The theme of June is Iron Sharpens Iron.

Proverbs 27:17 Iron sharpeneth iron; so a man sharpeneth the countenance of his friend.

This age old proverb is as accurate now as it was when written, and is a fundamental to the 3rd F of Faith.  In Freed to Lead, Dredd and OBT recount that “One constant theme in the ball of man is the importance of sharpening each other, as Iron sharpens Iron.  Thus, we often seek help to be better husbands, fathers, sons, uncles, bosses, and employees: all the things that men are called upon to be.  The Third F is a realization that just being those things is hard enough without trying to he them without help.  More than that, it is a surrender to this idea: an insistence upon going it alone is not noble; it is selfish and prideful”.

I need you.  We need each other.  I am a dull Hushpuppy without you.  I hope you have recognized this same need in your brothers.  You sharpen me; you hold me accountable and lift me up when I want to quit.  This month we will hear what is on your heart.  I have asked several Pax to speak and still invite someone to step up for the last Saturday in June!

6/3 Squirt Shared on keeping your garden.  Just as Adam had to tend and keep the garden, we must keep guard or protect our minds, thoughts, eyes, and tongues.

6/10 for the Convergence at the Rotary Pavilion, Roscoe will share on the impact you can have on those around you,

6/17 Rudolph will share on how F3 has moved him, and how “many hands make light work”.

6/24, Who will step up?  YOU have something to share that will make us all better!

Also, each Tuesday at 6am, The Crusade meets for 3rd F study at the Starbucks in the Harris Teeter.  6/6 Whoopee will begin a study in “Killing Lions” by John Eldridge.  Don’t miss it!

Post!, Shield lock with your brothers!  6:30 am Saturdays before

YHC hadn’t had a Q in June yet so he volunteered to lead the PAX at the Gashouse on a beautiful morning at the Schiele.  There was a nice group already there at the 3rd F when I showed up and a few more trickled in before it was time to start.  Spiderman pulled in with one minute to spare which was a little early for him.  I offered a quick disclaimer and started the workout.  There were 14 PAX total with 4 stayed with Rudolph for the Pain Lab and the rest with me for the Gashouse.

We moseyed onto the nature trail and as we approached the Catawba Indian village we started an Indian run to the pond and around the majority of the trail, hitting a few dead ends along the way.  The Indian Run part finally collapsed so we looked for an exit and popped out onto the road and across the street to the Library.  We lined up at the bottom and did parking space burpee long jumps up to the other side.  A brief recovery was spent talking about the impact we can each make in other’s lives and what that can mean if we each invest in others.
Monk claimed he enjoyed the run more than the burpees so we started back with a run to the FPC outdoor worship area.  This was redone recently for an Eagle Scout project so I had been forgetting to incorporate them into a workout.  We used the benches for some ab work with legs to overhead or something like it.  Since there was a lectern there I began to deliver a brief attempt at humor.  I admit it was pretty lame so I quickly stopped and we moseyey over to the bottom of the stairs to continue the workout.

The Thang:  Partner up for Dora 1, 2, 3.  Partner one runs to the top and knocks out ten Hip Slappers but wait!  Short Sale says we don’t want to put footprints on the walls so I gave him the choice to choose an exercise at the top.  He suggested Flying Squirrels so ten flying squirrels at the top and run back down and switch with Partner two.

100 American Hammers (4 count), 200 LBC’s, and 300 Flutter kicks.

When we were done we moseyed through the woods to the Sherwood track for a quick quarter Murph.

We ran a lap together and then did three sets of 8 pullups, 16 merkins, and 25 squats.  Lil Sweet showed us the way back to the neighborhood and to the Schiele where we wall sat for the six and then hit the Pledge of Allegiance.  We then ran back to home for the Pain Lab convergence at the end and finished with a round of Homer/Marge/Protractor and before I gave flutterkicks to Stroganoff the bells sounded.

We used our time wisely with not a lot of downtime which I needed considering I ate a huge bowl of ice cream last night.

Announcements:  Make sure to RSPV to the after Christmas party at Whoopee’s.  Convergence next Saturday at the Pavilion downtown.  Roscoe has the 3^rd F at 0630 and Spiderman and Freight are co-Q along with the Oompa Loompa Pain Lab option.  Hopefully one of the coffee houses downtown will welcome us afterwards.

Prayer requests:  T-Square and his M, Monk’s coworker’s child battling cancer, Mr. Brown and family.

It was my pleasure to Q this morning.  I knew the numbers would be a little lower due to a lot of PAX and their M’s taking part in a mudrun in Huntersville…Awesome!  The increase accountability led to a great push and as always Smalls is the motivator for many of us to push a little harder to keep up with him.  T-Square pushed himself to get out today and earlier this week to post to a workout and that is when you need it most. #shieldlock   Keep up the great work men!

The morning started off just great. YHC was taunted on Twitter the night before about showing for the EC training for the Brolympics. Who am I to fight some solid peer pressure so I showed for the Whoopee beatdown which began as I attempted to jump the fence onto Grier’s field…….total fail. I’m just glad Whoopee doesn’t own a video of it.

Great work by Hushpuppy for some pre-workout 3rd F about impact. We all have a daily opportunity to impact others, are we making it a positive interaction, negative interaction, or apathetic interaction? It’s up to you.

Not very gloomy as the sun is up now by the time 7:00 am arrives now so we had a good crowd for Saturday, especially considering the other activities going on. Great work by our F3 Gastonia PAX participating in the Mudrun.

14 showed for the disclaimer (including 3 FNG’s) before we split up for the normal workout and the Pain Lab led by Rudolph.

Warm-Up – In-Cadence
SSH X 15
LBC’s X 15
Imperial Walkers X 15

Mosey to the Flag for the Pledge – Oh, wait there’s Spiderman coming in late, let’s give him the stare down……”Sorry Maam, we thought you were someone else.” Yes, we thought Spiderman was a girl.

The Thang

At this point all we could do was mosey to the football field at Grier Middle School. It has been a while since I actually took time to write up a new weinke as I have just used different variations of past workouts for my Q’s over the past year or so but I actually put together a new one (and yes, it was laminated).

We got our minds right for some Four Corner work:
Run to 1st corner – 10 Merkins
Run to 2nd corner – 20 LBC’s
Run to 3rd corner – 30 Squats
Run to 4th corner – 40 Flutter Kicks

This was so much fun that we did it again in reverse order:
Run – 40 Flutter Kicks – Run – 30 Squats – Run – 20 LBC’s – Run – 10 Merkins

Short recovery before heading down to the baseball field just outside one of the dugouts. Time for some Hill Eleven’s. Run up the hill to the picnic tables for dips (X 10), back down to the bottom for squats (X 1); back up for 9 dips, back down for 2 squats, etc. etc. You get the picture. For me, this turned out to be more difficult than anticipated but we pushed through. For some story time, I mentioned to the PAX that Bumgarner (Scott Harbin), myself and Warden (Jim Ware) built the original baseball pitching mound on that field on a Saturday in 1985. I was fortunate enough to play the very first season on Grier’s own baseball field. Sorry, I digress.

Next we moseyed back to the football field for some Four Corners Escalator. Same exercises as before except we add each time:
Run to 1st corner – 10 Merkins
Run to 2nd corner – 10 Merkins + 20 LBC’s
Run to 3rd corner – 10 Merkins + 20 LBC’s + 30 squats
Run to 4th corner – 10 Merkins + 20 LBC’s + 30 squats + 40 Flutter Kicks

Dang

We then walked and attempted to line up along the track facing the field….this took several attempts.

Quick exercise: Lunge halfway across field – 15 Merkins – Run back to track – 20 LBC’s

Rinse/Repeat

The Escalator Four Corners was so much fun, we voted to do it again in descending order.
Run to 1st corner – 10 Merkins + 20 LBC’s + 30 squats + 40 flutter kicks
Run to 2nd corner – 10 Merkins + 20 LBC’s + 30 squats
Run to 3rd corner – 10 Merkins + 20 LBC’s
Run to 4th corner – 10 Merkins

It’s warm and humid. The PAX were on their game this morning and were speeding through this work. We still had time for one more exercise around the track. Line up again along the track facing the field (went much quicker this time)

Partner up: Partner 1 lunges to middle of field and runs back while Partner 2 completes as many merkins as possible. Partners switch. YHC struggled with this one

By now it was time to mosey back to the Schiele to catch up with the pain lab to finish off with some Mary:

This included but was not limited to: LBC’s, Homer/Marge, Crunchy Frogs, Freddy Mercury’s, American Hammers ….plus some I have forgotten in the 24 hours since.

Great work men.

Announcements: Skeet shooting next Saturday (see Whoopee); Advisory Board Sunday night, 7:00 pm at Cavendish Brewing.

Welcome to FNG’s: Irish Crème, BB-8 & Oliver Twist. My apologies for allowing the naming to take so long.

Several prayer requests from the PAX. COT.

Four for coffeerama at Panera.

As always, it was a great morning for me and an honor to lead you men through the workout. I did fail at getting the contact information from the FNG’s. As the Q, this is my responsibility to make sure this gets done and is important to get the new guys into the fold of communication that occurs weekly. My apologies to the 3 FNG’s. If you know these guys, please help us get their info in our system so we can stay connected.

Thanks again for the honor.

Until the next one. Aye!

Stroganoff

PainLab, part Deux.  Very excited to have some new faces, only 3 people backed out on me last night 😉  The mighty men who joined (Mayor, DaVinci, Oompa Loompa, FNG 1, FNG 2) got to enjoy our maiden voyage at our permanent AO.

The Thang:

Stroganoff gave the low-down as he Q’d Gashouse bootcamp.  Then the Labrats (yes, this) and I met at my car and grabbed a lot of milk jugs.  Combo of lunge walk, slow karyoka and high knee to the statue (i gotta learn that guys name).

Warm-up:

Imperial walker -10, Morroccan Night Club – 20 ,Low Slow Squat – 10, Don Quixote – 10, Merkin – 10, LBC – 10.  I think the FNG’s learned Ooompa’s history in the military when he counted.

ARTIST OF THE DAY – Judas Priest (at the request of Mayor who wanted something harder than Pearl Jam from last week.  Rock on brother!  If you Q PainLab, you choose the muzak)

Phase 1 – same as last week, the Circuit Circle (Reindeer Games?  Carolina Cycle? I need help). Here’s breakdown:

Round 1 – Muscle Work – Merkin x 10 to Parker Peter x 10 to Supermans x 10 to Dips x 10.  Go 3 minutes

1 minute of lunge in circle

Round 2 – Shadow Box – jab, straight, hook, uppercut, combos

1 minute of high knee in circel

Round 3 – Yoga – Warrior pose 2 to lean, to both sides, tree pose, chair pose

do that one more time for 2 complete rounds.  Good job guys, no rest!  One FNG went for water….Mayor said “WATER???”.  That won’t happen again.

Phase 2 – Follow the Leader – we all sat on the stadium concrete, only on the six, legs elevated.  I passed a jug to them, they passed it back.  I passed it high and said to keep it high, they did that.  Then I put 2 jugs in rotation, things got wacky.  Then some more ab exercises.  This is tougher than you think!

Then they followed me as we Bear Crawled to the top, across the first ledge, lunge walk the second ledge, crab walked the third, high knee’d the 4th to a plank.  This was good, I saw a lot of modification from the guys that worked.

*At this point Mayor showed me his watch, his hear rate was at 158.  That made both of us feel good.  You WILL get Cardio here.

Phase 3 – Partner Work:  we partnered up and did 100 CDD’s, 200 Curls with the jugs, and started on 300 Calf raises, but the Gashouse boys were back and we joined for Mary.  Sorry for being late Strogonoff!!

Ended as usual, but named our FNG’s:  Irish Cream (Mr. Bailey), BB 8 (Jim Smith), Oliver Twist (Spence Newcombe).  This could have been much, much worse if the vicious former Nantan Whoopee had his way.  Caitlyn, Ariel and Annie…..really?????  Brutal.

Thanks to all, join us at the Lab sometime, and never forget that heavy metal makes the morning better.

YHC – Rudolph

PAINLAB – you are here because your body hates you after high-impact work, or you are recovering from injury.  Either way, you will get a workout!  High-impact is when both feet leave the ground.  We don’t do that.  We bust @$$ keeping 1 or 2 legs on the ground.  It works!

Big ups to AssshhPond, Mayor and Ooompa Loompa for doing this.  It takes guts to try something new.  Mayor had a nasty cold so I stayed out of his sweat spot, Tclaps to him.  We started with the other 40 guys, and as C-SPAN led them away from the Fighting Yank, 4 of us stuck around to try this new thang out.  Here’s what we did:

Lunge walk warm-up: go by the statue, down the steps, around the fountain, back up.  Some slow Karyoka in the middle somewhere.  Formed a circle around the Yank for the real warm-up, in cadence:

Imperial Walker x 10

Morroccan Night Club x 20

Low Slow Squat x 10

Don Quixonte x 10

Merkin x 10

LBC x 20

PHASE 1 – Circuit Circle (needs better name):  3 minutes per round, 1 minute of F3 rest (aka exercise) in between rounds.

Round 1 – Muscle Work – 10 Merkins, 10 Mountain Climbers (slow so have 2 points of contact), 10 Dirty Dogs, 10 Dips…..repeat unit round is up

Round 2 – Boxing

Round 3 – Yoga

Rest minutes were more Lunges or Imperial Walkers in a circle.  Get used to that part.

After 2 rotations of that we moved to Partner Work

PHASE 2 – Partner Work

100 CDD’s

200 Squats

300 Speed Skaters

We got almost through with the SS when the rest of the Pax was jogging in.  This worked great, and is how we will do Pain Lab.  Meet up, warm up separate, meet back for Mary.  If I remember correctly, we did 10 minutes of:

LBC

Bicycle

Homer/Marge

Box Cutters

LBFC

Flying Squirrels

Planks

V-Ups

I don’t know what else, but it was good crunch time

PAINLAB is all about modify.  I have exercises ready to interchange for EVERYTHING we do.  So I promise you will get cardio, strength and have adult recess, like CSPAN said.  Stop by the PAINLAB sometime when you want a change up, and tell all the guys who have issues but need the things that F3 provides.  Thanks to all Pax for helping this become a real thing.  Every Saturday at 7 at Gashouse/Schiele.

***OOMPA LOOMPA – you are a man among men, thanks for your partnership here!

Your friend and lab mouse – Rudolph