Q on Cue

A strong group of 17 PAX appeared in the midst of a cool late-august gloom.

– Mosey to Springs parking lot
– Carioca one direction
– Carioca the other
– Mosey to the lot blocked off by the chain
Warm Up:
– SSH (until I heard grumbling)
– Windmill (slowly, until I felt better about life)
– Cherry Picker (stopped corrected some form)
– Cherry Picker with better form
– Merkin x12 (cause you were expecting 10)
– Shoulder Taps
– Mountain Climbers
– Downdog –> Honeymooner, repeat
– added a little runners lunge with some twisting (because yoga)
– sprinkled in a burpee

Thang:
– Mosey to Pike Electric front lot
– two burpees
– Circled up – Howling Monkeys
– Dirty Hookups on the wall
– Howling Monkeys
– Dirty Hookups
– Threw in 10 burpees because no PAX could quickly identify where in the bible the store of David and Goliath is located (1st Samuel)
– Threw in 20 bomb jacks for a “That’s what she said” about David being small……..not that kind of group.
– Mosey to MillStone
– Wall sit for the 6
– Mosey to Millstone playground
– Happy Jacks x4
– Divided up in to 4 groups at each little hill:
– Start at the top of the hill
– Standing forward bend (aka: touch your toes)
– Inch-worm down into merkin position
– 10 Derkins
– Inch-wormed back
– Bear Crawl to the next hill
– (total of just 40 derkins)
– COP on the little neglected concrete slab there
– Tammy Wynettes for a while (most groups hit 3 reps)
– Mosey back to COT with some stops to let everyone catch up
– Wallsit at Millstone
– Sprint up Massey Hill
– BTTW at Springs Corporate

NMM:

David and Goliath is a story about faith, but may also be a story about a smaller more agile advisory taking on a big, lumbering giant. This begins to sound like a “lizard” vs a “bullfrog” from the Q-source. Just like David, we sometimes need the faith to trust a lizard or believe that as a lizard we can succeed.

Announcements:
– 9/6 Invergence
– 9/7 Convergence

A privileged to lead.

-Band Camp Dismissed

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Housekeeping Incoporated

17 PAX gathered on a hot muggy August morning.

Rundown:

Band Camp on Q
– Mosey
– Carioca
– Butt Kickers
– Carioca
– Toy Soldiers
– Mosey to where the dogs bark constantly
COP
– SSH
– Windmill
– Merkins
– Shoulder Tap
– Mountain Climbers
– Parker Peters

Mosey over to the Nazarene church to get away from the Dogs. Miraculously cones were also set up here. (Bear crawled to the cones)

Flash on Q
– Partner up
– 3 cones
– Partner 1
– cone 1: burpee broad jump, sprint back
– cone 2: duck walk, sprint back
– cone 3: lunge walk, sprint back
– Partner 2
– keep doing squats until Partner 1 is finished
– 3 sets of this
– Indian Run to Springs Corporate center
– DORA: 100 Merkins, 200 (more) squats, 300 flutters

Band Camp on Q
– Mosey back to COT
– A Gross (12 reps of 12 exercises)
-Upper Body: Merkins-single count, Overhead claps, Moroccan Night Clubs, Merkins-in cadence
-Lower Body: Squats, Lunge, Cossack Lunge, Jump Squat
-Core: Flutter, Dying Cockroach, LBC, Freddie Mercuries
– Mosey up the hill
– Mosey back down

NMM:

Flash shared about one of his leadership role models, Captain Picard, and making earl grey tea. In order to make tea, the leaves have to be immersed into the hot water. As a leader, we have to immerse ourselves with those we’re leading. And beyond immersion, we need to “steep” or remain in contact long enough to have the desired effect.

YHC shared up on the hill at the very end, that it is possible to over steep tea. We need to recognize in our households when mom has been immersed too long with the 2.0s and it’s our turn to step up. Or a similar scenario in our jobs.

An honor to lead such a strong group.

-Band Camp dismissed

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Running, Hills, Sand Bags…Complete

No glitz, just guts. (Similar to the writing of this BB.) That’s all we needed today to get some mileage, some drill bits, some hills and a couple of sand bag exercises. Now for the evidence it actually happened this morning at Block Party:

Long mosey to the Massey St hill and back to the upper corner of WEP.

Warm Up exercises consisting of things like Wind Mills, Squats, Merkins and Mountain Climbers

Explanation of the Drill Bit Tour: The path around WEP has these white posts. In our world, we call them Drill Bits and at each of of these Drill Bits, you’ll perform the following exercises:

20 American Hammers (20 ea side)

10 Lunges (10 ea side)

20 Dips

We then made our way to the base of the big grass hill for an explanation of the first sand bag exercise:

With your partner, you will suitcase carry either the 80lb or 60lb sand bag up to the top of the hill and back down. While the partner teams are waiting for their turn on the bag, the PAX did:

10 Burpees, 20 Jump Squats, 30 4-ct Flutters

The next sand bag exercise was for you and your partner to bear crawl-drag the bag out to a tree about 20yds away. Meanwhile, the PAX did the following:

10 Flying Squirrels, 10 Peter Parkers, 10 Parker Peters

Then, as a group, we NUR’d up the hill and Jogged down the hill for 4mins.

COT.

Maximus

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Don’t poke the Q

Cars pulling in right up to the starting time.
Disclaimer and intro.
Mosey with dynamic stretching along the way.
Circle up for some warmup and a small sample of Broga.
Back to kettle bells
Did the following exercises 3 sets of each 10-15 reps each set followed by an ab exercise.
Every three exercises we would mosey and do 10 burpees ( this quieted down most poking of the Q.)
Goblet squats, figure 8s, KB Swings, single arm rows, shoulder presses, single arm curls, clean and jerk, and reverse lunges.
COT
announcements- invergence and convergence
Prayers- Airborne son leaving for US Army boot camp. God Love the USA.
Trucker- learning everyday lessons on raising kids and being a good father.
All the kids going back to school today.

Also had a good reminder and to just love your kids and not worry about always if their the top or best at something. Just show them you love them.

Backdraft out.

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Field of muggy dreams

12 boot campers in total for a humid, gloomy morning.

Warm Up
Mosey run
SSH (IC 13x)
Windmill (IC 13x)
Imperial Walker (IC 13x)
Low Slow Squats (IC13x)
Merkins (IC 13X)
Peter Parker (IC 13x)
Plank stretches
Downward dog
Honeymooner

Thang 1: Field of Dreams (modified)
Count off by fours. 1’s to first base, 2’s to second base, 3’s to third base, 4’s to home plate.
Home plate: do 15 burpees then run to first base.
First base: do AMRAP of: Monkey humpers until relieved by home plate group
Second base: do AMRAP of: Incline Merkins until relieved
Third base: do AMRAP: LBC until relieved.
Repeat, and on subsequent “runs”do these:
First base: Imp walkers, Squats,
Second base: dips, step ups
Third base: Flutters, Mtn climbers,
We got two complete runs in.

Thang 2:
Merkins (IC 13X)
Sally routine, doing Leg lifts (two ruckers joined in for this)

Fini, COT

This was my 45th birthday and the first time I got to do a true birthday Q.  Truly a blessing to have another year in the books.  Looking forward to another year to try raise my family as God would have us to do.  AMDG!

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19 That Didn’t Mail In Their Saturday

So there was this Saturday in Ft. Mill, SC that 17 men joined 2 Q’s to have a little fun in the city park, talk about the impact F3 & others have had on us and the community, and do some crazy exercises that would make others shake their head. That Saturday was yesterday and I must say that Router and I thoroughly enjoyed this opportunity granted us by Slash.

3 years ago, Router began his journey with F3 and as he said, the life change has been great and there’s no looking back. As we all know, it’s much more about the 2nd & 3rd F’s but the magnet of the 1st F is what attracts us and propels us to that life change F3 is know for.

That said, Router lit the torch with a disclaimer and a brisk mosey around the WEP path stopping along the way for 20 SSH, 20 Moroccan Night Clubs, 10 Merkins and 10 Peter Parkers; a great opportunity to stretch the PAX out and bring them back together.

Router brought us to the middle of the grass field for the start of the Worlds Longest Lasting, Most Disputed, Loudly Criticized, Not At All Controversial, exercise in The Fort. Sorry, the Pullman got the best of me (which has nothing to do with what we did). This is where he introduced us to a modified Catch Me If You Can. However, there were no rucks, no running, no monkey humpers, just a lot of Tesh-chasing which, for me as Tesh’s partner, made for a quick rendition of this terrible idea. Partner 1 is doing inch-worm merkins while Partner 2 does 20 Flutters, 10 Merkins, 20 American Hammers and 10 Carolina Dry Docks then bear crawls to his inch-worming partner. We did this for what seemed like the entire Saturday morning but in all reality, it was about 100yds (go ahead and try it…I dare you).

Oh, that wasn’t bad enough? How about Router bringing us back to the starting point for a round of Jack friggin’ Webbs. Yup, you just read that. And yes, we went to the 10:40 mark with merkins & overhead claps.. Say hello to your Jell-O arms. Good thing none of our resident hair models were in attendance because hair-washing would’ve been a challenge later that morning.

Then Router topped it off with an explanation of his growth over the last 3yrs since joining F3. Thanks to the fellas like DD (in attendance), Santini, Senator Tressel, Assassin and others, there are hundreds of men who share a similar story to Router, each one unique and powerful in their own right.

Hand off to Maximus.

Mosey to “The Hill” and line up at the base. Identify the tree at the top, about face and reverse lunge walk all the way up the hill to the tree. At the top, drop to your six and crab walk back down.

Mosey back to the field and in true Jack friggin’ Webb fashion, take that to the legs for Lieutenant Dan’s. Just like before, we went to the 10:40 mark with squats & jumping lunges.

Lined up the cones about 30yds apart, PAX line up at one end then the explanation. WWII situps into a burpee broad jump. Repeat until you get to the other cone.

2 lines facing each other for Knee Tar Jah’s or Prisoner Lunges or whatever we’ve decided to call these things.

SSH x 21

Back to the cones. Run from cone 1 to cone 2, 20 Plank Jacks, NUR back to cone 1, 15 WWII situps, back to cone 2, 10 Plank Jacks, then NUR back to cone 1, 5 WWII situps.

PAX back together for:

SLOW Peter Parkers x 21

Flutters x 21

Squats x 21

Jail break to COT for a short set of LBCs.

So that was it. Great time I hope for all. Didn’t get a lot of miles but my body 24hrs later tells me that wasn’t needed. Remember what’s been done for you as you have the opportunity to do something positive and impactful for others.

**ONE REMINDER**: September 6 is our Annual Invergence followed by our regional Convergence September 7 back at WEP.

Until Next Time,

Router & Maximus

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Should I see stars in the daylight

As new pain was looming in the air, there was a quiet murmur across the 15 PAX.  Shady jumped in to provide the quick disclaimer, was on point of the 1st half of fun, and began the mosey over to the path where a drill bit warm-up ensued.  Drill bit warm-up included: SSH, merkins, squats (ghost bit got some love), windmills (with some cherry pickers), then finally toy soldiers with stretching and skipped the last drill bit (I just realized this!!)

Ran over to the small wall parking lot where we lined up to attempt sets of 10, then 9, then 8…you get it.  At the bottom we did side squat into a 180 jump side squat = 1 rep (so we did this 10x), then ran and jumped over the small brick wall where we did 10 each leg jumping lunges.  Then back down over the wall for 9, back up for 9….  We made it to about 3 before time expired for round 2.  Shady ran the PAX back to the WEP parking lot, down the back path as if you were going to Harris Street park, then stopped in front of the dreaded monster grassy hill.

A short message from Shady consisted of: do the difficult thing, push the extra 1 degree or percent for the next 30 min.  Yes it will be hard, but…get….over….it.  Then turned it over to Gandalf!

Gandalf loved the hill so much we stayed there where at the top and bottom we did the following:

  • 5 burpees
  • 10 Russian Twists + the 5 burpees
  • 15 merkins + 10 + 5…
  • 20 flutters + 15 + 10 + 5
  • 25 (I think we made it this far but here’s where I’m drawing a blank from exhaustion)

Once Gandalf had enough fun here, he took us to the playground where we partnered up and 1 partner plank walked around the playground while the other partner did 5 pull ups.  Then swap until we made it around the playground.  THEN we lined up across the field for a quick 100-200 yard jailbreak where we were lucky enough to do 30 wide arm merkins.  Since the bell had sounded, we made our way back to COT.

COT took over for the normal counting, name-o-rama, announcements, and prayers and praises.  Enjoyed getting better with everyone and special thanks to Slash for the invite and special pairing of Shady / Gandalf!

Shady

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So…you want to do pyramids and running. We can do that

16 gathered for a quick disclaimer on the beautiful Friday morning, and even more beautiful new pavement.  We took off for a quick mosey and circled up for some warm-up which consisted of: SSH, slow windmill, superman Moroccan night clubs, imperial walkers, merkins and stretching.  Stretching with some downward dogs, honeymooners and then some laying on our backs with some pulling of the knees to chest, and knee over side to stretch our backs.

Once the crew was warmed up we made our way over to the pull up bars where the following unfolded…very quickly.

  • 10 chin ups
  • 20 diamonds
  • 30 1 legged squats (15/leg)
  • 40 carolina dry docks
  • 50 LBC
  • 40 CDD
  • 30 1 leggged
  • 20 diamonds
  • 10 chin ups

Sounds not so bad but we added running between each exercise from the pull up bars down to the cross walk by the football field entrance.

For a quick “10 count” of sorts, the team received the following message: what are you doing today that makes you better where you’re being intentional?  It doesn’t have to be something big, but it can be you physically, mentally, helping your 2.0 practice a sport, unload the dishwasher when you’re not asked to do it….

Off we went to the next area of fun what had been deemed for the run over, “the teacher’s smoking lounge / aka the outside eating area outside the cafeteria” where there are picnic tables to use!

  • 20 step ups, each leg
  • 20 derkins
  • 20 dips
  • 10 burpees
  • 10 bomb jacks
  • Repeat the 20s above (there was an extra set of bomb jacks in here too b/c someone had to say the un-sayable)
  • 5 burpees
  • 5 bomb jacks
  • 10 burpees
  • 10 bombjacks

90 seconds to spare and we headed back to COT for all COT things!  Appreciate the invite as always from Harry Caray and appreciated all the mumblechatter and push!

Shady

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2

The Armory Anniversary

10 PAX showed up for my one year anniversary of F3.  I appreciate all of the PAX who have pushed me and motivated me over the past year!

We started out with some routine exercises:

  • SSH
  • LS Squats
  • Windmill
  • Cherry Picker
  • MNC
  • Arm Circles
  • Peter Parker
  • Parker Peter
  • Down Dog
  • Honey Mooner

After the warm up we got into the first routine:

6 exercises, 10 reps, times 10 sets – Pretty sure this was 100 each

  • Kettle Bell Swings
  • Goblet Squats
  • Curls
  • Bear Crawl 10 yards
  • 10 Merkins
  • Crawl Bear back 10 yards

I realized we forgot to mosey so we did a quick lap when all PAX were finished

Second routine:

4 exercises, 8 reps, times 8 sets

  • Clean and press
  • Tricep Extension
  • Squat and Press
  • American Hammers
  • Run a figure 8 around two light poles

We and about two minutes left over for some Flutters and Protractors.

Pretty much some standard announcements.

Prayers for Routers M who is having surgery this week.  Prayers for Cyclops Dad who is having some back pain.  Prayers for parents and children as we wind down summer vacation.

Thank you to JWOW for inviting me to lead, timing was good for the missing the DH beat down at the Honey Badger!

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3

Steadfast

18 Pax posted at the Coop in full representation of 3 solid regions today (Richmond, Fort Mill and Ballantyne). The temperature dropped and it felt like spring again. Wegmans, Skate or Die, Sasquatch and Cici did a pre-run for extra credit. Double Mint put up a strong post as his downpainment before spending the day at Carowinds.  T-Claps to all 18 high impact men that challenged themselves both mentally and physically today. 

The Thang:

Mosey to Sugar Creek Elementary’s Bus Loop

COP: SSH (30x), IW (20x), HillBilly Walkers (15x), WM (15x), Moroccan Night Clubs (15x), Sumo Squats (15x), MC (15x), Peter Parkers (15x)

Mosey to the pull up bars: Jacobs Ladder with burpees at the bottom, pull ups at the top 8x

Mosey to Sugar Creek Elementary’s Parking Lot: Windsprints (2x)

Mosey to the wall: Wall Merkins 3x, People’s Chair 3x

Moleskin:  

We are constantly feeling good and bad vibes during our journey of life. Life is filled with valleys and peaks. Like a train on parallel tracks, we continually find ourselves between the good track and the bad track. When things go well in life, we are soon challenged with a tragedy or a loss. Remain steadfast. Be aware of when you become unbalanced between pride and humility, right and wrong, etc. Remain steadfast and in balance.

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