Backblast: August 4th, 2024

AO: The Pump Station – Hood Park – Perrysburg, OH

PAX:
Photon – Q
Badger
Bourbon
Buttercup
Carmen Sandiego
Crawdad
Flow
Pimento
Tarnished
Thumper
Waldo
Yoshi

Workout: Q School at The Pump Station

FNG’s: N/A

Mission and Principles:
F3: Fitness, Fellowship, Faith
Mission: To plant, grow and serve small workout groups for men for the invigoration of male community leadership.
The core principles of F3 are that it is always:
1. Free of charge
2. Open to all men
3. Held outdoors, rain or shine, heat or cold
4. Led by men who participate in the workout in a rotating fashion, with no training or certification necessary. You versus you. Modify or stop an exercise if you need to. The most important thing is that nobody gets hurt.
5. Ends with a Circle of Trust
Credo: Leave no man behind but leave no man where you find him

Warm-up: In Cadence

SSH (2 is 1) – 12
Windmills (2 is 1) – 10
Chainbreakers – 8

Mosey down the hill to the waterfront

The “Thang”:

Started the 5 min EMOM timer. 5 burpees OYO every 5 minutes for the entire duration of the beatdown.

PAX lined up perpendicular to the river and bearcrawled with their normal form about 15 yards. YHC then demo-ed a more deliberate, intentional bearcrawl form that provided additional opportunity to work the body harder. PAX lined up at the starting line again and performed the same length bearcrawl as the first time, but with the more intentional form. Idea behind this exercise was to emphasize that the Q has an opportunity (some might argue an obligation) to try and encourage proper form during an exercise or beatdown. Also, the focus on form was to prepare the PAX for the rest of the BD.

Next item to prepare for the remainder of the BD was a 90 second burpee AMRAP. This was utilized to order the PAX for the Human Timer/In Cadence ring of fire.

Once PAX were ordered by burpee count, a rotating ring of fire commenced with the following stipulations:

1.) In the order determined above, one PAX chose an exercise to lead in cadence from a list of exercises predetermined by the Q.
2.) Once an exercise was chosen, it was no longer available to be chosen again by another PAX.
3.) During each exercise, the duration was set by another PAX (using the burpee order above) bearcrawling up and crawl-bearing down the hill a predetermined distance.
4.) During his bearcrawl, each PAX would pick up the far cone and crawl it (4+3) 7 feet ahead from where he found it, so each round of the ring of fire got progressively longer.
5.) PAX continued the format, cycling through the order for both leading cadence and acting as the human timer, until time was called.

Exercises from which to choose from were the following:
SSH
Imperial Squat Walkers
American Hammers
Copperhead Merkins
Lt. Dans
Crab Jacks
Monkey Humpers
Kraken Burpees
Reerse LBCs
Flutter Kicks
Copperhead Squats
Gas Pumpers
Lunges

PAX returned up the stairs to the flag for the COT.

Ended with:
Count-O-Rama: 12
Name-O-Rama

The Six – Yoshi

LDP3

Ball of Man

Spreadsheets from the Gloom: 70 and humid. Throughout the entirety of Q school week, we explored a number of different aspects of leading a workout. Preparing for it, cadence work, AO usage, etc. What I wanted to emphasize was the different ways you could use timers to structure a beatdown. We were able to showcase the human timer element while sprinkling in an EMOM and AMRAP timer. Original plan had a tabata portion as well, but the extended bearcrawls took longer than expected. The purpose behind the pre-determined list of exercises to choose from was to give PAX the opportunity to find themselves uncomfortable and to force them to think on the fly. Some of the exercises weren’t standards in our everyday repertoire. Some had ridiculous counts (I’m looking at you, Kraken Burpee). And some were more tailored to be performed over the longer durations of the later rounds as opposed to the short early rounds. This formula allowed PAX to challenge themselves to order the exercises in a manner that made completing them more feasible.

All-in-all I thought the formula worked very well and I’ll likely use it in the future. One thing that would probably change would be the number of additional “steps” the crawler will move the cone fowrad per round. Since the crawler was going out and back, the extra distance each round was actually 2X…and it got a bit out of hand during the final few rounds. Perhaps use 5 steps, or even 3. The idea still works regardless.

Q school couldn’t stop YHC from creating a playlist fit for the occasion. This day’s included the following:

“Art School Girl” – Stone Temple Pilots
“School” – Nirvana
“My Old School” – Steely Dan
“Good Morning Little Schoolgirl” – Ten Years After
“Willin’ to Learn” – Tower of Power
“Catholic School Girls Rule” – Red Hot Chili Peppers
“Be True to Your School” – The Beach Boys
“Simple Lessons” – Candlebox
“Teachers” – Daft Punk

It was an honor to be asked to lead this one. Hopefully it encouraged guys to get themselves on the Q schedule as opposed to discouraging them. I look forward to seeing some new faces in the middle of the circle going forward!