Coming back from Charleston being away for two years and finally dipped my feet into Q’ing again thanks to a Rugby punt to the ass by Rockwell. Always kicking it up a notch!
Warmup time:
Started with 20 x Side Straddle Hops
Then 10 x Imperial Walkers
5 x Slow Count Merkins
5 x normal pace Merkins
5 x slow count Mountain Climbers focusing on stretching.
5 x normal pace mountain climbers.
A little mosey around the parking lot to warm up some more, intertwined with butt kicks, side running lunges, and the start of the dreaded overhead clap. Little did the PAX know that I was smiling inside knowing what was about to destroy their upper body/shoulder. #stillhurtat3pm
Focusing on destroying our legs and getting faster we focused on the killer sprint and squat combo that I have learned to love. Mix in some David Goggins and releasing your mind to overcome and not think about pain, I think we managed The Thang pretty good.. hahah
Da’ Thang:
Broke up into 5 groups of 4-5 PAX to acquire spacing in between and so we don’t touch each others pretty faces. #COVIDBSTHANG
4 x Rounds of the Following:
1 x Sprint down the entire double wide sidewalk
1 x 50 Air Squats
1 x Merkin position while waiting for 6 to finish.
(Q to motivate and push you hard)
After complete, a slow mosey around the school to the picnic tables. Little did the PAX now that Cherry’s were there favorite fruit. #diabolicallaugh Partnered up and the fun began.
3 x rounds of the following:
1 x Partner Assisted 25 Shoulder Presses
20, 25, 30 x Overhead Clamps
Cherry Pickers until the Q had to stop.
25, 30, 35 x Seal Claps
25 x Dip OYO
So with 6 minutes to spare, I didn’t have the time for the Mighty “Mucho Chesto” but I can save that for another day.
We moseyed down to the start of the “doublewide” sidewalk and jail breaked to COT via a backward run….focus on those hamstrings!! At this point I wish we had some burpee time, but as always….there is more room for next time.
My hammy’s were on fire at this point and I don’t think there was a dry shirt in the group today. Can’t hurt me……Mind over Body…….
COT: Don’t forget Q School slots coming up soon….July 25th. Site Q school……July 18th. Good leadership opportunity!!
After COT performance…… F3 Charleston always says the Pledge of Allegiance after their workouts…..so I brought that into play for all those who were interested in joining in.
Stay hard!! Heisman Out!
With Monday mornings not exactly being anyone’s favorite, YHC thought it best to theme a workout on sucky exercises. Embrace the suck.
Warm-up: 20 squats, 20 merkins, 20 IWs, all OYO, run 2 minutes out, 2 minutes back.
1st exercise I hate: jump lunges, or Sister Mary Catherines. For ~6 minutes, alternate sets of these (10X) with sets of various merkins – regular, wide-arm, diamond, stagger right and left. I think we got five rounds total then run 2 minutes O/B.
2nd exercise I hate: donkey kicks. For ~6 minutes, alternate sets x10 with coupon exercises. Curls/tricep extensions, then rows and flutter presesses. Repeat each. Four rounds total, run 2 minutes O/B.
3rd exercise I don’t care for: bear crawls and crab walks. Each set is 10 paces out, 10 paces back, alternated with PAX choice Mary. 5 rounds total. 2 minutes O/B.
Finish it off with, predictably, burpees. To try and mix things up, YHC called sets where we do multiple merkins for every burpee. So for the first set, 3 merkins per burpee, x5. 2nd set was 4 merkins per burpee, x3. Think we got 4 sets total alternating with PAX choice exercises.
Announcements: DaVinci converging with Stonehenge this Saturday for July 4. Be on the lookout for info on the 5k/10k happening July 18 to support local causes.
Sure, why not. Lets create a little FOMO. Lets spread the word. Lets build some excitement.
10 pax showed up this morning at 9:00 am at Newtown Elementary for the weekly F3 Waxhaw Dad’s. Its open to kids and their dads roughly age 4-14 but the prime ages are 5-12.
So what do we typically do at F3 Dad’s? We’ve done obstacle courses, relay races, played soccer, treasure hunted, capture the flag, and water gun tag. Sound fun? Well it is. My 2.0’s love it. Its 45 min to an hour of them getting to do what Dad does every morning, build comradere with other kids, and see their Dad taking an interest in his and their fitness.
So what did we do today? I’m glad you asked.
WARM UP
Funky Mosey. (Whats a funky mosey?) Well its where the Q runs randomly all over the place. Grass, trees, left, right, change direction. You name it.
Circle up in what little bit of shade New Town offers. Handed the keys to the Q to the kids to let them decide what warm up exercises we did:
Little Biker Girl: 15 Side Straddle Hops
Spinnach: 10 Big Boy Sit Ups
The Great Bambino: 10 Dad Merkins (kids ride dad’s back while dad does push ups. A kids favorite….Dads, not so much).
The Meg: 50 Merkins (yes you read that right). I attempted to audible but the Meg was having none of it. With a little help, he knocked out all 50. Great job. (The rest of us just watched after we did 10).
Cheddar: Toy Soldiers
Flat Foot: Butt Kickers (with a snicker from some of the 2.0’s)
Little Biker Girl: Kereoke Right
Little Biker Girl: Kereoke Left
THE THANG
Find the hill at the back of the school. Section off into family groups. As a family, you have to go up and down the hill 10 times (Up and Down is 1). But the catch is that you could only go down and up the same way once. So if you ran down the hill once, you couldn’t run back down the hill a second time, you had to be creative. Some of the creative ways to traverse the hill were:
Short Mosey to Track for a relay race. Stay in Families. One person at a time run across the field to the other side of the track. Once entire family is there, one at a time run back. We found some competitive juices in Olive Oil on this one.
Oh look, there’s a half deflated soccer ball in the middle of two goals. Lets audible and play soccer…kids vs parents. Kids won 1-0, but parents had two shots on goal with wide open misses from Olive Oil (shes fired). I’m pretty sure she stiffed armed her youngest in order to get the open net shots.
Kids starting to complain about the heat. So lets head towards the cars to take a water break. Lunge walk up side walk. Frog hop in each sidewalk square. Mosey toward school stopping at the wall for 50 jabs and 25 presses.
WATER BREAK
Next was capture the flag water tag. Bailey’s vs everyone else (Fuse & Drive By + 2.0’s). There is a cone at each end of the parking lot along with a cooler full of soap water to use to refill (and kill corona germs). Object is to shoot the other teams cone with water. If they shoot you with water, you had the option to do one of these 4 things to be unfrozen: 5 Burpees, 10 Merkins, 10 Squats, or run back to your base.
Team Fuse & Drive by took an early lead employing a “goalie” and four attackers strategy. But the Bailey’s came storming back once they started implementing their diversion strategy. Final score was 4-2 (I think?) good guys win.
Finish off with a quick game of dueling water guns. Any one can challenge anyone to a dual. Parents vs parents, kids vs kids, or kids vs parents. Line up head to head in opposite parking spaces, on go, jump up and start shooting. Lots of fun here. Too many good battles to recount, just know everyone was soaked afterwards and loving it.
Return to car for one final WATER BREAK, COT, Prayer, and DOUGHNUTS! Oh, I didn’t go the easy route this week. Oh no. I passed two Dunkin’ Doughnuts on my way to the glory of all doughnut shops – Krispy Kreme. 2 Dozen original glazed and a dozen patriot doughnuts (highly recommend a box of patriots for your 4th of July celebration…they were awesome). Lots of fun had by all. If you haven’t tried F3 Dad’s and you have a 2.o aged 3-13, come give it a shot. Its a great way to spend the Saturday morning with your kids.
After 2.5 weeks away, it was good to get back out there with the pax to swing some bells at Meathead. I got there a little early to do some jump rope warm up with Rocky Balboa, I mean Wild Turkey. Unplugged was also out there doing some yoga to warm up the spine. We ended up being joined by a large number of pax, including site FNGs Kelly and Sweeney Todd. We also had a couple of otters in Smokey and Victoria.
Warm up:
Main Thang:
Repeato x 5. After each round of swings, perform a kettlebell complex (swing, high pull, snatch, clean, squat, press) with your non-dominant arm. After each round of merkins, perform the same complex with your dominant arm.
Overhead carries – 1:00 out with the non-dominant arm, 1:00 rest, 1:00 back with the dominant arm, 1:00 rest. Repeato.
Mary: 1:00 each of elbow plank, hollow body holds, and glute bridges
COT: Take a knee and thanks to Wild Turkey for the take out.
Announcements:
Moleskine:
Thanks to the Kevlar PAX for indulging my celebration of the best futbol team on planet Earth winning our 19th League Championship yesterday. Oh, you turds that still don’t watch soccer, it would be Liverpool Football Club I am talking about. Led to most exercises being called to 19, 19 counts, etc. Thanks to Bulldog for answering the PAX’ question on “why 19?” during the IWs.
Got to CD early, like a solid true Q should, and up came running your esteemed site Qs Whip and Fault Line. They had a nice glisten going on in muscle shirts with a solid 3 mile pre-run. Like, if testosterone was sold in a box, these two would’ve been on the cover.
They kept coming, some from the other side of the Prime Meridian. Good solid turnout.
Gave a terrible disclaimer, Geraldo said it was 5:30, so we left the lot.
Run down to quad for IW, LSS, MC, HRM…all to 19 of course.
Partner up for Alabama Slamma.
Quick mosey to front of church; P1 stays for called exercises, P2 shuttle runs to each median, to top of hill. Three rounds
Stay with partners, P1 does exercises, P2 runs around church. Three rounds
Go back to lot for a couple gassers.
They say we got in 2 solid miles.
done
Stories
As stated earlier, good turnout today, good solid chatter.
Bulldog answered the call to come back out to the gloom. He and Spackler were the kings of chatter this morning, surprise surprise. It was also good to connect Bulldog and Lorax, both of whom are Raintree boys, and soon to be golfing butt buddies.
The duo of Geraldo and Manziel were out front on most of the partner runs. Manziel has been doing some strong stuff building his endurance to 13.2 status, and Geraldo covers about .25 miles with every step he takes.
Nice to meet Chubbs. Young man dusted the best of em in the first gasser, think he blew a header while doing it tho.
Bounce was one of the ones I described having to show a passport to come out this far, good seeing you at Kevlar dude.
Lockdown was a Kevlar virgin and my partner today. Glad to see my advertisement worked during announcements at Hydra yesterday.
Also great to see BLC as well. Haven’t seen ole Big League in months, but he keeps going, and has the best merkin form in Area51. I think I said you could eat meatballs off his back. yikes
Deep Dish was my time compadre for the most part today. Although, he and Geraldo’s timepiece were off by about 50 seconds. DD’s was fast, hence why I kept going back to him.
After COT, Horsehead came back from his truck wearing a new, very comfy looking outfit. New fresh Gamecock t-shirt, sweatpants, and some Crocs. Fault Line said he should have a bowl of Cheerios in his hand as well. Would’ve gone well coming up from Momma’s basement.
Spackler claims today is the last day he’ll be Covid free, as he’s leaving for a bachelorette party in Nashvegas. Vaya con Dios mi amigo. Leave some Titos for the rest of the girls.
Announcements
Area51 convergence next Friday July 3rd. Joust, Centurion, Cerberus are all meeting at Kevlar at 6am. Hops and Ductwork on Q.
…or an exercise with math? I’m not sure. A lucky 13 of us launched into the gloom with no real intentions of figuring it out. The mumblechatter started early with rumors of a half-asleep Q after a rousing disclaimer. In reality, YHC was still trying to catch my breath after running in. The wet blanket morning was not doing any favors.
The Thang
Mosey around Carmel Commons to the office parking lot in the shadow of Palentine for COP:
SSH x 25 IC
Imperial Walker x 15 IC
Mountain Climbers x 15 IC
Peter Parker x 10 IC
Head over to the base of Palentine for the main event: run up the hill, 25 merkins at the top, run the triangle route to the outdoor tables, 10 diamonds, run the next leg of the triangle to the stop sign, 25 wide-arms, run back to base of Palentine. 5 total rounds.
Round 1 – 25, 10, 25 followed by LBCs to regroup
Round 2 – 20, 8, 20 followed by flutter
Round 3 – say it with me, class (math is fun!) 15, 6, 15 followed by dolly
Round 4 – 10, 4, 10 followed by rosalita
Roudn 5 – 5, 2, 5 followed by American Hammer Russian Twist (the infiltration is complete)
Mosey back over to the outdoor tables and partner up, no sweat swapping. Partner 1 does 30 dips, Partner 2 does 30 squats, run opposite ways around the triangle route with 10 merkins where you meet. Back to the outdoor tables for some Freddie Mercury to regroup. Flapjack partner exercises and repeat. Boone LBCs to regroup.
Mosey back to launch, stopping at each speed hump for 10 squats.
Done.
Moleskin
First post-COVID Q for YHC. Thanks to Mermaid for hitting me up, even if it was while I was on vacation. He really topped it off though by publicly shaming me into writing this backblast. A sly, veteran Site Q move. These humid mornings never seem to get any easier, but it was good to sweat out some of the damage done during a week of vacation. Great to see Donk back out for the second time in his first week and good to see Cain making the EH.
My lovely M, Lauren, is running for Woman of the Year for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. There are still 3 weeks left to give. She is running a great campaign and has raised a lot of money so far. Her goal is to finish at (or very near) the top both in the local Charlotte campaign and nationally. The idea is to raise enough for LLS that she has a platform with them to advocate for advancing pediatric research. You can donate through my fundraising page here: https://pages.lls.org/mwoy/nc/clt20/jpalmer and you can join us for the virtual finale on July 18th by registering here: Text MWOYCharlotte20 to 76278. We are so grateful for F3’s support – both for this campaign and during our son’s battle with AML.
Thanks to Mermaid for taking us out.
A great afternoon to lead 10 strong dudes for a little sloppy seconds at the famous buy-one-get-one-free site “Clyent” Dinner. I don’t know why I don’t post here more. I think it is proximity to my workplace bc I need to sneak out leave early any time I want to post here. Always a good time and get to see some guys that don’t post in the morning due to other obligations, so totally worth it. Today especially bc the early mornings don’t really appeal to my bonus child 2.0, Draedyn Carlton “John B.” named for his favorite Netflix series’ “Outer Banks” main character. I was finally able to bribe convince him to join me for a workout by offering Chick-fil-a for an after workout meal. (Probably would have ended up getting Chick-fil-a either way…)
Warmorama – Moseyed from COT around front of MS and then far side of the bus circle, stopped for Imperial Walkers, returned to the sidewalk by Rudy’s shed and then up to the intersection to no where for some stretching. Calf, Jimmy Dugans and Upward and Downward Dog.
Thang – Ran to rock pile and grabbed a lifting rock for 3 circuits including 2 sets of 5 exercises done 5, 10, 15, 20, 25 with run to the intersection to no where between each set.
Warmup – IW, JD’s (C, L, R), CS (L, R) U/DD | ||
Circuit 1 | Circuit 2 | Circuit 3 |
5 X Burp 6C IC | J.Lo IC | Burpee Press |
10 X Lunge IC | Superman | LSSq IC |
15 X BBSU CC | Curls CC | 1MT / 2Rows |
20 X Lunge IC | SSkaters IC | Flutters IC |
25 X Dry Dock CC | PJ CC | E.Plank 25 sec |
Repeat | Repeat | Repeat |
I had lunges listed twice in the first circuit and didn’t realize until we got into it but we continued and got through it. Way to push!
I kept everyone together by counting most of the exercises and starting each set at the same time. I had everyone turn around when the “Gazelle’s” passed them on the way back.
Everyone was pretty quiet during the workout and I personally was able to get the heart rate up into the max-burn-zone for several minutes.
Great to see some PAX that I haven’t seen in a while and lead a fine group of men and 2.0’s.
Announcements:
Spartan Race this Saturday – will be separated into groups of no more than 25 to abide by restrictions from Governor of N.C.
Moving AO’s for Friday to alternate sites due to Activities at Cuthbertson – look at GM for site changes
I took us out
Cocktails were served afterward
As part of my DiCCS, I added that I had no Plan B if the rain picked up beyond the drizzle we felt at the start.
The Warmup
None. No opening mosey. No stretching. Just getting after it (with MASHers joining in).
The Thang
We’ve all done Webbs before. Even some workouts that were just going from one station to another doing webs. I wanted to spin that one more way. I took all the Webbs I knew and combined them. All the 10 & 40 reps are done at station 1; all 9 & 36 done at station 2; and so on. In planning this, I thought I needed a plan B in case we ate through all that before 45 minutes was up. But I was wrong. We only got through 3.5 rounds. Don’t think we even clocked a full mile.
Merkins (10)
Air Presses (40)
Squats (40)
Lunges around the World (40)
Bear Crawl (40)
Dry Docks (10)
Big Boy Sit Ups (10)
American Knockouts (40)
Mike Tyson (10)
Donkey Kicks (40)
Bobby Hurleys (10)
Speed Skaters (40)
Heels to Heaven (40)
Rosalitas (10)
Burpees (10)
If there was a (10), then we took one rep off at each station; (40) had us take 4 reps off.
For merkins, I added some variety: round 1 = low slow; round 2 = T; round 3 = hand release; round 4 = wide arm
Stations 2 & 3 had rock piles (there are a bazillion rocks at The Body Shop!). So when possible, we added rocks to the above exercises.
Stations 1 & 4 were with the MASHers.
Moleskine
Virtually no chatter because practically everything was done in some kind of cadence. I was prepared to do exercises over again to ensure Pax respond to my cadence calls. Thankfully, though, Site Q’s Point Break & Das Boot were leading by example. Still, if you’ll allow me a
<SOAPBOX>
If you are not responding to the Q by not counting “1” to his “1, 2, 3”, I would encourage you to change your ways. I would also assume you don’t Q that much, either.
* This call & response is a way for the Q to hear that you are engaged and you are with him, even when he can’t see your face. If everyone starts strong & the voices fade, the Q can tell the exercise is working and he knows when to wrap it up.
* If you have a Q who’s pushing himself by pushing you, your responses give him the energy he needs to keep going. This also applies to the man next to you. If he hears you answering the Q, he is likely to have more energy to complete more reps than struggling in silence.
* Being able to speak (even if only a single syllable) while exercising will build your aerobic capacity while helping you control your own breathing.
</SOAPBOX>
Afterward, I asked DB & PB to give me some feedback on my Q. They pointed out that some of those exercises were counted out too fast, resulting in bad form. They were absolutely right. I had internally felt like some of those exercises went on too long, so I was speeding the cadence to hurry it up, thus resulting in bad form. This gave me something concrete to change for next time. When I do this again, the lunges, donkey kicks & speed skaters will start at 20 & go down by 2’s to help with form.
Giving feedback is a difficult but necessary part of the Site Q / Q relationship. We’re great with giving attaboys, but that rarely improves our Q-bility. This was difficult for Das Boot because he asked me to Q 2 days ago. Maybe he feels like he owes me, so he can’t give me full, honest feedback? This was difficult for Point Break because he came to Q School last quarter. Maybe he felt he couldn’t criticize one of the guys who taught him how to Q? Yeah, it’s difficult. And they did a good job when I put them on the spot like that. As Site Q, it doesn’t matter if the Q is way more fit than you, or has more years of F3 than you do; you owe it to him, to your site, and to your region to make him better for his next Q. Maybe he has a blind spot that no one has ever called him out on (in love)? Maybe he thinks he’s doing better than he really is because no one will give him feedback?
Giving feedback is a skill, not a talent. It can be learned & it can be improved. See Site Q School announcement for how to start or how to improve this valuable ability.
While it is still a work in progress, this weinkie will now be my Plan B whenever I need to step up to Q at the last minute. That’s gonna save me some time on the BB writing, too!
Announcements:
Last time I attempted the 521 challenge was about 1 year ago, Frasier (from SOB) was on Q and it was no problem for him
I thoughts this morning’s rain would hold back some PAX, but we had an influx of SOB guys that kept our Pursuit numbers up. Have to say, I did feel a little out numbered, but was glad to see them join us.
Diccs given and Bratwurst offered up mini maps to anyone unfamiliar with the route, nice touch Bratwurst!
Todays goal was to run to 521 and back with in our 1 hour time, cutting thru the neighborhoods, experienced plenty of hills along the way. Along the route we worked in the Freedom to 5K training plan (most of it anyway). Warm-up, then 20 min at T-pace and 4 – 200’s (which did not happen)! Over half the PAX made it to 521 and the others were very close, so great effort by all! We made it back to COT right on time, well except Endo, he made it back during COT. We knew he was right behind us. I tried to get PAX to make a tunnel for him upon arrival
Tiger Rag left some left kneecap skin on the concrete islands at the round about, guess he glanced at his watch for a second and that’s all it took to go down, but he came right back up and ready to go quickly. We may not see TR in UC for a while
Near the end, we connected with Transporter and a new FNG he brought, now known as “Animal”.
Announcements
There will be a 5k charity race in Ballantyne. Hit up Kirby on Slack for details if your interested. It will be a couple weeks after July 4 weekend.
100 PAX Challenge on-going, charities selected, hit up Posse for details.
Thanks for taking us out Bratwurst.