Monthly Archive May 2021

Bushwood 2 Man Scramble!

 

Diccs!

2 laps around circle then Into Warmup

On gym side of campus!

18 SSH in cadence, 18 Mountain Climbers,

27 Merkins, 18 LSS in Cadence!

 

The Thang:

2 Man Teams selected, Partner 1 runs around circle and does 5 Mike Tyson’s mid way while partner 2 starts the exercises. Rotate upon finishing each lap! LBC’s till the 6 returns before next set.

 

100 Merkins as a team

100 Donkey Kicks

200 Air Presses

100 American Hammers

100 Dry Docks

200 Squats

100 Side Shuttle Hops

100 Bobby Hurleys

100 Freddie Mercuries

 

Moleskin:

It was an honor as usual to lead such a fine group of men!  The Pax quickly found out we won’t be going far as we started the tunes with Round and Round (RATT).  Good work today gents for a 45 min no break session. Highlight of the morning was Smuggler returning with 1 sleeve after a trip to the woods!  Use your imagination 😂,  He is halfway there to the traditional Bushwood attire!!

Announcements:

Keep a lookout for Blood Drives coming up.

Stacking Q’ing – and escaping the rain again!

For some strange reason, I end up Qing twice within 2-3 days for the second time now… It makes the planning easier and you almost come into a rhythm… This might actually be an advise for VQ’s or people who did not Q often, yet!

I was almost preparing for rain this morning, but thought: the forecast was showing rain soooo often and it never happened. And so it was once more! Before giving the DiCSS, I had to tell everyone to sh** ** and listen – if they would know what’s coming at them! – but got a nice jab back when I was finished 20sec earlier and got asked if they were allowed to talk again… 😉

Warmup

The typical thing: warm-up mosey along the main street, turning it at CVS and circling up at that small parking lot. Then 15x in cadence: Side Straddle Hops, Maroccon Night Clubs, Imperial Walker, Mountain Climbers – then calf and runners stretch and a nice upward and downward dog. With all the sighs of relief!

The Thang

We moseyed back to the Pet-smart parking lot and started a star-fish: 15 merkins, 10 big boys, 10 Mike Tysons, 20 Freddie Mercury’s and 3 burpees in the middle. Repeat to have 2 rounds. Talks were mainly about WTF and how people underestimated either the distance or the trail or the format or…

We went over to the wall of Pet-smart and “partnered up”. One partner had to run “on the outside of the inside of the parking lot” – that was confusing but after a few times repeating and showing, everybody got it. The other partner started with the exercises… sit against the wall – jabs, then donkey kicks, then sit against the wall – air presses, then bobby hurleys. Swimmers took 3 rounds to figure out my German accent… “what is a jab?” – “well, a just like a “jab”, you know Rocky Balboa” – “what is a jab?” – “you know, in boxing if you hit somebody with a jab” – “ahhh… a “jab””. I still need to figure out, how I pronounced it differently… 🙂 We repeated until I said stop (I think it was almost two rounds). There was a lot of “oh, they need to run faster, I’m done with the exercises!”

Mosey over to the big parking lot again, finding 4 corners: 20 dips, 20 speed skaters (one is one), 5 Burpees, 20 LBC’s. Total of two rounds, picked up the six and finished all together with additional 20 dips. I pulled up a Fun-FAct from Friday: 65% of the highways in Germany (Autobahn) have no speed limit. And: In Germany, there is no punishment for a prisoner who tries to escape from jail, because it is a basic instinct to be free! Now – if you count 1 and 1 together… you got it! Jailbreak – but not to COT, yet, but to the parking lot above it! That is a long way!

With two minutes to go we Lunge-walked to the next speed bump and then moseyed back around to COT. Got around 3mi in!

Moleskin

It was great to have 9 PAX out, as it spices the workout up a little bit with different fitness levels, more small and trash talk – yet, everybody is part of the group and it is always great to see what we all together can achieve!

Announcements

  • Asylum needs a Q next Monday
  • Unconfirmed: last Monday of May is Convergence for Memorial Day
  • Q-Source: “5 love languages”, lead by By-pass

Akbar took us out – and is really looking forward to tomorrow: May the fourth!

May is Mental Health Awarness Month!!

And for my 70th Q, my brain is fried after an emotional weekend. Put together the Workout in about 10 minutes but I put about 30mins on the ending. Keep reading…

Big month, how will you impact your brothers around you?

DiCCS given. Let’s roll.

THE THANG

Mosey towards the high school, threw in some exercises while running. Butt kickers, high knees, karaoke.

Circle up in front of high school

1. 20 x SSH IC

2. 10 x Moroccan Night Clubs

3. Jimmy Dugan

4. Downward Dog

5. Upward Dog

6. Calf Stretch

7. Can Opener & Runners Pose

8. 10 x Merkins

Mosey to the grass hill. 10 x Squat Jumps at the top. 20 x Speedskaters at the bottom. Complete twice.

Mosey to drivers Ed lots. 7 lights. 1 burpee at first light. So on and so on.

To big parking lot for starfish. 10 x Big Boys in the middle. 10 of each. Merkins. Bomb jacks. V Ups. Dry Docks. Repeato.

Mosey to Rudy’s Poop Palace. Wall sits. Air press x Heel Lifts. Shadow Box x Toe Lifts

Mosey to back of the school for Lt. Dan. 1/2 round completed. Mosey to the front of the school for what I’m calling…

The Bernie Sanders! I think something like this already exists in the form of Feel The Burn which is running up hills backwards. As for this version, this is way different. The Bernie Sanders is when you ask the pax to “handout” a round of exercises. Get it?

We went around the horn asking a few guys to call an exercise on our 6. Success. Mosey back to COT with 3 mins to go…

Round 6 and 7 of Lt Dan. 30secs of Have a Nice Day while the feelings came back to our legs.

And fin…

MOLESKIN

I have never been more thankful of a little wind than the few breezes that came through this AM. It was hot The air was thick and my mind was all over the place. My anxiety/stress was tight in my chest and my breathing felt a bit restricted.

In COT I shared a story about a good friend of mine’s wife and her being diagnosed with stage 4/terminal cancer recently. His wife Betsy is a wonderful human and mother to two great kids, 4 & 6. Like many of us they felt pretty invincible in all things and then you get dealt some news like this to change all kinds of perspectives.

Since turning 40 this past December I had my first ever anxiety attack the morning after my birthday. The thought of death has always stressed me out and that morning surrounded by my family for the holidays the thought of being close to half way through life hit me like a ton of bricks. It honestly hadn’t ever really crossed my mind until that morning but since then I’m more aware than usual.

Started to research things I can do/read/take to reduce those feelings before headed to the doctor for a script. While talking with my outside F3 Shield Lock the mix of meditation and ashwagandha was mentioned. Taking the supplement has helped but I still got more head work to do. If you ever see my walk away from the group after a sprint up Bad Idea while ripping off my headband, that’s me talking to myself. Just the feeling I’m about to pass out while reaffirming that “I’m fine, relax”.

That overwhelming feeling was weighing heavy on my this morning. Completely out of breath during jump jacks just due to my brain on red alert. Pretty amazing what the body can handle and wild what the brain does just when you want it to quiet down a bit.

I share all of the above in case anyone else is feeling anxious. Everyone is going through a little something. Some don’t realize they are going through something but hopefully a little “sharing” from the brothers within help others feel more comfortable to share.

Lastly, May is Mental Health Awareness Month! Who will be the next to share a struggle? Does talking about it help you? Will talking about it help someone else? Let’s find out…

Thanks to Judge Smails for the 6th man and to Mad Dog for taking us out.

ANNOUNCEMENTS

• Memorial Day – The Murph Convergence. It’s not fun but its a small sacrifice honoring and thinking about soldiers who have made the ultimate sacrifice for our freedoms. Be there, you don’t want to miss this.

Come for the workout, stay for the tunes

10 pax assembled on the finest pavement in CMS for this weeks edition of Swole.  Reasonably disclaimed as the 0530 arrivals assembled their gear we did that F3 kettlebell thing:

Warmup

  • 10 halos – 5R/5L
  • 5 2HS
  • 10 around the work – 5R/5L
  • 10 2HS
  • 10 Sharon Towers
  • 15 2HS
  • Prying squat
  • 20 2HS

Neupert

  • 10×6 double swings @ 1:00

Complexes

  • Pick your poison sntaches – pick a number of snatches and do that every 30 seconds for 5 minutes, alternating R/L
  • Voodoo complex – 1HS, Highpull, snatch, clean, squat, press on R and L EMOM for 5 minutes

EZ Strength

  • 2×10 DDLs
  • 2×10 Merkins on bells
  • 2×5 pull ups
  • 2×10 1HS on R and L

Mary

  • Elbow plank
  • Hollow body hold
  • Glute bridge

 

Molskine:

  • Mighty Mite wanted to get in some training for the Functional Strength challenge on 5/22 – we hit all 3 exercises today
  • The Swole/Meathead/Olympus circuit is great for all the runners on rehab. Hoover was the second PAX to post to one of these in the last month in a boot.  Strong work.
  • Turkey Leg is done with running season and getting ready for muscle beach this summer
  • Great to have War Eagle back out and I suspect the double swings and snatches has him eager to come back
  • The playlist was a hit today, music really is YHC’s specialty. The mystery song that “sounded like the day WT got drunk at Tweetsie” was Hot Town by none other than Ghost Train Orchestra – you are welcome.
  • Always a pleasure to lead

 

Announcements

  • Check the newsletter for all the goings on – CSAUPs, new workouts, happy hours, and general tom foolery

Maximum Overdrive

YHC pulled into the lot with a minute to spare, Floorslapper was not far behind and O’ Tannenbaum was not far behind Slapper….and Udder was even further behind OT, thus, 11 of Area 51’s finest launched into the the unseasonably warm gloom of the darkest AO in the region.

So here’s some Thang and some Moleskinnage:

Moseyed down to the track for a warmup lap and COT behind the end zone.  Standard COP including the obligatory flatulence during the flutter kicks.  Plan was to do some work on the football field but YHC heeded the “Stay Off the Field” signage, so we instead availed ourselves of one of the baseball fields.  Baseball’s more to my liking anyway.

Triple Nickel on the field with dry docks & jump squats on either end.

Bear crawl to stairwell, grab a lifting rock not a running rock.

At this point, Sardine claims I had pax running with rocks one time at Hawks Nest.  #fakenews. Running with rocks or rucks is just plain stupid.

Rock work including thrusters, triceps, old school sit-up’s, Lougainis, etc, etc.

Back to the diamond for another triple nickel – burpees & Freddy Mercury’s

People’s Chair

6 Minutes O’ Mary

Finito

Other observations:

  • May have been some dueling headbands between Circuit City & Sardine
  • Udder’s not scared to drive 30 minutes to post at Basecamp.  T-claps.
  • Marvel is a silent assassin
  • OT was gearing up to caddy at the pro-am at Quail this morning #dannynoonan
  • Jet Fuel is getting married on May 21st.  None of you are invited.
  • Memorial Day 1-hour workout at 7am at Basecamp.

By the way, the “Maximum Overdrive” title is because a huge tractor-trailer was parked near the launch lot and was running the enter time.  Ask Geraldo or Puddin’ for a synopsis of that Stephen King flick.

Not a ton of mumble chatter.  Solid crew.  Thanks to Magoo & Thunder for tapping me to Q.

Have a great week sports fans.

Heads or Tails

The Warmup

Starting the morning thinking how stupid can I be to Q Ignition after WTF! What is worse I agreed to this after WTF was completed! Anyway we were off with a mosey to driver education parking lot for some dynamic stretching.

  • 15 SSH
  • 15 Imperial walkers
  • Glidah stretch 10 seconds per leg
  • Hurry stretch 10 seconds per leg
  • 15 Mountain Climbers
  • 10 seconds upward dog
  • Started the THANG

The Thang

PAX ran to the the entrance of Champion Forrest to complete some Paul Abdul. I asked the PAX, heads or tails and Baio said heads.

Paula Abdul consisted of 10 dry docks at second street and back one light for 10 more. This continued until we reached the stop sign.

We turned around heading back to the school to complete another round of Paula Abdul except this time was tails, big boy situps.

PAX arrived back to Cuthbertson and ran to the center island to complete 5 sprints. Run to first sign on the football field fence and wait for the 6. Repeated four more times and then proceeded to the roundabout. PAX broke into teams to complete more sprints. P1 person ran around the parking while P2 completed heel to heaven until P1 returned, then switch. Each team completed 2 rounds.

Mosey to Rudy’s shed to finish off with more Paula Adbul expect this time 10 dry docks at second light and 10 big boy on the return trip. Audible was called to reduce reps to 3 and with 1 minute left, ran to COT.

Confirmed, I was stupid and thanks everyone for waiting on me since I was the 6 the entire time…lol

Announcements

The Murph memorial day

6th man – Judge Smails

 

Off Campus Hills

6 men started the week on purpose and came to check out what some guy that supposedly went to F3 in Harrisburg had in store this morning.  Promises of going off campus were kept and no pax were lost in the process.  It went like this.

#Disclaimer

Warm Up

  • SSH x 15
  • Imperial Storm Trooper, aka, Imperial Walker x 15
  • Wind Mill x 12
  • Mountain Climber x 20
  • Merkin x 10

The Thang

Wall Routine

Balls to the wall with hip slaps x 10

People’s Chair with Air presses x 15

3 rounds

Stairs

Reverse Bear Crawl up one flight, Crawl bear backwards on the level, reverse bear crawl up 2nd flight

Mosey to Bleachers

20 Dips, 15 decline merkins

Mosey Off Campus to Poplar Grove Circle

Partner Up Catch me if you can

One partner does 10 merkins while other partner quadraphelia (runs backwards up the hill)

After 10 merkins sprint to catch your partner and switch

Repeato until we reach the top of the hill

Round 2

Partner 1 does 2 burpees while partner 2 runs forward slowly

Repeato until we get back to the bottom of the hill

Halleluiah Indian run (pax in the slow line have arms raised while running) back to the sidewalk exit

Mosey to bleachers for one more round of 20 dips, 15 decline merkins

Mosey to parking lot

Bear Crawl Suicides

Bear crawl to line, 10 merkins, run back – 3 sections worth

4, actually 3, corners

5 merkins, 20 LBC, and 20 Reverse Crunch

Mary

LBCs x 20, Low Flutter x 20, Crunch Frog x 15, 1:30 elbow plank

Moleskin

  • Thanks for coming out this morning.  The AO has a lot of options, especially if you bring a good headlamp.
  • Glad you guys “liked” the balls to the wall hip slaps.  The disclaimer comes in very handy.
  • Welcome out Joe, now Deuce.
  • Not too much mumblechatter this morning, at least that YHC could hear.  I’ll take that as a compliment that you were too out of breath to talk too much trash.
  • Announcements
    • Friday afternoons from 12:30-1 there’s a workout at Dogwood park in Wesley Chapel.  Guys that “aren’t morning people” or need a shortened version to get started now have no excuse to try it.

 

Monday Morning MASH

4 PAX made their way to Cuthberson on a Monday morning and found themselves on the opposite side of the parking lot. We joined the boot campers to start and then we were on our own for:

WARM UP:

Dynamic stretching: butt kickers, walking imperial walkers, toy soldiers, open the gate and LSS.

THE THANG:

Medley of Merkins, perform the called merkin followed by an ab exercise:

Regular Merkin x 10, LBC x 15

Diamond Merkin x 10, Heels to Heaven x 15

Wide-Arm Merkin x 10, toe-tap crunch x 15

Then it was time to concentrate on the arms: one round of 21s with dumbbells or bricks, then tricep extension x 15 in cadence count

Use the sitting portion of the bench for incline merkin and dips. Do a merkin, then a dip, move down a bit, do another until you are down one side of the bench then go to the other side and do the same thing.

Stay at the bench to work on legs. Squats x 10, split leg squat (r) x 10, squats x 10, split leg squats (l) x 10, squats x10

Rinse and repeat: Medley of Merkins, arm work with dumbbells, and leg work on bench.

Finish with each PAX calling a mary and some stretching.

MOLESKIN

It was great to finally get to Q MASH.  I don’t know if they got anything out of my Q, but at least I was able to get Penalty Box to crack a smile at one point.

Thank you for allowing me to lead.

 

Less than 8 hours of RockZero

My first Q in quite some time at RockZero, weather was perfect and no site Qs were joining the workout, so we could celebrate May Day in peace. I did promise no burpees and that the workout would be less than an 8 hour work day, and I think we were successful.

The Thang

Warmup run to side of Calvary which included some  high knees, butt kickers, karaoke. Had to go around a bit to add be able to get both sides of the karaoke, but the PAX still complained it wasn’t quite enough karaoke.

Circle up for some SSH, mountain climbers, IW, Merkins (seems like I need to work on my cadence counting for merkins), Sharon Towers, Carolina Dry Docks, Low slow squats.

 

Run to grassy field in front of the church

5 corners – deconstructed burpee edition

Middle: jumpsquats x16

Corners (x16):

Merkins

LBCs

Widearms

Heels to heaven

Diamonds

Second round reduced this to 8, which felt much better.

 

North Face:

Feet on curb planks, with called exercises, and some moves to the sides (bear walks?)

Shoulder taps, Mountain climbers, arm highs, back pockets, peter parkers and various other fun little activities that were broken up by some North Face loops. Think we did 3-4 loops, but who is keeping track anyway.

 

Rock Pile / Baseball Field:

Lifting rock

Partner 1 runs around outside of field (obstacle course)

Partner 2 does exercise curls, overhead press, tricep ext, rock squats.

Joker Lap – each partner had to do at least 1 joker lap hitting all the bases.

 

Back for some Mary.

 

Moleskin

Thanks for letting me lead! It has been a while since I’ve done some North Face loops and Baseball field loops, both of which turns out is quite a bit of distance, so that managed to eat up most of the workout. We did manage to get a good 3.3 miles, but that did mean we didn’t quite have time for the 2nd half of the weinke. Still, was fun to do some of the more “old school” items at RockZero. Great work by the PAX, especially since no one got hurt on the baseball field loops (man, those holes are huge).

GrowRuck 24 Pre-Blast

You’re reading this pre-blast because:

  • You’re thinking about participating in GrowRuck 24 in the gateway to Gastonia, Charlotte NC
  • You’re not doing GrowRuck 24 and you just need the reading material to keep you sane before your next conference call
  • It’s 0500, you’re on the can, flipping through your phone and about to head out the door to a workout

If you don’t fit neatly into one of these categories, sound off in the comments.  While you’re coming up with something witty to say, here are the top-ten reasons you should do GrowRuck in Charlotte, this year.

  1. When was the last time you played army in the woods with a bunch of your buddies?  That corporate paintball trip doesn’t count.  Even when you went all Apocalypse Now on Tucker from logistics, like you were some kind of Martin Sheen to his Marlon Brando.  Next time Kyle from accounting offers you that crappy camo face-paint, just say no.
  2. You get to buy an expensive backpack.  Why does the M get to have all the fun and spend all the money on pointless accessories?  This is your opportunity to match her $ for $*. 
  3. Because DREDD likes to talk .. and talk … and talk … and talk for 2 days. GrowRuck will give you plenty of that.  Led by F3 Cadre, most notably Cadre DREDD.  You will get to pontificate with and listen to the musing of the mind that brought us F3.  While rucking your @$$ off.  If you’ve ever been to Speed Ruck on Fridays (or any other Metro workout) with DREDD you’ll know what YHC means.  Meet and learn from one of the founders of F3, DREDD aka: David Redding.
  4. Lack of sleep.  GrowRuck starts at sundown and ends at sunrise or whenever the Cadre calls it.  You’ll never see a better sunrise than at the end of a GrowRuck Tough or you won’t …
  5. Carry heavy things long distances.  GoRuck was founded on the foundation of Special Forces training. Green Berets are well versed in shouldering heavy rucks through cities, mountains, jungles and deserts, in war and in peace.  You’ll carry a ruck. and probably a sandbag or 9.  If you’re really lucky someone will find a log for you to carry.  Doesn’t this sound wonderful?  Covid restrictions do not apply.
  6. It’s the perfect excuse to go train at Area 51’s premier (and only) ruck workout, SACS.  It’s the best (and worst) ruck workout in South Charlotte.  Winner of every prestigious new workout award (of which there are none).  You’ll find your favorite regulars at 0515 SCMS parking lot including (but not limited to) Geraldo, Wild Turkey, Dora, and Cheese Curd.  Reach out to one of them if you need a spare ruck.
  7. You get to be called a weirdo by people who have no idea what rucking is or why they should be doing it.  Just wait until that carload of 20 somethings pulls up next to you at 2:37 AM and asks “what are you guys doing?” “What’s F3?” “Are you some kind of militia?” “That looks heavy.  Is it?” “Hey my uncle stormed the capitol, will you say hi to him in prison?”
  8. It’s a CSAUP and makes for really cool stories to tell your kids, co-workers, and other pax.  Like your favorite fishing story, “Man you should have been there, by the time we pulled this thing out of the water it was over 40 feet long and must have weighed 2-ga-jillion pounds.  What Cadre hides their snack in the glove box of a rusty El Camino at the bottom of a lake, weighed down with cinder blocks, and conveniently has a rope tied to its front bumper for retrieval?”
  9. You get to put reflective gear on your ruck.  And reflective gear has proven to be 100% effective at defending against, and repelling, small arms fire, mortar attacks, rocket propelled ordinance, fat girls on roller blades, ninja attacks, zombie hordes, gay vampires, gremlins, bigfoot, UFO abductions, el chupacabra, great white sharks, creepy little girls in horror movies, Jehovah’s witnesses, mimes, Rosie O’Donnell, that sham-wow guy, sith lords, decepticons, goth kids, charlie horses, purple nurples, and gingivitis.  All in all reflective gear is the best accessory for your ruck.
  10. These things typically end with a cold beer, a cool 2×3 patch, and knowing you’ve done more by sunrise than most people will do all week.

Now you know, and knowing is half the battle.

* F3 does not take responsibility for pax choosing to match their M’s handbag spending $ for $.  Any pax choosing to do so, will proceed at their own risk.  Your safety is not F3’s responsibility, but is our priority and all pax are encouraged to modify as necessary.  We are not professionals and F3 does not endorse the statements above nor recommends spending obscene sums of money, unless it’s at The F3 Gear Store or goruckdotcom (not a paid promotion).