During the past month, a number of men from Area 51 have had the opportunity to get to know a beautiful group of kids that live at the Alexander Youth Network [AYN] campus just a few miles outside of downtown Matthews, NC. The range of services offered at AYN is impressive. I can’t do it justice in a brief post, but here are some fast facts to give you a general sense for AYN:
When I was introduced to AYN a few months ago I couldn’t help but wonder how F3 could get involved. After a 6-degrees of separation conversation with Haywood [from the F3 Foundation Board of Directors] I discovered that two men of F3 [i.e., Puppy Love and Sweeper Boy] serve on the AYN Board of Directors. I should have known! Puppy Love connected me with the AYN team, and we jointly decided to try a four week program whereby men of F3 would lead workouts for the AYN residents on Saturday afternoons from 4-5PM. AYN has as many as 36 full-time residents in treatment at any point in time, most in the age range of 8-12. The residential program serves children that require 24-hour supervision; with a typical treatment duration of four to six months. Each child has a unique story, but the common thread is that these are kids that have experienced some real challenges in life, including various forms of abuse.
So, for the past four Saturdays we’ve had a collection of F3 men – Puppy Love, Frasier, Slim Fast, Mermaid, Spackler, Iron Horse, and myself – rotate Saturdays to lead workouts and connect with the kids on a personal level. It’s been – I think – a mutually beneficial experience. The kids showed gains each week… getting the counting down pretty well [better than some of my F3 brothers, who shall remain nameless]… and by the last week we even had some of the kids leading exercises. The kids loved the fact that we had silly nicknames [thankfully, all of the F3-ers on site had family friendly nicknames]. As the weeks progressed it was pretty cool seeing the kids come out of their cottages at the start of the workouts and call out to us by name.
I wanted to share all of this, not for a pat on the back, but rather to make you aware of AYN and to give a small example of how men of F3 continue to find ways to connect with the community. My gentle challenge to the men of Area 51 is to keep your eyes open for community engagement activities. I’ve found that all it takes is one person – with a bit of passion – to attract other men of F3 to community projects/programs. It’s a bit like Field of Dreams… “if you build it, he will come”… just flesh out your idea and the men of F3 will lift it up and make it happen.
So, you may be wondering… well, what next with AYN? We are in the process of working with AYN to a) have a fun F3-AYN cookout to goof around a bit with the kids, and b) establish a long-term commitment with AYN whereby we get men of F3 out with the kids on selected Saturdays throughout the year. So… stay tuned… there will be opportunities to get involved.
Joker
5 men met for a morning workout.
What we did:
-Little baby 1/4 mile jog around parking lot
-Standard warm up… IW; SSH; Squats, etc.
-Played with rocks, using the hill by the back entrance
-Warm up with shuffle step, karaoke, etc.
-Race tiime… .3 mile loop at full speed, with exercise between each set. Rinse/repeat X 4.
-Station work… People’s Chair, Dips, Declines… X3
-Playground… pull ups and squats
-Core work… LBC, flutter, Dolly, Rosalita, Mason Twist
-Finish with ONE burpee
Naked Man
– too bad we ran out of time at the end. I had planned for 100, maybe even 1,000 burpees. But due to time constraints and the bylaws of the Rock workout site I decided that just doing one burpee was appropriate.
-good to see some old friends, and make new ones.
10 men did manly things at Area 51 this morning.
Standard warm up… 1/4 mile jog, SSH, IW, Squats, Incline Merkin
Wall time with some arm presses and merkins mixed in.
Retrieve cinder blocks.
Teams of three with one shared cinder block run 800M loop as fast as you can, switching off with the cinder block as needed.
Playground time… pull ups and squats.
Back to the cinder blocks for another 800M team race.
Playground time again… dips and squats
Back to the cinder blocks for a third 800M team race.
Playground time… LBC, Flutter, Dolly and Mason Twists.
Return cinder blocks.
Go to rock pile for curls, shoulder presses and squats.
Field time… butt kickers, karaoke, back pedal.
Finish with CDD and burpees.
Good work by all this morning. O’T took some ribbing – deservedly – for his poncho… the guy is old school all the way. Floor Slapper is starting to show up at workouts on time, but Donkey Kong is taking his place as the most likely to roll in at 7:02AM. A number of guys brought canned goods and cereal boxes for our Area 51 holiday food drive that we are doing with Calvary Church… well done.
11 men participated in the two-year anniversary workout at The Matrix.
The Thang
Quick warm up… you know the drill… Imperial Walkers, Side Straddle Hop, Squats, Merkins and LBC
“Mini Murph” done in a partner format… everyone run one mile; then with your partner do a combined total of 100 pull ups, 200 merkins and 300 squats; everyone run another mile
Quick warm down… LBC, Flutter, Dolly, Mason Twist
30 burpees
40 squats
Done.
Moleskin
Five men gathered for exercise QB training.
IW X 30
SSH X 30
Slow Squat X 30
Merkin X 30
Lap around the track
Field Work [end line to end line]
Indian Run around the track
Station Work – 3 sets of dips [20 each] and squats [20 each]
Passing challenge… round one
1/2 mile around track at 100%
Playground Work – 3 sets of pull ups [10/8/6] and squats [20 each]
Plank time… few merkins thrown in… People’s Chair [with arm raises]
Passing challenge… round two
LBC / Flutter / Dolly
8 Step Bodybuilder [I think that is what it is called… anyway, it’s what the Hoff was doing at the 9/11 convergence]
2 sets of perfect form merkins
Jail break to COT
Moleskin
22 men [at least I think they were all men… frankly it was too dark to tell for sure] gathered in the humid gloom of Death Valley for a poorly planned but a well executed morning workout.
The Thang [abbreviated style]
-LBC… yep, three sets of those
-Imperial Walker, Dolly and Flutter… of course, these are required elements
-Mason Twists… one set, for fun
-Dips and Supine [sp??] Pull-Ups… three sets of each, 60 total reps
-Squats… for sure, about six sets in total, but who is really keeping track anyway
-Merkins… 323 total [assuming you were able to get in the full 50 merkins that Runstopper demanded when he hijacked my Q]
-Gassers on the football field… 120 yards out, with some merkins at the far goal post, then 120 yards back… as follows:
Moleskin
12 men left the comfort of their beds on Saturday morning for good old fashioned beat down.
The Thang
Lobster Roll
Warm Up – SSH, IW, Squats and Merkins
Cinderblock 800 – Just like it sounds… pick up a cinderblock and run with it for 800 meters, stopping three times for pain stations on the way [including shoulder press, tricep extensions, curl and incline/decline merkins]. Also managed to find time to squeeze in some bear crawls and sprints as we passed by the lower field.
Joker
Mary – LBC, Flutter, Dolly, Mason Twist
Circuit work at the playground – pull ups, dips, squats, merkins
Starfish on the big field, with merkins at each light post
Close out with People’s Chair, merkins and Carolina Dry Docks
Moleskin
All told, did somewhere around 250 merkins. Kind of lost count along the way.
Welcome to two FNGs… “Hochuli” [he’s a high school football ref], and “Venus” [he’s a tennis player and fan].
Eight men gathered for a Stanford University soccer fitness test-inspired workout.
The Thang
Warm Up
-SSX X 30
-IW X 30
-Merkins X 30
-1/4 mile warm up jog
Fitness Test
-1/2 mile race pace, with maximum allowed time of 2:45
-rest 90 seconds
-6/18/60 yard shuttle, with max time of 32 seconds
-rest 90 seconds
-1/4 mile race, with max time of 1:15
-rest 90 seconds
-6/18/60 shuttle, with max time of 32 seconds
-rest 90 seconds
-1/4 mile race, with max time of 1:17
-rest 90 seconds
-6/18/60 shuttle, with max time of 33 seconds
-rest 90 seconds
-1/2 mile race, with max time of 2:50
———
LBC X 30
Flutter X 30
Dolly X 30
Mason Twist X 20
Merkin X 20
Run up the hill to the “blue door” and back
Jog / jail break to parking lot
Merkins X 20
Carolina Dry Dock X 20
Moleskin
I found this fitness test workout on the internet last summer [and I believe everything on the internet because it was invented by Al Gore]. The last time we did the test was in the summer of 2013 at a Fast Twitch workout. It didn’t feel any easier this time. The max threshold times above feel within reach when you see them on paper, but when you stack up the exercises with limited recovery time it is a real challenge. And on balance, the 6/18/60 shuttle run max times were more difficult to achieve than the 1/2 mile and 1/4 mile max times. We stuck with the fitness program protocol, except on the last 1/2 mile we stuck together as a pack rather that doing an as-fast-as-you-can-go format.
Splinter burned up the track on the first 1/2 mile test, and a couple others squeaked in just under 2:45. Lobster and Turkey Leg were motoring at a fast clip, especially on the 6/18/60 shuttles.
Great to see Skywalker back in the gloom. He must have superhuman healing powers that Skywalker.
Gummy, if you haven’t noticed, is a sweating machine. Almost to the point of Slapshot, and that is saying something. Definitely fist bumps, not hugs, at the end of workout with brother Gummy. Speaking of Gummy… lots of Gummy sitings at F3 workouts lately
Strange Brew is just an animal. The guy does Go Rucks, marathons, F3 Gears, sprint workouts, kettlebell workouts… whatever it is, he’s game to try it.
So it turns out that Cheese Curd is a fan of the 90s grunge / alt rock scene, as am I. Next time a good band comes to town… let’s get a crew together and hit the show.
31 humans [including some Dads, some pre-teens and some toddlers] hit Col Beatty Park on Saturday morning for the weekly edition of F3 Dads [Charlotte South style].
The Thang [I left my Weinke in my car this morning… so, this is a general description of things I can hardly remember two days later]
Warm Up:
-SSH X 20
-IW X 20
-Squat X 20
-Merkin X 10
-High Knees / Butt Kickers
Red-Light Green Light:
-Frog Jump
-Bear Crawl
-Gorilla Jump
Relay Races [five team of four kids]
Core Work – LBC, Flutter, Dolly, Plank
Sprints
Finish with ten burpees
Moleskin
Eight futbol-ers [sp??] hit the ghetto pitch at The Matrix for a soccer-insprired workout.
The Thang
200 Meter Warm up
IW X 17
SSH X 17
Squat X 17
Stretch time [like the Flex boys, but without the lacrosse balls embedded in the rump]
“120s” – Sprint 120 yards, then recovery jog 120 yards back to the starting point. Rest alowed until total elapsed time of 60 seconds. Then… do it all over again. Our goal was to do the cycle ten times, sticking with the 60-second schedule for each cycle. We made it ten times, but added a little extra recovery time during cycles 6-10.
Core work… including LBC, Flutter, Dolly and Mason Twists
Station Work
-Ten pull ups / 20 squats / 20 dips
-Eight pull ups / 20 squats / 15 dips
– Six pull ups / 15 squats / 15 dips
People’s Chair with merkins during recovery time… total of 50 merkins
10 burpees OYO
Moleskin
-So, CMS budget cuts have led to to some challenging field conditions at McKee Road Elementary School. What was once a decent field is now 50 percent tall weeds and 50 percent dirt patches. Maybe conditions will improve when school is back in session.
-I’m a natural born sweater [almost to the extent of Slap Shot… that man can break into a full on sweat about ten seconds into a workout], and this morning was a shirt-drencher all the way. As a piece of marriage advice I will tell you guys.. if you happen to drive your M’s vehicle to a summer workout, be smart enough not to leave her with a sweaty seat belt.
-Floor Slapper is a Mud Run free agent. He’s a doctor, so could make for a good teammate!