Category: Backblast (Page 676 of 904)

There was some chatter on Twitter…Rudolph started talking junk and being the bone head that I am, I fired right back and we went back and forth a few times with threatening comments and gifs. In the end, we all won. Iron sharpening iron was at its finest and I will be sleeping well tonight. Eighteen men showed, 1 of them being an FNG thanks to TSquare. I started with the disclaimer and the FNG just stared me down with no fear in his eyes at all. He is married after all and there is very little that scares a married man.

We started with the Pledge then the Disclaimer. Once the disclaimer was completed, I started  with my FAVORITE PART, the warmup. After being warned about an FNG, I decided to use the warmup as a “teachable moment.” We went over the 5 core principles of F3 as part of the warmup with a new exercise called Burp-Threes. I asked for one of the principles: all I heard was ” It’s three!” so we started with 3 burpees.  They later corrected me with core principle #1 which is “it is free.” I asked for another: “It’s outdoors, rain or shine” so we then then did 6 burpees. I asked for another and heard “It’s men only” so we did 9 burpees. I asked for another, and TSquare said there were only 3 core principles……no, no, no, that is not right. Someone said “it is peer led in rotating fashion” so we did 12 burpees….DID I MENTION HOW MUCH I LOVE WARMUPS??? There were some (not so) under the breath comments and the Q was getting a bit out of breath so we semi-Omaha’d (for the sake of the FNG to show him how to count F3-style) and did 15 SSH after someone said principle #5: We end with a COT.

At this point, we split into BootCampers and PainLabbers. See Montross’ backblast done earlier today. Nice work-thanks for stepping up to Q and stepping out of Folsom to push your brothers in GasHouse.

I told the group we would head to the football field but we would climb the hill and jump the fence. All of us made it without any bloodshed or falls that I am aware of. I explained the first exercise as we lined up near the goal line: BEAR BITCH-thanks for poking the bear Rudolph. I had something else planned but it was not hard enough….Here is what BEAR BITCH is: split into groups of 3. P1 and P2 do exercises (flutter kicks or squats) while P3 bear crawls as far as he wants, keeping in mind his partners will be exercising then bear crawling to catch up. Once P3 stops, he gets up and starts doing one of the exercises (flutter kicks or squats) and one of other partners (P1 or P2) drops down and bear crawls to P3 then starts doing one of the exercises. The last man bear crawls to his partners and starts back doing exercises while P3 starts bear crawling again. The only way to move across the field is to bear crawl. When you are not bear crawling you are doing one of the exercises. My plan was more than one trip and use other exercises, however I don’t think it would have ended well, and I had plenty more planned. FYI, there is a pax whose name rhymes with Spanchorman that you do not want as your partner if you have to bear crawl. He was our first man to bear crawl and he made it across with only 1 stop.

To cool off, we did a Bojangles biscuit-run around the track with all you’ve got on the straight part then mosey or walk on the turns. Stroganoff pulled a “slow and steady” and easily cruised around in first place without looking like it was much trouble at all.

We moseyed from the field over to Sherwood Elementary School making 2 alma maters for Stroganoff. He suggested we hit one of the high schools to make it a trifecta for him but I had other plans. On the way we hit 3 speed bumps and did 3 burpees at each speed bump. We took a trip or 2 up and down the steps before getting to the field. Once at the field, we did another Bojangles (run the straights and jog/mosey the turns). We finished at the end with the hill and I told the pax we would be doing “Hillevens.” This would be similar to “Elevens” with a few modifications. Start at bottom of the hill with 1 Merkin. Run up the hill, bear crawl across the hill (probably 30 yards), run down the hill, and 10 Burpees. Each lap we go up on merkins and down on the Burpees. The bear crawl was too much for everyone except the Q (I was really barely breathing hard at all and could have done this all day without a problem at all) so I Omaha’d to just do odd number counting after the 3rd lap. This was pretty tough and the bear crawl stuff was a battery drainer for sure. Once we finished this, I gave TopHat a choice: exercise A or exercise B. I am really not sure what he picked as it made no difference to me….think he picked B and we moseyed back to the steps. Partner up and P1 does either Squats or Burpees while P2 runs up steps, at the top he does 2 burpees, then runs back down. Partners swap positions. We did not have much time so we only did a couple rounds of this and to the best of my recollection, NONE OF US DID SQUATS-WE ONLY DID BURPEES, RIGHT? #showtoknowthetruth

We moseyed to the back of the church to the newly paved parking lot for another new exercise/game called “Lunge, Lunge, Lunge, Lunge, Burpee.” We made it across the parking lot with about 5 minutes to spare….turn around and let’s do that again. An un-named pax named Stroganoff gave me a not-so-nice look but he kept on going. We reached the other end then moseyed back to start in time for a few LBCs then the bells rang and we were finished. I think I laid on the ground for a few minutes to recover.

During our bootcamp, I talked about David Goggins book called Can’t Hurt Me. From the title, I thought it was about how tough this guy is and how he can’t be physically hurt. After reading the first 2 chapters, I think it is more about how he grew up in a broken home with a broken father and suffered mental and physical torture that no young man should ever have to go through. He also has a podcast I got from PizzaMan recently where he talks about “outworking the chart” among other things. Look it up and also read his book if you have a chance-it will be time well spent.

Once I got my tired but up off the ground, we did our COT and named our FNG Clark Lee: Honey Bee. Seems like our kind of man and I will be surprised if he is not back really soon.

Thanks for the opportunity to lead and for pushing me harder than I can push myself.

Whoopee

0650 and not many cars at the Yank.   0655 here comes a care we don’t recognize, welcome FNG Aaron Mashburn!  Small crowd but big effort made up for it. 0700 let’s get rolling.

Warmup: Disclaimer and 20 burpees

Mosey up the Nichol’s hill to parking lot at First Pres.  Team up for some Dora: 50 diamond merkins, 100 wide arm, 150 stagger, 200 merkins partner runs to end of parking lot and back.  Arms and shoulders blasted after this one.  Train penalty.  Break for just a moment to name one principle of F3 – men only. More Dora but this time 200 bobby hurley, 150 squats, 100 smurf jacks, 50 sumo squats while partner runs.  Another principle of F3- free of charge.  Train penalty.  Mosey to the wall in front of First Baptist for box jumps 10, 15, then 20 with a round of 10 dips in cadence in between.  Third principle – always outdoors rain or shine.

Get in plank position and plank with feet on the wall, not too high.  Hold for one minute.  Another round for 45 seconds.  I think this is the most difficult ab exercise we do.  You really have to engage your core to hold the wall, especially if your body is in a straight line.

Mosey to turd shack for three rounds of hip slappers (10) and wall sits with 25 shoulder presses.  Fourth principle – peer led workouts.  Mosey to the Yank.  Pledge.  Fifth principle – end in COT.

Strong work today men in a tough workout.

Announcements: Convergence on March 30, order Storm shirts by today (March 2), Q Source Sunday mornings at Coconut Horse and Crossroads.

YHC reading a book called Endurance.  Premise of book is the brain’s role in endurance performance, basically exploring how to train your mind to take the limits off performance.  But also how the same principle applies in other areas of life, in particular spiritual life.  Often we can days when the evil one is going the extra mile in tempting us or pushing obstacles in our life that cause us to want to seize control ourselves.  But always know God is the ultimate strength, we can train ourselves to rely on Him more and more by consciously turning to Him each day and again when we feel the pressure mounting.

Prayer requests:  Doodles has a friend that is going through a difficult time and attempted suicide a few days ago, Orangeman has friend of friend who had a baby but wife died giving birth so new dad lost his wife and the child’s mom.  Remember our weekly Pax in prayer, Arial, Tyson, Bubbles, Sly, Cheesehead, DDC, Rockabilly, Slaw, Sly.

Always an honor to lead

Tiger

6 pax showed to partake of a new move promised by YHC making it’s first appearance in The Nation. Snake and Mongoose came from an innovation YHC saw down at The Fort and inspiration from my grandfather’s old tales of growing up at the turn of the last century in India as the son of an English nurse and American Missionary in the time of Victorian England and British dominance of the world. He often described to me “battles” that would draw crowds to bet on a cobra and a mongoose that would square off, the snake striking and jumping at his blood enemy and predator, the mongoose dancing and making himself small until the right moment came to strike and take his prey.

Here’s what we did:

COP:

SSH X 1 minute

IW X 1 minute

Merkins X 1 minute

Mountain Climbers X 1 minute

Mosey under the bridge for people’s chair as a train rumbled over us and we did 5 burpees in it’s honor.

Muhammad Alis X 20

Air presses X 20

Inverted Mtn. Climbers X 20

Mosey down to the courts, aka The Death Chamber.

Do the called exercise X times on the end line, move to midcourt and repeat, move to the endline and repeat.

Round 1

Snake and Mongoose X 5

Bear crawl to midcourt

Snake and Mongoose X 5

Bear Crawl to the other endline

Snake and Mongoose X 5

Nur back to the other endline

Round 2

Big boy sit ups with a twist X 10 (5 each side)

Crab walk to the midcourt

Big boys as above X 10

Crab walk to the endline

Big boys as above 10X

Another train, another 5 burpees!

Nur back

Round 3

Jump Squats x 5

Burpee Broad jump to mid court

Jump squats X 5

Burpee Broad jumps to the endline

Jump Squats X 5

Nur back to opposite endline

Mosey all the way to the Gazebo for some fun stuff!

Gazebo: 5 leg lifts from pull up position, 5 snake and mongoose run to the top of the hill and do 5 plank jacks (This is all an expanded triple nickel).

Rinse and repeat X 5

Mosey over to the bridge (The Remagen Bridge, named for the bridge elements of the 1st US Army crossed in March , 1945 to get across the Rhine and effectively end the war in Europe)

We honored those men with a Tesla special, and extended bear Crawl Slalom over the bridge. Since we had a light crew and a long way to go it took about four rounds. YHC did a fifth just to make sure we were across.

SSH X 10 on the other side. Mosey back across the bridge.

Finish up with stretching for @ 3 minutes.

Pledge, COT.

NMM:

So what is a snake and mongoose? A wide arm merkin with a “jump’ at the end (emblematic of the Snake and his strike) and then a diamond merkin (representing the mongoose and his small target but powerful, quick attack) all in one package. 5 is the optimum number. Especially if they are to be repeated.

Good but small group today. Everybody worked hard. First time I have worked out with Get a Grip. Great to have Spiderman out with his also. Feel free to take snake and mongoose with you to the rest of Gaston F3!

Prayers for all our pax and families and those guys who are on IR or just have not shown up lately. The Fartsack is closed just so you know.

Tesla