Tag: Slow Jams

Sweep the core

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YHC  took over for Pantheon at the last minute to allow the scheduled Q to attend the memorial beatdown at the Coop.  I hadn’t Qed since before the pandemic and figured with numbers low, it’d be a good time to keep distant whilst also dishing the pain.

Five PAX gathered in the gloom this morning near the shovel flag at Pantheon. Divac, Tesla and Flounder I knew, but Slow Jamz I’d not yet met. The disclaimer was disclaimed while holding a chunk of cardboard that was carved off a shipment of wine that the M has been importing since February.  Fitting that the box for the merlot would have scrawlings of a madman, intent on seeing merlot on the pavement.

The Warmup

Quick mosey over to the parking lot space by the crosswalk for a quick warmup. Let’s keep it simple with 10 SSH, 10 Low Slow Squats, and a few ten count hamstring stretches. That’s it.

The Thang

Quick jaunt over to the crosswalk to explain. On the cardboard are two columns, aptly labeled “1” and “2”.  PAX are instructed to choose a column, do all the exercises and run a (.34 mile) lap on the queueing road, and continue until COT. Alternating columns is suggested as column 2 is a bit more difficult than column 1.  PAX may also choose to do both columns for a short lap in the parking lot. It’s UvU here, with about 40 minutes to see how many laps one can get in.

Column 1
10x BBS
20x Flutter (2 count)
30x LBC

Column 2
10x Rocky BBS (two punches at the top)
20x Box Cutter
30x LBC

It’s an attack on the abs, Sweep The Leg style!

COT

YHC shared some thoughts about the 3rd F (see NMM).

Announcements were announced.

Prayers were offered up:
Flounder’s friend, Sue, who we’d prayed for last week, has gone home as expected, and for her husband who has seen two wives lost to cancer.
Slow Jamz’s M, who just returned from NY. The family has lost a brother/son to a hit and run in New York.

Naked Man Moleskin

Some great mumblechatter was heard at the crosswalk. YHC was pleased with the number of complaints as well, though it was a bit disturbing as many of these complaints manifested in noises that are generally reserved for the boudoir… I suppose I’m not complaining.

Tesla smoked everyone with nine full laps. YHC got a solid eight.

Slow Jamz tried to get the flying EH on a sad clown that has been flying by Pantheon for a few weeks now, but he’s not biting. I believe Olaf spoke with him last week.

The 3rd F from CoT…

In CoT I talked briefly about how the 3rd F, Faith, is often hard to explain to people who reject faith.  I translate that pretty frequently to “Faith that I am not the center of the universe”.  And spoke a bit about my personal conviction that we need to try to put others needs in front of our own needs. And we should always be putting the needs of others in front of our convenience and luxury.

Here I expound:

I find it difficult talking about F3’s core principle “Open to all men” in relationship to the 3rd F, “Faith”.  On the surface it’s hard to make the relation work, they seem incompatible because no matter what I say, what men seem to hear is “Open to christians”, and I don’t want that to be the case.

F3 obviously isn’t for every man (if it was there would be mass logistical chaos in every city at 0500).  But how do we stop the word “faith” from auto-translating to “barrier”?  I evangelize F3 pretty frequently, and I’ve seen the facial twitch when that third F is uttered more often than not. When I witness that tic, I try to weaken the barrier.

As mentioned in CoT, that third F may be described as “Faith that I am not the center of the universe”, you often hear “I am 3rd”. Which, I feel, is a lot more appealing to those men we will meet (generally on a daily basis) who may not share your/our/my faith. While I believe in Jesus, I cannot require others to do the same (Paul going so far as to say, if they reject you, shake it off and move on).

Despite this, I know that there is often great honor to be had in living 3rd. Though there are the depraved few who see Michael Douglas in Wall Street as their god, they still might be attracted to a free workout… unless they own gyms.

There are dozens of scriptures in the Bible that expound on the inherent wrong of living luxuriously while others live in want. To live 3rd, to me, my “faith that I’m not the center of the universe”, means that I have to decide between commodity (Starbucks, Beer, Wine, the newest cell phone, my ruck, the list is almost shamefully long…) and the aid of others.

Jesus said we’d always have the poor… Those who live in luxury will never be able to shed the responsibility of caring for them, and the result of shirking that duty is pretty well explained. Over and over…

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Football not Footloose

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Its September!! Are you ready for some football? Well, Boss Hog apparently isn’t since he tweeted out YHC was bringing a truck load of pain via from some crappy college program, that team from the south (fans of that team from up north will get that joke). Of course Boss Hog was just trying to poke the bear. Of course it worked seeing that I am not a fan of either of those programs (WE ARE PENN STATE), the weinke was developed to be not-a-moderate and emulate a typical football conditioning workout – kuddos go to watching my son and the PKMS football team practice this week.

The tweet definitely brought out some #HIM and a PAX posting for his second time (Ranger)!

Mossy to church parking lot for COP: windmills, low slow squat, Moroccan nightclubs, IW…while we were in COP we noticed the Minnow Pond PAX heading down the hill so we decided to give them a warm welcome by lining up and performing Monkey Humpers as they passed by.

Mossy to other church parking lot for and individual OYO pain station:

100 Merkins

50 Squats

100 LBCs

50 Side Lunges

100 CDD

50 Big Boys

100 American Hammers

50 Mountain Climbers

As PAX were completing this, they took a lap around the church.

Once done, mossy back to other church parking lot for 2 rounds of:

Suicides (whats a football conditioning workout W/O them) – those who had injuries planked as PAX did suicides. Up/Downs – running in place then doing burpees as called out.

Toy soldiers to Withers Street.

3 rounds of:

Run to top of hill, 10 merkins, run back, 10 LBCs. Those with injuries did 10 burpees, 15 merkins, 20 LBCs.

Mossy back to COT

Thanks for PAX pushing through a muggy warm morning. Good mumble chatter as always.

Prayers to Teachers, Students, Parents, Cash, other PAX family/friends who are sick.

Trucker

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Get Some at GC

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Coming off the Bert on Monday at Honey Badger, I knew I didn’t want to give in and do what my body wanted me to do (ie. stay away from merkins and squats), so I did the opposite.  The results were pretty gnarly.

Did a quick mosey around the Teeter parking lot, but did the widest perimeter possible while staying within the shopping center.  I told the pax that this particular lap is what we’ll be doing in between exercises…about a 0.30 mile loop.

First stop –

15 merkins, 15 diamond merkins.  Do it 4 times.  This seemed more logical when I drew it up.  The moans coming out of Slow Jamz was epic / a little concerning.  120 merkins later, we all took that lap and ran without the use of our arms / chest..

15 squats, 15 lunges.  Do it 4 times over.  120 leg reps didn’t feel good on the next lap we did.

15 LBC’s / 15 freddies…x 4 times.  Woof, then lap.

15 bomb jacks, sprint the parking lot length.  Do it 4 times.

From there, we’re moseyed over to the apartments behind Teeter where we started at the first roundabout and I gave the pax the instructions for what i call 21’s.  Starting in that central location, we do 7 reps of an exercise, run up the hill back to the entrance of Teeter (by Red Bowl) and do 14 of the same exercise, then run back, pass the central point and run down to the water fountain, and do 21 reps of the same exercise.  Quick 42 reps of each, and about 0.5 miles of distance with plenty of uphill.

Seal jacks x 7, run, x 14, run, x 21, run.
High knees x 7, run, x 14, run, x 21, run
Squats x 7, run x 14, run, x 21, run
Burpees (I waited until the very end to throw some of these at the pax) x 7, run, x 14, running low on time so ran to COT and did burpees until 6am (most got in about 5-8 to finish).

I always say, keep it simple, and that’s what we did.  Covered 2.8 miles and about 600 reps – 120 merkins, 120 squats / lunges, 120 LBC / freddies, 60 bomb jacks, 42 seal jacks, 42 high knees, 42 more squats and about 30 burpees.  Not a bad day at the office right there.

Ruckers made their way back and we closed out in prayer – school (our kids, teachers, admin), marriages, sickness / recovery, loss of a home, and praise for our health.

Thanks Luda for the call to lead – always love coming to the Corral.  Don’t ever hesitate to schedule me now that I’m over the bridge – happy to lead these great Fort guys.

Cha Ching

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Start Fast, Grow Steady, Finish Strong

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17 HIM descended upon the Swamp for a strong finish to the month of July.  YHC got a call from Duck Dynasty this week asking to step up and take the Q.  Upon arrival, YHC was greeted by a few early arriving #HIM and the remainder wandered in between 0507 and 0515 – well all but Olaf who came in hot and eventually caught up to us quickly at COP.

Disclaimers were announced and it was confirmed that no FNG’s were present today.

The theme of the workout, fittingly, was 7’s, 31’s and focusing on how we are finishing.  YHC laid out the theme and off we moseyed to the Home Depot Parking Lot for COP and the warm up – all exercises in cadence:

15 D/C Imperial Walkers, 5 burpees OYO, 15 hillbilly walkers, 5 burpees OYO, 10 low slow squats, holding the people’s chair we did 10 D/C Moroccan night clubs in cadence, held the chair for a Duck Dynasty 10-count and finished in the chair with 10 D/C shoulder taps in cadence.  5 more burpees OYO and then moved to 10 D/C seal jacks in cadence followed by 5 burpees OYO before moseying off to Target for the main event.

Main event – 7-31 – Start fast, finish strong.

Fittingly, July 31 required 7’s and 31’s on this relatively breezy morning.  PAX lined up to complete kracken burpees on one end of the parking lot, run roughly 50 yards and did lunges at the rate of 6 kracken burpees & 1 lunge, 5 & 2, 4 & 3, 3 & 4, 2 & 5 and 1 & 6.  After the 6 was in a short plank was called, after which we moseyed to the fountains for 15 D/C dips in cadence and then took on the 31’s to finish July strong.

31’s were a combination of merkins and squats – merkins on one end of the parking lot, followed by a run to the opposite end – roughly 200 (ish) yards and squats.  The sequence went as follows:

27 merkins, 4 squats

23 merkins, 8 squats

19 merkins, 12 squats

15 merkins, 16 squats

11 merkins, 20 squats

7 merkins, 24 squats

3 merkins, 28 squats

As the six came in all PAX, fittingly, got on their respective 6’s for 31 D/C (of course) flutters in cadence. A recover on our feet and a mosey to COT was called where PAX had just enough time for a 60 second protractor at varying degrees and a 30 second body destroyer put us right on 0600 and COT.

Announcements:

Sweati on 8-15 – launching from Colosseum (0530 for ruckers, 0600 for runners): Questions?  Get w/Backdraft.

Operation Stuff the Bus is a week from tomorrow, 8-8, starting at 0800: Bonsai is your Q.  Sign ups for 2 hour time slots are available.

Read Your Newsletter.

Prayers & praises were offered up both out loud and in the silence of our hearts.

NMM – The purpose of today’s workout was missional and aptly was held at the end of a calendar month – to start fast and finish strong.  In fulfilling our personal missions, it is imperative to answer the question “Are we intentional about how we finish or do we go through the motions and check the box?”  What would our M’s, 2.0’s and inner concentrica say if they were asked these questions about us?  Do we take the necessary steps to be thorough?  Do we take the extra minute or two in a conversation with a loved one to let them know we are present and available and not let our minds wander to the next task that lies ahead?   If you could look back at July, how purposeful was your month?  How did you “finish”?

Between 0500 and 0515 (or earlier to get EC) every weekday morning, we as PAX have the benefit of starting a workout with intentionality and purpose – completing that mission by 0600.  Do we take the same level of intentionality to our relationships, our families, our work?  How intentional is our time allocated and used?  We all get the same amount every day.  It is in finishing strong with that time that we make impact for the better and leave no doubt to those around us.  Start fast, and with purpose.  Finish strong to maximize your reach and impact.

YHC is grateful to Duck Dynasty for the opportunity to Q and to the PAX for encouraging the acceleration brought about by F3.

Start fast, grow steady, finish strong!

With Gratitude,

Cyclops

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Noderate at Footloose

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I pulled into the lot with a deck of cards and 4 different versions of the Deck of Pain planned. The pax in attendance all looked like runners so I changed the plan and we all ran to check out the Minnow Pond AO. We couldn’t find anybody but Hallelujah! we found a porta-potty for Training Wheels. The rest of planked it up and did some merkins while we patiently waited. Next we ran back to Footloose (1 mile!) and started on the original plan of the Deck of Pain.
Clubs: Squats
Spades: Merkins
Hearts: Flutters
Diamonds: Big Boys
Joker: Burpees
We played this game through most of the deck but I called an audible for the last 11 minutes and we all ran another mile.

Footloose is a moderate boot camp but when the Q knows the dudes in attendance can push a little harder than moderate, please push.

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