4 Basic Exercises, Indian Runs, Achievement Recognitions and Pop Quizzes

3 “Peg Leggers”, Me. Whitesnake and O’Reilly, met to get better (Cannonball Pre-run Staple to Peg’s house and back) before any other Pax showed up.

15 men Circle up on a muggy day and the disclaimer was given. I recently posted in Myrtle Beach and they added the Phrase “I do not know your injuries” to their disclaimer and I liked that so I added that.

We then moseyed to the far corner of the parking lot for my usual and now retired COP
Basically a Deconstructive “Worse Ever Merkin”
30 SSH in cadence – Because u should always do 30
20 Werkins in cadence
30 Seal Jax in Cadence
20 Merkins in Cadence
15 Smurf Jax in cadence
10 Diamond Merkins in cadence

A couple Kettle bell Indian Runs back and forth to the 2 parking lots with The “Thang” worked into them.

Also did 102 kettlebell burpees in recognition of O’Reilly loosing 102 pounds. My math was 102lbs divided by 15 pax = 10 each rounded up
Also recognized Costnaza and his weight lose and running achievements

3 rounds of The “Thang” in between the Indian Runs:
Kettlebell curls on my count till my arms hurt
Kettlebe Tricep ext. on my count till my triceps hurt
Goblet Squats with a kettlebell overhead press on my count till my legs hurt
Big boys with a kettlebell push over knees on my count till my gut hurt

Quiz with Kettle bell hold away from body until the new Pax told me F3 Mission Statement and 5 Core Principles (they did ok)
Quiz on Me – I asked a few personal questions about me and the Pax seemed to know me pretty well. Questions were pretty easy or I talk about myself to much.

A little time for some Wall sits and burpees and merkins sprinkled in.

My take on the whole thing, we all got better and very wet. So wet that I had to hang my clothes on my brush guard all day and they still didn’t dry by the time I went home. I guess that is what happens in 100% humidity and a lot of work getting done. Also, I told these guys again I didn’t want any new friends when I started this thing but crap now I do and I can’t see to shake them.

Till next time
Forever – I will be TWO FERNS!

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A

12 attended the Poopdeck this morning and came ready to work.  I gave the usual disclaimer  and then informed the PAX that it has been awhile since I’ve been on the Exicon and decided to work my way through the whole thing.  Today of course, were exercises that began with A.  So we took off for a fast mosey along the “backside” of the Poopdeck.  Along the way we did some side steps, NUR, and Toy Soldiers before circling up for a quick warm up back at the starting point.

The Warm-up consisted of “ATM’s” so we held plank and performed the next 3 exercises in cadence.

  1. Alternating Shoulder Taps
  2. Tempo Merkins
  3. Merkins

Our next stop was at the front of the parking lot on the road between the Bowl n’ Bounce and Gas Station for some Ascending Curb Crawls w/Absolutions. I chose this spot specifically because there was some grassy area just past the curb that saved our elbows.

Starting at one side of the street/curb we would bear crawl across and perform 1 Absolution.  Bear Crawl back for 2 Absolution and continue onward until we reached 9 Absolution.

From there another fast mosey to the nice parking lot and a quick stop on the side building wall for some Ascending Testicles.  15/45/ degree Derkins in plank position with feet on the wall.  I didin’t make the PAX go full BTTW because there was quite a bit of grumbling.  OH YEAH!  The cat lady was spotted here as well so 5 Burpees for all!

Off to the main course for some A.L.A.R.M.S.  The Exicon says they are kinda like B.O.M.B.S. (which are kinda like Dora’s) so I planned this to be a partner routine, but had a backup plan if the PAX were odd numbered.

I had some cones set out to at the starting line and then another set 10 yards out and another set about 30 yards out from the starting line.

For the routine 1 partner would perform the exercise while the other PAX would Crab Walk to the 1st cone (10 yards) and then Apple Turnover and Bear Crawl to the 2nd set of cones (about 20 yards), and then finally sprint “AYG” to the finish (which was a tree about 30 yards out from the last set of cones).  Mosey back and switch.

The Exercises were:

  • Angle Grinders (50) – These were new and fun.  Start in plank, then go to downward dog, touch hand to opposite knee, back to plank and Merkin, then repeat with other knee, that’s ONE.
  • Lunges (100) – 2x Count
  • Alternating Shoulder Taps (200) – 2x Count
  • Russian Twists (300) – Single count (because time was running low).
  • M – This was the “Movement” by the other PAX not doing the exercise.

After finishing up we slowly moseyed back to COT and had enough time for some Hello Dolly’s and Freddy Mercury’s.

Today was a lot of fun and I think I’m going to enjoy working my way through the Exicon, there are a lot of great ideas in there and it has grown SO much since the last time I’ve looked at it.

COT – Consisted of the usual, Praises for Baby Snowball, and PAX travelling on vacations with their families.  Not many spoke up today so Prayers all around for the ones that were left unsaid.  Also, the YETI is coming sometime in July……..

Thanks for the Q Peg, it was a lot of fun and you were missed!

Until next time,

-FLUX-

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Buddies and Bells

I’ve definitely had my fair share of Q’s at this point, but I still get a little nervous before each and every one, not out of fear, but desire to give everyone a good workout.  The PAX trust me with their time and I want to deliver, it’s as simple as that.  In any case, this morning was like most in LKW lately, hot and humid with a dozen+ PAX.  I showed up a little earlier than normal to setup and get ready.

At 5:15 sharp I gave the usual disclaimer and since O’Reilly was back-talking a bit I picked on him on the spot to give the F3 mission statement, he failed miserably, so I think we’ll start reviewing this before my Q’s.

O’Reilly, if you are reading this, here you go buddy.

The mission of F3 is to plant, grow and serve small workout groups for the invigoration of male community leadership.

We started out with a long mosey out and around the parking lot, sans kettlebells, that included some karaoke’s and shuffles along the way.  We then circled up for a quick Warm-A-Rama that consisted of only Windmills.

We grabbed our bells for the 1st routine.

We had 70 seconds to do 7 reps of the following:

  • kettlejacks
  • bent over rows
  • curls
  • triceps extensions
  • goblet squats
  • american hammers 2x count
  • bench press

We repeated this 7 times.  If anyone exceeded 70 seconds we would be penalized, however, fortunately everyone finished with 5-10 seconds to spare each round.  This was a great way to quickly get in just shy of 350 reps of kettlebell work in. Nice job!

The 2nd routine was a 4 corners/buddy workout.

Each corner/cone had an exercise to do with your partner, it was always 100reps (50 each) and then a way to move between the cones.  The long sides of the rectangle we would go half way down the line via bear & bell (bear crawl w/kettlebell), then apple turnover into crab walk position with the bell laying on our bellies the rest of the way.  The short side of the rectangles we would move via lateral goblet squats.  Pretty much just as it sounds.  And all the movement sucked.

At each corner we did:

1st cone: 100 kettlebells handoffs, partners back-to-back, twist, and hand of a single kettlebell.

2nd cone: 100 partner merkins (no kettlebell).  I failed at explaining this one correctly at first, most PAX assumed that when I told to have 1 partner in plank position with the other also in plank with their feet on the backs of their partner that they would be doing derkins.  Nope, I quickly corrected them and told them that the partner with feet on their backs would be doing the merkins.  Most didn’t like this and much grumbling and complaining ensued.  I must admit, it was brutal.  I know a lot of PAX substituted on this one and did it the “normal” way, Royale and I did the whole thing and I’m sure others did, but it was painful and a real winner.

3rd cone: 100 bench press + overhead partner handoff.  Partners would lay head-to-head. Slight adjustment to this one as well.  It was a bit scary to hand off the kettlebell after each rep, so I said it would be fine to pump out 5-10 presses and then hand off the bell.

4th cone: 100 partner sit-ups.  Partners sat feet-to-feet, did a full “big boy” situp and handed off the kettlebell to their partner, rinse and repeat.

Royale and Ricky Bobby had to cut out 5 minutes early for work so the rest of us finished up and circled up for a couple of ab exercises to finish out the final minute.

CoT

Prayers for safe travels for some of our travelling PAX, prayers for Tom who is having heart surgery, and also prayers for Olaf because his grandchild is due today!

It was a pleasure to lead and a ton of fun.  I definitely wouldn’t have the continued motivation to get up and get after it most mornings if it wasn’t for the company of you great men.

Until next time,

-FLUX-

 

 

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Time to Get Some at Bermuda Triangle

It was only a matter of time until I was called to the deep uncharted territories of Lake Wylie, somewhere they call the Bermuda Triangle.

Olaf was nice enough to keep me company and take the 25 min ride from Lake Ridge this am, so wheels up at 4:20a got us to the AO by 4:45 w/ 15 min to set up some cones before the early 5a start time.  Was glad to see two Olaf’s participating at the same AO and a couple newbies I hadn’t met.

Warm-ups you know are optional for me – so we moseyed 15 feet and did some sun gods, windmills and then started the real warm-up:

  1. Every Minute on the Minute (EMOM) we do 30 SSH + 8 burpees for 5 minutes.  After knocking out a quick 5 minute 150 SSH and 40 burpees to the sweet sweet sounds of Dropkick Murphy’s, Buck Cherry and Motley Crue, we took it over to the field for some reverse Dora’s.
  2. Partner up and do the following Dora:
    • 200 jump squats – partner not doing jump squats was doing a 3 cone suicide (Duck Dynasty’s evil idea…I didn’t make them do burpees at each turn)
    • 100 mak tar jais – partner not doing MTJ’s was side shuffling down to the last cone and back
    • 50 burpees – partner not doing burps bear crawled to middle cone and back
  3. I had two more things on deck, but judging by the lack of bear crawling enthusiasm, I decided to start w/ the last thing we were supposed to do and hope there was time for the third.  Told the pax we’d start running the dirt track around the field (a little over a 1/4 mile) and stop 4 times per lap and do ascending reps:
    • 1st lap:  10 diamond merkins / 15 wide arm / 20 rangers / 25 merkins
    • 2nd lap:  10 jump lunges (10 per side) / 15 low low squats (hands need to touch ground) / 20 knee tucks / 25 high knees (25 per knee)
    • 3rd lap:  10 x-crunches (thank you ab workout app) / 15 big boys / 20 american hammers (20 per side) / 25 fast-slow freddie mercuries in cadence (equates to 50 per side)
      [I’ll save the 3rd thing I was supposed to do for next time I Q at BT]

From there, we only had 1 minute, so we hit COT and quickly knocked out 10 merkins / 8 diamonds / 6 merkins / 4 diamonds / 2 merkins no break before it being 5:45a on the dot.

Always a pleasure to lead these pax.  They don’t complain a whole lot (except White Snake and O’Reilly lol) and always bust their a$$ on every exercise.  Prayers for graduating seniors, kids on summer breaks (and the moms) and Flux’s M.  Had a great time guys – can’t wait to get back out there w/ you!

ChaChing

 

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‘Twas another beautiful Saturday morning at the deep, 21 pax including FNG Bobby Boucher came out to put in work.
COP
Produce pickers
Moroccan night clubs
Sun gods
SSH of varying speeds
Mosey to the picnic tables

11’s
partner Abyss Merkins and Dips
Mosey to playground
Partner pull ups and Makhtar N’Diayes
(Lots of mumble here, whining about forearms and such)

Main event
1/4 mile track mosey until Q says red light perform exercise until Q says green light.
Merkins
Monkey humpers
Lunge walk
Big boys
Squats
Burpees
Alternating arm planks
Dying cockroaches
I’m sure I’m forgetting a few.
Ended up with close to 3 miles for the morning
Rounded it out with some ultimate football and a brief 4 minute Ab lab.

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No Turkish Get Ups

16 PAX met in the gloom for my KB VQ. I wasn’t sure how it would go, so I came overprepared. The Q scheduled couldn’t make it, and I managed to get it from Two Ferns before Royale, who wanted to do 45 minutes of Turkish get ups.

After a thorough disclaimer, we mosied around the parking lot with KBs.

COP
Good Mornings x 6
MNC x 10
Sun God’s x 30
LSS x 10

The Thang
Had PAX pair up for the board of modified DORA (see picture). Run/farmer carry was with KB around one of the islands. Everything else was from one island to the next and back. Bear crawls/crawl bears with KB were more brutal than anticipated. I think everyone almost made it to the squats.

Thanks Two Ferns for the opportunity to lead (and for letting me borrow the KB). Welcome FNG Ricky Bobby (speeding ticket story/works on cars).

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Memorial Day at CrowsNest

Crows Nest – May 27, 2019

I was not sure how many Pax would show up for a Pre-Murph event, but I planned what I thought was a gentle workout before some Pax completed the Murph.

We started off with a run with some high knees, butt kickers, etc prior to the warm up.

Warm Up
Windmill x 10 IC
Produce Picker x 10 IC
SSH x 20 IC
Sun Gods x 10 (IC) each direction
Seal Jacks x 20 IC
Hillbillies x 15 IC
Imperial Squat Walkers x 15 IC
Merkin x 5 IC
Nolan Ryan x 10 (IC each direction)
Stretches

W.A.S.H.
50 Wide Arm Merkins
Run
100 American Hammers (count each side)
Run
150 Step Ups (unfortunately the benches were moved, so we did Rocky Balboa’s)
Run
200 Hydraulic Squats

Once we wrapped up with the W.A.S.H. we bear crawled. Using the island as a place marker we performed one burpee for one tree, two burpees for two trees and so forth.

With a few minutes to spare we ran to COT for some Mary.

Mary:
Captain Thor (Big Boy Sit up x 4 American Hammers)

A special thank you for Mysterio who took us out with a moment of silence, followed by a prayer.

Aye,
Radar

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Kettlebell Rounds

F3 Lake Wylie remembers Badger
Cannonball – May 21, 2019

I was a bit nervous coming up with a routine at Cannonball. I had never done a ‘Q’ at a place where we use weights so I pieced together a workout that would hopefully benefit chest, arm, back, leg and ab muscles. And as always I love to run during my ‘Q.’

We had a run around New River Church and then circled up for the warm up.

Warm-Up
15 Goof Balls (IC)
15 Windmill
15 Seal Jacks (IC)
15 Mountain Climbers

Run lap

The Thang

Round 1
15 up right rows (left and right arm)
15 shoulder press (left and right arm)
20 tricep press
15 kettlebell curls (left and right arm)

Run lap

Round 2
25 kettlebell swings
30 goblet squats
15 kettlebell lunges (each leg)
15 traveling swings

Run lap

Round 3
20 merkins left arm on bell
20 merkins right arm on bell
40 chest press
20 kettlebell figure 8

Run lap

Round 4
25 kettlebell American hammers (count each side)
25 kettlebell little baby crunches
20 kettlebell sit and press
15 kettlebell v ups

Run lap

We had about 10 minutes left so I decided to do some ‘Mary’ with each Pax picking a kettlebell exercise.

Circle of Trust
Royale shared some thoughts on the celebration of Badger who passed away a year to the date. He was a big Wisconsin fan and all Pax were asked to wear red.

Aye,
Radar

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Let’s Play

So in my last Q I was drunk/hungover and in this one I am currently sick.  However duty calls and myself and 12 other Pax answered the bell for this morning’s workout. After a disclaimer we moseyed around the Bowl N Bounce buildings while also doing Toy Soldiers/Bear Crawls/Crab Walks.  

COP- SSHx20-Cherry Pickersx10-Mini Sun Salutations(Reach To Sky/Touch Toes/HoneyMooner/Down Dog)-Merkinsx10-Mini Sun Salutations-Plank Jackx10-LSSx10

While 1 Pax was in BTTW position and shimmied from one end of a wall to another the Pax that were waiting did Burpees.  With 13 Pax we did a lot of Burpees.  We then moseyed on over to the Habitat For Humanity parking lot.

Main Event 

We played Catch Me If You Can-Partner A does 5 Burpees while Partner B Bear Crawls. Partner A then sprints and the 2 Pax switch exercise.  We did three rounds of that then another three rounds with Crab Walks instead of Bear Crawls.

We then did a DORA. 100 Lunges/200 Big Boys/300 Jump Squats.  We did not have enough time to finish so we headed back to COT.  

Prayers/Announcements

Murph scheduled after Monday morning’s workout for Memorial Day.  Prayers for healing of cancer and heart disease.  Thanks Peg for opportunity to lead. Peace!

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Hour long Q’s are hard on everyone

Had a little challenge on my hands for this one – a group of the Deep regulars including the site Q were taking on the Savage Race course, so for those who were not peer pressured into participating in that, I had to make the Saturday boot camp just as awful (minus the ice bath obstacle).

Rolled up w/ my fellow Lake Ridge guys Lutefisk, Olaf and Pothole and we waited for what I thought would be just a few guys rolling in.  This is not the case anymore – these pax roll out in numbers and we had 22 including some very brave 2.0’s in attendance all ready to work, including 1 2.0 who’s 11th birthday it was this week.  Royale gave me a heads up a couple days ago, so the workout was made with that in mind, nothing but 11’s for Pierce, aka Lancelot.

1.  For those that know me, I’m not a big fan of warm-ups,  although I may need to rethink that during hour long workouts. Our “warm-up” – mosey over to the nice 400m track across the street and do 4 laps, stopping every 100 meters to do an exercise 11 or 22 times for birthday boy.

  • lap 1 – merkins (stop 1 – 11 merkins, stop 2 – 22 merkins, stop 3 – 11 merkins, stop 4 – 11 merkins)
  • lap 2  – squat jumps (stop 1 – 11 reps, stop 2 – 22 reps, stop 3 – 11 reps, stop 4 – 11 reps)
  • lap 3  – big boy sit-ups (stop 1 – 11 reps, stop 2 – 22 reps, stop 3 – 11 reps, stop 4 – 11 reps)
  • lap 4  – yep, burpees (11 reps per stop)

2.  With the warm of 1.2 miles, 66 merkins, 66 jump squats, 66 big boys and 44 burpees complete, we moseyed back across the street and hit the baseball field…all dirt, some rocks, no grass.  Asked all 22 to count off by 2’s so we had two teams then I explained the rules.  I set the 15 minute timer, blast some old school papa roach, and you try to score as many runs as you can in the 15 min.  How to score a run?  Like this:

  • lunge walk to 1st base, then do 11 diamond merkins
  • bear crawl to 2nd base, then do 11 jump squats
  • broad jump to 3rd base, then do 11 donkey kicks
  • crab walk home, do 11 burpees, then step on home plate.  That’s 1 run.

Believe Lutefisk scored 5 runs, otherwise everyone else was hovering around 3 to 4 runs.  The intent which I totally overlooked in the heat of exhaustion was to add up both teams scores and issue a penalty to the losing team:

Loser:  burpeee bounce from home to 1st base (ie. burpee where you go down, do a push up, but explode up and forward 3 times so that you cover some ground on the uptick, then up, jump and that’s 1 burpee.  Do as many as you need to, to get to 1st base.

Winner: mack tar jais along the first base line while the the poor saps do burpee bounces.

3.  From there we hit the hills behind the baseball field for some true 11’s.  Start at the bottom of the hill with 1 “worst merkin” (wide grip merkin, reg merkin, diamond merkin = 1 worst merkin), run up and 10 knee tucks, then back down for 2 worst merkins (ie. really 6 merkins lol).  This just about killed the group.  I was very encouraged to see at about the 5 or 6 count of worst merkins that every single pax was modifying lol.  I think I even saw some Pax’s faces face down in the weedy grass we were in.

4.  We had about 5 minutes left and we were at 2.3 miles, so I really wanted that 3 mile mark.  We moseyed to the gate near COT and I told the pax about the X crunch suicide we’d do.  For those of you doing the app based ab challenge that Nasa organized, there is a “X Crunch” that absolutely sucks.  Basically start in the v-sit position, go down all the way and make an X with your arms and legs and then back up to v-sit position.

  • 5 x-crunches at the start line (basically the gate) then run to the 1st corner at the back of the school
  • Do 5 more x-crunches on corner of school and run back to start line
  • Do 5 more at the start line, as you pass 1st corner in the back of the school, do 5 more, and then when you get to the next corner do 5 more.  Then run back to the start line.

That took us to exactly an hour which was good because I think I may have gotten beat up had we kept going.  Had a great time w/ this group again (second time in a week!).  Cannot believe how much they’ve grown this place in the last year.  Props to the EH’ing machines over there and the consistency with how often they post.

Hope to get back out to the Deep a little more consistently now that my third son is no longer a little baby.  Thanks Shakespeare for the chance to lead this great group.

ChaChing

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