Fitness, Fellowship, Faith

Category: Backblast (Page 495 of 904)

11/3/20 – The Storm – Election Day

Disclaimer

Pledge

Since its election day, I thought it would be nice to have an Election Day theme.  I split the PAX into two groups.  They then elected a senator to represent the whole group and I gave the PAX a choice between two routines.  In the case of a draw between two routines, I would act as the vice president and cast the deciding vote.  Here is how it went……

 

Senate Bill No. 1  The Warm Up

The choice was between a Termite Warm UP (1 mile Mosey) or Regular Warm Up?  Both groups choose the regular warm up which were Hillbillies IC x 20 – Moroccan Night Clubs IC x 20 and 10 Merkins OYO.  Opps, Q fail, I lost my right glove.  I’m going to need that later.  I’ll channel my best Michael Jackson along the way.

 

Mosey behind the school for Senate Bill No. 2

11’s                              or                                 Triple Nickle ?

Here one group wanted 11’s and the other wanted Triple Nickle.    The VP broke the tie with Tripple Nickle.  We did 5 Jump Squats at the crosswalk behind the school and 4 count leg lifts at the gate at the back of the parking lot.

 

Mosey to the front parking lot

Senate Bill No. 3

Wet Nuts Bear Crawl              or         Bear Way to Heaven.

Both groups choose Bear Way to Heaven which is Bear Crawl for 10 yds and do 10 Burpees, Mosey back to the start.  Bear Crawl 20 yds and do 8 burpees, mosey to the start.  Bear Crawl for 30 yds and do 6 Burpees, Mosey back to the start.  Bear Crawl 40 yds and do 2 burpees, Mosey to the start.  Bear Crawl for 50 yds and do 2 Burpees, Mosey back to the start.  To be completed before “Stairway to Heaven” by Led Zeppelin ends.  Thanks to Sargento for pulling the song up for us.  Most completed it in time.

 

Senate Bill No. 4

4 Corners        or         Suicide Sprints.

Both groups choose 4 Corners.  Here we used 4 lights poles as the 4 corners.

First corner – 5 Burpees

Second corner – 10 Diamond Merkins

Third Corner – 20 Bobby Hurley’s

Fourth Corner – 40 Flutter Kicks counting one leg

We completed 2 rounds of this.

Mosey Back to the flag to plank for the 6 and a few LBC’s.

Thanks to those who brought the pavers back to my car.

Thanks to Roscoe for EC and recording Namarama when my phone died.  Q Fail.

Welcome FNG  Garret Lunins.  He is an architect so we named him Mike Brady.

Thanks for voting in The Storm Senate today.

Dirt

Modify

9 all together at Midoriyama on Tuesday. Some regulars, some not. Good to see most. JK, mostly,  not really, kinda.

Warmup:

SSH x 25ic

I tried to get everyone to stay IC with me but Shortsale rebelled and just flat out refused. This turned into him blaming me for his knee and something about $5,000. Then his face got red, you know how angry he gets. You would’ve thought I asked him for directions or something! Maybe I should buy him an appropriately made biscuit to get him to relax?

Anyway we moseyed down to the new sidewalk going to the lake. Turns out it is not as steep but a little longer(the lake is now handicap accessible).

The Thang:

Triple nickel-5 burpees at the bottom and 5 sandy v’s at the top.

All went well. At some point Oompa announced he was struggling a bit because he had a colonoscopy that morning. WTH! After that there was some talk about that happening a lot in the Navy and how the Marines usually performed them. TMI!

Mosey back to the flag parking lot.

11’s-tiger squats on one side and hand release merkins on the other. However let’s step it up some. Broad jump across and hop back. It seems anytime I call jumps or hops people just quit on me! Today was no different. Most used every form of travel to get across that parking lot they could except what I called. This included prancing and rolling! At one point I thought the angry man was trying out for the N Korean army.

With a  little time left we did some dips, wall taps, merkins, LBFCs, oblique crunches, and flutters.

Time

COT:

Pledge

Announcements-Turkey trot, Christmas party 12/12, PT test 11/14, something else, and I think one more thing.

Namerama

Prayer

Moleskin:

Do I need to say anymore?

 

Bulldog 11/3

Cool and crisp morning this morning.  In case any of you have not gotten 150,000 texts from random numbers today, it’s the last day to vote!

We started our warmup with:

Side Straddle Hops

Bridge ups

Mercans

Squats

Burpees

Everybody feeling good and hoping for a challenge, we launched into Summation 8’s.  How it goes is you divide a full length rep into 8 portions.  So you do an 1/8th rep, 1/4 rep, 3/8ths rep, and so on until you get to a full rep, or 8/8ths.  Then back at the top, you divide the motion into 7 parts and do 1/7th, 2/7th,… Then divide into 6, then 5, 4,3,2,1.   We did a full Summation 8 exercise with a cinder block, then an abs set.  It went like this:

Sum 8 Chest press

20 LBC

Sum 8 Squats

20 big boys

Sum 8 Shoulder Press

20 leg lifts

Sum 8 No weight calf raise

20 flutters

Sum 8 Upright rows

20 box cutters

Sum 8 Triceps Extensions (Hermey offered free dental care to everyone)

20 crab crunches

Sum 8 Bicep curls

Partner up, bicep weight holds followed by back to back hand offs

Done?  Nope… another round, but how this finishes out is repeat all the above, except the summation 8 happens as a negative and counting the seconds.  A negative for 8 seconds, then 7 seconds, 6 seconds…

The men were stronger than ever this morning.  Biceps were exploding, I’ve never seen such a group before.  Folks showing up for the polls were totally sidetracked, as no one knew there were multiple Incredible Hulks.  Young men were inspired to be better, old men balanced their bowls of peanuts on their belly as they watched the athletes in action.  The lady’s were fainting.  Sirens were wailing, lights were flashing, as ambulances, firetrucks, and Roscoe raced towards the scene of the shaking earth.  It was as if these men themselves were destroying mountains and overcoming Lions.  Then… all of a sudden… the clock chimed 6.15 and we were snapped back from our thoughts and remembered the pain.

We pledged to the flag.  We noted the Veteran’s day workout (Nov 11).  We talked of prayer requests and brought them to the Lord.  And the QIC forgot the name o ramma!

Love Reconciles

5 PAX posted in the 30’s for some running at the Sword this morning. Sparky was late but who am I telling you knew.

We discussed John 17:20-22. Jesus is praying for all of us to become one with God. What I wanted to point out is he is praying for all of us not just Republicans or Democrats, Americans or Iranians, White people or Black. All of us. We need to remember, especially now,  to act in a  way that helps to reconcile people to God not alienate them. We like to put labels on groups and join them. The only group that matters is God’s children.

5 Years and 7 Months Convergence

58 showed up, despite warnings from Gov. Cooper, for F3 Gastonia’s belated anniversary celebration. Shh don’t tell anyone. Most showed up for EC before. This is an indication of our growth in the 1stF! Broke reached out to many PAX to lead the convergence but most were out out of town or working so he ended up with Tooltime and I. TT reached out and said a guy named Frank Schwartz would be leading as well. My response was who is that and why. Apparently he’s a big deal or something.  I had to #look that up. I was told he had really good hair but I’ll be honest it was a little Trumpish for my taste. Anyway the clock struck 7 and we circled up in the parking lot. I lead things off with some planks and burpees to celebrate the people that are the  future and the foundation of F3 Gastonia. After that we hit what used to be the nicest soccer field in the world. It now looks like a cow pasture thanks to the 11’s we did. After 22 minutes of exercise I handed it over to TT for a lot of jogging and laying around. What can I say about the next 20 minutes? Quiche made sure everyone recognized his running status by getting way out front. TT was showing off his freshly shaved thighs. It’s a good thing Slaw wasn’t there. He would have put something on those long enough for TT to get used to it. There were some inappropriate exercises and facial expressions. It was discovered a lot of guys have issues with eye contact. After 20 minutes of downtime TT handed things over to Mr Schwartz. At this point I assumed the workout was basically over. I was mostly correct. There was about 5 minutes of work and 15 minutes of him talking. I wonder if he likes the sound of his voice? That would explain the podcast he does. At least that’s what I’m told. I’ve never heard of it. So what did he say? There was talk of pushing yourself and pushing beyond what you thought that was. He made us sprint to prove his point. Sprint? Really? That’s the best exercise you could come up with! At this point I was in the upper teens of a 5K everyday. I’m not sprinting squat you know what I mean. Anyway he was probably right. We mentally quit way before our bodies need too.  He would have likely had a better chance of impacting these guys if he would have spit more. Spitting, even without a dip in, is about as alpha male as it gets. I wish I could share more peoples experiences with you but due to Covid we were spread out to much.

After words we had some words from the first ever repeat Nantan, Def Leppard(2021) and some 3rdF from Sargento! I recommend joining Sargento’s prayer challenge. Prayer was my word last year and I do believe it brought me closer to God. How can it not? If you talk to someone everyday you’re bound too. Also men stepped up and donated almost 30 pairs of shoes to be taken to the Charlotte rescue mission. T-claps!

That’s about all I’ve got. It was a pretty underwhelming convergence. I mean we did have a record, I think, in attendence but the Q’s were what they were. On the upside we aren’t far away from the 6 year convergence so I’m sure we can do better.

Mount Hollywood 11-2-20

Warmup: Side straddle hops, 1 set of 15

Toy soliders, 1 set of 15

Body weight squats, 1 set of 15

Mike Tysons, 1 set of 15

 

Run .5 mile, Merkens + run .1 mile loop & do 5 Bobby Hurleys, 3 sets

Run .1 mile, Wall squats + run .1 mile loop, 3 sets

Heels to heaven + run .1 mile loop, 3 sets

Bear crawls for 30 yards + lunges for 30 yards, 3 sets

Plank janks + run .1 mile loop, 3 sets

 

Run .5 mile, 10 burpees one time

 

Captain’s SandLot

Pledge

Warm Up

Side Straddle Hop            15 count cadence

LBCs                                       15 count cadence

WO

Mosey to Bank Wall from Pelicans

Step Ups                              10 Serial Count Each Leg

Dips                                       20 Serial Count

Rinse and Repeat

Mosey to Planet Fitness

Four Corner Perimeter of Parking Lot and OYO

Merkins                               25 Serial Count

Squats                                  50 Serial Count

Michael Phelps                 75 Serial Count

Wall Jump @ Bellacinos then Bear Crawl walkway

Calf Raises                           50 Serial Count

Moroccan Night Clubs    50 Serial Count

Rinse and Repeat             3X more ea exercise

Mosey to Bank Wall from Planet Fitness

Step Ups                              10 Serial Count Each Leg

Dips                                       20 Serial Count

Rinse and Repeat

Mosey back to Pelicans

Announcements: Convergence Sat Oct 31

Prayers: Nation, F3 Members & Families

“I’d be honored to carry your balls Q”

Damn, now that’s a headline! It’s an actual quote from one of the PAX at my Thursday Q at the nation’s preeminent afternoon workout. During the festivities, the mumble chatter had my mind buzzing with other working titles such as Buckeye’s Hysterectomy or Sargento Playlist. Typical of Midoriyama and their cast of characters, the mumble chatter did not disappoint. I filled the Q slot more so as a goal. My knee isn’t feeling great but then I see a guy like Sister Act who posts relentlessly and he currently has a torn meniscus – mine is repaired and I’m only dealing with some swelling. So I took the advice of my good friend Roscoe and his hashtag of #HTFU – I need to get better. The forecast for last Thursday afternoon was ominous so my Weinke had a good portion for covered shelter with picnic table work. But then the Lord looked out for me and cleared a window for good weather and the opportunity for full use of Poston. Here is how it went.

A veteran group so only a limited disclaimer of being an idiot and following any suggestion I was about to make. Per tradition we started with Moroccan Night Clubs, but only 5 in cadence. I quickly moved through my standard routine of Toy Soldiers and Side to Side lunges – quiet ole Blart started giving me some of the business for this. I thought about jumping to a Slaughter Starter but my repertoire is a bit circumcised by the aforementioned knee issue, so I move to SSH for a 10 count. We say good bye to Freight for his commitment in support of the G2G challenge #HIM.

The remaining knuckleheads follow me to the picnic shelter in the lower parking lot for a tabata mixing in all the key areas of lower and upper body with some core. We worked through four exercises at 30 seconds each with a 30 second rest between circuits – two times each set. Plenty of mumble chatter as the PAX didn’t have to count. This is where Buckeye sounded like his intestines were being pulled through his anus like rosary beads. Sargento did his normal amount of complaining and wasting valuable time/opportunity of upper body development. Blart offered his displeasure to most everything called while Pockets and Lil’ Sweet paired off in the corner in their own world.

#1

  • Step-up Right
  • Derkin
  • Step-up Left
  • Decline Peter Parker

#2

  • Bulgarian Split Squats Right
  • Dips
  • Bulgarian Split Squats Left
  • Turtle Crunch

#3

  • American Hammer
  • Full Leg Lifts (use the picnic table or bench)
  • Flutter Kick (these two paired together created a lot of whining – consider this in your next Q)
  • Makhtar Ndiaye – plank on the ground then on the picnic bench

Next up was a lengthy mosey from the picnic shelter to the lower soccer field for a new routine. I didn’t have a name for it but for now let’s call it Balls in the Bucket. I had fifteen golf balls (Blart was partial to the blue one for some reason. Numerous references to Slaw’s condition were made. Instructions and Midoriyama go together like Pelosi and Trump in a cross country car ride. So I did my best and they caught on eventually. The balls were scattered among the field in a 20’x20′ or so area. I nominated Buckeye to start us off as the “picker-upper.” The time it took Buckeye to pick up all 15 balls, one at a time (that is correct, I said one at a time Buckeye), the PAX would perform the called exercise. So the timer gets in a little (or a lot) of cardio, depending on their effort. And the PAX get some or a lot of strength or core work, depending on the picker-upper’s effort. Each PAX took a turn to pick up the balls. If that makes sense to you, you’re better off than those that attended. Called exercises were:

  • Merkins
  • LBC’s
  • Mtn Climbers
  • Corkscrew L + Hand Release Merkins + Corkscrew R
  • CDD
  • Crunch Frog
  • Single Arm Tricep Merkin R
  • Single Arm Tricep Merkin L (these are new – do not ask Dr. Seuss how to perform)

With 5 minutes left, we moseyed back to home base and after a few jokes, finished with a minute or so of dying cockroaches so the PAX got their money’s worth.

COT – Announcements for Christmas Party on 12/12; Prayer requests: Stephanie McMahan, Tiger’s friend w/ new born needing surgery, Slaw’s daughter’s band teacher passing unexpectedly, Catamount, and Belmont family whose daughter committed suicide; YHC took us out.

Moleskin – Upon completion of the game, I picked up the small bucket with the golf balls to carry with us to the base. Slaw jokingly says he’d be honored if he could carry my balls and that phrase was too good not to be shared. Like a lot of men among us, there is toughness about them that you can admire. Getting to know Slaw a bit and how much it means for him to be pushing the rock has been one of the many benefits the unique combination of first and second F’s have brought to me. Sharing the fact we both have been on the sidelines and IR more than we’d like is another thing we unfortunately have in common. So I was happy upon arrival to see Slaw among the many friends at the fabled Midoriyama playground. Until the next time, it was a pleasure to lead.

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