Tag: Sparkle

Naturally Modifying Weinke at Slow Burn

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11 PAX endured the experimentation of a naturally modifying workout.  My name.  Nothing official.  Goal was to allow those PAX that wanted to push themselves without holding them back or making the 6 feel like they had to overdo it to keep up.  More to come.

Warmup

Short Mosey

SSH, Moroccan Nightclubs, Cherry Pickers, Arm stretches, Windmills, Leg stretches, Plank, Downdog and stretch calves, Honeymooner

The work – Q picked a target.  All PAX would run for it.  First on there turns around and pickups all other PAX as he runs back to the 6. Once the groups reaches the 6, Q calls out an exercise.  Rinse and Repeat until COT.

Merkin

LBC

Derkin

Flutter

Inerkin

Freddie Mercury

Low Slow Squat

Rosalitas

Maq Tarsa

Hello Dolly

Dips

Burpees

3 min of Mary at the flag

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Sparkplug’s 4 Corners + Coupons

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The morning was actually pleasant.  Upper 60’s, a slight breeze, and no active rain…to start.   Sparkplug was on Q and had Twister bring a trunk load of coupons!  Started out with a partner carrying a coupon in a mosey down to the corner of the restaurant row, Then off to the parking lot for some warm-up.

Mosey around to the far side of Lowes for some wall sits, bear crawls, and a few other things.

Then Mosey back up to the restaurant row where there were 4 exercises listed for each corner.  We counted off in 4’s and each started at our own corner, going clockwise around the building.  It was a great full body workout!  Rain started somewhere during the first cycle, but it was pleasant, not a hindrance. Plus, we got wet on the parking lot when Sparkplug called for LBC’s and Freddy Mercury’s during the initial warm-up!

We even had one of Fort Mill’s finest from the police department stop to check us out.  Spitz did his best to EH him…he seemed interested, but Spitz said he would stalk him to make sure he came out ;-).

Finished up, and partnered up to carry the coupons back up to COT.

Great job to Sparkplug for the Q today!  I have to be honest…I really just wanted to hear him talk for the full 45 minutes ;-).

Smithers, out

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Yahtzee Culture Club Style

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So, Culture Club came out completely prepared as usual.  Always love attending one of his workouts!  This Friday morning we played Yahtzee in a way I personally never have before.

The basics were one PAX called out an exercise from the bottom list seen above, and the remaining PAX did that exercise while the first PAX took his three rolls for Yahtzee.  Once the points were written on the tape, then the blue tape was removed to reveal which exercise would be performed, and the reps would be the amount of the score written in.  If the exercise under the blue tape was highlighted in green it meant that for the next round, instead of choosing an exercise from the bottom list, the PAX would run a lap around the parking lot.

If you have not been out to participate in a Culture Club workout, I highly suggest you plan for it.  He has certainly set a high bar of excellence, at least in my book 😉.

Smithers – Out

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A Feast for Crows

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Great weather, great group of PAX, and an overall great morning.  Excitement filled the air because it was the “official” launch of the “Crows Nest”, Lake Wylie’s newest AO.  We had 7 boot-campers and 1 runner (Kenyan) who was already out running before we got started.  After a super-quick disclaimer, we took a short mosey around the school and circled up.

Warm-A-Rama

Nothing too fancy today.  I had a lot of different exercises planned for the workout, so we did a random number of the following to get the back stretched out and the blood flowing a little.

  • Windmills
  • Cherry Pickers
  • Imperial Walkers

The Thang

I had a nice match game prepared for the PAX this morning.  I can’t say it was a totally original idea because the crux of the game I stole from a previous bootcamp lead by Witch Hunt.  In any case, it was fun, and as usual, I modified it a bit for better or worse…

It consisted of 3 sets of ten disc cones arranged in a triangle (think bowling pins) and placed on a grassy field also in a triangle.  As we moved between each point of the triangle we would Bear Crawl between the short “sides” or Sprint the long “side” of the triangle. Each of the 10 cones in each set had 1 of 5 different pairs of exercises taped to the bottom.  The idea was to flip over 2 cones, if the exercises matched, we performed 1 set of the exercise and removed the cones.  If they didn’t match, we did both exercises, flipped the cones back over, and made our way to the next set of cones. We continued this process until we matched and performed all of the exercises or until time was up.

Below is the list of exercises that were taped to the bottom.  I can’t say I remember exactly how many we ended up doing, but it could have been a lot worse if it wasn’t for Q-Bert and his ridiculous memory that worked way to well this early in the morning.  Needless to say we completed the “game” with about 8 minutes to spare so we did everything at least once and repeated maybe half of them twice.

  • 15 Burpees oyo
  • 50 Seal Jacks oyo
  • 50 Plank Jacks oyo
  • 50 SSHs oyo
  • 20 Mountain Climbers IC
  • 15 Flutters IC
  • 25 Merkins oyo
  • 30 Dips oyo
  • 25 CDDs oyo
  • 50 LBCs oyo
  • 20 American Hammers IC
  • 25 Jump Squats oyo
  • 15 Lunges (each leg)
  • 10 Crab Cakes IC
  • 10 Donkey Kicks oyo

We moseyed our way back to the parking lot and filled the remaining 5 minutes with BTTW, which we held while each PAX did 2 Burpees and returned to the wall.  Upon completion we circled up for Ablab to finish out the last couple of minutes.  We managed to get through some Hello Dolly’s, Dying Cockroaches, and I’m pretty sure something else I’m forgetting 🙂

That took us right up to 6:00AM so we circled up for CoT.

Announcements:

  • P200 this Friday!
  • Brew Ruck 002 on 3/31

Praises/Prayers:

  • Prayers for the P200 runners this weekend.
  • Praises/Prayers for Sparkle’s friend, he has been battling stomach issues and had underwent surgery recently, the surgeons found a redundant colon that they were able to utilize for his recovery.  Quite the miracle!
  • Prayers for Royale and his busy and stressful work week… as well as all the PAX and their families as they go about their day today.

Until next time…

Flux

 

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We got our 28+ at The Colosseum

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We had a total of 28 guys in The Fort region post yesterday (Monday, Feb 26) amidst the rain so I threw out the challenge of getting 28 men out to the Colosseum this AM. With some help from Jeckyll, Pusher, Ginsu, Cha Ching and a few others, we got that done. The PAX made it even better when that was just the boot camp number as we totaled 31 with our 3 runners included.

I can not even begin to tell you how humbled I was to see headlight after headlight roll in and to have 27 other guys run around this AO at 0515 with me. As Assassin mentioned in COT, we do in fact know how special it is to be blessed with the opportunity to be out with the PAX on just another Tuesday morning. To see some faces out there that I haven’t seen in quite a while was great. With the chatter that ensued, I knew I had better bring it.

So after our disclaimer and the departure of the Pathfinder runners, us boot campers jogged to end of the back parking lot. We counted off to our number of 27  at the time and dropped down for a 2min plank followed by a 2min reverse plank. Well 90 seconds into that latter plank, we had a masked ninja run up to join us for our lucky number 28. That ninja also goes by the name STRAIGHT UP  and man, it was good to have him join us.

1/2 of 28 equals 14 Burpees so that is what we did followed by 28reps of the following:

Dying Cockroach, Boats & Canoes, Jumping Lunges, Jump Squats, X&O’s, American Hammers, Monkey Humpers and Squat Calf-Raises

We partnered up for:

Partner 1: Run to the 1st speed bump and back
Partner 2: Diamond Merkins then flap jack

Partner 1. Run to the 3rd speed bump and back

Partner 2: Merkins then flap jack

Partner 1: Run to the gate that was no longer in existence

Partner 2: Carolina Dry Docks or some ab work then flap jack

Bring it back to the GHMS side of the bus parking lot and circle up for some coupon work.

Begin with the 30lb Ruck and 35lb Kettle Bell on opposite sides of the circle. When the coupon came to you, 10 bicep curls of your choosing while the rest of the PAX cycled through Freddy Mercury, Rosalitas and Flutter Kicks.

COT

Announcements: Read that Sunday email containing your F3 Newsletter. New AO launching from Regent Park. Includes (br)yoga, run and coffeeteria  (contact Cake Boss or Sasquatch) every Friday. Don’t forget about the drive for 218 FNG’s. Reading center opportunity (service).

Prayers/Praises: Flat Tire’s new promotion, Straight Up’s wife is feeling better and S.U. is back with us. Cornerstone’s daughter Emma had her last chemo pill last night and will be ringing the bell soon. Ginsu’s daughter took her first steps yesterday. Jeckyll’s son is now a Boy Scout and Jeckyll has now handed over the leadership. Prayers for Mr. Clean and his desire to be out in the gloom. Prayers for Squeaky for what he is facing right now. Praises for reconnecting with my daughter.

Thank you again for coming out in the gloom.

Maximus

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Beyond 2018.07

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This morning was a good day for some positive influence.  There were two options this morning, but everyone decided to try something a little harder and go Beyond.

Mosey to the basketball parking lot for some warmup.
SSHx50, Hillbilly walkers x20, Typewriter merkins x10 (I wasn’t the only one!)

Mosey to the paved path behind the half wall.  I went over the word of the month, anxiety.  I used to have extremely high anxiety with a life of distraction.  I would become anxious about anything and everything, so to get by, I had to constantly keep my mind off of things.  One day, I decided to put all my focus on my anxiety.  Everything I feared, I would think about constantly until I was tired of thinking about it.  I would fight the beast until somebody won.  The main one was, does God exist?  You have to figure this out for yourself.  The answer is going to be yes or no, but what that answer means is going to be different for everyone.  So figure it out, come to a conclusion, and make it your assumption from that point going forward.  When you doubt again, remember the time you came to the conclusion (even if you don’t know why) and move on.

Balls2wall shoulder taps x10, Muscle ups x10 w/ a 20 sec 6inches hold within the set. (3 rounds)

Mosey to rock pit paste the gate of the school.  I ask if anyone had seen “Fight Club”.  I love this movie because it shows the most basic problems of Sad Clown Syndrome, even though it pursues completely destructive pathways to fix the problem.  One scene Tyler asks “How much can you know about yourself if you’ve never been in a fight?”  I love this self-analysis of learning oneself, but I don’t care about fighting.  Instead, I asked myself “How much can you know about yourself if you’ve never been hungry?” I explain to the PAX that for the past week (Sat-Fri) I did a strict water fast for a week.  I had always wanted to know what it was like physically, emotionally, and spiritually, but had always been afraid because of anxiety of losing weight (irrational fear of being the guy that’s too skinny).  There are about a dozen reasons why I did it, but one was to face a fear.

Find a pet rock for…
Clockwork deadlifts:
I call out a time, you lunge in that direction, set the rock down, reset, lunge out, pick rock up, repeat

Clockwork deadlift
Al Gore calf raises x20 (w/ pet rock)
Clockwork deadlift
Jump squat (w/ pet rock)
Clockwork deadlift
Russian twist (w/ pet rock)
Clockwork deadlift
Al Gore calf raises x20 (w/ pet rock)
Jump squat (w/ pet rock)

This exercise to help you remember how to lift a load in awkard positions so hopefully you don’t teak your back one day picking up a grocery back off the floor behind you.

Mosey back for 6MOM
Freddy Merc x50
Flutter (good form, hollow body) x20
Dying cockroach x50

And that’s the game…  Loved leading this morning.  Go Beyond!!!

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Be Still

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18 pax posted ’round the Shovel Flag at Slow Burn for some usual Fri 1st F and 2nd F engagement. Well, at launch, we actually had 17 pax and reports of an 18th enroute.   Disclaimer was proclaimed.  February theme of #Worry was noted and the pax were informed that YHC would not disrupt the the Slow Burn rhythm of #moderation and #mumblechatter, though this adventure would force them to talk out their worries.  With that, we launched.

The Thang

Warm up run around CFA through Drive Thru lane

Karaoke lap around CFA through Drive Thru lane

COP alongside CFA — SSHs, Hillbilly walkers, Imperial walkers, Mtn climbers, Windmills

Lugnut posted at this point, so we moseyed on down to the parking lot between the retail strip and Lowes

10 strong form burpees OYO (requested by Twister)

SSH

10 strong form burpees OYO

Partner up to complete all exercises together and talk out your anxieties/worries
Round 1: Merkins x5 + Squats x20, Merkins x10 + Squats x15, Merkins x15 + Squats x10, Merkins x20 + Squats x5
Round 2: CDDs x20 + Bombjacks x5, CDDs x15 + Bombjacks x10, CDDs x10 + Bombjacks x15, CDDs x5 + Bombjacks x20
Round 3: Partner legthrows x20 + LBC x5, Partner legthrows x15 + LBC x10, Partner legthrows x10 + LBC x15, Partner legthrows x5 + LBC x20

Line up along curb

Bear crawl to center parking line, sprint to other side, jog back
(Rinse and repeat for 3 total cycles)

Run home

COT

NMM

Slow Burn has such a great vibe.  It’s always a treat to Q at that AO — it’s Fri, plenty of energy, plenty of mumblechatter, guys looking out for each other and challenging each other, great 1st and 2nd F warm-up for 3rd F experience at CnW afterward.  S/O to Hard Drive for launching it and to Barry Manilow for continuing to carry the torch.  Well done!

As the pax gathered, it appeared Spitz would be the last one in…until he made it to the circle and alerted the crowd that Lugnut was still inbound.  Glad we were able to get him onboard before departure.

I kept the Weinke in the moderate zone, and there were plenty of breaks to discuss Worry and Anxiety.  Somehow I awoke on Sat with a little soreness in spots, so clearly my fitness level needs some attention.

Thanks to pax for engaging fully in dialog and sharing re personal anxieties.  If you haven’t read Chicken Hawk’s February theme one pager, take a look here.

“Be still and know that I am God.” (Psalm 46:10)   This has become one of my go-to verses in times of worry and anxiety.  I could go on forever about worry/anxiety…I’m closer friends with those two than I ever thought I was or wanted to be.  But when I leave it all in God’s hands and just allow myself to “BE,” I mostly come to realize that (a) my worry is worthless, (b) it’s mostly CREATED by me and (c) it’s too much ABOUT me.  There are many ways to turn this verse into a meditative prayer that cuts through anxiety.  Here’s one:

Be still and know that I am GOD…
Be still and know that I AM God…
Be still and know that I am God…
Be still and know THAT I am God…
Be still and KNOW that I am God…
Be still AND know that I am God…
Be STILL and know that I am God…
BE still and know that I am God.

Here’s another:

Be still and know that I am God…
Be still and know that I am… 
Be still and know that I…
Be still and know that…
Be still and know…
Be still and…
Be still…
Be.

Try ’em and let me know what you discover.

Thanks to Barry Manilow for the chance to lead.  Always an honor.

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Slowburn – Pain Stations +

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25 PAX gathered at slowburn for a saucy workout.  We gave a quick disclaimer and welcomed 2 FNG’s.  It wasn’t long and we headed out for a short mosey.  We circled up and I turned over the warm up to Fogarty for his V Q.

Fogarty started us off with some of the usual:

SSH
Imperial Walkers
Speedy Windmills
Peter Parkers
Mtn. Climbers
Merkins
Moroccan night clubs
2 double merkin burpees (where’d that come from?)

Fogarty turned it back over to YHC for another Mosey. I gave a shout out to Quickbooks for his intro that he did a couple of weeks back and I tried to do the same giving a little background on YHC. I’ll spare you all the details. Dark Helmet was observant to realize that my years of marriage did match up to how old my son is. That dude’s sharp! I closed out the intro with Romans 5:4. Look it up, it’s a solid verse on building character.

On that note we moseyed to the back of Lowes for some chalk scribble that was planned for the PAX.

We broke into two groups with 3 stations. Each group started on either far end would do an exercise and sprint to the middle station do an exercise and then return back to their starting point for the next exercise. Instructions seems easier that the PAX wrestled with, but they quickly got the hang of it. Here are the pain stations:

Station 1:
Merkins
Shoulder Taps
CDD’s
Mtn. Climbers

Middle Station:
Calf Raises
Squats
Lunges
Donkey Kicks

Station 3:
Leg Raises
LBC’s
Hello Dollies
Flutters

Round 1 15 of exercise run to the middle and then back for the next exercise until all 4 exercises are complete then run to the opposite Station. Do the same thing 15 of each run to the middle. When finisished with 1 and 3 then rinse and repeat with 10 of each exercise. This took us right up to time.

Jailbreak back to COT. Welcome to the fold Moab and Jake Brake FNG’s.

Thanks for the opportunity to serve!

Bass-o Out. <><

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Quick Adjustments at Quagmire

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It was a cooler morning than anticipated when YHC rolled into Quagmire to set up the day’s activities. As soon as I got there, I realized my original plan wouldn’t work because there were two semis parked in the middle of the ideal workout space. But, I’m flexible, and quickly made adjustments to the weinke to accommodate, then drove off to meet the other PAX.

Ten HIMs beat the fartsack (and, to their dismay, failed to check the Twitter machine) to post this morning. As the clock ticked to 0515, a brief disclaimer was disclaimed (“You will go upside down today, so modify as necessary…and be sure to breathe”), and off we went for a mosey through the parking lots with some knees to chest, high knees, and toy soldiers before circling up outside Books-a-Million for a short COP.

COP

10 Windmills IC

20 Moroccan Night Clubs IC

15 Merkins IC

Quick stretch in downward dog then honeymooner, with some side to side low plank (6″) work and a brief battering ram for good measure. Recover to our feet and mosey to the red balls for some more warm up.

Originally, YHC was going to call this the “Paula Abdul” burpicide, but the lyrics to “Opposites Attract” actually say “two steps forward, two steps back,” which gets you nowhere, and that’s unacceptable. So, it went nameless. But, we did what worked out to two burpees and five LBCs at every ball (ten balls total), running forward two balls, do two burpees, then back one ball, five LBCs, etc., all the way across the front of Target. Lots of mumblechatter that this didn’t feel like just a warmup. But we were warmed up by the end, so the title fit.

With the six in, quick mosey to the (semi blocked) roadway between Target and Home Depot for

The Thang

Partner up for a Dora inspired, wall dependent workout. Partner one ran across the street to the broad wall facing Home Depot to complete two wall walks (plank to BTW to plank; aka “wall worm” in the exicon, but it’s one of two definitions, so wall walks was preferred). Partner two found a spot on the Home Depot wall to complete as many reps as possible of the prescribed exercise, When partner one returned, switch places, keep counting reps for a cumulative total.

Exercise breakdown:

100 air humpers with feet on wall (aka “glute bridge”)

200 Rockette chairs (Peoples Chair with alternating leg kicks, single count – it’s a good burn)

300 sit ups with straight legs up the wall (try to touch your toes!)

400 plank wall taps

500 calf raises

All groups made it to the calf raises, but no groups got through all 500 reps (that’s a lot of calf burning) before time demanded a quick mosey back to COT.

Announcements

  • Read your newsletter
  • Rooster was fun; keep an eye out for other CSAUPs coming up, like the Yeti on Feb. 24 (make an 18-man team if you need to, but try to be a part of it)
  • Read your newsletter

Praises and Prayers

  • Tater’s a grandpa (but he doesn’t know what to call himself). Grandson Fletcher was born at 32 weeks, so he’s in the NICU. Prayers for Fletcher and his parents.
  • Royale’s mom’s surgery went well; prayers for full recovery
  • Royale’s aunt was bit by a dog, so prayers for recovery there too
  • YHC’s in the middle of leading another missionary training that has been filled with bumps; pray for peace and wisdom

NMM

I didn’t get to share this at the end – I’m bad about actually having a message during the workout. The words come later.

My word for 2018 is “deeper” – deeper faith, deeper relationships, digging deeper, etc. It seemed innocuous enough when I chose it, but this past week has showed me that it is anything but. In my role of training and equipping new missionaries, I spend countless hours putting together week-long training events that directly affect the lives of people looking to live long-term in cross-cultural ministry. I love what I do, and though I’ll admit that there’s no perfect program, I think we’ve built a pretty good thing here.

So naturally, it’s extremely frustrating when I have to change things, especially last minute.

Like when it snows and the city shuts down on the first day, and I have to somehow provide food and transportation to 11 people. Or when I have to cram a 5-day training into four days without going outside the 9-5 schedule because of childcare constraints. Or when I have to teach somebody else’s session because the presenter has to attend to a family health issue and the backup presenter is out of town. Technology issues, schedule issues, supply issues, the list goes on. Just when I think I’m making progress (two steps forward), something happens and I need to change something (one step back). I feel completely out of control.

All I can do is trust God.

God answers your prayers, but it doesn’t always happen the way you expect.

More trust. Deeper faith.

I’ll let you chew on that.

-Jedi

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The G.R.I.N.C.H. Posts to Colosseum

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18 pax showed up at Colosseum to steal Christmas back from the GRINCH.  Though not a regular at this AO, YHC jumped at the chance to pinch-hit for Pusher.  And being so close to Christmas, it’d almost be a sin to not have a Christmas theme.

Fresh out of Christmas workout ideas (see Alcatraz backblast from 2 weeks ago), YHC took to backblasts from other regions and found a Grinch theme workouted posted in F3GSO. T-Claps to GSO’s CHiPS and WoJo for the idea.

Disclamer was delivered as a few pax were coming in hot.  25 SSH allowed them time to catch up.

Warm-up

We ran a bit, then stopped for 5 burpee broadjumps and a few toy soilders.

Moseyed some more (in the general direction of 160), stopping at various times for warm-up exercises, including:

  • Squats
  • Peter Parkers
  • Seal Jacks
  • Moroccian Nightclubs
  • Windmills

Our run end in the Velux parking lot.  A few pax tried to claim we were at Golden Corral (sarcasm, perhaps?).  On the hill of the parking lot, 3 stations were set up:

  • Bottom of the hill was an orange cone, representing “Whoville”.
  • Mid-way up the hill was a green cone
  • At the top of the hill was a lantern with this sheet:

GRINCH

To summarize, pax were to do the exercises, run down the hill, stop halfway for 5 squats, run the rest of the way and do 5 LBCs, then run backwards up the hill, stopping halfway for 5 monkey humpers.  Once returning to the top, pax planked up for the 6 before starting the next round.

Exercises were cumulative, so pax had to repeat all previous exercises for each round.  A smattering of #mumblechatter ensued when pax learned 30 HR Merkins would follow 25 CDDs.

We wrapped up with about 12 minutes left, so we headed back, with Jekyll (who ran to the WO from home) Larry Bird’ing most of the way back.

We stopped at a parking lot on the edge of campus and effectively did a lap of alternating bear crawls and lunges, with a couple segments of crab walks.

Finally we ran to where we had done the initial burpee broad jumps, and finished out with the same.

Moleskin

Great job by the pax.  Seems like we put on more miles than a typical bootcamp, and with some hills, yet the 6 was never far behind.  Prayer requests at COT:

  • For Trucker’s neighbor
  • For Orange Crush
  • For Fratboy’s friend
  • For Stang

 

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