, then at the 3rd corner did 25 merkins and ended at the 4th corner with 25 big boys. We did LBC’s until the 6 finished.
MARY: We got into plank and did 20 shoulder taps, held low plank for about 1 minute, rotated to high plank and did left and right arm high for about another minute and then time was called just before we went back down for low plank again.
ANNOUNCEMENTS: Packet pickup is tomorrow at the Print Shop for D2D Bar 10k.
COT: Prayers for mental and physical healing of those all around us. Happy 10th Birthday to Eggo tomorrow.

TClap |
0

Progress over Perfection

It was a nice warm morning at ROF where we had 4…yes 4 FNG’s

Warmup

Since tomorrow would’ve been my grandmothers 103’rd birthday we went ahead and did 103 burpees.

12 Burpees on EMOM for 8 minutes + 7 more for 103

At ROF Cousin Eddie is asking us to bring our story/challenges to our Q’s so I incorporated my story into the workout. First was laying the groundwork with what I struggle with.

Testimony:

Ten years ago on paper I was “good”. Had a great job, house, finishing my MBA and my first child was born. Underneath though, I was far from good. I constantly doubted myself, truth be told I didn’t like myself. While I had family and some friends I didn’t have “friends” not like F3. In a word, even though I was surrounded by ppl in a lot of ways I was alone. When stress came, and it did, I wasn’t equipped physically, mentally, or spiritually to deal with it. I didn’t have the positive outlets I needed. So I did the wrong things. I kept it inside, I ate or drank and escaped into lazy excuses. Long story short, I was at least 50-60lbs heavier then compared to what I am now. My first 5 K I finished around 40 minutes. So one day I made the call to get help. I made the call to talk to a therapist. It wasn’t an easy thing to admit but I needed it. Making that call was one of the best decisions of my life. It was the very start of me being able to turn my physical, mental, and spiritual health around. But a lot like a rock just starting to go downhill……that journey didn’t accelerate until about 4 years ago when I joined up with F3.

The doubts still remain….I weigh myself multiple times a day. It’s sounds dumb and unnecessary but it’s just how I check myself. For work I make it a point to be the first to log on/show up on my team each day. For faith I have my SL to continue to inspire me and give me perspective. I can say I am better now than I was….but that journey continues, there’s always a hill to climb and it’ll never end.

So With that, I incorporated 5 sayings/rules that have helped me along the way with different exercises.

Progress over Perfection
4 minutes Tabata Flutters /Lbcs Each Minute increase your total rep count. Push yourselves
Any Great thing isn’t accomplished alone
Bear Crawl Web 1 merkin to 4 bear crawl steps. All the way to 10-40. This was on the Football Field.
Anything worth doing is going to be hard.
25 HR Merkins Sprint down to the opposite Goal line
15 HR Merkins Sprint down to the opposite Goal Line
15 HR Merkins Sprint down to the opposite Goal Line
15 HR Merkins Sprint down to the opposite Goal Line
Occham’s Razor – the simplest explanation/solution is usually the right one
Sprint to the 50 Do 10 Burpees
Sprint to the Goal Line and do 10 burpees
Staring at a hill….doesn’t make it smaller or easier.
Run to the top of the hill by the entrance and do 5 Merkins and 5 LBCS at the top of the hill. Run back down to the bottom and repeat running all the way to COT.

With 10 seconds left I let the Pax know how much I’m thankful for them and that I love them………then I asked them for 5 more burpees.

Honored to lead and to share!

Thank you all!

TClap |
0

21s have short term memories

WARMUP:
SSH
Windmill
Low slow squats
Lil baby arm circles

THE THANG:
21s merkins and squats
Started at bottom of hill by light poles. Ran up hill to next light pole between sets. At 11 we turned around

For those who don’t know 21s, you start with 1 merkin and 1 squat. Work your way up to 21 each.

Pax were to fast so I had to make some stuff up on the fly to fill last 10 minutes.

Each pax grabbed a rock of medium size. Some pax don’t listen very well and they had to change.

Start on your back with rock at your waist. Arms extended. Raise rock over your head and touch it to the ground – 10

Toe touches – 10

Repeat those exercises with rep count of 8

Move up toward school to do some abs and 10 more merkins and squats.

Total of 240 merkins and squats for the day.
MARY:
ANNOUNCEMENTS:
COT:

TClap |
0

Long Drive

WARMUP: The warmup was a slow mousey around the parking area….we did Windmills, Hillbilly Walkers, Imperial Walkers and Morrocan Nighclubs.
THE THANG: We did 8 exercises 5 SQUATS,10 LUNGES,15 MERKIN W/PLANKJACKS,20 BIG BOYS, 25. SHOULDER TAPS, 30 AMERICAN HAMMERS, 35 MTN CLIMBERS AND 40 SSH
We did the first exercise the count was 5 then ran a lap around the parking lot, then repeat the exercise before and continue down the list in increments of 5 until you completed the list and rinse and repeat. Thank you to Slapshot for giving me the opportunity to lead and for giving great directions to the AO in the best hype video out there.
MARY: no Mary
ANNOUNCEMENTS: Dam to Dam Bar 10k
COT: We prayed for safe travels and family

TClap |
0

Four Freedoms

Stockade Four Freedoms January 6th 2023 (1941)

Started with a run behind Harris Teeter and up to Grace Presb Church.
Warmup:
SSH (20x I/C)
Windmills (8x I/C)
Imperial Walkers (10x I/C)
Moroccan Nightclubs (10x I/C)
Low slow squats (10x I/C)
Big Arm Circles (6 forward, 6 backwards)
Peter Parkers (10x I/C)
Plank Stretches (Downward dog, upward dog)

Short mosey run

Fish tracks routine:
Pax do the transportation and stop when instructed and do the exercise called.
Toy soldiers…stop and do Bobby Hurleys,
Lunge walk…stop and do squats,
Bear crawl…stop and do merkins,

Short mosey run back over to the shopping plaza.
Bench work: Incline Merkins, step ups, dips, squats, derkins, calf raises

Short run over to the wall nearby Dollar Tree:
Wall sits, BTW, and wall-tar-jai’s
Four Freedoms background/info delivered during wall sits. See summary at end of BB.

Short run to adjacent parking lot: found the cinder block and did:
Pass the ammunition: Pax do a curb plank, drag/pass the cinder block to the guy next to you, and so until the last guy then sends the block back to starting guy. Then all pax do curb merkins (3 I/C). repeat.

Run back to Grace church: Find the four cones in the parking lot.
Cone 1 “Freedom of Speech”: did 4 burpees,
run to Cone 2 “Freedom of Worship”: did 4 burpees,
run to Cone 3 “Freedom from Want”: did 4 burpees,
run to cone 4 “Freedom from Fear”: did 4 burpees.

Run back to shopping plaza.
Global running routine: Pax circle up, wrestling stance, side shuffle, stop and do: Smurf jacks, squats, monkey humpers.

Run to COT.
BURPEE-QUIZ time: Pax were asked, and correctly answered, what the Four Freedoms were, which President delivered the speech, and when was it delivered. Therefore, pax had to do only 8 burpees.
Mary: Freddies, flutters, box cutters.

Fini
COT

Four Freedoms:
Context/background: by December 1940, Nazi Germany had taken over most of Europe and Britain/London was getting pummeled with the nightly blitz bombings. Japan was also making conquests in China and Korea. The US was separated from all of this, and many folks thought the isolationist stance should continue (people were still remembering the pain of WW One).
But FDR (newly elected to his third term as President) knew the US was basically the only nation capable of saving the democracies of the world.
In his State of the Union address on January 6th 1941, FDR laid out why the US should get more involved…the four basic freedoms of democracy was under attack:
Freedom of Speech
Freedom to Worship God in the manner that a man wants to.
Freedom from Want…economic security
Freedom from Fear…aggression of one nation to another

Eighty-two years later, we have Ukraine being attacked and their basic Freedoms under attack. Prayers for ClickBait, MarkTwian, and their crews in the work they are doing over there in Ukraine.

TClap |
0

KICKING OFF GOLDEN CORRAL IN 2023

WARMUP:
Circle up for windmill x 15 and SSH x 20. Form a line and do toy soldiers and arm circles on the way to an area in front of HT. Circle up again.

THE THANG:
After the disclaimer and a short warm up, we were greeted by two additional pax who joined the circle for a Tabata workout.

8 exercises, 8 reps each, 20 sec work, 10 sec rest.
The exercises we did today were:
1. CCD
2. Box cutters (tough)
3. Mountain climbers
4. Squats
5. Merkins (crowd pleaser)
6. Superman hold
7. Alternating lunges
8. Burpees
Finish with 90 sec body destroyer

COT

NAKED MAN MOLESKIN
I’ve done this workout several times and it’s very easy to plan, but a little tricky to execute. Keeping track of the exercises and the number of sets requires some concentration. With no cadence counting, it encourages a lot of mumble chatter and we had plenty of that today. Noteworthy was Slapshot, who welcomed our FNG with steady conversation for the entire workout. I tip my hat to him because while the rest of us were groaning on sets 7 and 8 of merkins, he kept the chatter going with little sign of fatigue or O2 deprivation. Well done!

Welcome Pongo who comes to us from North Charlotte (I believe). He brought along an FNG who we dubbed Gremlin. Welcome, gentlemen! Love getting FNG’s on the weekday workouts. It was a great morning with the fine gentlemen of the Fort and a pleasure to lead the group as always. Thanks for the Q nod, Slow Jams!

ANNOUNCEMENTS/PRAYERS
Dam2Dam race/fundraiser for Ft. Mill Schools in Feb. Read your newsletter.
Prayers: Buffalo Bills player Damar Hamlin, Pongo’s grandfather Warren, kids returning to school.

TClap |
0