Author: Montross (Page 14 of 20)

Allen Tate had the Q this morning but sent a message saying he was having some problems with his foot and asked someone to be prepared to fill in. As 5:30 am rolled around, there was no AT to be seen. I came planning to take the Q and I had rough idea of what I wanted to do. Since I have been lifting with Sparky on Tuesday mornings recently, I figured I’d focus on the chest, shoulders, and core and keep the running minimal this morning.

Warmup:

• SSH 15 IC
• Cotton Pickers – 10 IC
• Hillbillies – 10 IC

Thang:
We mosey to the lower shelter and hit the lights for the first round of circuit work. Like I said, I was prepared to Q so I brought my bluetooth speaker and I asked if anyone knew who Cody Jinks was. Volt said no, but he was pretty sure they were getting ready to find out. Yep! (Start with Loud and Heavy if you check his music out. BTW, no doubt in my mind Whoopee would LOVE Cody Jinks).

15 Decline Merkins on my count
10 Step Ups each leg OYO
15 Dips IC
Take a lap around the parking lot.
Repeat for 3 sets.

I had to move on from Cody Jinks to a classic rock playlist. I love it but it was just a little too slow for an F3 workout.

Short mosey to the turd shack by the pond for our next circuit.

Dirty Hookups 10 IC
Big Boys 10 OYO
Low Slaw Squats – 10 OYO
Take a lap around the parking lot
Repeat for 3 sets.

Mosey to the parking lot. We had a few minutes left so we did some 1 minute AMRAP with 30 second rests.
– LBCs
– Merkins
– Flutter Kicks
– LBCs
– 1 minute Plank

Time!

Prayer Requests: Kids in school, guys not at Folsom today, Ratchet’s son (I failed to mention this but I’m adding it now!). YHC took us out in prayer.

Moleskin: A big piece of F3 is turning men into leaders, then developing them into better leaders. Stepping in to lead when your fellow PAX are unable, for whatever reason, is part of the deal. Sometimes, it’s missing an alarm. Others, it may be due to an injury or just a classic “fartsack”. Today was my day and, as site Q, it’s sorta my job. If I weren’t there though, there’s no doubt Stogie or Volt would have stepped in and led the workout. It isn’t just me, I’ve seen many others do it as well. Get out there and Q so you’re ready to step in and have a few exercises ready just in case you’re called upon! Speaking of ‘get out and Q’, Stogie will have his VQ on Saturday. If you aren’t running the Stop Soldier Suicide 5k, come get some at Folsom at 6:30 am!

• Montross

YHC is a regular at Folsom and I also make my way to Downtown, Painlab, Gashouse, and Midoriyama from time to time. Getting to Storm, Goat, Mt. Hollywood, etc is a bit more difficult for me because I have to get back home to take my kids to school. That being said, I set a personal goal join an elite group (HIPAA, Sargento, possibly a few others) who have Q’d every F3 Gastonia workout. I’d like to get at least 75% of those locations taken care of by the end of the year and anytime the kids are out of school, it’s a good opportunity for me to head out to one of the more distant locations. That being said, I found myself in the ‘vaguely familiar’ confines of Mount Holly at 5:10 am on my day off, making final weinke plans as I eagerly anticipated the arrival of HIMs! 12 were present for a simple, yet effective beatdown to finish off Labor Day weekend!

Warm-a-rama:
SSH, Gravel Pickers (that parking lot is worse than Folsom’s), and Toy Soldiers.

Thang:
I looked through some Area 51 backblasts and found a circuit workout that was used in August that looked like a pretty solid workout. The backblast was littered with complaints from the PAX, which sounds like the kind of thing I want to bring. The lay of the land in Mt Holly did force me to make 2 adjustments but it worked out.

There were 7 stations around the Middle School parking lot and each station represented an exercise (marked with very fancy hand written tags). Go from station to station and complete as many laps as you can until I call time. The stations were:
– Merkins 20 single count
– Dips 20 single count
– Dirty Hookups 20 in cadence (Broke seemed to think this was a bad idea. He may have been right)
– Big Boys 20 single count
– Mountain Climbers 20 each leg
– Squats 20 single count
– Burpees 1x for every lap completed (2 on the 2nd lap, 4 on the 4th, etc)

We ran the circuit for about 35 minutes. Some got 6 laps in, a few got in 5, we all finished up together with 6 burpees.

I stopped us with about 10 minutes left so we could get in a little circuit work together.
– Rosalitas 10-ish IC
– LBCs 20 IC
– Divebombers 5 on my count

Repeat a 2nd time with 7 Divebombers.

We mosey back to start and I have about 2 minutes left. I don’t want to short-change these men so we finished off with Jacked Up!
– SSH – 25 IC
– Seal Jacks – 20 IC
– Plank Jacks – 15 IC
– Crossover Jacks – 10 IC
– Smurf Jacks aka Little Gumby in the Woods – 5 IC

Pledge. Time! We went over by a few minutes but there weren’t any real complaints because these are REAL HIMs!

We reviewed announcements, YHC took us out in prayer. Show to know!

Sorry this BB is a bit later than usual for me. I prefer to get them in within a day so I can remember things more easily. As Oompa was so eager to point out, my memory is terrible. That’s ok, I still love ya Ooompa! It was good to spend some time in the gloom with a few guys I don’t see often and 1 or 2 I’d never met. Mt. Hollywood has a good thing going on out there. You are welcome at Folsom anytime! Sign up for a Q while you’re at it!

• Montross

Late Monday afternoon, I picked up the Q at Midoriyama for Tuesday and wasn’t quite sure what I was going to do. I was already planning to post at Folsom on Tuesday morning for a cinder block workout with Tater Hole so blocks wouldn’t be a good idea. I decided to see what Tater Hole Q’d at Folsom, then I’d pull a weinke together based on what I felt I could still do!

Let’s take a quick step back to this past summer: I was inspired while visiting F3 Grandstrand in June. A HIM named Kitten led the workout and Q’d from a children’s book about, you guessed it, kittens. It was very creative as well as a tough workout! I had an idea to make it my own book similar to what he’d done, but just hadn’t gotten around to putting it together yet. I decided Tuesday morning I could put a little effort into this around lunch and pull it off.

I was able to get out of work in time to beat the traffic and arrived to see one lone HIM in the shadows of the restroom awning, escaping the light rain. Wojo! We chatted for a while about the rain, basketball, glory days, and what not as a few others arrived. I, for one, was NOT mad about the rain. I normally post in the morning so the typical Midoriyama heat would have sucked the life right out of me! It was a refreshing 77 F with light rain as the clock struck 5:30 PM and 12 HIMs clocked in for a trip down memory lane as we read the future New York Times Bestseller: Montross’s Nursery Rhymes For HIMs

Warmarama:

Side Straddle Hops – 15 IC
Toy Soldiers – 10 IC
Cotton Pickers – 10 IC
Moroccan Night Clubs as we patiently wait for one of our seniors to join the group. Honestly, our arms would have fallen off if we had waited for this unnamed Respect HIM to complete is wardrobe change so we got started, knowing he’d catch up.

So what is Montross’s Nursery Rhymes For HIMs? Just a little illustrated book I put together of well-known nursery rhymes and children’s songs from everyone’s childhood. Each page of the book has a different nursery rhyme and picture (all children’s books need illustrations, right?). There’s also an exercise that relates to the nursery rhyme in some way on each page. We didn’t cover every page of the book, but here’s what we did cover:

Slaw introduce the men to our first nursery rhyme. Jack be nimble, Jack be quick, Jack jump over the candlestick!

Exercise: Elevens featuring Jump Squats and Mike Tysons. Work on your ‘nimbleness’ as you tighten that core with the Mike’s and hop right over that candlestick over and over with those jump squats!

We took a little mosey down the street as I looked for a little hillside fitting for our next exercise. I didn’t pick the steepest hills due to the rain and safety. Up next: Jack and Jill went up the hill to fetch a pail of water. Jack fell down, bumped his crown, and Jill came tumbling after.

Exercise: Triple Nickel – 5 Burpees, run up hill, 5 American Hammers in cadence, run down the hill. Repeat 5 times. Fortunately, everyone was careful and no PAX ‘bumped their crown’. There may have been one PAX complaining about doing exercises on your on and in cadence. Well, 5 American Hammers isn’t hard enough for me, but hey, you vs you playa!

We take another short mosey down the street to a nice flat area as Slaw reads our next rhyme: Eeny, meeny, miny moe, catch a tiger by his toe. If he hollers, let him go. Eeny, meeny, miny moe!

Exercise: Partner Wheel Barrels – one does the wheel barrel while the other drives, do 10 SSH each (OYO, but also in cadence again LOL), flip-flow roles, repeate 10 SSH each. The book says repeat as time allows here and I thought about another round, but I wanted to get through as much of the book as possible.

The next nursery rhyme was saved for one specific HIM. Sister Act read the next one: Red rover, red rover, send a Douche Bag right over.

Exercise: Interval Running Training: Nur, Sprint, and then recovery walk to light poles for round 1. I wanted to do 2 or 3 sets of this, but it was just too slick for sprinting so we moved to the next round of training. High Knees, Butt Kickers, Karaoke for rounds 2 and 3 .

I could think of no one better to read the next rhyme than our very own Dr Seuss, a man who has been teaching this one for YEARS! It’s the “Alphabet Song”! A B C D E F G, H I J K L M N O P, Q R S, T U V, W X Y and Z.
Now I know my ABCs, next time won’t you sing with me.

Exercise: On your six, legs together. Write the alphabet in the air. Unfortunately I was unable to get Dr Seuss to sing the song, but we’ll let it slide this time! I did prove my handwriting is horrible.

I felt like we needed some singing at this point and if there was one HIM in this group I could count on for some flair who would not be scared to sing, it is Bedpan. He bellowed out a wonderful rendition of “If you’re happy and you know it, clap your hands. If you’re happy and you know it clap your hands. If you’re happy and you know it, then your face will surely show it. If you’re happy and you know it clap your hands!”

Exercise: Jacked Up! – 25 Side Straddle Hops, 20 Seal Jacks, 15 Plank Jacks, 10 Crossover Jacks, 5 Smurf Jacks, all in cadence. Yogi was practically begging for his life at this point but the 2nd-time poster pushed through. Frankly, Yogi pushed hard all workout long. Thanks to the PAX who helped support him along the way today!

We take a short mosey back across the parking lot to the area adjacent to where the flag was. It is only appropriate that burpee connoisseur Slaw read this next one: Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall, Humpty Dumpty had a great fall. All the king’s horses and all the king’s men, couldn’t put Humpty together again.

Exercise: AMRAP Burpees. 1 minute. It took too long for the clock to start so we got started a little early. Sister Act suggested working on form over quantity and many obliged. Good call. Take that Merkin all way to the ground!

Special shout out to Tater Hole for bringing the speaker. It was absolutely necessary for the finale of my Q of nursery rhymes and children’s songs. The Baby Shark Abs Challenge! If you haven’t seen it before, here’s a link! It is hard! Some completed it, some didn’t. Regardless, we can’t do it anywhere near as well as the young girls in the video. I challenge any of you to give it a shot.

We had a few minutes left so I figured we’d call a little round of Mary to wipe us out!

Slaw – Freddie Mercuries – 15 IC (I think that’s how many we did)
Sister Act – Plank Jack Merkins – 10 IC
Oompa led 22 for the vets (using his Drill Sargent voice!)

Time! YHC took us out in prayer.

Final thoughts: Thanks to you all for the opportunity. It is an honor to lead at Midoriyama! Many of those men pickup Saturday Q’s a Folsom for us and they bring it! I like to get out there from time to time myself and try to give it back! Midoriyama is a brutal workout because 1) you’re typically surrounded by some of the strongest and fasted guys in F3 Gastonia, but 2) the heat isn’t something most of us are used to working out in. That being said, if you have never been to Midoriyama, put it on your calendar and step up to the JV workout fellas! I’m also excited to see my friend Yogi make his second post and I hope to see him become a regular at Midoriyama and one day lead bootcamps!

Weinke Before

Weinke After

Montross, Rockabilly, and Oompa talked about injuries. Volt and Pappy were also there.
Rockabilly took us out

As I began to plan my workout for this morning, I knew I wanted to run more than usual and let the guys stretch their legs out a bit. Plus, I haven’t been running much and I need to get back at it. There was also a request to go easy on shoulders which, honestly, mine needed a little lighter day as well after I’ve been working on my pull-ups outside F3. As I looked back through my spreadsheet of weinkes, I saw one late April of 2018 – Walmarts of Jerricho. I believe that was my 2nd or 3rd solo-Q and the first one where I really felt like I found my stride and gave the PAX a good beatdown. 5:30 rolls around and the crowd is a little light. MW, Tater Hole, and Ratchet fartsacked, Huck is still MIA (we miss ya!), Rockabilly is out of town, and Allen Tate is gone as well. All good though, we have enough to put in some work. 5 HIMs went to visit the people of Walmart this morning!

Warmaup:

Runners stretches and hip stretches. We are going to run so it was worth taking a few extra minutes to stretch out. Sparky has the tightest hips in Gaston County! Hard to believe he runs like he does!!!!!

Grass Pickers – 10 IC
SSH – 10 IC
Toy Soldiers – 10 IC

Mosey to the flagpole. I knew Stogie is batting a sore back and isn’t supposed to run much so I planned some abs to let him catch up.
LBC – 15 IC
Flutter Kicks – 15 IC
Sandy Vs – 10 IC

Pledge, now let’s mosey to Walmart. We stopped at the road to all regroup and cross together. I think that made things a bit safer just to make sure we’re all together and focused before crossing!

Walls of Jerricho – 7 each burpees, Merkins, Appalachian Americans (Hillbillies), and Squats, run a lap around Walmart. Repeat 7 times.

Frogger Mosey back across the highway (starting to get busy now), and continue to mosey back to the parking lot. Another set of ab work to finish things out.

LBCs – 15 IC
Flutter Kicks – 15 IC
Captain Thor – 5 rounds (we all agreed our butts were still raw from Big Boys last week so we called it)

Announcements – Tool Time’s going away party at Sargentos (RSVP ASAP) 8/3, Remembrance Walk 8/17 for Pizza Man’s niece at Rankin Lake 10 – 2 PLAN TO BE THERE (I’m pretty passionate about that one guys!), Speed for Need 5ks, JJ 5k. Prayer requests – Bedpan, Stogie’s back and travels, those battling addiction, all the PAX not there today. YHC took us out in prayer.

Moleskin:
As I was leaving the house this morning, I saw Sparky had sent out his daily devotional so I listened on the way to Folsom. It spoke of a verse from James 1: 2-3 “Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness.” In the devotional it goes onto talk about how, just like stress to your muscles makes them stronger, stress and challenges in your life help grow your faith. The tie-in to F3 really resonated with me today and I felt led to share that. As I am writing this, I think about it a little more and there’s another F3 analogy you can make here too….when we are struggling physically in a workout, we can lean on our F3 brothers to help support, motivate, and push us to finish and succeed. In our daily struggles, we should be doing the same with the Lord…lean on him, give those worries to him and he will also help you get through the tough times and come out stronger on the other side! It’s always an honor to lead.

We miss the Kotters! – Montross

There was just one rucker this morning. I thought about running but with a few nagging injuries, I thought better of it and stuck to rucking as planned. It was a good opportunity to multitask though….I had ti new songs to play at church this morning and rucking solonwas a good opportunity to listed to the songs and get in some “mental reps”.

• Montross

We had a date this morning with this firey lil’ thang we know named Short Sale but, as our luck would have it, 5:30 rolled around and S. S. was no where to be found! We, being the HIMs we are, we wiped our eyes, manned up, and threw a 45 minute party to work through the pain! YHC took the lead along with lots of suggestions from the PAX to help fill the gaps.

Warmups: (as we held out hope that our date would show)
SSH – 15 IC
Grass Pickers – 10 IC
Toy Solders – 10 IC

Thang:
Let’s mosey…was originally just going to head to the ampitheater but someone said “flag pole” so we head that direction instead.
Slaw calls LBCs as we wait for the six.
Pledge, now let’s mosey to the ampitheater (Volt was not a fan!)

AMRAP 1 minute each
Balls to the Wall
Divebombers
Flutter Kicks
Burpees
Dips
(may have been one more I can’t remember)

Mosey to the playground for more AMRAP
Australian Pull Ups
High Plank
Low Plank

Mosey to the main parking lot.

Route 66 Bear Crawl Mike Tysons. Montross called the Mike Tysons, but it was Slaw’s terrible idea to add bear crawls!!!! YHC was crawling like a toddler at one point, praying for it to end!

Jacked Up!
SSH – 25 IC
Seal Jacks – 20 IC
Plank Jacks – 15 IC
Crossover Jacks – 10 IC
Smurf Jacks aka Lil Gumby in the Woods – 5 IC

25 LBCs on your own
10 Body Destroyers IC
5 Burpees

I may have left out an exercise in the end but that’s how it goes! Time!

Announcements: Pizza Man’s picnic on 8/17 BE THERE!!!!!, SFN in the Stop Solider Suicide and Christmastown 5ks. Prayers: Huck, Allen Tate’s neck, Short Sale (glad all is well), Huck, Slaw and family (college), Stroganoff and family (college), and all the Kotters! YHC took us out!

Moleskin: Sometimes things don’t go as planned. We were a little worried about Short Sale not showing but glad to see it was just an alarm issue. It is unlike SS to miss! Sometimes things happen, life throws you a curve, and you need to adapt and overcome. That being said, we did just that. I took the Q and led us in an overall direction, but the other PAX supported me and called about half of the exercises as well and it turned out to be one heck of a beatdown, IMO. Great team effort today! It was great to share such a beautiful morning with these Folsom HIMs!

For those that don’t know, I started the Tronmoss Legacy 5k last year in jest as a tribute to myself while I was on “injured reserve”. I’m all about stirring the pot and when a few guys gave me a hard time about it, I took that as a challenge to make it even more about me! Bedpan and I started talking about this again months ago and planning early this year. I talked about it every chance i got in Circle of Trusts (even when I posted with F3 Grand Strand), wrote a pre-blast primarily in 3rd person, and took to Twitter, Slack, and Group Me to promote it. I even made a bunch of stickers to hand out at workouts. All that being said, the 2nd Annual Tronmoss 5k was held yesterday and I’ll chalk it up as a great success. It truly lived up to the hype as the greatest 5k ever held in the Ingles parking lot of Dallas, NC on a Sunday morning at 6:30 am.

20 High Impact Men participated (17 runners for Crossroads, 3 ruckers for The Boars Nest). After a few quick instructions and a route overview, the race started promptly at 6:30 am with Def Leppard sprinting out of the Ingles parking lot. The ol’ Silver Fox was on a mission for victory! Some guys got in some extra mileage afterward, some got some extra mileage during the 5k, but I believe all got a little better. There were 3 age divisions and here’s are the winners:

Overall: Gold Digger (18:31)
Hate(<30): Roundup
PAX (30-49): Pizza Man
Respect (50+): Def Leppard

I think Gold Digger was a bit surprised to find out he not only would receive a medal, but also the coveted Ol’ Marine Walker. He will need to take good care of it so we can hand it off to the overall winner next year! Ok, let’s face it, he’ll probably continue to take that thing home for the next few years because none of us are catching him!!!!

As I mentioned, I started this last year to troll my friends (hopefully you see the humor in that…I do), but decided in the spirit of F3, I wanted to do more! For about 2 weeks, I was thinking of how I could use the 5k to raise some money for a ‘good’ cause. I was listening to the Roundtable Podcast with CSPAN in early May and I found what I was looking for. I decided during that podcast we would raise money for mission work by Rowdy (Michael Amato) from F3 Suncoast and Crisis Response International. I’m pleased to announce we raised $145 during the event, which was donated Sunday afternoon. That number has grown since because I also know at least 3 other Gastonia HIMs donated directly through his link after the race and I hope a few more are led to do so! I know every bit is appreciated by Rowdy. If you haven’t donated and felt led to, you can use the link below. Prayers are also an acceptable donation!
https://app.mobilecause.com/vf/cristaff/MichaelAmato

Thanks to all who were a part of this race as well as those who helped me out with ideas and planning. I expect there will be a 3rd Annual Tronmoss 5k. Just like this year, it will be even bigger and better and I plan to continue to use it to help out a good cause. You can rest assured that we will also stick to the roots of this 5k and troll some of my fell F3 brothers in the process!

Announcements: Pizza Man is organizing a family event at Rankin Lake August 17th. More details to come but it is a great opportunity to spend time together and share in all 3 Fs! Circle this on your calendar Gastonia!!!!!! Christmastown 5k signups are open. Expect this to be a Speed For Need event as well as the Stop Soldier Suicide 5k on 9/21.

Prayers: Montross shared good news about his mom, pray for those battling addiction, Bedpan’s mom, Oompa Lompa (he ran today despite dealing with ‘the crud’).

Here are some pictures from the event.

Gold Digger and the coveted Ol’ Marine Walker

Gold Digger – Overall Winner

Roundup – Hate Division Winner

Pizza Man (in his blue dress) – PAX Division Winner

Montross presenting Def Leppard with his medal

Def Leppard – Respect Division Winner

• Montross aka Tronmoss aka T-ron aka Tee