Tag: Wolverine

Hour long Q’s are hard on everyone

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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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Kettlebells, Bear Crawls, Oh My

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Assumed the Cannonball AO was about as far from me as the Deep and left the house early, only to arrive at the AO a solid 12 minutes before kickoff.  Was surprised to see one of the Church doors open and kettlebells visible from the parking lot.  I guess that kind of red carpet service you get when the site Q is the Assistant to the Parking Lot Manager of New River Church and one of their pastors frequents this new AO.

Once the pax funneled in, I took them for a quick loop around the parking lot and knocked out the warm-up:  (in cadence) SSH x25, windmills x10, overhead press w/ KB x10, halos x10 (counter clockwise & clockwise), merkins x15, downward dog / honeymooners and an attempt at Supermans w/ KB in hand (went over real well lol).

Ran the guys w/ our KB’s down to the far end of the parking lot and we got started:

  • 4 cones set-up (1st at the far end of the lot), the next 3 about 7 parking spaces apart.  Quick and dirty – do an exercise at the first cone, immediately lunge walk (w/ twist) w/ KB to the next cone, drop the KB, run back to the first cone (every time) and bear crawl back to your KB.  Once there, you do the next exercise, lunge walk w twist to the next cone, drop weight, run to the very first cone, bear crawl back to weight (now 2x the original distance)….you get the point.
    1. Exercise #1 – plank rows w/ kettlebell (10 reps per side).  Key here being to maintain flat plank the whole time as you hold body w/ 1 arm and pull w/ the other.  Lunge walk, run, bear crawl, (wait for all Pax to finish bear crawl – those waiting did upright rows w/ KB), then
    2. Exercise #2 – wood choppers (crowd pleaser).  It’s a play on the KB swing, but a little harder.  Start w/ KB above your head to the left then swing it down to the right side of your legs, and then swing back up to the left side of your head.  Key here is to not blow out your knee, but to actually accelerate as much as you can on the way UP.  10 reps going left to right, 10 reps right to left.  Lunge walk, run, bearcrawl 2x the distance (wait for pax, those waiting did curls w/ KB), then
    3. Exercise #3 – single leg RDL’s (romanian dead lifts) w/ kettle bell in the hand of the leg that is going straight back.  10 reps per side.  Lunge walk, run, bear crawl 3x the distance (those waiting for pax to get back did thrusters w/ KB), then
    4. Exercise #4 – toe touches w/ KB (20 rep count).
    5. Turn around and rinse and repeat whole cycle, only double the rep count for all exercises above.  Good stuff.  Bear crawled out at this point.
  • Next up were some good old fashioned super sets – two exercises given, do them back to back, no complaining.
    1. Alternating merkins w/ one hand on the KB at all times (10 reps per side) / bent over KB tricep extensions (10 reps per arm)
    2. Get ups (hold KB in each hand 5x each) / KB jump squats (10 reps)
    3. Big boys w/ KB press (15 rep) / KB american hammers (20 reps per side)
  • Only had a few minutes, so we gave ourselves 10 parking spaces to get back to COT and everyone did bear crawls back to COT w/ KB in hand (use it as a hand, no dragging, switch hands half way through).

    I have to say the effort level by everyone was awesome to see – not a single person was half a$$ing it – all were finishing each set strong and suffering through each of the long bear crawls.  I was especially proud of one of their newest pax, Mysterio, who did not give up on that last KB bear crawl stretch.  The dude had some serious fight – he’s going to be good one.

    Thanks Two Ferns for the chance to step up and lead at the new Lake Wylie KB AO.  Didn’t really know what to expect w/ a KB workout, but had a blast – hope the others did as well.

    ChaChing

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Challenged to “Bring It”

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A few months ago, Dark Helmet and I were challenged to “bring it” to The Deep. I’m not sure how I got roped into the conversation as I no longer provide the top-tier workouts I used to. You see, it’s not because I’ve gotten soft (well, maybe a little), it’s more due to the physical acceleration of the PAX, which is evident when I cross the water and see the brothers in Lake Wylie. My workouts aren’t as hard as they used to be for some.

That said, I’ve become known for 2 things: the deck of cards and cinder blocks. I couldn’t disappoint the fellas. Dark Helmet on the other hand, is known for many things (not including many leather-bound books, rich mahogany, a perfect quaff or starbuck-y hands). And, with these many things, he brought his level of creative, pain-inducing exercises to the first half of the morning’s Q.

Once DH signed a few autographs, gave a very clear disclaimer, he took off for the warm up mosey. Then did a few warm-up-type exercises which included all the regulars and plenty of chatter.

Grab a partner and since when does size not matter…in Wheelbarrow racing?

You and your partner will alternate wheelbarrow’ing around the circle which I swear, grew as we were encircling it.

Next, grab the cinder blocks from Maximus’ truck for a little DORA activity.

Partner 1 (P1) would run around the main lot while Partner 2 (P2) would do the exercise then flapjack for:

200 Bicep Curls

300 Overhead Press

400 Bent-Over Rows (modified the count for timing and inserted chest press)

Hand off to Maximus for more partner work

P1: Ski Abs

P2: Toe Taps on the block (25ea side)

Flapjack

P1: Burpee Broad Jump ~50yds & NUR back

P2: Mountain Climbers with your hands on the block

Flapjack

P1: Beep Beep I’m a Jeep for 25yds & Lunge Walk back

P2: Bomb Jacks

Flapjack

Now with both partners at one end and the block at the other:

P1: Sprint to the block, 10 Man Makers with the block, Sprint Back

P2: Flutters from the V-up position

Next up, partner big-boy sit-ups while passing the block back and forth

I can’t fully recall if we did a few 8ct burpees to finish it off but it’d be a lot cooler if we did…so let’s assume we did.

Hey PAX, wherever you call home, go somewhere different. Organize a clown car with a few other locals and go see a different AO on a Saturday and attend their Q-Source. You never know what you’ll learn. Dark Helmet and I appreciate the opportunity to put ourselves through misery in the spirit of Qing for a great group of F3’s finest PAX.

Until Next Time.

DH & MAX

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That was a lot of sit-ups

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My 2nd of 3 Q’s in 3 days. Always a pleasure to Q The Swamp!  Now that I am Ruck free and with no big race on the schedule I’m free to just do regular old Bootcamps. My favorite workouts combine a good amount of running(big surprise) with a bunch of other stuff so that is what we did today and  was glad to have a bunch of guys to share it with.

Started off with s nice mosey warm-up with some dynamic warm-ups of butt kicks, high knees, shuffles and some karaoke.

Circle up in the HD parking lot for COP consisting of SSH, IW, Carolina Dry Dock, Peter Parker, Mountain Climbers, then a series of Downward dog to Honeymooner. Back on our feet for Windmills, Apollo Ono(look out for the car), and just for fun some Monkey Humpers.

Mosey to the bike racks at HD for the main thing. Partner up for a nice BOMBS routine. One partner does the exercise the other does a lap around Home Depot.  There  were some complaints that the lap was a little long even though I assured them it was only about 1/4 mile  I was accused of measuring Zima miles.

50 Burpees, 100 Overhead claps, 150 Merkins, 200 Big Boy Sit-ups(crowd favorite), 250 Supine Pull-Ups(only because I hate squats and I needed an S).  We did not make through all the pull-ups, headed back to COT for a few minutes of Mary, ending with a Body Destroyer.

Announcements – Convergence 5/24, Honor Badger at Golden Corral 5/21 wear Red, Read your newsletter

Praises for Lutifisk daughter, Dungaree’s 1 year anniversary, prayers for kids cancer relapse.

Challenged the PAX to take the role as the leader in their home.  We are called to lead, do not be a passive bystander or even worse do not take or accept the role as another child in the house.  Be the man/leader you are called to be.

Thanks as always for the opportunity to lead this great group!!

 

 

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Games at The Deep

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So this was my 3rd Q of the week and I was seriously running out of ideas. Also I was exhausted and wanted to have a little fun with the Pax, so I channeled my inner Mainframe and planned some games for the Pax.

We stared with a disclaimer and an note that this was a fun Q and to just have fun with it. Then we did a quick warm up of windmills and weed pullers before we started the games.

The idea was we would have three attempts at each activity which would determine the exercise, the rep count and the mode of transportation to the next event depending on a make or miss. The exercises for makes varied (merkins, SSH, jump squats) but misses were always burpees (We did a lot of burpees) The rep counts varied depending on the make or miss or miss from 10 to 20. Mode of transport was always running for a make but always bad for a miss (bear crawls, lunges..)

Below were the events:

Baseball – Pax had 3 chances to hit the ball to the fence off the tee. I would say this was one of our more successful events

Basketball – Pax had 3 chances to make a free throw. We will not be starting a F3 Lake Wylie basketball team any time soon. 

Soccer – Pax had 3 chances to soccer a goal from the center line. This was more difficult then I originally thought. 

Football – Pax had 3 chances to make a field goals from about 10 yards. Was impressed by the Pax ability to make these kicks. 

Baseball – Pax had 3 chances to throw the baseball at the school and hit a 5×5 square I had drawn from about 20 feet. Talk to DaVinci about this….

Basketball – Pax had 3 chances to hit a 3-pointer. See comment above.

Golf – Pax had 3 chances to chip a ball into the GaGa pit from 50 yards. YIKES.

Football – Pax had 3 chances to throw a 40-yard pass to another Pax (had to catch it for it to count) WATCH OUT FOR THE CURB….

Archery – Pax had 3 chances to hit a target with a bow from about 10 yards. Shout  out to Grizzly and Yoda on there archery skills. 

Cornhole – Pax had 3 chances to land a bag on the board from about 15 feet. We need to practice this more at happy hour. 

All in all this was a fun Q and the Pax gave it all they had. But we should stick to running a merkins.

Thanks to Shakespeare for the opportunity to lead.

Until next time, back to the hunt…

 

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Who knew monkeys could vacuum?

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Bermuda Triangle – May 3, 2019

Pax
Radar (Q)
O’Reilly
Costanza
Two Ferns
Wolverine
Chop Block
Homebrew
Captain Jack
Flux
Olaf (Respect)
Iced T

Warm Up:
11 PAX gathered at The Bermuda Triangle for a Q led by Radar. I wanted to make sure I delivered a challenging workout – keep the heart rate up with some running and challenging exercises.

Disclaimer

Two laps around the track and then head to the soccer field for warm up.

Seal Jacks x 25 (IC)
Hillbillies x 10 (IC)
Windmill x 10 (IC)
Produce Picker x 10 (IC)
MNC x 20 (IC)
Peter Parker x 15 (IC)
Parker Peter x 15 (IC)

Routine 1:
We started off with doing some Lindsays aka Forties. Each pax started with 30 merkins sprinted to the other end and performed 10 plank jacks and sprinted back, then subtracted five from the first exercise added five to the second exercise. (i.e. 25 merkins/15 plank jacks)

Routine 2:
After the pax finished we lunged walk back to the end where we partnered up and did vacuum cleaners. Partner one in wheelbarrow position performed five derkins and then wheelbarrowed to the second line. We did this five times or to five lines and then did a reverse wheelbarrow to each line for one rep. After partner one performed the exercise, partner two took his turn.

Since we all had a great time with the vacuum cleaners. I thought what better way to bond than with some howling monkeys. In a circle, the pax grabbed their ankles and the first person does ten monkey humpers followed by the next person and so on. We did two rounds.

Routine 3:
Next we took a fellowship mosey to the picnic tables where we did 50 dips, 25 box jumps, 50 incline merkins and 25 Rocky Balboa’s.

Before ending the workout we had a few minutes of Mary.

  1. Makhtar N’Diayes
  2. Big Boy Sit Ups
  3. Dying Cockroaches
  4. Slow Slow Squat
  5. Crunchy Frog

COT

Prayer requests: We had quite a few today and we lifted them up in prayer.

Announcements: Go Ruck Challenge Send Off, F3 Father’s Day, Pancake Breakfast at New River Church (5/4)

Thanks for the opportunity!

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Remembering Family

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Thought about this one at the last minute.  April was a great month for me as I celebrated Easter with my family, Spring Break, my mother’s birthday, my 8th wedding anniversary, accepting an offer on my house and so many other things that were wonderful yet forgotten.  But as I tried to create something new for this Q, it dawned on me those family members that are still a part of me emotionally/spiritually but not physically. I wanted to do something that brought back and help me to preserve those special moments that will hopefully stay with me even longer.  That being said, I established a Q that honored the memory of two loved ones that I have lost in the month of April: my maternal grandmother, Gaye Lindsay (April 4, 2001) and my uncle Jody Hudson (April 28, 2014).

Warm-O-Rama: I honestly don’t remember what we did.  But we warmed up.  Some dynamic stretching and the usual amount of SSH’s.

The Thang: as a way to honor my family members, I chose to do a partner BLIMPS type workout with one person completing reps while the other partner running a lap to each respective name.  Up first, my grandmother…

We each grabbed a rock near Papa Doc’s and partnered up to complete 61 reps of each exercise:

  • Goblet squat press (with rock)
  • American hammers (with rock)
  • Yurpee (had to dig in the exicon for this one… and we did this one cumulative with a partner instead of individually…. and without rock)
  • Extensions (triceps extensions with the rock)

Gaye is for the name of my grandmother.  61 reps for her age when she passed.  She died when I was a junior in high school.  She was married for 42 years to my grandfather. She was a great definition of the word Matriarch.

 

Next up… my uncle (no rocks for this one).  Partner style BLIMPS workout again with 40 reps.

  • Jump squats
  • One legged burpee (cumulative reps between partner)
  • Dips
  • Y-lifts

Jody is for the name of my uncle.  40 reps for the age when he died.  He died 5 years ago.  He also died at a young age, which still sticks with me to this day.

COT/Name-O-Rama

This was a workout that I needed.  As time passes, we tend to lose memories of those who are not with us anymore.  There are certain memories that were brought back from just thinking about this workout which brought smiles to my face.  Memories that were long gone but not forgotten.  I hope that more memories I shared with these special people will continue to stay with me and pop up from time to time; allowing me to reminisce on how lucky I was as a child and growing adult to have such wonderful people in my life.

 

As always, thanks for the opportunity to lead Peg!

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Co-Q with Two Ferns

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Last minute Co-Q with my boy Two Ferns stepping up to lead the first half.

Those brave enough to pre-run made an appearance 45 minutes prior. (For the record, those PAX were Two Ferns and Shakespeare).

Disclaimer given by YHC and Two Ferns took us on a mosey to the elementary school parking lot for Warm-O-Rama.  We welcomed Delay-Of-Game (Chop Block’s name after missing the starting gun), his 2.0s, and Respectable Olaf to the party as they arrived.  Mosey to the football field.

Lacrosse Drills w/ Two Ferns:

Two teams pitted against each other for glory.  With YHC keeping score, I just want the record to show that my team won.  First drill of partners going out to pick up a lacrosse ball with a stick, minimum 5 partner passes (each drop, other team members complete a punishment), first team to retrieve all balls gets the win.  Team members “on deck” held plank until the others returned, when a ball dropped, teammates completed a merkin.  Other times through, we held Al Gore and completed a squat on dropped balls.

After a few rounds, we did 1v1 sprint retrieval, 1v1 back to back fight for the ball, and 2v2 sprint retrieval with passes.

Little Tykes Basketball w/ YHC:

In what seemed to be easy (and was extremely hard) each PAX took 3 attempts (some more as we had to change the rules a few times for LOTS of misses) at shooting on a Little Tykes kid hoop.  For every miss, we completed a Burpee.  Let’s just say there were lots of burpees.

Ultimate Football:

In what has become a tradition at The Deep, we played some Ultimate Football. It was a short game, but again, my team won (I was keeping score).

COT & Prayers

Thanks for helping me Q this one Two Ferns!

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Prime Counting with Bora

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Disclaimer made.

Mosey with dynamic warmup around the parking lot.

 Warm-o-Rama

All exercises were completed in sets of prime numbers. After each exercise bomb jacks were done in increasing fashion, also using prime numbers (2,3,5,7,11,13,17,19, 23…). There was no reason for doing this other than YHC wanted to see if anyone would figure out the pattern. I did this once before a while ago, so thought maybe someone would have it in the back of their brain. Props to Jedi who figured it out way quicker than I anticipated the PAX would.

MNC, windmills, mountain climbers, merkins, imperial walker, superman hold and other such things.

 

The Thang

Partner up for Board of Dora (Bora? Dor of Pain?). P1 does exercise on board while P2 nurs to the end of the basketball courts, does 1 bombjack then jogs back to the beginning. All counts were cumulative between the pairs. A few pairs finished in time and it was good to see the men going and picking up the six.  Board:

150 Burpees

300 Squats

150 Big Boys

300 Monkey Humpers

150 Merkins

300 Imperial Walkers

* Pick up the 6 when done

 

Copyright is the man for letting me lead the PAX at a great AO. Abyss is one of the few remaining workouts that men from both sides of the Lake regularly attend – a reminder of the old days.

Stay Classy,

Homebrew

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Drunken Murph

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Wow, where to begin with this disaster.  I guess from the beginning.  Waking up hung over on three hours sleep my M started the morning off by telling me how stupid I was for getting drunk then having to lead a workout a few hours later, that was not bad advise by the way.  I pull in to the Triangle with about a minute to spare and as soon as the Pax saw me they knew (I happened to be drinking with some of them the night before).  A disclaimer was given, and a background on who Lt. Michael Murphy was and then I started the COP right away with 5 OYO Burpees/SSHx20/SunGodsx20/Low Slow Squatx10.  Surprisingly no merlot was splashed though was very close calling cadence with SSH.

Main Event

1 Mile Run

I did 5 Pull-Up/10 Merkin/15 Squat x20 but most Pax did a 10/20/30 x10 rep range with the exercises.  Every rep of the merkins made my head pound, just awful. 

1 Mile Run

Most Pax finished in time for COT.

Observations- Don’t get drunk and Q a few hours later.  It might seem like the cool rock star thing to do but really, it’s not. It’s also a lot harder to control a group of men when they know you’re bombed. However no merlot was spilt, was proud of that.  Kotters to Austin Powers, we missed him.  Welcome FNG Survey Says.  He is the youth Pastor over at the local church I attend which I have renamed the Church of F3 as many Pax go there so I wanted to call him Joel Osteen but his childhood dream of being a game show host earned him the nick name Survey Says, with Steve Harvey being a close second choice (favorite game show-Family Feud).  As always fellas-PEACE! 

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