Fishers of Men

June 25, 2019July 5, 2019 / f3roadrunner / Leave a comment

I hate mornings, I love sleep, and I’m not too fond of groups of people. That’s what I use to tell myself. At least, until I was reluctantly introduced to F3.

I fought F3 every time it was mentioned to me, starting with this weird group of guys with painted faces in the parking lot of Oak Mountain after a mud run in 40 degree weather. I fought it from the same friend I ran with after he decided to give F3 a try. It’s the mornings. Those sweet, precious moments when you are dead asleep in a warm bed, hopefully next to a beautiful woman. I thought there was nothing better. But there is!

Now I find sleep to be the necessary ingredient needed to help me have the energy to get up in the Gloom of the morning to crawl, sweat, hurt and fellowship with my new found Brothers. That initial rise out of bed in the wee hours of the morning gets overshadowed by the excitement I find when I pull up to a parking lot filled with guys I love and respect.

So, now I find myself attempting what F3 lovingly refers to as a Headlock. But, unlike most workout groups, I don’t find myself looking for that guy that is already in shape and may want to save money with a free workout (which you do). I literally tell everyone. Because everyone needs to be part of something bigger than themselves. It is less of a workout group and more of a brotherhood. Matthew 4:19 states – Jesus said to them “Come, follow me, and I will show you how to be fishers of men” There are few places to put that message from God into practice better than F3. Don’t just invite people to F3. Tell them your story. What does F3 mean to you?

This isn’t Fight Club. The first 2 rules are NOT “Don’t talk about F3”. Slumlord ends all of his emails with “ALWAYS BE HEADLOCKING”. So, lets do our part. We are 1,000 PAX strong. Imagine the impact we can have on our community if that number doubled or even tripled. Imagine the differences we can see in our 2.0s, our M’s that witness us attempting to better ourselves. You may not realize it, but it affects them too. Its like a spark igniting a flame. This world is in desperate need of Male leaders. I can’t imagine better leaders than men that have the discipline to do the hard thing in the gloom of the morning while also following God’s word.

Let’s go be Fishers of Men

Abs of Steel

August 31, 2018 / f3falco / Leave a comment

13 PAX including one FNG showed up to test their abs and core today in Helena. Side straddle hops not included.

Q Summary:

Willie Mays, Calf stretch in mountain climber position, Quad stretch, Michael Phelps, followed by an Indian run

This was followed by a validator run and core workout – PAX run one at a time (backwards) up the validator and run back down forward. While waiting, the rest of the PAX performed the following:

Reach-for-the-sky sit-ups, American hammers, Merkins, Flutter kicks, LBC’s, Mountain climbers, Elbow planks, The Al Gore, Scissor kicks (The Dolly), Standard planks, Straight leg lifts

This was followed by 50 burpees, a one lap mosey (sprint at the end), a merkin waterfall (5 merkins individually while other PAX planked, then 5 as a team), and 10 pull-ups (extra credit encouraged). Name-O-Rama with FNG Bling named.

After name-o-rama we discussed the recent F3 podcast regarding fathers and daughters. Everyone has heard “be a good example for your kids”, but have we thought about showing our daughters what a good man, dating, and love for our wives should look like? How would we feel if our daughters brought home a boyfriend that was just like us in every way? We must work every day to eliminate our own bad behaviors if we don’t want our daughters to date boys with the same bad behaviors. It is also up to us to show them the good behaviors a leader and a man should have. Date your wife, love your wife, let your kids see that. Take your daughter on dates, treat them like a lady, open the door for them, pull out their chair for them at dinner. Show them what a gentleman is. Strive to be an awesome Dad.

Follow the Leader

August 24, 2018 / f3mayhem / Leave a comment

9 PAX showed up to test themselves against the Validator remixed with a classic school yard game. We were blessed with the coolest weather and lowest humidity we’ve seen in a while.

Pre-game

Disclaimers
Half lap mosey
Hamstring stretch
Arm circles
Willie Mays Hayes
Michael Phelps
Imperial Walkers
Raise the Roofs

Game

PAX filed single file line of planks at bottom of Validator.

Leader went up the validator, did an exercise, mosey down and did another exercise with concrete blocks.

PAX followed behind, one by one, after giving the man in front of them a 10 second head start.

Rinse, repeat, repeat, repeat…

PAX were responsible for getting the next exercise from the man in front of them and giving the next exercise to the man behind them.

Getting up the Validator was accomplished by:

Sprints
Bear Crawls
Burpee Hops (don’t try this at home)
Lunges
More sprints and bear crawls

Exercises at the top included:

Burpees
Flutterkicks
Merkins
American Hammers

Exercises at bottom with concrete blocks included:

Curls
Overhead Presses
Rows
Tricep Extensions
More Curls
Assorted Planks as everyone finished last cycle

Exciting conclusion:

Pull ups until you can’t. Sets of 10 with 10 second breaks.
COT and Name-O-Rama.

“Better work hard or you might as well quit”

August 7, 2018 / f3mayhem / Leave a comment

TOO HYPE

Mosey to JT Park

SSH x25 IC

Imperial Walkers x25 IC

CAN’T TOUCH THIS

Circuit style workout that included:

Dips

LBCs

Burpullups

Shoulder taps

Big Boy Sit-ups

More Burpullups

Air Squats

Rows

Prayer Squat

Gotta have more Burpullups!

Jumping Lunges

Merkins

Flutter kicks

HAMMER TIME

Played the pop classic tune “U Can’t Touch This” on a vintage Bluetooth speaker for the PAX.

When the rap legend said “U Can’t Touch This” PAX completed Big Boy Sit Ups.

When he instructed us to “break it down” we took a quick break until he let us know break was over by stating “Stop – Hammer Time”.

For the remainder of the song, as you may have already guessed, it was, in fact, Hammer Time. American Hammers were done by the PAX to the beat. Or maybe not exactly to the beat. But they were done continuously.

13 PAX concluded the workout with COT and Name-o-Rama.

Welcome FNG Swisher!

THE MIDDLE – 6/29/18

July 2, 2018 / f3mayhem / Leave a comment

WARM UP – (informed the PAX I actually stole this warmup from last week’s Q)

Imperial Walkers x 20

SSH x 20

Ray Lewis x 20

Merkins x 20

LBC x 20

Arm Circles x 20

Thor x 10

Mosey including 3 sets of stairs

THE THANG

PAX met it The Middle of our field and divided into 2 groups.

1st group ran from The Middle to their edge and did the selected exercise, then ran back to The Middle.

2nd group stayed in The Middle and completed as many of their exercise as possible while waiting on 1st group to return.

Once 1st group returned to The Middle is was 2nd group’s turn to run to their edge and complete that exercise while the 1st group knocked out the max exercise in The Middle.

Rinse and repeat and repeat and repeat and keep on repeating until time was up.

We started off with 10 burpees at the edge and unlimited merkins in The Middle, but as we progressed PAX were called on for new exercises both at the edge and in The Middle. They included but were not limited to:

EDGE:

Burpees x 10

LBCs x 20

American Hammers x 25

Squats with 5 second delays at bottom – surely there’s a name for this? – x 25

Flutter kicks x 25

Bear crawls to the edge and back

THE MIDDLE: Merkins, merkins, merkins, merkins x max

Jumping lunges x max

Were there more exercises? Possibly, probably. But fatigue doesn’t help with memory apparently.

To finish it up, should we do 6MOM? Nah. Let’s do 6MOP (6 minutes of pull-ups, which YHC later found out there’s a name for that – 6MOU, or 6 minutes of uncle) (full disclosure, we didn’t go the full 6 minutes due to running out of time and our arms failing to function).

Concluded with COT, Devotion, Lead on Three, and a Merlot Splash.

The Pack – 6/22/18 – The Easy Thing (?)

June 22, 2018 / f3mayhem / Leave a comment

10 PAX met up on a beautiful Friday morning to do what was described as the easy thing. Welcome FNG Prince.

WARMUP

Imperial Walkers x 20

SSH x 20

Ray Lewis x 20

Merkins x 20

LBC x 20

Arm Circles x 20

Thors x 10

Indian Run until all had their turn

THE EASY THING

Just a simple lap around the playground, stopping at 5 stations for exercises along the way and sprinting in between stations. What were the stations you ask? Just basic stuff here:

Merkins x 30
Sit ups x 30
Merkins x 30
Burpees x 10
Pull ups x 15

Rinse and repeat until time runs out.

Concluded with COT, Devotion.

Memorial Day Murph

May 28, 2018 / f3barneyfife / Leave a comment

Here’s a quick backblast for today’s Memorial Day Murph out of Railroad Park.

30 PAX including one walk-on FNG (welcome Smelt) answered the call to honor a fallen American hero. Rabbit circled us up in the rain beside the Railroad Park pavilion at 0600, and led a healthy warm-up. We made a last minute change to a straight line 1-mile run down the Rotary Trail, instead of running around the park’s path. Keep in mind if you are ever to use this park for F3 workouts that it officially does not open until 0700, and it does have 24 security.

It’s a good little run down that urban trail. Rabbit stopped us a mile out at a nice little overgrown fire ant field (I only have about 40 bites on my thigh, which are burning as I type this – thanks Rabbit). In groups of 6, we got to work on 20 sets of…. 5 burpees/10 merkins/15 squats. A walk-on steel worker we found in the park (now F3 Smelt), was in my squad, and he did quite well. We took this photo before heading back.

On the way back, one more photo of Rabbit’s design.

Rabbit capped off the fitness activities with a group set of 5/10/15. After that, name-o-rama, announcements, and Sparrow prayed us out.

YHC mentioned in the COT, the Kohima Epitaph. I have found it to be very moving since seeing it on a plaque in Canterbury many years ago. It occurred to me over the weekend that although Memorial Day was created to honor American service members who made the ultimate sacrifice, many of them – were they here with us today – would likely themselves also seek to honor those who served in allied forces, either side-by-side with our American heros, or separately, but for the same cause – freedom.

In April through June of 1944, British, Indian and Nepalese forces were fighting the same cause against the unyielding Japanese, but in a theater apart from most American forces. The Battle of Kohima (India), part of the larger Burma Campaign, was called the “Stalingrad of the East”. The Allies saw over 4,000 casualties in that battle. The Kohima Epitaph, which can be found at the cemetery for those fallen allies, and has been reprinted on plaques throughout the world, is as follows.

“When you go home, tell them of us and say, for your tomorrow, we gave our today.”

FREEDOM IS NOT FREE.

– Fife

Photos: Korean Memorial in Washington. A war that claimed over 33,000 American lives.

The Pack Getting Schooled

April 27, 2018 / abenderka3 / 1 Comment

We have been working out at this site for over 7 months, but this is only our 2nd workout as official F3 AO. The standard is to workout, then go over a short devotional and discuss. In saying this, we did the standard, but I left off Name-o-Rama and didn’t get a picture. I knew this BB was a must or what we did this AM didn’t even happen, at least to the F3 Nation. The Pack knows it went down and pain was handed out like candy on Halloween.

Recess (Warm UP)

SSH – IC, Imperial Walker – IC, Ray Lewis’ – IC, Merkins – 25 OYO, Mountain Climbers – IC, LBCs – 50 OYO, LAC – IC

The Lesson

4 Corners of School

1st Corner – 15 Diamond Merkins – Lunges to 2nd corner

2nd Corner – Minute+ wall sits then different Pax members gave us a 10 second count down, the Mississippi 10 count was no joke (thanks The Donald) – Mosey to corner 3.

3rd Corner – Merkins IC – Pax members took turns taking charge – Mayhem, Crutch, The Donald. Each made it a Merkinathon! – Sprint to corner 4 back down to Corner 3 and back to Corner 4.

4th Corner – 20 Big boy sit-ups OYO – Mosey to the stairs

Stairs – Each member had to hit the stairs twice. The Pax took turns mixing up workouts every 2 members. Let’s just say the Jane Fonda wasn’t accepted as offering a solid F3 image.

Rinse and Repeat 3X

The Exam

I asked Crutch if he wanted to ensure the lessons were taught at a high level and end the morn. He obliged by testing our skills that weren’t in the previous lessons. Remember those teachers? His idea of fun:

10 burpees sprint the parking lot then 20 squats – Rinse and Repeat while going down by numbers of 2. We made it to 4 burpees before having to meet for the circle of trust.

Did we pass? It looks like we have to finish the Exam, so until next time!!

Circle of Trust

Best part of the morning. At this location, we share a short devotion and have discussion. Great time to share life and learn more about your brothers. Great message today from multiple guys. Guy laid down some true wisdom on his first visit to ThePack (much appreciated). Yes, he brought F3 Birmingham’s mascot Duke. We ended in prayer.

I’ll have pictures for next beat down!