Monthly Archive March 2021

Sprints > Snatches > TGUs?

9 Meatheads, including a very late arriving FNG, Goose (Daniel), and a bunch of #Respects, gathered for doubles, sprints (<> #0.0), and snatches.  With this group of veterans, an informal disclaimer was given (too bad the 18 y.o. FNG missed that), and we were off in search of gainz.

 

The Thang

 

COP (aka warmup):

  • 15 swings
  • 10 merkins
  • 5 goblets
  • Repeato 5x

 

Neupert Doubles:

  • 3 double clean & press
  • Repeato 5x with 60 seconds rest between

 

Dan John’s Squats & Sprints:

  • 8 goblet squats (using 10 RM bell), then immediately
  • 50-ish meter sprint (not mosey, not jog, sprint)
  • Recover back to your bell
  • Repeato 3x, beginning every 2 minutes
  • (about 30 seconds of work, about 30 seconds walk back, about 1 min of rest)

 

Pat Flynn’s Crazy Eights:

  • 8 strict double presses (using 10RM bell)
  • 8 push presses
  • 8 merkins
  • Repeato 3x with 2 minutes rest

(insert FNG Goose about halfway through, due to a F3 website calendar error that still listed Meathead beginning at 0600 instead of 0530  #cobains)

 

#Crowdpleasing Finisher:

  • EMOM (Every Minute on the Minute)
  • 10 snatches (start with Left and alternate L/R each round)
  • Hollow body hold until 10 seconds before top of minute, then hop to your feet for the next round
  • Repeato for 12 minutes

 

Finito

 

COT

 

Moleskine (which is useful to cover the blisters/torn skin on your hands from too much snatching):

 

This was a bit of a negotiated substi-Q, as YHC was supposed to have the prior Olympus but then went out of town so swapped a Meathead Q for the Olympus Q.  As such, YHC strived to pack in 60 minutes of goodness into just 45 minutes so that the pax were not shorted.  #YW

 

Considerable mumblechatter during and after the sprints (and after the workout on Slack) as to whether or not the sprints constituted a violation of the #0.0 rule of Meathead.  As cofounder of Meathead and cosponsor of said commandment, YHC opined that this was not a violation in that sprints are a strength exercise, which is the foundation of Meathead, and not “cardio running” or metcon, which was the target of #0.0.  And, and, and, Dan John likes the combination of squats followed immediately by a sprint (or prowler or hill sprint, etc) for building power and strength, and he hates cardio running so it must be ok.

 

The crazy eights were something YHC named from a Pat Flynn podcast that I can no longer find.  Regardless, by the 3rd round, many were having trouble with reaching 8 on any of the exercises, which was about right.  My shoulders felt it the next day; how about yours?

 

The snatch & hollow body combo was a product of the aforementioned packing of too much goodness into too little time.  So, you take the planned 10 minutes of 10 snatches EMOM and combine it with the hollow body holds intended to pair with swings.  Walla!  #crowdpleasing  Oh, and increase the time to 12 minutes, since we don’t have to save time for Mary.

 

Thanks for coming out and pushing one another.  #ISI

 

Aye.

High Tide

Dice of Death

F3 Asylum 3/1/21

Flanders- Akbar-Posse- Fusebox – Smokey – Bypass- Loafer

DICCS – Always have to give the DICCS (Disclaimer, CPR Check, Cell Phone Check and Safety Reminder)  Done.

Warm Up-

20 side stratal hop

Stretch the Legs

Stretch left and night middle

Plank -upward dog

Stretch shoulders

Calve stretch

Butt kickers

The Thang

The three amigos split the workouts into 15 minute segments.

Loafer

Ran from COT to Novant  Health for some rock work . We started the following.

20 – Curls

Run to the end of parking lot

20- Military press

Run to the end of parking lot

20- Bench Press

Run to the end of parking lot

20- Triceps

Run to the end of parking lot

Then we put the rocks away. We head back over to Brooklyn pizza parking lot to get the dice of death. We then planked up for 60 seconds. At that time I turn the queue over to Flanders.

Flanders took over—

Flanders took us over to the target parking lot where we took the dice of death rolled it for starfish and four corners.

Corner one we did 25 Merkins

Corner two we did 25 Burpee‘s

Corner three we did 20 set ups

Corner four we did another 25 Merkins

In the middle we did 25 Merkins

We finished up Flanders segment over at Petsmart where we did a minute and a half wall sit.

Bypass brought us home strong.

After the wall sits we then headed to the Petsmart parking lot for 100 step ups. Then we did suicide four different locations in the parking lot. It was fast and it was fun. To end out his 15 minutes we did yet another set of Indiana Basketball suicides with in and out at every stop. Then we mosey back to COT where we did some flutters. We then did sit ups. Then we did have a nice day! The End .
We got about 2.8 miles 

Nice work men!

Rut-Breaker CSAUP Series ***Canceled***

 

 

 

 

***After much deliberation and in consultation with the A51 board, the idea previously known as Rutbreaker will be mothballed in favor of smaller, stand-alone challenges and events throughout the summer.  Lesson learned here is smaller and more focused efforts may fit the Nation a bit better than the larger and more grandiose ideas.***

 

Version / As of Date: 2 / 3.22.2020

 

RUT:

1. A sunken track or groove made by the passage of vehicles.
2. An uninspired routine or pattern of behavior that one continues unthinkingly or because change is difficult.

 

The world is in a pandemic induced rut, grinding in place and getting nowhere fast.  While the vaccine promises to remove some impediments to forward motion, accelerators will be required to upend the status-quo and restore healthy motion to the people of earth.

Much as art imitates life, the nation imitates the world and many of us have been forced into ruts in the past months (or years).  When YHC was tasked to offer up activities of the pointless nature to entertain and challenge the PAX of Area51, it was obvious things were going to be more than a little different than years past.  Thinking about creative ways to bring the PAX back together in competition when the world has been taught to avoid any kind of unity sparked an idea… through which all of the PAX of the regions now get to suffer.

The idea behind this competition is to get each of us out of our comfort zones, out of our patterns, out of our Ruts.  We will be asked to disrupt the status-quo of our accepted routines and do things differently.  We will meet new PAX, try new workouts, help other men find acceleration, and compete with each other, and ourselves, to be more diverse and less rutted by the time the summer is out.  This is The Rut-Breaker series…

The Thang:

PAX will form teams (minimum of 4, maximum of 10) and compete individually and as teams across a series of categories.  There will be opportunities to accumulate score OYO and at sponsored group activities.  Full scoring details will be explained below.  The series will kick off 4/1/2021 and run through 9/30/2021 and be open to teams from any of the regions reasonably adjacent to the Charlotte, NC area.  There will be no less than five CSAUP events from May-Sept (hopefully one a month) which will offer a chance for teams to come together and vie for event supremacy.  Scoring will be tallied once a month for individual month end titles and then again at the end for an overall series champion.  There will also be awards for the winning team(s) and leading individuals across categories and events.  Speaking of Categories and Events:

Scoring Categories:

  1. Emotional Headlocks –  Individuals will receive 10 points for every PAX they EH during the competition.  On top of that, much like the Belicheck coaching tree, legacy matters and any PAX EHd by one who you EH (during the contest) will net you 5 points.  So you EH PAX1 who in turn EHs PAX2, you will receive 15 points.  If PAX2 EHs another PAX in turn, you will net an additional 5 points.
  2. Out of Region Posts (One Per Site) –  Every workout you post which is outside of your primary region will net you 1 point.  Be honest here gents, if you live (or identify with) Area51 but post to Swift in SOB every Tuesday such as YHC does, don’t take credit for it being an out of region post.  You will be scoring yourself, but if you’re in the lead you better believe other PAX will be checking your street cred.  Be honorable or be called out.
  3. Out of Region Qs (One Per Site) –  Every time you Q a workout at a site where you haven’t had a Q before, you will net 3 points.  This is another Honor system category, be honest with yourself and the PAX.  If the Q isn’t novel, and isn’t getting you out of your norm, don’t score it.
  4. Mini-CSAUP / Team CSAUP / Official CSAUPs – Every time your team competes in a Completely Stupid and Utterly Pointless event together, you earn 5 points for each of your team who participates.  If you have majority representation from 1 other team in the RutBreaker who is also competing you each get 7 points per participating team member.  If your team comes up with the event and invites other teams to compete and successfully hosts a mini-CSAUP, each of “hosting” team’s participants gets 10 points.  Finally, if your team participates in an official RutBreaker CSAUP (numbered 1-5), each participating PAX will receive 15 points.  Teams can also get bonus points for achieving certain results at official CSAUPs, details of these bonus opportunities will be explained on the CSAUP schedule below where applicable and calculated in the Master Scoring File.
  5. Community Accelerators: –  Teams who organize activities in their communities (Blood drives, Clothing Donations, Food Drives, Sponsoring Families etc.) will receive 1 point for every PAX who participates/contributes

Scoring Modifiers:  Scoring will be conducted as an AVERAGE of scores for the PAX on the team.  So if you have 5 PAX on your team and 4 get 25 points but 1 gets 0, your team nets 20 points total.  Take this into account when forming teams, big teams can be a ton of fun, but if a few members aren’t getting after it, it can cost you.  There will be opportunities to earn scoring modifiers all summer long, which will be % modifiers applied to your teams score AFTER averaging.

  1. Diversity is key for team makeup. Your team will get a 1% bonus for each region represented on your team which isn’t your Captain’s home region.  So if YHC starts a team, we won’t get a bonus for any A51 PAX.  So if we recruit 1 PAX from WUC, and 2 from SOB, we will have a bonus of 2% of our final score.
  2. Winning a CSAUP event will yield modifiers as detailed in the individual CSAUP Pre-Blasts
  3. Each month will have a team with the highest average score.  This team will get a 1% bonus applied to their final score
  4. At the end of the competition YHC will average every team’s monthly scores into a total average monthly score, the team with the highest total average monthly score across all 6 months will receive a 5% bonus added to their final score.
  5. Individual PAX who lead the competition in total number of EHs, Out of Regions Qs and Out of Region Posts will secure for their team score modifiers equal to 5%.  Monthly leaders in each category earn 1% bonus IF they do not win the overall.  So the maximum bonus an individual can obtain for any category is 5%

CSAP Schedule:

  1. RutBreaker CSAUP #1 May (5/22/2021): F3 Functional Strength Challenge – Pre-Blast
  2. RutBreaker CSAUP #2 June (TBD): F3 Waxhaw “Spartan” Race – Pre-Blast Upcoming
  3. RutBreaker CSAUP #3 July (TBD): 50 pound 5k?: Pre-Blast Upcoming
  4. RutBreaker CSAUP #4 August (8/6/2021): F3Metro GrowRuck – Pre-blast, Registration and additional details Upcoming.
  5. RutBreaker CSAUP #5 September (TBD): “F” AMRAP Games  – Pre-Blast Upcoming

Registration, Scoring and Tracking will be completed via this google sheet.  The link will be provided here once it is available.  Category and event instructions will be embedded in the sheet.  PAX will be responsible for logging and tracking their own scores in the google sheet.

Have an idea for a CSAUP but never wanted to tackle it on your own?  Here is a great opportunity to be part of the RutBreaker team.  Reach out to me (Flipper) via comment on the pre-blast or via slack (I’m on the nation slack as Flipper (F3 SCLT)) and we’ll see about getting your bad idea into one of the open slots.

General Feedback?  Sound off in the comments below or hit up YHC directly.  This is work in progress so would love to hear your thoughts.

 

The Burpee Mile!

What an awesome morning!  42 guys out at Ignition and Flash.  Little over 50 men when we count the other Waxhaw area workouts.  Amazing what a little warm weather can do to bring the numbers out.  I sent a quick message out this morning to bring reflective gear and headlamps as we were heading off campus for Flash.  My phone immediately lit up with inspiring words from our marketing department.   “Hey moron, your not supposed to go off campus on a 45 minute workout”.  Oh Contraire!  I needed the miles after committing to the Rooster so Let’s GO!

Warmup with a opening Mosey up to front of High School.

SSH x15, Jimmy Dugan Stretch, Calf Stretch Merkins x10

The Thang:

Mosey to front of Champions Forest for the Burpee Mile!  Stop at every light on right for 1 burpee on the way down.  15 Big Boy sit-ups at the end.

Coming out stop at every light on right for 5 Bobby Hurleys.

Cross back over to Cuthbertson and hit every light pole on the right on way to stadium with 5 Merkins.

Mosey back through the school to COT.  Finish with Ignition guys for some ab work.

 

Moleskin:

I heard anywhere from 3.25 to 3.7 on the fancy watches so I will take it and job well done to all the pax.  Gerber introduced me to the Burpee mile awhile back and it was awful then and still today.  Coming out is definitely more up hill and way worse.  I realize this part really took guys out of their comfort zone but everyone pushed and completed it.  You’ve heard it 100 times amongst this group “keep showing up and keep pushing”.  I was thinking to myself on that last uphill portion to the stoplight that if I wasn’t with this group of guys I would have stopped and walked.  That’s what F3 is all about.  Showing up and being held accountable.

Did you know it took me longer to tag everyone than it did to write this backblast?

 

Announcements:

Need more guys to sign up for Rooster as guys will drop out as race gets closer.

Q School this Saturday.  Get signed up now!

 

 

Sunday Morning Retreat

This week we met up at the Retreat at Rayfield in Indian Land. Its quite a busy neighborhood/development. None of us really knew anything about this development and were shocked that it was a pretty big development.

Some conversations we had were that Chicken Little never wore blue jeans until he graduated high school. He strictly wore corduroy pants. Chicken also never ate peanut butter up until a few years ago where he ate peanut butter crackers and discovered that peanut butter was actually pretty good.

Due to his diet, TB hasnt enjoyed some of his favorite foods in over a year such as pizza or peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. He hasnt consumed soda in over 10 years. Speaking of soda, a former teammate/classmate of both TB and Rudy has opened up his own beverage company. Its being sold on Amazon…check it out. There are 4 different flavors. https://www.amazon.com/JavaKIck-Coffee-Cola-Fusion-Rebel-each/dp/B08L4CX2JC/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=java+kick&qid=1614018573&sr=8-1

Turnbuckle also recommends you visit and support the new deli in downtown Waxhaw…The Blue Door Deli. It is owned by one of his neighbors. He has taken his family there for breakfast on a few occasions since they opened.

Posse’s son Dallas is named after Posse’s father. Posse is not a Dallas Cowboys fan yet wears a Dallas Cowboys hat to Neighborhood Watch. It was assumed that Posse was a Cowboys fan and named his son Dallas because of it.

Did you know that Posse’s favorite cookie is Oreo’s. Every Sunday he finds himself stopping at Walmart to pick up some things and sometimes finds himself with a package of Oreo’s in his basket. This conversation led to myself (TB) asking him if he has yet to try the new limited edition Lady Gaga Oreo’s. HA…only you TB know about this stuff!

Posse has a points system for not snacking and his whole family is involved. If he hits his goal, his entire family wins! Wife gets a date night, son gets a golf outing, etc.

Sledge discussed that he was having a great second week at his new job.

Sunday Neighborhood Watch on 2/28/2021 will be at Bent Creek in Indian Land (as long as Periscope doesnt ask us to reschedule again). It truly is a great experience.

Did you know??

We have 3 walking/rucking groups per week now. We have Thursday mornings at 5:15am at Pursuit at Millbridge Clubhouse, Saturday mornings at 6am at Nesbit Park (bring 2 pairs of shoes…walking sneakers if we are just doing the roads or trail shoes if we are doing the trails) and we also have Sunday morning Neighborhood Watch at different communities around the area (check www.f3waxhaw.com for the location each week). Hope to see all of you out there

Putting the past behind us

Location: Bent Creek, Indian Land, SC

Our Sunday morning Neighborhood Watch walk had 10 + 2 fur friends show up for our first warm walk of the season.

This week while venturing out on a 2.56 mile walk lead by Periscope, we learned where he was born and raised as well as where he has lived throughout his life.

It was Elmer’s second day out ever at F3. Mad Dog got him to agree to come out to F3 before he even knew what F3 was. Elmer’s was named due to his occupation. Keep showing up! Showing up is half the battle!

Chicken Little got to learn about Dynomite  and his life of being an entrepreneur.

Got to learn that Chicken likes to visit different F3 locations in his travels. Posse is putting Chastain up to getting out a new FNG that Posse knows during Chastain’s upcoming travel.

Posse is traveling out to the west coast this summer and we discussed doing a tour of the Goonies movie filming locations. Come to find out, Posse has never seen the movie or any of the Rocky movies! Who has never seen these movies?

We learned that Zinfandel has been taking advantage of the down time during the Covid pandemic by taking road trips around the United States with his family.

We discussed how NJ is the lone remaining state where you are not able to pump your own gas.

Why are we putting the past behind us you might ask? The sole purpose of Neighborhood Watch happened once again. Get to know your fellow Pax. For those that dont know, I (Turnbuckle) have found being a part of F3 over the past 18 months, there are going to be personality clashes. One person I have always found myself being difficult to get along with is the one and only Zinfandel. Whether the cause being my childish and immature antics of being on GroupMe or for one reason or another…I dont know the real reason to be honest. I have always respected Zin for the leadership that he brings to F3 Waxhaw, but felt we have seemed to butt heads and I was always intimidated to be around him. Well at NW this week, he initiated conversation with me and it actually went really well. I felt like he was the cool kid in school actually talking to the fat nerdy kid. Like…you want to talk to me? Glad we finally got to break that awkwardness I have always felt there was between us. Thanks for the chat Zin!

 

Next week 3/7 Neighborhood Watch will be at Bel Air at Carolina Lakes in Indian Land. Hope now that we are seeing warmer temps, we will see more of you out there. It really is a great time out there every Sunday morning. Do you have a neighborhood you want us to visit…let us know…we will make it happen.

Buy One Get One Free

To follow is a backblast for The Brave but wait…stick around and you get a Snooze Button backblast for free!!  Frehley’s was the Q for Snooze but he called his shot and said that he is too old to write a backblast (his words not mine) so I will include one.  Read on to see why it is not a big deal.

The Thing (Brave edition)

Mosey to the parking lot behind AAA for a warmup consisting of IW, SSH, LSS, Morrocan Nightclubs, Mtn Climbers, 6 inches into Peter Parkers.

Time for some shopping for office space.  Run down the supersized office parking lot that runs parallel to Community House.  Stop at every office building on the right with a door and drop for 10 merkins.  Continue down Community House with 2 squats at every other street light to the 485 bridge.  Here knock out 10 derkins, run to the other side of the bridge for 10 more derkins.  Finish out the Community House jaunt with 2 squats at every light (big or small) and that gets us to our destination of Endhaven Elementary.

Here YHC noted that luckily we are beginning to be able to add more exercises back into our rotation and YHC has missed pull ups.  So partner up.  P1 runs to the playground for 8 pull ups while P2 does dips at the circular tables then flapjack.  Repeat for 3 rounds.  Next up P1 for 6 pull ups while P2 does incline merkins at the tables.  Repeat for 3 rounds.  Was going to take it down to 4 and 2 reps on pull ups but it was time to move on.  Gotta get those miles in.

Quick mosey to the parking garage across Community House.  Here we built a parking garage ladder and did it together.  Run up to 2nd level together at a fast pace and 10 diamond merkins at the top.  Then down the stairs and collect at the bottom with some mary until the 6 joined.  Then up to the 3rd level stopping for 10 diamond merkins at the 2nd level and 10 right hand staggered merkins at the 3rd level.  Down the stairs gathering for mary.  Finally up to the 4th level with diamonds at 2, right hand staggered at 3 and left hand staggered at 4. Down the stairs gathering for mary.

Back towards launch doing the same variety of exercises that we did on our way down except 10 plank jacks when office shopping.  About 5 minutes left and still needing about 1/3 mile to hit 4 miles so around the parking lot we did shuffle left, run backwards, shuffle left and forward.  Then back to launch running some 3 man weave between the street lights.  4 miles obtained, 1 minute elbow plank, finito.

Moleskin (Brave edition)

Nice work out there by all.  The goal was to get the 4 miles in but still really hit the upper body.  As Sweetwater pointed out we weren’t doing leg day, but regardless what we were doing he was crushing it.  I was glad to find a spot where we could get some pull ups in…they have been missed.  Nice catching up with Gruden and looking forward to training with him for a half marathon that he somehow agreed to while doing pull ups.  Great conversation with Rousey about how F3 has helped both of us get out of comfort zones and become better at planning and leading.  That is what it is all about (and getting in shape at the same time).  Is it me or does every backblast have a section noting where Soft Pretzel led the way the whole time?  Well here’s another one.  Wild Turkey was calling where we were going and exercises we were doing before I did.  Get outta my head man.  Jazz Hands is back at it after having a newborn and it didn’t take him long to get it back.  Apologies that I did not get to catch up with you much this workout but great to have you out.  Taco Stand, Wingman and Midriff are pillars of SOB that not only lead the way physically at workouts but also lead the way in growing our region.  Thank you for all you do.

 

The Thing (Snooze Button edition)

Basically the same thing as above but take away the parking garage ladder.

Moleskin (Snooze Button edition)

Frehley’s ever the F3 OG easily navigated a last minute need to Q and basically made up a great Q as he went.  And this despite Wingman trying to throw him off with mumblechatter which included Rousey-like counting during COP. 3-Way may need to get a new clock because he has hit the Snooze Button hard all 3 times.  Lots of 3’s there.  My friend, your conditioning is already much improved in just 3 weeks.  I can’t wait to see where you are in a couple of months.  You will be doing marathons in no time.  Mighty Mite was given a “A” by Frehley’s for doing the in-and-out ab exercises the hard way.  Then had the grade moved down for refusnik on several curb exercises called by Frehley’s.  Market Timer gets props for leading the charge for a later workout which has definitely provided a new spark.

Announcements

  • Convergence 3/13 at Stonehenge with Dark Helmet on Q.  Great chance to bring out a FNG or kotter and get reinvigorated as we head into the prime weather season and loosening Covid restrictions.
  • Collecting items and/or monetary donations for welcome packages for homeless individuals being provided housing by A Roof Above.  Just give your donations to your AO site Q, Kirby, Madame Tussauds or War Eagle.