Shovelflag handoff @ The Coop

Thank you for the 24 guys that came out to The Coop this morning for the shovel flag handoff to YHC from Sugarbug. I decided to give the FBI PFT test as the workout.

We moseyed to the field and did a chicken wing approved warmup. We warmed up until he gave the clearance to proceed.

FBI PFT is as follows:

Max situps in 1 minute

300m sprint

Max pushups

1.5 mile run

Pull-ups (optional) we didn’t have enough time for these.

Out of the 25 PAX that posted only 7 passed unofficially.

Dark Helmet

Subprime

Sasquatch

Skate or Die

Harry Carry

Caddy Shack

Bonsai

Some guys were close, but the sprint and run is where most guys got caught . Welcome FNG Easy Button!

My first order of business as new Site Q is to move the congregation point to the good asphalt so when we do Mary, we don’t feel like we are laying on broken glass.

Thanks to sugarbug for the peaceful transition and thank you for all your leadership!

 

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The Coop: Mixed Meters

24 PAX gathered in the gloom. The summer numbers bump is upon us. Can we stick with it when it is 10° again??

The Thang: Lots of mixed (non-4) counts

Mosey around the main parking lot covering as much ground there as possible in a zigzag pattern. Alternating High Knees, Butt Kickers, and Karaoke.

Mosey to the band practice lot
SSH x30
1 Burpee
Windmill x10
2 Burpees
Imperial Walker x15
3 Burpees
Hillbilly Walker x15
4 Burpees
LSS x15
5 Burpees
(It took until the Hillbilly Walkers for Longshanks to realize I was copying one of his warmups. Imitation is the highest form of flattery…..why fix it if it ain’t broken?)

Mosey to traffic circle COP
Alternating:
Down Dog and Honeymooner
Plank
Shoulder Taps x10
Yogi Squats

Mosey to Pull Up Bars at ROTC Building
Split into groups of 3s (CSPAN made a French joke and the PAX did 9 Burpees in cadence)
Rotate partners through Derkins, Pull ups, and Wall Sits. Called up and down for each exercises. Did about 6 slow pull ups per PAC.

Mosey to Elementary School parking lot
Partner up for alternating Mike Tysons and Bear Crawls from island to island through the parking lot.

Mosey back towards COT with a lap around the basketball court.

At COT:
Around the Worlds (12 count lunges) x6
Flutters x15
LBC x15
Catalina Wine Mixer x2 (hit 6 o’clock)

NMM:

As PAX, we regularly challenge ourselves physically in the gloom. Leaving the comfort of the fart sack to push ourselves and get better. But how often do we challenge ourselves mentally, emotionally, or spiritually. Often with these challenges we don’t have to wake up and head to the gloom; they come our way without us seeking.

How do we respond to emotional challenges presented in the form of a four-year-old trying to situate their sock perfectly when it is time to go? Or mentally when there’s a civic challenge that needs to be addressed? Or spiritually when were faced with our own demons?

Addressing and improving physically is a wonderful thing, but we as PAX must strive to better ourselves emotionally, mentally, and spiritually as well. Otherwise we are always out of balance.

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11s and Horse

Thank you Hasselhoff for the opportunity!

Standard warmup down on the football field.

Followed by some 11’s including Merkins and WW2 situps.

After we finished that up we did some dynamic exercises to not quite halfway across the field including but not limited to side shuffles, lunge walks, and toy soldiers .

We then moseyed back towards the basketball court and found some wall to do a nice wall sit .

We found a basketball and played a terrible game of H.O.R.S.E.

After your team missed the shot everyone had to do the following exercises and include all the letters your up to.

H- hand release merkins x5

O- overhead claps x10

R- rosalita x15

S- squats x20

E- everything

 

Wegmans

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Hero’s don’t get a say in “tough”

Start your week right began with a quick mosey around the parking lot with some:  SSH x40, Cherry pickers x10, moroccan night clubs x30, mountain climbers x20, peter parker x5, parker peter x5, downward dog x2, honeymooner x2, imperial walker x10.

We then gathered ourselves to pay tribute to the real Hero of the day, Sr. Airman Mark Forester, aka “Jag 28”.

We honored him by doing the following:

800M run

28 kettlebell swings

28 pull ups

28 kettlebell clean and jerks

28 pull ups

800M run

Since honey badger doesn’t care and we had 30 minutes remaining, we then honored Gunny Sgt Justin Schmallstieg, aka Schmalls.  The honoring was as follows:

800M run

50 burpees

40 pull ups

30 one legged squats

20 kettlebell swings

10 handstand / balls to the wall pushups

800M run

(this was mixed up as needed OYO)

We finished right at 0600, name-o-rama, prayers, praises, and passed the book to the next week Q.  Had a great time with these HIMs, left it all out there, and looking forward to joining again for weeks to come!

Aye!  Shady

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Kicking Off ’18 Nantan Summer Tour at Block Party

On an unseasonably cool June morning, 41 #HIMs met to get an attitude adjustment and start the day out right.

Mosey to the big parking lot on 160.

WARMUP:

  • 20 4-count side straddle hops
  • Five Burpees OYO
  • 10 4-count Windmills
  • Five Burpees OYO
  • 20 Low slow squats
  • Five Burpees OYO
  • 15 4-count Merkens
  • Five Burpees OYO
  • 20 Mountain climbers
  • Five Burpees OYO
  • 20 Moroccan night clubs
  • Five Burpees OYO

The THANG

Four corners in the big parking lot. Count off into groups of 4s and rotate through the stations.

  • Corner 1: Mosey to the bottom of the hill (160) and sprint back to the top, rinse and repeat. LBCs when done.
  • Corner 2: 30 Hand release Merkens. LBCs when done.
  • Corner 3:  40 Monkey Humpers. LBCs when done.
  • Corner 4: 20 Burpees. LBCs when done.
  • Rinse & Repeat

Mosey to the wall for 20 4-count wall mountain climbers.

Mosey back to COT….NOT DONE YET!

Captain Thors in cadence to 8 x 32.

COT

1 Corinthians 9:24 reads “Don’t you realize that in a race everyone runs, but only one person gets the prize? So run to win!” Give everything you do your best effort. Sometimes, however, this requires an attitude adjustment. Be grateful for how God has blessed you and honor HIM by giving it your all. After all, the only difference between a chAmp and a chUmp is YOU!

Announcements: Hog & Coyote, Nantan Summer Tour, #218in18, Read your newsletter

Thanks for the opportunity, Shady!

– Ginsu

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‘Watch’ Your Trajectory

The preview was we will do lots of dumb things together. YHC hopes the advance billing lived up to the hype! We had a good discussion on trajectory and how many missteps does it take to get you off course. Surround yourself my PAX that will keep any missteps in check…plug for Whetstone. We need an accountability partner. Seeing that I have lost a few friends over the years to addiction, as recently as this week, take a look around and see how you can make an impact on others trajectory.

With that, we did a nice warm up that got us sweaty in an already humid environment quickly.

Mosey around the bus loop twice with dynamic stretching.

Circle up.

SSH
LS Merkins
LSS
Peter Parker
Parker Peter
CDDs
Some downward and upward dogs and some other goodness.

Now that was behind us we were ready for the main course.

The bus loop has three light poles about 30 yerds apart.

Rd 1 – 10 burpees, bear crawl to the light, 15 jump squats, crab walk, 20 merkins
Rd 2 – 10 burpees, lunge walk, 15 jumping lunges per leg, bear crawl, 20 CDDs
Rd 3 – 10 burpees, sumo walk, 15 LSS, bunny hop, 20 dips
Rd 4 – 10 burpees, single r leg hop, 15 calf raises, single l leg hop, 20 arm circles

Mosey to front of SFMS

Rd 1 clock merkins on the curb at 12, 3, 6, and 9 10 merkins each position
4 corner box jumps going clockwise x 15
4 corner box jumps going counter clockwise x 15

Rd 2 clock merkins on the curb at 12, 3, 6, and 9 10 merkins each position
15 single r leg hops over the line
15 single l leg hops over the line

Mosey to the backside of SFMS
Wall sits while each pax counted to 10
15 wall tar jai

Indian run all the way back to COT.

5 MOM with Pax pick your poison.

COT.

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My Varsity VQ

I’m afraid of Varsity…not gonna sugar coat it.  Hardcore Boot Camps scare me, especially AO’s that have pull-up bars on site.  I stay as far away from them as possible.  So, to get me to one of these crazy AO’s, you’ll have to ask me to Q.  I tried my best to make this not moderate.  I probably only hurt myself though.

We started by running around the NAFO parking lot.  25 SSH here, 25 SSH there, 25 more here and then 25 more there.  SSH are my favorite warmup exercise because…science says it’s the best. Our last stop in the lot was for a few Merkins.

Next we moseyed towards Sugar Creek Elementary.  I head faked a pitstop at the pull-up bars but kept going.  At the bottom of the hill I decided it would be good to run back up the hill and then back down.  I hate running.

Next obstacle was the Basketball Court.  We ran Suicides, Bear Crawled, Crab Walked, and Lunged. This is why I #Slowburn on Fridays.

I had my speaker box setup in the bus loop to entertain us while we worked it.  We split into 2 teams.  1 team worked out while the other team ran a lap.  Exercises included: Balls to the Wall, Merkins, LBC’s, Big Boy Situps, Planks of sorts, Makhtar N’Diayes…I tried to get a good mix in.

When I decided I couldn’t take anymore running, I put Chumbawamba’s Tubthumping on the speaker and we did 28 burpees in 3m32s. I hear they’ve done more burpees in less time at Varsity.  Beasts!

It was time for COT.  I tried to walk a bit but Ginsu said he felt like running so we ran back.  A couple Ruckers met us there and we closed it out with a Big Ball of Man.  Happy Birthday to Dark Helmet! Thank you Kielbasa for the opportunity.  I’ll trade you Q’s again in a couple months!

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6 or So Pain Stations Around Fort Mill

Oh, it’s starting to get steamy.  So long cool mornings.  See you in 6 months.  The thick, non-cool air didn’t keep 8 pax from showing up to the party.  Here’s how we had fun:

Mosey to unused parking lot next between WEP and Springs building for warmup:

  • SSH x30
  • Mountain Climbers x20
  • Flip over for Peter Pointers x10
  • Flip over for merkins x10
  • Imperial Squat Walkers x10
  • Windmills x10
The Thang
Mosey to Oasis Park wall exercises OYO
  • Box Jumps (x15)
  • Dips (x15)
  • Derkins (x15)
  • Al Gore’s until the 6.

Repeat three exercises, but x10
Repeat three exercises, but x5

Mosey to wall near visitor’s parking lot
  • grab a seat on the wall
  • starting at one end, single coupon (log) curled 5 times, then overhead pressed 5x
  • pass to next guy and repeat

Once all 8 pax have a turn, quick recovery, then back on the wall to repeat.

Mosey to steps across from Main Street (behind grist mill stone).  Partner up, size matters.
  • Everyone bear crawl up steps, run down grass and back to bottom of steps.
  • Partner Wheelbarrow up steps (then run down grass) – flap jack
  • Everyone grab a stair for 10 calf raises in cadence
  • Take a step and repeat, toes in.
  • Take a step and repeat, toes out.
Run to lot behind Hobos
  • Broad Jumps across parking lot, everyone keeping count.  Flash made it in 12 jumps, so we all did 12 burpees.
  • Repeat going back.  This time Flash made it in 11 jumps.  11 burpees
Mosey to Veteran’s Park for LBCs until the 6.
Continue mosey to COT.  American Hammers and (something else I can’t remember) until the 6.
Great work by all pax!
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A Truckload of pain at Honeybadger

Great way to start a week, we had 14 PAX (2 ruckers, Cha Ching and Jedi) that decided to get better and honor “the seven” a group of 5 CIA officers and 2 Security contractors killed when al-Balawi detonated a bomb sewn into a vest he was wearing. Six other American CIA officers were wounded. The bombing was the most lethal attack against the CIA in more than 25 years.

Al-Balawi was a Jordanian doctor and jihadist website writer who was detained and interrogated over three days by the Jordanian intelligence service, the General Intelligence Directorate (GID), in January 2009. The GID and the CIA thought they had turned al-Balawi to penetrate al-Qaeda in the Pakistani tribal areas to provide intelligence for high-level targets. Instead, al-Balawi used this trust to gain access to the CIA base in Afghanistan unsearched and perpetrate the attack. The Pakistani Talibanand al-Qaeda claimed responsibility, saying they helped al-Balawi with the attack.

The names of our honored heroes are listed below:

CIA OFFICERS:

-Harold Brown Jr, 37, Bolton MA

-Elizabeth Hanson, 30, Rockford IL

-Darren Labonte, 35, Brookfield CT

-Jennifer Matthews, 45, Cedarville OH

-Scott Roberson, 39, Tolland CT

SECURITY CONTRACTORS:

-Dane Paresi, 46, Portland, OR

-Jeremy Wise, 35, Tigard, OR

After a quick disclaimer on the go we moseyed around the parking lot with some high knees and butt kickers, our warm up consisted of the following exercises with different reps each to total about 9 minutes into the WO :

Side straddle hops

Windmill

Moroccan night clubs

Squats

Arm circles

Merkins

Lunges

 

THE THANG:

I followed the book as much as I could but had to include a tire exercise (otherwise it wouldn’t be a Tinsel workout) and also replaced a couple of exercises from the book to focus on upper body strength. The main idea of “the seven workout” is to complete 7  rounds of 7 exercises with 7 reps each, each round took about 7 minutes to complete, after round # 3 we run down and up the hill to give our upper body a break and then continued with 4 more rounds, these are the 7 exercises:

THE SEVEN

7 handstand push-ups

7 thrusters with log

7 sledgehammer swing each side

7 worst merkin ever

7 burpees

7 log swings

7 pull-ups

Everything was planned to be completed under one hour and I’m glad everyone pushed hard to reach our time window. With a couple of minutes to spare at the end, straight up took over for some Broga and stretching exercises, much needed after the beatdown, thanks for your help!!

We ended up our WO with announcements, prayers and praises.

GRETA JOB EVERYONE!!

Tinsel out…

 

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WHETSTONE…Relaunches at THE FORT

Several weeks ago, it was announced that our region, THE FORT, would be closing all Saturday AO’s and holding a convergence at FMHS to get the PAX together as we thank Rebel for his leadership of Whetstone and relaunch it under Repeat and World Wide Leader (WWL). I was excited to hear we’d be getting many of the region together but I wasn’t expecting what came next. It was a text asking if I’d Q the workout.

Q, like part of it, half of it or …? The response was, THE WHOLE THING. I love to Q every chance I get but to do so on a day like this, well, I better make sure it includes a little something for everyone. Or, almost everyone.

————————————————————————————————————–

And this is where I let life get the better of me. I try to follow the 48hr rule on posting a BACKBLAST, especially when they’re significant but I let life and travel get in the way. It is now Saturday, one week later, and I’m just finishing this BB. Life can get challenging, it can get stressful, it can get you riding the highs or down in the lows. And this past week, our family has experienced some of each. Maybe this was the week where I really came to realize how valuable having a Whetstone partner can be. Someone that I can share the highs with and someone to help get me out of the lows; or to keep me honest when it’s my own doing that has me on the outside looking in on the joys of life.

That said, I’ll take you back to last Saturday, April 21 where we had a a few pre-ruckers and a total of 58 PAX converge to re-kick off this critical program.

We got ourselves into an odd-shaped kidney-like shape for the disclaimer, the announcement of why we were there this beautiful morning and to acknowledge our 2 FNG’s in the PAX. We counted off in 4’s then took off toward the big parking lot for a warm up jog in 4 lines. This jog included some karaoke’s and 4 lines doing an indian run which was way harder than it appeared on paper.

In these last 2 years, Whetstone has brought together some extremely HIM. One of those men has gone through a tough 18mos and he was gracious enough to share some of his story to include the impact Whetstone had on his life as we circled up to hear his words. I know he wouldn’t endorse this comment but anytime Mr. Clean wants to share experience or wisdom, the PAX listens. And listen we did.

After backing the group back out to a circle-like shape, I was giddy to honor Santini in the only way I knew how…with a deck of cards. However, on this day we utilized 1/2 the deck and considered it our warm up:

Hearts = Side Straddle Hops

Diamonds = Carolina Dry Docks

Spades = Squats

Clubs = Merkins

Then a little action from the Burp-Merk: Standing, we then dropped to a plank, did 5 merkins then jumped up. That equals 1 and we did 5 total.

This was when we got to listen to our very own Nantaan, Cake Boss, as he shared the impact Whetstone has had on him. Yet again, another powerful testimony.

Then off to do 4 corners in the lot with:

Corner 1 = Dancing Crabs x 15ea and Dips x 20

Corner 2 = Dying Cockroach x 15ea and Flutters x 20ea

Corner 3 = Burpees x 10 and Jump Squats x 10

Corner 4 = American Hammers x 25 and Freddie Mercury x 20ea

Mosey over to the wall for B2W while doing 5 “push ups” followed by 15 calf raises. We did this 3 times.

To close out our testimonies, my man Chicken Hawk laid it down for us. He shared the impact Whetstone has had on him, his marriage, his family…his life. Life isn’t meant to be traveled alone. Well said brother.

6ct Burpee which I needed a little help from the Helmet of Darkness to remind me the steps. Remember the line, “If you can’t Q it, don’t do it?” Yeah, me too but I obviously didn’t follow that too closely here.

This is where the cat-herding became evident. The PAX exhibited patience with me as we attempted a modified DORA series consisting of:

50 Flying Squirrels, 50 Diamond Merkins and 50+ Flutters

We then took off for the main entrance to the football stadium and lined up in 4 lines facing down the hill. Once everyone readjusted, it was 15 American Hammers, 15 Flutters and 15 Hello Dollies. This was done several more times.

Well, that put a bow on the workout portion of this convergence and after the COT, FNG naming of RBG and Whiskers, we then handed it off to World Wide Leader and Repeat to lead the Whetstone discussion.

Announcements: The relaunch of Whetstone. Thanks to Rebel for getting this off the ground 2 years ago and to Repeat / World Wide Leader for taking the reigns.

Prayer Requests: Badger. Camp Care 5K. Jennings Palmer’s transplant. Olive’s 8K in memory of Sweet Tooth. Elmer.

Honored and appreciative of your patience.

Maximus

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