Fitness. Fellowship. Faith.Intro: 12 men found out that the building materials for the foundation of teamwork can be actual building materials. This morning’s BC was not especially hard, but learning to work together was worth the trade-off.
Disclaimer: Given. No FNG’s.
Warmup: imperial walker, squats, monkey humpers, merkins
Thang: Grab a block, a section of rebar (about 3′ long and 10#-15#), and a battle buddy. Working in pairs, slide the rebar through the block to team-carry both blocks and both rebar, with one man in front and the other behind him. With a 3′ section of rebar, the PAX quickly learned that it’s easier if the pair are instep with each other.
At the first stop, form a circle with a block and rebar in the gap between each man. Grab the rebar on each side of you, and standup TOGETHER. The first exercise is the curl – TOGETHER. If you are slower than the man beside you, the block will slide onto your hand. If you are faster than the man beside you, you have just sent the block onto his hand. Curls x15.
Team-carry to the next stop and circle up.
The next exercise was the OHP. TOGETHER. It took the PAX a few attempts to get the rebar shoulder height together. OHP x15.
Team-carry to the next stop and circle up.
The next exercise was the squat. TOGETHER. This proved to be difficult to maintain proper form. Squats x15.
Team-carry to the next stop and circle up.
The next exercise was the combat situp. Man #1 did situps with his feet in the block and the rebar held in front. Man #2 sat on the block and resisted the situp by pushing against the rebar. Flip flop. Situps x20.
Team-carry to the next stop and circle up.
The next exercise was the Ring of Merkins. Starting with right hand on your block, do a merkin, then rotate to the right so that the left hand is now on the block. Continue until the PAX return to their own block. It took a coordinated effort to both stay ahead of the man to your left, and not run over the man to your right. Merkins x24.
Stow coupons.
Mary: None.
Pledge, Announcements, Prayer Requests:
BOM:
Devo: At dinner last night, I was telling my wife about Meghan Markle’s (Prince Harry’s bi-racial fiance) story about when she was 12 and had to check the box on a standardized test. You know the box – the one that asks if you are black, white, Asian, or Hispanic. Meghan did not know which box to check. She feared that choosing either black or white would dishonor one of her parents, and left the box blank. This upset her deeply.
Following along with my story, my 1st grade teacher wife related her own experience with “the boxes” in her classroom. Many of her kids did not know which box to check either. One child observed that he was “brown, not black”. Another said she was “kinda pink, not white”. Before that moment, these innocent children had no labels for themselves or their classmates and had never considered that they were somehow “different” than the child next to them. Some stupid standardized test forced the children to place themselves into a box, and now their classmates were also in a box. This made my wife sad.
When Meghan told her father about the situation that night, he contemplated quietly, then told her, “Draw your own box.”
My two take-aways are this: 1. If we truly aspire to be one people, one nation, one world, then let’s STOP placing each other in a “box”, and 2. Don’t let anyone define you. Define yourself with your actions…draw your own box.