Tag: Uber

Heavy arm day

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Four men showed up for this morning’s workout.  Uber arrived a little early thinking he was running late, still recovering from his international travels.  Bolt kicked us off with a lap around the park.  We stopped for the regular warm-ups (SSHs, Moroccan night clubs, merkins, and plank stretches).

Next, we ran back to the park where Bolt had organized five pain stations:

  1. Sweeper drag – The best description is a weighted (100+ ) infield broom.  Each person would drag it down the field and back.
  2. Luggage Shoulder Shrug –  Two bags, one in each hand, lift up and down.
  3. Sandbag carry – Bag carried overhead down to baseball diamond and back.
  4. Sandbag curl – Curl sandbag in squat position.
  5. Bocce ball bear crawl – Hold Bocce ball in each hand and bear crawl forward and back.

We each did two rounds of these pain stations. We were gassed.

Next, we ran a lap around the park before the hand-off to Fishsticks.  A number of the PAX had fun over the past few weeks sharing the music that influenced them growing up.  Bolt had joked about one of my picks, New Edition.  I thought it would be a good idea to incorporate  some of their hits into the workout. The song was played during each workout and served as our timer.

First workout:  Mr Telephone Man

  • Line up between telephone poles
  • Calf raises on one end
  • lunges on the other end with a run in between the poles

Second workout:  Can You Stand The Rain? (for the workout, “Rain” was changed to “Pain”)

  • 10 dips
  • 10 merkins
  • continue dips and merkins until the end of the song

Third workout:  Boys to Men

  • Pull ups
  • Step ups
  • Dips

Before we left the playground, we did 20 pull-ups and squats

Four workout:  Cool it down

  • Hello Dolly
  • LBCs
  • Superman

End with COT

Prayers for everyone impacted by the schools back in session.

Prayers for Ezra and family.

 

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Rugby Sprints and Ab Work Work Great Together

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It was a beautiful morning in the middle of the Teeter parking lot.  10 solid upstanding young men decided to choose the harder thing and push ourselves and each other (quite literally).  With YHC on Q you knew there were going to be some sprinting involved (hey – stick with a winner).  Asked the pax to think of one person that needed help from them today.  With that – the disclaimer was stated and off we went.

The Thang:

Little baby mosey up to the Grace Presbyterian parking lot.

Active WarmUp (European Soccer Team Style) :  High Knees, Butt Kickers, Slide to the Right, Slide to the Right, Toy Soldiers, Dipping Birds, World Wide Leaders (Power Skips – Trademark), Open the Gate, Close the Gate, Long Strides.

Presto – you’re warm

Little COP for some Ab Lab – Fluttes, LBC’s with your feet on the ground, Hello Dolly’s, Fredrick Mercury’s, More Flutters, etc.

Rugby Sprints (so predictable!) x 5 with Merkins, Mountain Climbers, Peter Park’s, Parker Pete’s, LBC’s.

Walk it off to get the heart rate down.

Then run (wink, wink, nudge, nudge) it back again x 5 with more ground exercises that I don’t remember.

Ab Lab Exercises were done at this point.

Huddle up, gents!  Take a knee.

YHC asked to think of someone that needs something from us TODAY!  (Not tomorrow – Not after breakfast)  It could be anything:  Help, To Listen, Attention, Time Together, An Apology, Forgiveness.  Think of that one person who you can serve today.  Service doesn’t have to be a huge production or program – it can be a simple task for one person in your life.

Back to the beat down.

Let’s go with the extra long bear crawls – haven’t done them in a while.  Then let’s do it again.  So cool!  Any fast bears got to do some burpees while waiting for the six.  Even cooler!

More Ab Lab Exercises were done at this point.

How about some Partner/Push/Sprint/Push with a Flap Jack and a Rinse and Repeat?  People were super psyched.

Hows about we head back to the COT general area for some more Ab Lab exercises to finish ‘er up?!?  Sounds fantastic.

COT

Asked the pax to follow through today.  Reach out to the one person in their life.  M, 2.0, family member, co-worker, neighbor, someone!  That is what service can look like.  That is what male community leadership can look like.  It can be simple tasks.  Just need to do it to get the ball rolling and help spread to others.  Aye!

Read your newsletter.  Endx.

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Reminisce about the “Pain”theon

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I haven’t been to one of my old favorite AOs in WAY to long.  We start to get spoiled with so many great  F3 options that it gets easy to stay close to home. I love Funhouse’s idea of Ass Kickin’ April and getting out to 30 different AOs during the month.  I challenge each of you to answer the call and post to a different AO and meet some new PAX once every few weeks!

So when I was asked to Q again at the Pantheon I answered the call.  I started DMing some of the Lake Wylie guys to see if they wanted to come with me and we had several show up this morning too!  I was quite surprised to see 24 PAX there at 5:15…. two were FNGs EH’d by Bones and two were 2.0s that Uber brought with him.  The FNGs were named “Grout” and “Safe Word”, respectively.  ALL of them did great on a challenging workout today.  Sorry to the 6 men that were cut out of the video Namorama.  I recalled 3 from my terrible memory, but 3 have been left off the tags…comment below and I’ll add you.

The Thang

Long disclaimer with new FNGs

Dynamic Warmup Lap

COP with SSHs – Imperial Walkers – CDDs – LS Squats – Merkins – Windmills – Mountain Climbers

I pulled some of my old favorite Weinkes from the Pantheon and put them together.

Evolution #1

Took two lanterns with me and we moseyed to the graded hill on the NE corner. Love that hill area and we did “8s” (because 7s is too hard of math for me it seems..)

Bottom of Hill 1 Bomb Jack

Top 7 Merkins

up and down the hill switching until you hit 7 Bomb jacks and 1 merkin

Evolution #2

I celebrated my one year anniversary back in 2016 at the Pantheon as Q.  I pulled out this terrible idea and we did it again.

Burpee Celebration

I counted in year 1 that I went to 147 workouts that year.  We would do the following.

17 burpees to start

Complete a lap in the parking lot

10 burpees at the start until we completed 13 laps. (10 x 13 = 130) + 17 = 147 burpees

With only 25 minutes of time that was a little ambitious.  Many finished 9 laps.  Some +/- 1 lap…

6am back to COT

Got to name our FNGs, Todd and Jason…both did great today.  Todd went first, said something about having a safe word after a pineapples reference that came from living in Hawaii…that was it for him…

Jason does sales somehow related to tile splash or tiles…Grout stuck!

Announcements – Prayers and time to go!

Thanks Bear Grylls and Fish Sticks for having me come out and share.  I really enjoyed being a part of the Pillars of Pantheon series as well!  Great idea and addition.

An Honor to Lead,

Royale

 

 

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Sweating it out at Golden Corral

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15 #HIM met on this muggy morning at the Golden Corral for a good old fashioned beatdown.  Lutefisk had to substiQ for me last Friday and by coincidence he didn’t have a Q lined up today so lucky me and lucky PAX I stepped up to bring the pain at one of my favorite A/O’s.

Started with the disclaimer and we were off.

 

Warm Up

  • Mosey to the back of Harris Teeter
    • I intentionally asked the PAX to circle up pretty close to the dumpsters.  If you are on #SLACK and you read the fabulous piece Crab Cakes wrote last week then you would know why
  • SSH X 20
  • Imperial Walker X 15
  • Merkins X 15
  • Mountain Climbers X 10
  • Recover and mosey to the tire shop

Activity 1

  • 30 Durkins
    • Lap around the tire shop
  • 30 Dips
    • Lap around the tire shop
  • 20 Box Jumps
    • Lap around the tire shop
  • Elbow plank and wait for the 6
  • Mosey from the tire shop to the parking lot in front of Baker’s Buzzin

Activity 2 (11’s)

  • I instructed the PAX to partner up and size did matter
  • This activity was 11’s and consisted of burpees and merkins (hopefully all of you know what 11’s are and if not it pretty much means the exercises have to sum to 11.  Example 10 burpees and 1 merkin, 9 burpees and 2 merkins, 8 burpees and 3 merkins etc….)
  • There are a total of 10 rounds.  The method of transportation was different for each round.
  • Round 1 was 10 burpees at the beginning then wheelbarrow to the end of the parking lot (it’s a long way away) and then complete the 1 merkin.  The partner that was holding partner #2’s legs had to carry that partner back to the start.
  • Round 2 9 burpees then the second partner had to wheel barrow to the end.
  • We did the wheel barrows and partner carries for rounds 1-4
  • Rounds 5 – 7 were bear crawls and run back
  • Rounds 8 – 10 were crab walks and run back

Surprisingly enough I looked at my watch and it was 5:59.  Time to mosey back to COT.  As you can imagine there was a ton of moaning and groaning, that translates to #WINNING.  The PAX got their money’s worth

At COT we had an #FNG Sam and his handle is Mach3.  Went through the announcements, prayers and praises and Funhouse took us out with a prayer.  Couldn’t have asked for a better start to the day!

 

Mile High Out

 

 

 

 

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Q School 201 – The Weinke at Bermuda Triangle

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I was the privileged Q that was able to lead week #2 of Q school following behind Wild Thing.  I got to the AO 10 minutes early to set up, guys were already pre-running… nobody ever seems to sleep in Lake Wylie!  By the 5am start we had 18 PAX with us.  Uber all the way from Tega Cay, one PAX, Crabby Cabbie – only on his second post to F3! I opened by sharing some of this message below.  Being the Q starts with being prepared.

Preparedness

There are four quadrants of preparedness: get right, live right, lead right and leave right “G3L” 

F3 is an Organization of leaders rather than an Organization with leaders. As such, every Member of F3 is asked and expected to be a leader both within F3 and in the other Groups in which he is a Member. This ethic arises from our Mission , which is to plant, serve and grow men’s small workout groups in order to invigorate male community leadership.

Within F3 a leader is called the Q, which we define as a leader who takes responsibility for the Outcome in the Groups of which he is a Member.

Some Outcomes are envisioned beforehand by the Q while others are thrust upon him by unexpected and sudden circumstance. For envisioned Outcomes, the Q can anticipate and get prepared for what will be expected of him to be Effective. But the Q cannot do that for unexpected Outcomes because they come upon him suddenly—for those Outcomes he must already be prepared to be Effective.

How do you prepare?

“The Weinke” – named after Panther QB, Chris Weinke (Carolina QB from 2001-2006) where he would have every play in a giant playbook on his arm.

Scout the AO – Check the Weather report – Check previous Backblasts for regular PAX in attendance

PREPARE! Doras, Ladders, partner work, stations, coupons

My 1st few Qs I wrote the COP exercises in permanent marker on my arm…

Write it down, keep it handy but try not to use it.

Create Evolutions!  Have more than you will use. 3-5 depending on complexity

Make it Tough, but a balance is needed for all level PAX.  Have an adaption plan in place.  Guys failing to work hard, get them back in line or adjust.

Adapt = tell a PAX what is OK to modify to.  Can’t sprint?  Jog ½ way and turn around.

Give the PAX a choice! Option #1 or #2

BE CONFIDENT – SPEAK LOUD – DON’T GIVE UP YOUR CONTROL – YOUR TIME TO LEAD!

 

WEINKE FOR BERMUDA TRIANGLE 7/19/2019 Q SCHOOL 201 (Full example)

Welcome each PAX

Disclaimer

Dynamic Warmup High Knees – Butt Kickers – Toy Soldiers – Soccer Legs out & In

COP

SSHs – IWs – CDDs – Merkins – LS Squats – Seal Jacks – Peter Parkers – MNCs – Broga

 

Evolution #1  BB Court

Partners modified LAZY DORA size does not matter

100 Swing Crunches – Partner Elbow Planks (in grass)

To BB Court

150 Merkins by 10s  – Partner Planks

200 Squats 25x – partner hold Al Gore

Alternative under picnic area

Dips and Derkins with Step Ups

 

Evolution #2

Speed Work

Field Sprints 4 cones plank when complete repeat 3x

Alternative

Bear Crawl to #2 or Jog to #3

 

Evolution #3 (Ran out of Time – Did not do, but had at the ready)

Bear Crawls and burpees between cones 5 burpees each cone

Alternative Lunges and Wide Arm Merkins or CDDs

 

Evolution #4 Ab Lab

Give all Pax another opportunity to count cadence

COT with Count, Namorama, Announcements, Prayers

I think the guys enjoyed the time together, maybe learned a little something to take to their next Q, and definitely worked hard!

A honor to lead,

Royale

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TIREsome fun at Golden Corral

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Gave disclaimer a few minutes early even though Dark Helmet tried to delay the start.

Moseyed over to O ‘Riley’s Auto Parts for the warm up:
SSH
Wind mill
Honeymooner / Downward Dog
Hand release merkins
More Honeymooner / Downward Dog
Mountain Climber
Even more Honeymooner / Downward Dog
LBCs

Then moved to the hill behind Quick Lube
Sprint to top of hill and jog back down
20 LBCs at bottom (repeat 4 times)

Next Pax ventured over to the field adjacent the Gold Hill YMCA.  Every time I drive by this area I am always intrigued by the tires that are sitting out there and no one seems to use them.  So I decided that we would put them to use.  Honestly I wasn’t expecting 15 guys to show up so I had to improvise on what to do until I could come up with something worse.

– had Pax split up in 4 groups (3 tires – 1 big tractor tire and 2 large truck tires)

– 3 Teams took turn rolling the tire down to the other end of the field and back will team 4 did merkins until the teams with the tires got to the end of the field and then squats until the teams returned.

– Team 4 took its turn with the tractor tire and other 3 teams did the merkins and squats

After that I came up with the bad idea that we would all line up in two lines shoulder to shoulder and lift the tractor tire overhead and pass it down the line.  Once it passed by you move to the end of the line.  We kept this going for about 30 + yards before someone almost dropped it on their head.

To finish out the workout we partnered up for a DORA
100 Burpees
200 merkins
300 squats

Needless to say doing a DORA like this at the end of the workout is a smoker.  Everyone was able to finish the merkins and then it was time to head back for COT where we arrived a few minutes early and knocked out about half the squats and a round of Mary.

It was an honor to lead and I appreciate the Pax patience as I adlibbed some of the workout trying to account for numbers.

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Pantheon – 5 at 5

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5 PAX took the DRP and came to Pantheon for a 3rd Q in 5 days from YHC.  It was a hot and humid morning, who would have thought that of Tega Cay in July?  Needless to say, YHC brought a Weinke and a speaker.  That’s all that is needed.  And we’re off….

The Thang

Big Lap around parking lot to COP

SSH X 30, Windmills X 10, Squats X 15, Merkins X 10, Mountain Climbers X 15, SSH X 30

Mosey to WalMart Way, bottom of the hill.  Hill repeats with 5 Flying Squirrels at top and 10 Squats at bottom.  Rinse and repeat X 3.

Mosey back to Shovel Flag.  Turn on the tunes and get ready for the 10 minutes of burpees.  6 burpees in 1 minute X 10 sets.  Crowd pleaser.

Mosey to the Pillars.  Wall sits while one PAX sprints to end of sidewalk and back.

Done

COT – Prayers for travels, returns, in route babies, patience for parents with kids during summer break, prayers for stop being an asshole to the M (that’s mine).

FunHouse

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A Return To The Corral Which Is Golden

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Man, it’s been a long time. It’s been a long time since coming to the Golden Corral, or as it was often referred, the Buffet of Pain but it’s also been too long since my last post. No better way to knock the rust off than by saying yes to Lutefisk’s (just rolls off the tongue) invite and Qing Golden Corral yesterday. Trying not to lower the bar that has been established, I had to ensure the Weinke was full of all your favorite buffet options. After all, we’re not mailing this one in.

24 (23 really since Fish Sticks joined us at the end after getting his brisk miles) other hard-chargers, including feisty “Shin-Guard” joined me at 0515 to review the disclaimer and conduct a little warm up jog around the parking lot, ending up at the top, furthest from HT.

Warm-up:

Wind Mills, Jump Squats, Merkins, Diamond Merkins, Side-Straddle Hops, Carolina Dry Docks

Line up facing the Teeter. Run down to the store and Nur back to our starting point. REPEAT.

2 PAX at a time, run 1/2 way to Teeter then run back. We’d get through all 24 of us but the catch is that while you’re not running, you’re doing your best Flying Squirrels. See CSPAN, we still love you.

Reminder of 2 points (which is hard to stay accountable to when you don’t post for a while):

  1. C.O.T. Integrity – Don’t be a hypocrite. Be the same man outside the C.O.T. as you are inside it.
  2. Kotters – Bring ’em back. They’ll fight you but they want to be back AND we want them back.

More details were shared but you had to be there.

The Entree: 10 reps of 10 exercises and we’re cycling through 10 times (lofty desire). After each round, we’d run 1 set of 2-tiered suicides.

10 exercises were:

Burpees, Wide-Arm Merkins, Jump Squats, Mak Tar Jai’s, Knee Tar Jai’s (modified at the sight of bloodied knees to just doubling the yet to-be mentioned Jumping Lunges), Dips, Peter Parkers, Parker Peters, Jumping Lunges, Carolina Dry Docks.

We made it through 4 rounds.

HEY, welcome to Fish Sticks.

Until Next Time,

Maximus

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Pantheon of Pain – The “Gam Guillotine” – Redux

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This BB is going to be easy, at least for the workout part for in honor the Q of my first workout – Jekyll – I decided to recreate his Q nearly verbatim. With the help of Gears I was able to find his original back blast. This is yet ANOTHER reason to do these things!! (You’re welcome Funhouse)

Pantheon of Pain- the “Gam Guillotine”

COP:
15-20 of the following
SSH, Squat, Calf Raise, lunge, Apolo Oh- No, Good Mornings, IW, and some other leg stuff.

The Thang:

Mosey to the grass field park near Trailhead park, to the trail that leads up to the dreaded power lines and Heart Attack Hill.

Run the Camelback.  5 squat on southend , 5 jump squat on Northend.  1 round is up and back. 5 rounds total.

Lungewalked 1/2 way, crabwalk 1/2 way.  backward  walk up hill.

Run Camelback: 5 air squat, 5 Mary Catherines, 5 rounds (includes extra hill)

To Memorial Gardens. Bearcrawls and lungewalks around the flag

Pledge of Allegiance

Back for COT.

>> It was just as horrible today as it was 3 years ago, even though I am in much better shape now. As we were progressing through it, myself, Mr T, and Fishsticks started to remember some of the details of that day. It was just as humid, but slightly hotter. Mumblechatter was epic. And it hurt ALOT back then. I remember almost passing out on round 8 of the hill.

Wednesday June 29, 2016

That was the day my F3 journey all began. That’s the day I started transforming into a better person, in many ways, than what I was before.

My good friends Mr T and Qwerty were working on me for a few months to come out to try this thing they called F3. I just got over a major surgery where I was out of action for a while, which really put me in a bad place mentally and physically. They knew I was down and out. They were there for me. It’s awesome they said. You are very active, and it’s a great FREE workout they said. You’ll meet some great people they said, maybe even develop more friendships they said. And it will help you become a better man they said. Seriously? All this I thought was just another phony sales pitch from another Ponzi scheme, another get ripped quick scheme or something. for usually if it sounds too good to be true then usually it is.  I kept making excuse after excuse, but they were consistent in trying to motivate me to try it. Just once they said, and we will stop.

After a lot of constant yet polite and respectful nagging from them, I decided to throw caution to the wind and say WTF. One super hot and muggy summer morning Mr T came by and picked me up in that awful-WTF-early time, and off we went. (btw – I committed to do this a week or so earlier but had trouble waking that dang early). I met up with a bunch of fellas I had no idea who they were, what kind of people they were. Then one of them asked us to do all kinds of weirdly painful exercises. Running up a stupidly steep hill in the dark, no lights. Walking on my hands and feet (??!!). Introducing me to this God-awful exercise called a Good Morning (burpee). After a while I was expecting some frat house hazing to be honest, so I was a little on guard. But I kept going along, for the conversations during this was pretty dang good. Rather I was just listening, I could not talk – no breath to do so. Then we circle around an American flag in a park and say the Pledge of Allegiance. That was flat out inspiring. Next thing I knew it was over and I was on a rush. Then we sealed it with some open conversation and then a prayer. Wow.

The rest is now prologue to a wonderful set of chapters added to the ongoing book of my life that everyone I’ve met through F3 has helped write, the solid foundation that my future can build upon.  Looking back now, boy were they right. I cannot thank Mr T, as well as Qwerty who was assistant EH, ever enough. I can only keep trying to do for them what they have done for me.

Thanks to everyone I’ve met along the way. Your push, pull, inspiration, support, wisdom, accountability, leadership, motivation, and more has been truly transformational for me.

Love y’all. God bless.
-NASA

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Q Group at Pantheon

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6 PAX took the DRP and headed to Pantheon, unknowingly that the Q was non-existent.  No worries, 3 of us said we go it and Group Q was made.

YHC had the warm up. The Thang:

Big Lap to COP

SSH X 25

Merkins X 10

IW X 20

Moroccan Night Clubs X 20

Squats X 20

Mountain Climbers X 20

6 count Burpees X 10

Hand off the FishSticks, run to back of school to bb court.

Bear Crawl 5, 5 merkins – length of the court

Lunges 5, 10 Squats – length of the court

Crab Walk 5, 10 LBCs –  length of court

Crawl Bear 5, 5 Carolina Dry Docks – length of court

Wall sits with over head hand claps to 40

Hand Off to Corn Hole for last 15 minutes, mosey to play ground

Swing Crunches X 20, step ups each leg X 20, 5 pull ups or 10 modified

Swing Crunches X 10, step ups each leg X 10, 5 pull ups or 10 modified

Run back to COT, had 4 minutes of Mary

COT

Naked Moleskin – Welcome Dennis the Menace FNG.  Prayers for safe travels this week for M’s and 2.0 travelling alone. Prayers for sleep, less anxiety for the PAX.

FunHouse

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