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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Bringing the Pain to Crows Nest

Having never been to Crows Nest before, YHC arrived at 0445 to get the lay of the land. It gave me some time to get a few things setup and wait for the Pax to arrive. Temp was around 73.

Folks started arriving by 5:10 and we circled up ready for the challenge. Most in the Lake Wylie/Fort region know that I have been mostly running this year so there a few surprised faces to see me out a boot camp. Nevertheless, with no FNG’s present, a short disclaimer was given and off we went for a mosey to circle up.

Warm-Up (All IC)

10 X SSH
10 X IW
10 X WM
10 X Low Slow Squat
10 X Moroccan Night Clubs

Mosey back to the starting circle. The theme for the month is Salvation and we discussed the eternal meaning of it as well as the “deliverance from sin and its consequences”. The Pax were asked to think of someone who we can share the hope of salvation this week as we worked out.

The Thang

YHC has always been partial to partner work since it has a parallel to success in life. We all have difficulty along the way and no one has to or should go it alone. Everyone grabbed a partner and stepped up to the Board of Pain (credit always given to Jekyl for this terrible idea, but I have always loved it). YHC did audible on the 100 Kraken burpees and went with 50 instead. If you can’t do it, don’t Q it. And I definitely can’t do 100 of those! Gotta listen to grunge music when working through the board and so we did. Seemed to be a crowd pleaser…the grunge music that is.

Partner 1 – Work on exercises
Partner 2 – Run two loops around the circle

Object: To get through as many exercises as possible before COT.

Great job by all the Pax getting through most of the board and special kudos to Royale and Flux for leading the way. You guys killed it. Everyone ended up running a little over 2 miles also.

After that, we circled up for COT. Announcements – read your newsletter; Q School coming up next month at Bermuda Triangle.

Praises – All who completed the Hog and Coyote and were out this morning to talk about it!

Prayer Requests

Mysterio – Brother needs to be lifted up
Axl – Daughter starts college next week
Royale – Niece and other kids going on mission trips this summer and need to be lifted up.

Finished up by talking about salvation. The focus on the present deliverance is something that everyone needs to know. God is willing to deliver now from the grief that sin can cause us while we remain on earth. The eternal is of ultimate importance but he also wants our time on earth to be lived to the fullest for His glory. Who do you know that needs to hear that this week?

Thanks Iced T for the opportunity to lead. Always an honor!

Until next time,

Hauschka

PS. I’m already sore in case anyone wants a laugh!

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Where’s The P?

On a rather comfortable June morning myself and 15 other PAX decided to get very uncomfortable at CannonBall. Last night as I was thinking up my weinke I was deciding between Kettle Dora’s or Escalating BLIMPS and I decided on the BLIMPS.  However, I noticed on the F3 Exercise page that the P in the BLIMPS are Mountain Climbers and one of the PAX rightly pointed out what was the P exercise so I changed the P to another M and we now have BLIMMS.

Started with a disclaimer and we did a mosey down the church driveway while holding our kettlebells overhead, then went into ketllebearcrawls then back to regular mosey up the other church driveway while also holding the kettlebell overhead till we circled up for some COP.

COP-KettleSSHx10/HALO’s clockwise/counter-clockwisex10/Hot Potatoesx10/Figure 8’sx10/Hold Kettlebell in front shoulder height and did 3 rounds of 10 counts

Main Event

BLIMMS-5 Burpees/10 Lunges/15 Imperial Walkers/20 Merkins/25 Mountain Climbers/30 Squats.  We started with 5 burpees then ran around parking lot with kettlebell then did 5 burpees/10 lunges in an escalating fashion till we finished with the squats.  The running with the kettlebell was the biggest challenge however as everyone was breathing heavy(even Flux!) You know the workout was good when Flux tells you that he hates you mid way through the workout.

With 8 minutes left on the clock I had us do 3 Turkish Get-Ups(each arm) then we grabbed some wall for some people’s chair. End Pax went out to do 3 burpees while the rest passed their kettlebells down towards the church shed where we store the bells. Our final exercise was putting the bells back in the shed.

Welcome FNG Dreadnought(real name Dave Redding-for real).  Hog and Coyote this weekend, Q school at Bermuda Triangle coming in July and other cool events happening around the region.  Prayers for Shakespeare and family moving to my hood and for those suffering with heart disease.  Thanks 2 Ferns for the opportunity to lead. Peace!

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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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Bucket Tour Stop 2

After I partook in a little Broga led by Cobra Kai I made my way over to the area where the fellas were congregating. A few of the Pax thought I was gonna be a no show since The “Two Ferns Tahoe” was not in plain eyesight (they did not know I parked over by “Books a Million” for a reason later to be visited). At 5:15 I gave the disclaimer which included the announcement that I could not administer a Tourniquet since I could not find my belt this morning.

We moseyed over to the Home Depot Parking lot where I led the COP with:
SSH (30 in Cadence)
Mt. Climbers (15 in Cadence followed by a Right arm High then Left arm High and then a 6″ hold)
Squat Jacks or Smurf Jacks (15 in Cadence)
Plank Jacks (15 in Cadence followed by a Right arm High then Left arm High and then a 6″ hold)
Low Slow Squats (15 in Cadence)
Ranger Merkins (which are correct Merkins) (15 in Cadence followed by a Right arm High then Left arm High and then a 6″ hold)
Some Mumbling about going to COT now!

The Thang Part 1:
After making our way over to the Stairs by “Just Fresh” I instructed the Pax that we would line up in two lines and at the bottom of the stairs and hold an Al Gore. The two front Pax in the line would drop and do a Flying Squirrel and make their way up the stairs to the top landing (the next Pax would go at this time and so forth giving time to those in front to complete the said task). At the top of the stairs on the landing they would perform a Burpee and then make their way down the other side of the stairs and perform a Kraken Burpee. The instruction to hold plank was given until the 6 completed the Kraken Burpee. We then did this again with 2 reps of each then 3 reps of each.

The Thang Part 2: ”
After making our way over towards the old “Books a Million”, now “Tuesday Morning”, the Pax saw the Tahoe and trailer with a crap load of buckets full of Ziplock bags of soils (not dirt). I then took a minute to talk about it is usually this point in my workout that my head becomes clear and the thought of my day to come starts haunting me. I begin to think about my problems, my issues, my stress what ever it may be. Another words……what am I carrying around in my bucket today. The thought here is that we all are carrying around something and how can you help your fellow PAX with their bucket. Is that a phone call one afternoon to see how things are going with that prayer request he had last week? Or is that an extra fist bump when it looks like he is trying to say something but ends up keeping it to himself. We all know our buckets get heavy and fill up faster than they empty. So we picked up our buckets and made our way over to the small hill behind the Oil Change place. Last time the buckets showed up it was the “Green Monster” at The Crows Nest. Today we did 11’s with Monkey Humpers at the bottom and Bomb Jacks up top. I was smoked but were not done. I instructed them to assume the Body Destroyer Position and grab a breathe and I briefly talked about how we then get thru our day and lay down and then start all over again the next day so we jumped up and moved towards the trailer but FIRST we got some “gassers” in not Suicides anymore. I challenged the guys to grab another bucket if they would like and push themselves. Most did! We mixed in some Ab work during the intervals between the gassers.

After putting the buckets back on the trailer we made our way over to COT where the Ruckers joined us. A few Prayers request (particularly Gears’ Dad who has returned home from overseas where he suffered a Stroke. God bless him and thank God that his Son I believe (Gears’ brother) was there and was able to help since he is a nurse. I didn’t know this story and later found out and was completely blown away by the story. God is GOOD!

Hog and Coyote coming up Father’s Day Saturday….Read your new Letter…….

SYITG
I AM Two Ferns

Thanks for the chance to Lead Cha-Ching!!!!

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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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Millendian Run @ the Abyss

It was a beautiful morning for a “millendian” run at the abyss.
Quick mosey to the courts/track and circled up.
Windmills
Imperial walkers
Moroccan nightclubs
SSH
Then we began!
100 reps 10 exercises 2 teams
First pax from each team to complete the 100 “won” for their squad. The prize regular 1/4 mile Indian run, the consolation prize was a burpee Indian run.
Merkins
Crunchy frogs
Sumo squats
CDD
American hammers
Flutters
Shoulder taps
BBS
Monkey humpers
Ski Abs
That took us to 2.5 miles and 2 minutes left.
1 round of hello dollies and some Makhtar N’Diayes

It was an honor to lead and sweat with these men. Thanks for a great time.

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Olaf is evil

Snowman Celebrates America

22 Mericans joined YHC at #Abyss for some stars and stripes work.
Disclaimer was disclaimed very well and everyone was clear on my style of “fun” so to get the party started we counted off by twos but since nobody remembers their number we did stars and stripes. Then YHC’s paintrain was opened up and each PAX that was a star was asked to carry a tire carcass and the stripes had to pick logs.

Mosey over to back track and get artistic by making a flag with coupons from paintrain. Wish YHC would have taken a picture of the magnificently heavy flag.

Circle up for some COP/warmup
SSH x 13
Circle of hump x 13

Everyone grab a partner and grab something heavy and make a lap around the track AFAP.

Circle back up for more COP
Suicide squats x 17
Hip slap x 50 (crowd pleaser)

Everyone grab a partner and grab something heavy again and make a lap around the track AFAP.

Last little bit of COP
13 Bropees with high five at the top of the jump.

Now we storm the beaches and charge the back hill in memory of all the great men and women that have died protecting our great country.

One partner grabs a machine gun, aka log, while the other partner grabs a ring of belt ammo for the partner’s machine gun, aka tire carcass, and charge up the hill AFAP.

Starting at the top of the hill, lunge walk down to the middle light then backward lunge walk to the bottom. Then crab walk back up the hill to the middle light then bear crawl up to the top.

Grab all the coupons and rumble down the hill back to the track circle for some ring toss fun.

Broke PAX into 7 fire team columns of 3-4 men each. Starting at the end by the playground first pax up will ring toss tire carcass towards other end of parking lot, then run to where the ring stopped and perform 3 Kraken Burpees. Next man up grabs ring and tosses then chasses and performs krakens and so on until the team reaches the other side. Nobody was seriously injured so we ramp up the difficulty and with it comes more excitement and maybe more danger, remember the disclaimer….Same rules as first trip down but now ring has to be tossed overhead. Now as you can imagine the level of chaos and confusion got pretty intense. I can’t imagine the horror of being in a firefight with my fellow men getting dropped and scattered from a rain of machine gun fire from a superior position. Guys were ducking from other tires being heaved and jumping over their teammates and even jumping over other guys that were not even on their team but somehow there tire rolled into their path so they had to jump over them too, It was mayhem. Nobody died and there were some pretty good laughs so we continued.
All the coupons and logs were then distributed around the oval track for the final exercise. Deep squat expedition was about to start. Everyone started at a coupon around the track. Every time you encountered a coupon in your path you had to stop and perform three deep squats. If there were two coupons side by side, you guessed it, six deep squats for the double coupon. continue around the track until one minute to Endex then jailbreak to COT leaving coupons at the track.

Count-A-Rama,
Name-A-Rama,
Announcements before ball of man for COT with an open moment for PAX to lift up prayers and praises.

Great job by all the men gutting out a physical fast paced good old fashioned American beatdown in celebration of our wonderful nation.

Thanks for the opportunity Copyright to lead and Funhouse for the accountability to get it blasted.

NMM
If anyone has any suggestions or recommendations or comments on how I can offer a better beatdown please let me know. DM me or hit me in the gloom, I would love to discuss. I know that we are very fortunate to be AO rich and have multiple options on where we post each day so I want to make sure I am delivering a beatdown that is worth you unfartsacking yourself for. I don’t think I am alone in striving to serve up a beatdown that checks all of the 3S2T and if anyone has any feedback good or bad let me have it brother. Hit me with the hard truth, I demand it, because we can’t get better unless we get truthful. Here is your chance to work on your Candor, deliver a hard truth to me and let’s discuss like men how to make it better for everyone. I want to represent this region right when I have the opportunity to guest Q downrange so help me make us look good. Get out of your comfort zone and put yourself out there to become a better leader, be vulnerable and learn from the mistakes and analyze the feedback. I can’t wait until next time and I hope you feel the same way.

Stay frosty my friends,
OLAF

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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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