Posted on Behalf of Posse:
I have cheated/modified virtually every exercise since starting F3 (7? months ago), and today would be no different as VQ.
First, there would be no cadence count, as I can barely answer the Q in a cadence count as a Pax. In exchange for that allowance, I asked the Pax to repeat the exercise name as I said them, as we would be working out to music the whole time. Oh, did I forget to mention that I was in band from 6th grade through college? And the only formal athletic training I have done is being the lone male in the YMCA step aerobics classes. So, with a few exceptions, here are songs I either played or listened to on the band bus.
Four minutes ahead of the start, began with “Top Gun Theme” (Harold Faltermeyer), just to set the stage of uncomfortable 80’s machismo. Mumble chatter of Goose & Maverick let me know I hit a soft spot.
Warmup
+ “Imperial March (Darth Vader theme)” (John Williams) 3:00
– Imperial Walkers / (Death) Starfish / Imperial Squat Walkers
+ “Stars & Stripes Forever” (John Phillip Sousa) 3:28
– SSH / flutters / merkins / LBC’s / merkins / SSH
+ “Rocky theme” 4:50
– American hammers / running 1 – 2 laps in teacher parking lot / P1 – WWII sit-ups while P2 holds P1’s feet; P2 does merkins simultaneously; flapjack / step ups or Rocky Balboa’s fake jump roping on the curb
> One time, at Commitment, Snowflake did this same P1 / P2 work <
The uncomfortability hit fast with this partner work. There was some modification with P2 stepping on P1’s feet to avoid impropriety.
+ William Tell Overture 3:50 [Edited]
– mosey to front of school with benches; 12’s take the long way so we all arrive together (if other Q’s see me as a 6, I can see them [whom I greatly admire] as 12’s). Find a bench.
+ “Toreadors” (from the opera Carmen) 2:14
– Derkins / Dips / Derkins / Step Ups / Derkins
The Thang
+ “Wake Me Up Inside” (Evanescence) 3:00 [Edited]
– pinball running to basketball court (pinball = if you get to a location before the last Pax does, turn around and run back to the last Pax; repeat until all are in)
> One time, at Commitment, Ice9 was my first Pinball Wizard <
+ “Flower” (Moby) 3:25
– from the Lexicon: ‘Start with your chest on the ground, and enjoy it because your chest shouldn’t touch the ground again until the song is over. When the song says “Bring Sally Up” the Pax will be in the ‘Merican up position, and “Bring Sally Down” the Pax will be in the ‘Merican down position. Pax will hold the down position until the next rep. It’s only 31 little reps in 3:25. Scale this workout to your fitness level: If you are fatigued, modify the ‘mericans by either doing chest to ground at the bottom, or take no shame and use your knees.’
> One time, at House of Pain (in Durham), Chachi introduced me to this song. <
> A couple of times, at Commitment, Popeye & Transporter did the same exercise to “Roxanne” (The Police). I can no longer tell who I hate more. <
+ “Bitter Tears” (INXS) 3:51
– run to stone pile, pick a stone, get to sidewalk & do bench presses until all Pax are in.
‘Why does he keep calling it stone? Aren’t these just rocks? Must be foreshadowing something…’
> One time, at Flash, Dasher did these; one of the few exercises I enjoy. <
+ “In the Stone” (Earth Wind & Fire) 4:25 ohhh…
– When it’s not muddy, we run the hill. This time, its sidewalk time for squats on one end, run to the other end for curl to press. Hold your stone, cause…
+ “Stone in Love” (Journey) 4:25 might be overdoing the theme here…
– bucket brigade reverse lunge / LBC’s with a stone on your chest / stone overhead forward lunge / rock-right row / triceps extensions / bucket brigade reverse lunge
~ ironic that both stone songs are the exact same length
~ return stones to their families
+ Mosey to T intersection at sidewalk (too short of a distance for any music appreciation class)
+ “Shout” (Isley Brothers) 4:28
– burpees on chorus /
1st verse = supermans /
‘I want you to know’ = plank jacks /
‘Now waaaaaaiiiiiiiiit a minute’ = Peter Parker’s /
‘Little bit softer now’ = squats /
‘Little bit louder now’ = jump squats /
‘Hey hey hey’ = lunge jumps /
At this point, Frack pointed out that we were out of time. I still had at least 10 more minutes of songs to spin, but I mismanaged the time. And that’s a shame, because Doc was mocking me with John Travolta taunts. Two songs from now, I would have had the last laugh (probably not).
So we had to make a jail break back to the parking lot.
+ “Shoot to Thrill” (AC-DC) 4:16 [edited]
We were close to the back of the school at this point. Running is my kryptonite, so this didn’t end as I had hoped.
I have a Spartan quote on my vision board that says, “If it excites you and scares the crap out of you at the same time, it probably means you should do it.” When Dasher asked for someone to Q today, that quote immediately came to mind. I responded first before I could reason myself out of it.
I appreciate the opportunity to lead an outstanding group of men, if only for 45 minutes.
15 PAX (1 FNG) made the right choice and posted at #F3Basecamp, here’s out it went to down.
COP
Off Campus
Head out of the SCMS parking lot make a right on Strawberry Lane, then a right on Rosecliff to the bottom for 7’s, Merkins at the bottom with Squats at the top.
People’s Chair:
Return to the AO and Grab Some Wall, for two rounds for Air Presses x 50.
Partner Work:
Mosey down to the bleachers, partner up, size and speed does not matter. Partner 1 takes the lap up the stairs, around the railing and back while Partner 2 performs called exercises until Partner 1 returns, then flapjack.
Mary
2 minutes left, return to the SP for some Mary
Moleskin:
Announcements:
The 1 Mile Time Trial is set. Just so happens that 4/19 (3 weeks away) is the 2 year Anniversary workout of Swift, and what a better reason to run a 1 Mile Time Trial to set a benchmark for the Spring and Summer training seasons. Yes, the 1 Mile Time Trial is set for April 19th at Community House Middle School!
Given our plan of 1Mile Training, that will give us 3 weeks in the Final Phase 4 of our training. This week, a new FAST workout, but still room for those that haven’t been to Swift in a while.
The PLAN:
Note: F-pace is your 800m Race Pace, or 4 seconds per 200m faster than your 1 Mile Goal Pace. Some examples:
As we gather for pain, let’s not forget to honor that most secular of treasured beasts, the Easter Bunny. Sounds so innocent and friendly but unfortunately, this was the sadistic brother of the Easter Bunny.
Pre-Thang
Kiefer for like 9.xxxxx which is close enough to 10 in my book. YHC for 5 and some change. YHC later regretted every one of those miles
The Thang
Mosey to beside the elementary school where there was a most awkward of COPs due to the student driver stopping right beside our group. Is he going to hit us? Honk the horn at us? Should have called monkey humpers. #opportunitymissed
COP
SSH IC x25
IW IC x25
Instead of a mosey, we get our first sighting of Sadistic Bunny.
Bunny Hop forward (also known as Broad jump) followed by a Burpee. Repeato ad infinitum. Some complaints that no end point was given for this. That was surely intended.
Finally I called halt and mosey to the playground
Round 1
Dips x20
Swing Donkey Kicks x20
Step Ups each leg x20 (Many questions about ‘each leg?’ – Yes brothers, this was part of the grind after all those innocuous bunny hops earlier)
Burpee Pull Ups x10 (Go down for a burpee, on the hop back up grab the bar and do a pull up).
Run a lap
Various plank exercises until group gathers
Round 2
Repeato Round 1 with 25 each time and no Burpee Pull Ups as pretty sure I only saw HH and I doing them and when HH isn’t refusing something with a burpee in it, I get nervous
Native American run along the backroad until TLS says stop and I give two minutes of my time over to him
The Late Show on Q…
Stop at the gravel drive for some awkward placement of feet and arms, for an uncomfortably close set of SEAL sit-ups. (Sure enough, a dog-walker came by and got the awkward man-show that the student driver missed at the COP.
Continue the mosey stopping at the corner of the practice field so that odd-men-out The Late Show and Horsehead could watch the PAX assemble in groups of four to do SEAL planks (four men in a group in plank position, no one’s feet allowed to touch the ground). In keeping with the easter bunny theme I guess we could call these “basket weavers,” but SEAL planks sounds more manly.
Over to the rock pile and get a rock you can fit in one hand and a rock your Mrs. could be proud of. Line up on the sideline.
Run toward the tower (about 40-50 yards) and back.
(10) total T-merkins with small rock in hand (5 each arm).
(10) squat clean and press your big rock.
Repeato down the ladder 8,6,4,2 (solid work by Smokey on these bad boys… lung and leg burner)
Deposit your rocks and over the other sideline, spacing out about 6 feet between each man.
First round…
Bear crawl approximately 10 yards, sprint 20. Repeat till you cross the field, sprint back to starting sideline.
Second round…
Easter Egg Rolls of course…
Superman/Banana approximately 10 yards, hop up and sprint 20. Repeat till you cross the field, sprint back to starting sideline.
Not sure, but I think I ended up rolling back towards the starting sideline at some point.
Mosey back to the hill, backward crawl up the hill.
Mosey to the Imaginary Shovel Flag for a quick round of Mary.
Hammer planks, can openers, and 10 burpees oyo to wrap it up.
COT
GJ took us out. Pray for The Count and his travels to see his Dad as well as his Dad’s health.
Moleskine
– Easter travels took some of our group today but we still managed to find the Easter Bunny today. Or at least his sadistic brother. Where is F3er Cottontail when we need him? Actually, given his name, we might not want to know that.
– The group was questioning where we were going with those Bunny Hop Burpees. Some angry looks from HH and Crab Legs when the answer was we were just going to keep going.
– Still not sure what to make of the student driver stopping right by us. Did we scare him? Was he trying to scare us? Fortunately no PAX were hurt. Just a standard weird moment at the Island of Misfit Toys.
– The Burpee pullups were refused by many. Regular burpees were done instead. You guys missed the bunny on this one.
– The awkward man touching during the Seal situps was no Bueno. Having it observed by a non-PAX was even worse.
– Sad when HH manages to get TLS to join in his refusal on those seal partner awkward planks.
– Pretty sure TLS was planning some sort of kettlebell rope pull. HH may have managed to avoid them by pestering him before the workout began. Well done sir.
– Welcome to a long lifetime of F3 for Crush. He is Boondock’s (HHs 2.0) cousin and rightly refused what we were doing at times. The young man is wiser than many of us.
– Two weeks in a row of using rocks. This is not a habit pattern we need to continue.
Thanks for letting TLS and I lead a great group of men! Have a great Easter!!!
Glass Joe
*Posted by Glass Joe for Lamont
This was YHC’s overdue first Q and I have to say that it really is better to give than to receive, especially when the gift is pain.
Warmup:
– SSH (20x)
– Burpees (5 oyo)
– IW (25x)
– Windmill (20x)
The Thang:
Partner up
P1: Merkins (25x)
P2: KB Upright Rows
Flapjack until team does 100 Merkins
HB Mile
P1: LBCs (40x)
P2: KB Swing
Flapjack until team does 160 LBCs
HB Mile
P1: Squats (50x)
P2: KB Squat-Curl-Press
Flapjack until team does 200 LBCs
HB Mile
KB Calf Raises and Planks – reward for finishing early
Repeato but with a few modifications:
P1: Merkins (25x)
P2: KB Tricep Ext
Flapjack until team does 100 Merkins
50 Curb touches
P1: LBCs (30x) (reduction due to time constraints – Pax was extremely disappointed)
P2: KB Deadlift
Flapjack until team does 120 LBCs
50 Curb touches
P1: Squats (30x)
P2: Merkins w/KB lift
Flapjack until team does 120 LBCs
50 Curb touches
Mary:
– Dolly (20x)
– Rosa Lita (20 something – I don’t comprende espanol)
– Freddie Mercury (25x)
Moleskine:
It was a beautiful morning and it was great to have 10 strong men eager to go and willing to be led by a novice Q. Good work by all and I heard enough groans to believe the work was sufficiently challenging. Thanks to all who brought KBs and to Glass Joe for the music though I need to direct him to some more workout friendly 70s tunes than Pink Floyd. I caught a few guys glazing over and staring at the moon. Thanks to Happy for taking us out and to all the Pax for enduring my first Q. I really enjoyed it and it gave me more of an appreciation for all who Q!
YHC did not know what to expect today with the Easter Holiday and Spring Break! I got the call yesterday to substi-Q as The Hoff is still dealing with back issues. 5 pax arrived in the gloom to find there was no Easter Egg Hunt only the opportunity to take their #DRP. VSF planted and brief disclaimer given, and we were off.
Mosey to other parking lot for a little warm up. We did some butt kickers and high knees along the way.
Circle up for the following: SSH x 15, IW x 15, LSS x 15, Lat. Lunge IC x 10. Prying Squat x 2/
Lunge walk across lot.
Mosey to Church parking lot
Partner up and grab a lifting rock
Presses x 15, curls x 15, triceps ext. x 15, squats x 15 then run to lightpole and back in between each exercise. Rinse & Repeat
Mosey back to the school grab some wall with shoulder flexibility For 10 counts & arm presses X 25 rinse and repeat
Mosey to concession area for circuit work X 4
Step ups x 10, old school sit ups x 15, CDD X 15. Rinse & Repeat.
Dips x 15, Squats x 15, LBCs x 15. Rinse & repeat
Mosey to field for starfish. Everybody go through 2X. Plank when finished.
Upper Body – Merkins X, wide arm X 10, CDD x 10, HR x 10 in the corners with Freddy Mercury in the middle X 10
Jack Webb up to 5 Merkins & 20 Arm Raises then back down.
Mosey to playground for another round of circuit work
Dips x 15, Lunges x 10, LBC x 15. Rinse & Repeat
Circle up for Mary x 15 each exercise IC
-Mason twists
-LBC
-Dolly
-Rosalita
-Flutter
-Sid the kid
-Protractor
1 minute left – AYG Suicide going to the islands in the parking lot. Done!
Great job out there by everyone. Veteran group. Ickey was leading the way for the most part today. Daisy was killing as well even after pushing a truck around on Friday at a Metro workout. Nuke was pushing it hard after a difficult Mountain Goat Workout Friday. High Tide was carrying extra weight today with his utility vest. An extra 15-20 lbs or so. YHC is struggling to remember how much it was exactly. As always it was an honor to lead and the men continue to inspire me by their committment. Daisy took us out. Great word as we prepare to celebrate Easter and Resurrection Day! Happy Easter!
Announcements
1)There are openings for the Spring Mud Run on April 30th. See Fire Hazard’s pre-blast for details. http://f3nation.com/2016/02/29/2016-mud-run-preblast/
2)F3 Dads: A Night with the Knights is Saturday, May 14th. Bring your 2.0s to BB&T Ballpark to watch the Knights take on the Durham Bulls. Details here: http://f3nation.com/2016/03/08/f3-dads-a-night-with-the-knights/
Pax of 16 started spring break playing with some sand.
Warm-up
SSH x 37 IC
MTC x 37 IC
Merkins x 37 IC civilian count
light jog around the parking lot
The Thang
Grab a sandbag or smashball. Get used to it we won’t put it down again.
Jog to center area of the school for 1 minute rounds
Bench Step ups
Burpees
Sit ups
Floor Press
Jog to the corner of the parking lot. What do we have be a nice big hill.
Walk down and back up then do 2 burpees for 3 minutes.
Jog back to the center area of the school for another round of 1 minute drills
Squats
Overhead press
Lat raise
Floor Press
Jog to the corner of the parking lot. What do we have be a nice big hill.
Bear hug carry this time!
Walk down and back up then do 3 burpees for 2 minutes.
Jog back to the center area of the school for another round of 1 minute drills
Floor press
Lunges
Clean and jerk
Don’t remember the 4th one
Jog to the corner of the parking lot. What do we have be a nice big hill.
Walk down and back up then do Shoulder press and squats
Finally we can jog back to the AO for a quick round of partner sandbag passes.
Then we finished with 1 minute of burpees.
Moleskin
We I think we covered the 37 burpees and some for Transporters Birthday. Frack came in town from a red eye from LA the day before. He slept all day on Thursday so he was well rested. Doc hit a wall from working out all week. Popeye should learn to bring his own toys. He had to lug around one of Doc’s 50+lb sandbags. I think the sandbag workout was a hit. Some at one point that they hated me for the workout. I took that as a good thing. We have an amazing group of people that we workout with on a weekly basis. I look forward to getting up everyone to spend it with you all. Hope everyone enjoyed the beatdown.
Thank you Ole McDonald for taking us out.
13 Dudes decided to get buff for pool season with a little strength work at The Rock this morning
No new guys so a moving disclaimer was given as we did a quick mosey down along the road, past the baseball field toward the hot box giving Flipper and E-Trade a chance to catch up.
COP
IW x 15 in cadence
Slow Squats x 10 in cadence
Slow merkins x 5 in cadence – already tons of mubblechatter due to YHC’s slow counts – and YHC informed the pax that YHC would be doing all the counting today.
Arm circles – #crowdpleaser
20 small forward
20 small backward
10 big forward – thanks Tony Horton
10 big back
The Thang:
Mosey over to the HotBox
Instructions were given – super sets at the HotBox 3 sets of 3 exercises, 3 rounds thru. Focus (as usual for YHC) was on slow good form. Also YHC was looking to get the chest, triceps and legs all smoked. And all exercises were on YHC’s count.
First Set:
10 Jump downs (basically reverse of a jump-up – drop down off bench and explode back up)
10 derkins – slow steady form
10 dips – slow and steady
Rinse and repeat for 3 total rounds
Second Set:
15 Split squats each leg
10 crucible merkins
10 skull crushers using the picnic tables
Rinse and repeat for 3 total rounds
Third Set:
10 box pistols each leg
10 regular merkins
10 diamond / close merkins
Rinse and repeat for 3 total rounds
Mosey to playground
10 minute grinder
5 pull-ups
5 toes 2 bar
5 6-count hand release burpees
rinse and repeat for 10 minutes
Mosey to rock pile and get a big lifting rock.
After a few shaming comments, everyone got man size rocks and we started.
10 x clean the rock up to chest and press overhead, then back down to the ground
Rinse and repeat for 2 rounds
Head back to launch – few minutes left – 50 yard bear-crawl
Finished.
Solid work by all today including 2.0s. Thanks for putting up with YHC’s coaching / teaching – always enjoy showing it doesn’t take tons of reps to get a serious beat-down – YHC is still feeling this one.
Really enjoy working out out at this AO and with The Rock crew – a great group of guys.
Thanks Gummy and Hopper for the opportunity.
There was some good solid mubblechatter – but that is always to be expected with Flipper on site.
YHC is sure there was some good discussions, but YHC is too tired right now to recall so shout out below.
YHC does remember something about PopTart asking Gummy to massage his thighs but you will have to ask them for details.
Thanks again for the opportunity to lead you men this am in the gloom.
Thanks Squid for the solid takeout.
Annoucements:
Spartan Sprint – can still sign up – Team = F3 Nation. April 9th and 10th.
F3 Dads Baseball game – Knights Baseball game May 14:
Thats all.
Champagne Out.
Today was a killer morning, temp was perfect and the pax was ready for a beating.
WU,
40 SSH, 30 MC, 20 IW, 10 Merkins, 10 Merkins, 20 IW Mosey to side lot to find the first CC work out.
2 teams, 2 Plates and 2 times around! Simple! Pax does 5 burgee’s, 10 Merkins, 15 LBC, while one of the pax takes the plate for a worm burner run, finish the exercise and catch up with the plate driver to swap to the next pax. Work this for two times around.
Mosey over to the school for a quick balls to the wall and peoples chair, mosey to the bridge for a quick frog hop across. Mosey the way to the track for a second CC move of the day.
5 sets with a lap around the track between sets and a 5 burbees at a half lap. Broke up into 4 teams of 4 and worked the plan. 50 Air squats, 40 MC’s, 30 LBC, 20 Diamond push ups and 10 pull ups. Each team took a station and worked their way through the rotation.
Mosey back with a quick Indian hop up a the hill, and grab a friend for a short round of 15 Curl to press, 15 LBc’s and 15 LSS. Finishing with some good ole fashion sit up in two lines facing each other to 40.
Moleskin:
SHOP DAWG PUT IT DOWN today and spent some time Yacking on the worm burners (congrats Shop). I caused some confusion not the track not clarifying that we needed to finish the stations with a final lap, but the teams muscled up and got the work done. New FNG, Backflow (R) put it down! I saw a ton of heart today by all. A2nd F Chick Fil was great!
Announcements:
3Rd F- April 21st, Thursday nights 730 Brooklyn Pizza- Sign up coming out shortly
Sign up links to local F3 work outs
11 men showed up at #F3DayZero for some work and were treated to surprise reunion. For the first time in a long time the original OGs were here with the millennial, new Qs. Pleasantries were exchanged, hugs were given by Haze and insults were given by Radar to kick off the morning.
I received two separate text from pax that will remain anonymous making sure there would not be a lot of running. Something about this or that. #GettingOldSucks. So the modification of the high intensity work out for the region was put in place for the unprepared. #YourOnlyAsStrongAsYourSix.
What we did: Start with a warm up lap around the School track at a slow pace. Circle up and do IW x 15, merkins x 10 and slow squat x10. Partner up to complete 100 combined pull ups while the other partner planks. One group had 150 since we were three. Radar provided emotional support for Haze during his portion. Radar in turn got defensive when Haze provided a meager come back. By the end everyone was turning on each other pointing out weight and form. The Pax completed mary lead by Hairball while my group stumbled to the finish line of our 150.
Now for the basketball main event. Radar was nice enough to bring a basketball at the Q’s request. I thought he would bring a real ball. Instead he brought a ball “he won at Carowinds.” I question the “won” part after his display of shooting. The task was shoot a lap up, free throw and three pointer. Each miss accumulated merkins. The penalty for missing was 20 for missed lap up, 15 for free throw and 10 for three pointer. The rest of the Pax did called Mary while the one guy displayed his skills. Needless to say out of 11 of us we might have made four to five shots total. #LotsOfMerkins Everyone, YHC included, made fun of the guy that missed the layup until almost all of us missed the layup. #TrickRims
After this miserable display of skill we mosed over to the rock pile where you and your partner picked a lifting rock. Then we ran over to the shopping center for four corners in honor of the Tar Heels win last night. At each corner you completed an exercise until the next group came to relieve you. You carried one of Radar’s sandbags between the corners. The called exercises were wide arm/diamond merkins, squat, merkins and curls with rock. This took a little longer than anticipated. We did one round.
Once we were completed with four corners we collected everyone at the bottom of Carswell and Bevington. There we completed, most of us anyway, 7s. Merkins at the top and squats at the bottom. Run the hill up backwards, most of us anyway, and forward going down. Dodging cars was thrown in as fun.
Radar kept complaining about time and it was time to do Mary. I am good at ignoring and come to find out his watch was 19 minutes fast. After completing most of 7s we collected our rocks and returned them to the school.
In true basketball form we went into overtime. Time for redemption, kinda. Everyone takes a free throw. If you miss then you do 10 merkins. Everyone missed the first round. It was decided that we were not leaving until one shot was made. Everyone missed the second round. Finally the Mugsy Bogues of Area 51, Purple Haze, made the shot. High fives all the way around and a lot of shame we circled up.
I am not sure what we learned today other than we probably all thought we were a little better at basketball than we are. Very little running for my #F3FreeRange teammates. BRR is only six months away. Getting to be about that time to start training. Not sure about the intensity part today but the fellowship was high.
Thanks for Hairball and Prohibition for letting me lead. I’ll see you again in a few months.
Announcements: There were no announcements.
Thanks for the take out Haze. Everyone enjoy your Easter weekend and enjoy your kid’s spring break.