No ___ Collusion Here!

Youts brought the pain on his V-warmup!  After an assist on the disclaimer, we immediately moved into Low Slow Squats and Mountain Climbers.  A quick story about a sinking ship and a husband and wife…the husband gets in the lifeboat and sends the wife back to the ship to die – what?  is this a joke?  where’s the punchline? wait….here it comes…”let’s mosey”….well, we weren’t expecting that.

Mosey the parking lot for a bit and then circle up for SSH, windmills, Moroccan night clubs, planks, downward dog, honeymooner, and peter parker.  Move right into some burpees – sprint – bigboy sit ups – sprint – flutter kick – sprint – and merkins – sprint.  So much for a V-warmup.  This dude needs to be on his VQ!  I think we now know that all of that work was to get our attention – for the end of the story….the husband isn’t a “class A” jerk afterall…the wife has a terminal illness and he needs to stay alive for the kids.  Wow…we really should not judge, especially when we don’t know the whole story.

We also shouldn’t abandon our plans when the going gets tough – or in this case when the warm-up Q led almost the exact same workout as the Q?  How did that happen – collusion?  I’ve never even met Youts before, let alone skated (err – I mean worked out) with him.  After contemplating an impromptu-Q, I offered up the main course that I had originally planned.

So, there was an ask in the pre-blast for SkateOrDie to do the McTwist or something like it.  I opted for a version of the McNasty (and apparently Youts had the same idea and paved the way)…

We mosey’d to the asphalt marching band football field and got into the plank position.  I provided some instructions for the exercise and off we went.  The group of 14 was divided into groups of 3 (two groups had 4).  PAX 1 (extra PAX shadowed), PAX 2, and PAX 3.

    • PAX 1 will perform ab exercises (1) Heels to heaven, (2) Flutter, (3) Freddy Mercury, (4) American hammer, (5) LBC during each of the fives times through the circuit
    • PAX 2 will sprint to the opposite end of the field and relieve PAX 3 (taking over burpees)
    • PAX 3 will sprint to the opposite end of the field and relieve PAX 1 (taking over abs)
    • PAX 1 will sprint to the opposite end of the field and relieve PAX 2 (taking over burpees)
    • Rinse and Repeat until everyone has complete each station and the ab exercises 5 times

Upon completion, the group mosey’d to the pull-up bars and broke into 3 person groups; PAX 1 3 legit pull-ups, PAX 2 provided assistance as needed, PAX 3 wall sit; rinse and repeat 3 times with pull-ups and 2 more times with chin-ups.

Mosey and bear-crawl back to COT for 2 minutes of Mary.

Count-o-rama, Name-o-rama, Annoucements, Prayers/Praises, BOM

As always, I appreciate the opportunity to lead.

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BB for #Beyond at the #Ranch – 8-23-18

17 PAX joined YHC for something different at the Beyond edition of The Ranch. In the spirit of Beyond, I wanted to try something that would push the PAX beyond their comfort zone. Something that would require some mental toughness, perseverance, and grit.

Inspired by this video from SealFit Academy, I thought we would test the mental veracity of our PAX with a 45 minute plank.

Here are the rules:

  • Hold plank (in various forms called by the Q – regular, elbow, left arm high, right arm high, honeymooner, downward dog) for the full 45 minutes of the workout, starting immediately at 5:15, ending at 6:00.
  • If plank was exited, PAX would have to do 5 burpees as a penalty and join back in the plank. This became 5 hand release burpees for the second half of the workout.
  • Q would read an inspiring quote re: mental toughness & perseverance every 2 minutes throughout the workout.
  • PAX were encouraged to partner up at the beginning of the workout and rely on each other to push through the pain.

Quotes:

  1. “Mental toughness is spartanism with qualities of sacrifice, self-denial, dedication. It is fearlessness, and it is love.” ―Vince Lombardi
  2. “Concentration and mental toughness are the margins of victory.” ―Bill Russell
  3. “Nothing can stop the man with the right mental attitude from achieving his goal; nothing on earth can help the man with the wrong mental attitude.” ―Thomas Jefferson
  4. “It’s when the discomfort strikes that they realize a strong mind is the most powerful weapon of all.” ―Chrissie Wellington
  5. “Throw away all weakness. Tell your body that it is strong, tell your mind that it is strong and have unbounded faith and hope in yourself.” ―Swami Vivekananda
  6. “Strong minds suffer without complaining; weak minds complain without suffering.” ―Lettie Cowman
  7. “Strength does not come from physical capacity, it comes from indomitable will.” ―Mahatma Gandhi
  8. “Your toughness is made up of equal parts persistence and experience. You don’t so much outrun your opponents as outlast and outsmart them, and the toughest opponent of all is the one inside your head.” ―Joe Henderson
  9. “Make sure your worst enemy doesn’t live between your own two ears.” ―Laird Hamilton
  10. “You have power over your mind, not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength.” ―Marcus Aurelius
  11. “Champions aren’t made in the gyms. Champions are made from something they have deep inside them―a desire, a dream, a vision. They have to have the skill, and the will. But the will must be stronger than the skill.” ―Muhammad Ali
  12. Perseverance is not a long race; it is many short races one after the other.- Walter Elliott
  13. Grit is that ‘extra something’ that separates the most successful people from the rest. It’s the passion, perseverance, and stamina that we must channel in order to stick with our dreams until they become a reality. – Travis Bradberry
  14. ”I do not think that there is any other quality so essential to success of any kind as the quality of perseverance. It overcomes almost everything, even nature.”- John D Rockefeller
  15. ”Perseverance is also key to success in any endeavor, but without perseverance in combat, there can be no victory.”- Jocko Willink
  16. “Many of life’s failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.” -Thomas Edison
  17. “With ordinary talent and extraordinary perseverance, all things are attainable.” -Thomas Fowell Buxton
  18. “A hero is an ordinary individual who finds the strength to persevere and endure in spite of overwhelming obstacles.” – Christopher Reeve
  19. “Our greatest glory is not in never failing, but in rising up every time we fail.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
  20. “Our greatest weakness lies in giving up. The most certain way to succeed is always to try just one more time.” – Thomas Edison
  21. “Failure at some point in your life is inevitable, but giving up is unforgivable.” – Joe Biden
  22. “It always seems impossible until it’s done.” ―Nelson Mandela
  23. “You do what you can for as long as you can, and when you finally can’t, you do the next best thing. You back up but you don’t give up.” ―Chuck Yeager

Announcements

  • Invergence
  • #218in18
  • Q School

Prayers

  • Various health concerns for people close to PAX

Thank you to all of the PAX for posting and trying something new and different. Thank you to Jiffy & Maximus for the opportunity to lead.

– Ginsu

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The Millennial

25 men showed up for the awesome Fire Ant ruck Q lead by NASA. If your wanted to hear about that, well you’re in the wrong place… YHC had the bootcamp Q.

So I gave the full group the official disclaimer to all Then we split off. 8 of the men came with me.

The Thang

dynamic warmup with high knees butt kickers and toy soldiers.

Circle up for some number of reps of Imperial Walkers, Abe  Vagota, Merkins,  moroccan night clubs, and mountains climbers.

Mosey over to the board I brought,  affectionately called the “millennial”

heres how it goes… 100 reps each exercise, then 100 yard lap around the Parking lot.

1. Side straddle Hops (SC)

2. Merkins

3.LBCs

4.Squats

5. Mountain Climbers (SC)

6. Lunges (SC)

7. Plank Punches (SC)

8. Carolina Dry Docks

9. Flutter Kicks (SC)

10. “Mystery Exercise”  Everyone guessed burpees but I let Manifold pick for us.  He chose poorly….Monkey Humpers…God I hate those things!

Why the “Millennial” you ask?  So you take 10 exercises at 100 reps plus 1000 yards of running

you get 2000 – about the time millennials came into this world.

Finished up with Ab Labs for about 3-4 exercises called out by the PAX.

COT Namorama prayers and announcements.

An Honor to lead

-Royale

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12 for 12

Nice humid and thick morning for a beatdown from YHC.

12 showed up 12 finished. Perfect number for some Dirty McDeuce

Warmup lap with Butt Kicks, High Knees, and Toy Soldiers. Circle up for some COP

SSH x 20
Windmills x 12
IW x 12
Mountain Climbers x 12
Peter Parkers x 12
Moroccan Night Clubs x 12
Overhead Claps x 12

Mosey over to the ROTC building for the Dirty McDeuce
Round 1 – 12 Squats (IC), 12 LBC’s (IC), 12 Pullups -run down the hill and back
Round 2 – 12 Sumo Squats (IC), 12 Rosalitas (IC), 12 Merkins – run the hill and back
Round 3 – 12 Monkey Humpers (IC), 12 Flutters (IC), 12 Toes to Bar – run the hill and back
Round 4 – 12 Lunges (IC), 12 Freddy Mercuries (IC), 12 Wide Arm Merkins – run the hill and back.

Mosey back down the hill to the elementary school for two round of People’s Donkey Balls. People Chair then 12 Donkey kicks, then Balls to the wall.

Mosey up towards the school gym entrance and the benches 3 rounds of:
12 Dips (IC)
12 Step ups each side
12 of an Ab exercise (IC)

Long lap Mosey back to the flag for a little Mary finishing with 12 Goofballs (IC) for Kielbasa.

COT and BOM

Moleskin
1. Short notice Q form Wegmans. Not sure who couldn’t make it but thankful for the opportunity to lead.
2. Yes, I can lead a workout and not make you do burpees. You can thanks Ginsu for that.

Shanks out (mic drop)

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Fire Ants Conquer the Iron Ruck Challenge

I love the Fire Ant concept! Always a challenge for sure, pushes you to do more. When Spiderman put me on Q I knew what I wanted to do. It was not an original – I took a page from the Iron Pax challenge that has been going around lately. Week 2’s challenge was a beast. I had to work it into a ruck Q.

Great morning! 15 ruckers ready to roll……

We did not roll far. Super tough long ruck about 100 yards to one side of the Teeter parking lot where I wanted us to leave our sweat marks. Circled up for COP:

  • SSH x 20
  • WM x 20
  • IW x 10
  • HW x 10
  • MNC x 20

Then on to the main event. The Iron Ruck Challenge!

  • 5 sets of exercises, each done for 7 minutes AMRAP
  • Each exercise was using your ruck – note they were ALL weighted at least 35lbs, some had more
  • After 20 reps of an exercise, run about 25 yards and back
  • Continue, rinse and repeat exercise/run until 7 minutes are up
  • That completes one set
  • Rest for 1 minute
  • Move on to next set

Exercise sets were:
1. Thrusters
2. Curls
3. Flutters w Press (count on the press up)
4. Swings
5. Man Makers

Everything single count. Used a Tabata timer ap and speaker to keep things moving, audible time changes.

Folks complained about lack of music or a playlist of songs on my phone. I did not bring my boom box either. Hey, I am old – 2 years from 50. Got no time for tinker toys. It’s Pandora, Sirius XM, the radio, or nothing right now. Besides, when you have such epic mumblechatter like we had this morning, who needs music! Also – Cadre ain’t gonna play music while he is whuppin up on us. I’m trying to get my mind ready for that.

Not much talking from the Q. Too busy grunting, groaning, and being winded to talk between sets. Help make your kid’s minds as sharp as they can be is the only words I gave advice on. The kick-arse group of mean mother ruckers there this morning really ground through this. No mods. Good form. A lot of team encouragement and support. Grinded it out to the very end. Everyone ended up doing at least 80-100 of each exercise. Good livin!

Thanks Spiderman for the opportunity to lead. Excellent job by all the PAX there.

-NASA

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CSPAN Send off Convergence

141 Men came to show the Respectable**CSPAN** some Respect!!

He leaves The Fort and heads north or as Dredd refers to Yankee land. Not gone forever but just up the road 600 miles to start a new chapter in life and in F3 as he will launch F3Philly.

I am not the most eloquent with my back-blasts and I am usually to the point with posting the workout, add some words and being done, however since I can’t get Italian Job to write this up and Double D challenged the PAX to think of one word to represent CSAPN, I think that is the best way to document this convergence.

Thank you CSPAN for being all of these things and more to you r brothers in the PAX. As posted on Twitter and many of these were repeated multiple times:

brother
camaraderie
commitment
confidence
connected
consistent
courageous
dedicated
empathetic
example
genuine
handsome
HIM
honorable
humble
humility
impact
influence
influencer
insightful
inspiration
integrity
investor
legend
magnanimous
model
respect
selfless
servant
shepherd
solid
squaredaway
steadfast
steady
wise

The Workout looked like this:

WWL at the Q:

  • Mosey around the lot
  • Line up; karaoke, side shuffle, high knees, butt kickers, toy solders, lungewalk, power skips
  • COP
    • SSH, squat, merkin, moroccan night club, 10 Flying squirrels
Double D at the Q:
  • Run to practice field
  • Plank sequence
  • Split into 2 groups on each sideline
  • Sprint to center and back to sideline
  • Monkey humpers x25
  • Rinse + repeat with Merkins x 25
  • CDDs x25
  • Burpees x25
Longshanks at the Q:
  • Burpees
  • Lunges
  • Inch worm Merkins
  • Maktar Ndiayes
  • Plank Jacks
  • Squats.

Dredd at the Q:

  • Prayer for CSPAN
  • Merkin/Ab Lab series
  • Truth Nuggets and Leadership development with Major Payne, Wegmans, & Drop Thrill
  • Mosey to hill behind Bob Jones Stadium
  • Prayer for CSPAN heading to F3Philly…..”CSPAN Coming”
  • More Merkin/Ab lab series

COT:

141 Count, Name O’rama, 2 FNGs (Bikini & Manzel), Skinny Jeans pray out over CSPAN and his IMPACT on men and for Sky Q’s kingdom.

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Honoring Special Agent Forrest Leamon at HoneyBadger – 8/13/18

24 #HIM joined YHC (25 total) to honor Special Agent Forrest Leamon at the 8-13-18 edition of HoneyBadger.

U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration Special Agent Forrest Nelson Leamon, 37, assigned to the Foreign-deployed Advisory and Support Team (FAST) Echo was killed October 26th, 2009, while on a counternarcotics mission in Western Afghanistan when the helicopter he was in crashed. He is survived by his wife Ana, his son Luke, his parents, Sue and Richard Leamon, and his sister Heather.

Warmup:

  • Mosey around the parking lot 1 lap
  • 50 Side straddle hops
  • 21 double count windmills
  • Downward dog to honey mooner x3
  • Small arm circles
  • Big arm cirles
  • Reverse small arm circles
  • Reverse big arm circles

Mosey to the pull up bars.

The “Forrest” WOD:

3 rounds for time:

  • 20 L Pull-ups
  • 30 toes to bar
  • 40 burpees
  • 800M run

COT

Announcements:

  • Weekend events honoring #HIMs CSPAN & Rooney
  • #218in18
  • SiteQ Meeting this Wednesday

Prayers:

  • Parents
  • Kids back to school

– Ginsu

 

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August 2018 – Impact Convergence

On the morning of Friday, August 3rd, 61 Men of High Impact joined Homebrew, Deacon, & Jiffy for some #Convergence work.

For this Round Robin of Pain, we separated the PAX into 3 groups and rotated to each station for 12 minutes.

Station 1 – Jiffy:

He had setup a row of 4 cones in the bank parking lot and ran the PAX through the following exercises.

  • 5 Burpees OYO
  • Straight suicides
  • Lunge walk, 10 squats at each cone
  • Bear crawl, 10 merkins at each cone
  • 15 American Hammers in cadence
  • Suicides with 3 Bomb Jacks at each cone
  • Broad jump to each cone, 5 lunges each leg
  • Crab walk, 5 diamond merkins at each cone
  • 15 LBC’s in cadence

Station 2 – Deacon:

Find a partner

One partner runs to Pizza Hut and back while the other does a series of exercises until the team does merkins (100x), Squats (200x), LBCs (300x).

  • Partner Drills (Round 1) – Partner Big Boy Sit Ups (15x for 2 rounds), Partners Push Ups (15x for 2 rounds), Partner Leg Lifts (15x for 2 rounds)
  • Partner Drills (Round 2 if time permits) – Partner Wheel Barrels to each side of the parking lot (2x for 2 rounds), Partner Ski Jumps (15x for 2 rounds)

Station 3 – Homebrew:

4 Corners and Burpee Roll

PAX were divided into four groups, with one group being sent to each corner. Complete all exercises listed at your corner then bear crawl to the center. At the center was a large foam die. One PAX would roll the die for the group to determine how may burpees everyone would do. Amazingly, only one 6 was rolled all morning – I’m lookin at you IceT. Once the burpees were completed, crab walk from the center to the next corner going clockwise. Rinse and repeat until all corners are done or time runs out.

  • Corner 1
    • 40 SSH
    • 40 Plank Jacks
    • 40 Mountain Climbers
    • 20 Crab Cakes
  • Corner 2
    • 15 Merkins
    • 30 CDD
    • 15 Wide Arm Merkins
    • 5 Kraken Burpees
  • Corner 3
    • 10 Donkey Kicks
    • 50 Calf Raises
    • 40 Monkey Humpers
    • 20 Lunges
  • Corner 4
    • 10 Big Boy Situps
    • 20 Hello Dollys
    • 30 Dying Cockroaches (double count)
    • 10 Boxcutters

There were prayer requests for family, school returning and those with health needs.

Cakeboss took us out in prayer.

Great job, Homebrew, Deacon, & Jiffy!

– Ginsu

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Walk Like an Egyptian

5 PAX joined YHC in the early morning for a bag of mixed eggs. Unsure of how the Q had prepared for, we got right to it at 0515.

The Warm-up: all IC

  • SSH
  • Al Gore Nightclub- Hold Air Squat like normal Al Gore, but do Moroccan Night Clubs during
  • Fly Sun Gods- forward bend at waist, one leg straight back, doing arm circles
  • Chinook – Overhead arm cirlces
  • Peter Parkers

I wanted to get the PAX to the loop in front of the Middle School but didn’t want to just plain mosey there. If anyone knows me, I like to torture the PAX with lunges. The last time at The Ranch, we did 300 yards of lunges. Now I’m not sure how far the distance was to get there but I heard about “Walk Like an Egyptian” It’s an Indian Run style way to get there but instead of running, you hold a lunge on the right leg while the last PAX jailbreaks to the front. Once he gets to the front, switch and hold a left lunge until the last PAX jail breaks to the front. According to my rudimentary post-it note method of measuring the distance off the computer screen, it was around 1400 feet, or just over one-quarter of a mile.

Once there, we partnered up, and the PAX were told to hold their partners accountable for the reps they were performing. All PAX completed 25 reps of the exercise while their partner completed the same number of reps and they ran a lap around the bus loop. The exercises were, and in no particular order, are as follows:

  • Dips
  • Squats
  • Calf Raises
  • CDD
  • Flutters

There may have been others but you get the general consensus of it.  We did a couple of other exercises together over there before heading back to COT for some Mary and one final egg up my sleeve, if you will.

MARY- the last exercise I wanted to treat the PAX to is called Hands of Time. I saw the men of F3 Chicago doing something that looked fun on a news cast and was fortunate enough to find out what is was by reading through the website.

Hands of Time- PAX lay on their 6 in a circle with heads towards the center. Legs are raised at 90 degrees and 1 PAX jumps up, and throws the feet down of all the PAX in a circle. The PAX have to prevent their legs from touching the ground and hold their legs just off the ground until all the PAX have their legs thrown down. We repeated this until everyone had the opportunity to run around the circle, throwing down the legs.

Jiff also taught us a different exercise, the Elbow Plank Knee Taps. That one is pretty self explanatory.

Thank you to Jiffy for the opportunity to lead the PAX.

Wegmans-

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