Month: April 2024

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Freed (for all) to Lead

AO: bomber
Q: hambone , Chunks, CubCadet, Vector, Sherlock, Pep, Firefox, Tim the Toolman, Papa Bear, Puzzlah
PAX: Chunks, CubCadet, Vector, Sherlock, Pep, Firefox, Tim the Toolman, Papa Bear, Puzzlah
FNGs: None
COUNT: 10
CONDITIONS: Lonely

WARMUP: Concerned about the AOQ, the pax decided to head out towards casa de Scouten at 5:30. The slight mosey is just what everyone needed to get the blood flowing. Upon arrival, the pax noticed that 1) the houses was dark and 2) it was quiet. Fearing death / an angry M, Chunks opted not to ring the doorbell and instead we moseyed back to the startex.

THE THANG: Ever the positive influence, hambone decided to get the men moving around and routed everyone to the front of the community center with a circle up and chat.

F3 is about leadership, and with all of the accomplished men in the pax, leadership was not hard to find. With a (roughly) 5 minutes per mini-Q, each man was to take his turn leading the crew. Y’know how people would make up stories at camp with a few sentences and pass to the next man? It was gonna be like that except with less maturity.

hambone decided that the men needed to head away from the AO and took his 5(ish) minutes to move a quiet side street. The men proceeded to do “threes” with burpees at each end.

Chunks took the men back to BBQ and proceed to honor DintyMoore with BOMBS. YHC then fired Chunks.

Firefox took us back to the community center and proceeded to lead us in some bench work. Ever jealous of FF’s athleticism, YHC fired FF.

Puzzlah allowed some stretching, but then immediately took us to the hill and threatened to run. Thanks fully it was limited to bear crawls and squats. Since YHC wasn’t wearing gloves, YHC fired Puzzlah.

Understanding that hambone was being biased towards the younger crowd, the reins were turned over to Tim the Toolman who ran us back to the playground for a round of 30, 25, 15, 10 on squats, dips, burpees, pull ups. Thanks, TM–you’re now fired.

Vector, taking early offense at being snubbed because of his advanced age, opted to make the pax run again and honor t-cell with some DIDS except with ridiculous rep counts. DIDS without t-cell? You’re fired, Vector.

CubCadet, Papa Bear, Pep, and Sherlock took us out with some Mary. Truth be told, YHC was a little bit afraid of handing the reigns over to CubCadet because of his propensity for difficult ab work. YHC was confirmed with the 50 IC flutterkicks (wtf). I also want it noted that we didn’t get to Sherlock who is younger and better looking than some of the guys that went first.

MOLESKINE: The mission of F3 is to plant, grow, and service small men’s workout groups for the invigoration of male community leadership. When unfavorable circumstances hit, we will always be prepared to lead. We are not perfect and no man is an island. When circumstances hit a brother, we will always step in and push forward.

5 * 9 is 45, so theoretically 9 men should have gotten their shot. With a late start, a quick trip through the neighborhood, and YHC hogging 5 minutes and 45 seconds, not every man got his full shot. That said, it should be acknowledged that I helped us avoid the 100+ burpee buy in from Pep

ANNOUNCEMENTS: Go enjoy Chunks’ meat next weekend.

COT: Prayers and celebration for the birth of a granddaughter for Papa Bear, and prayers for the health of our brothers.

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70 Times 7

AO: mistymountain
Q: McAfee
PAX: Linus, Transporter, Sanders, Rockies, Right Said, Mt Man x3
FNGs: None
COUNT: 9
CONDITIONS: Chilly 38

WARMUP: OYO Stretches

THE THANG: Half Mile First Nations Run with 7 pushups required every time the last PAX reaches the front of the line.

Then, goal of hitting 70 reps in 7 minutes for:
Burpees
Lunges (2 count)
Pull Ups

Props to Sanders for hitting 120 Australian Pullups!

MOLESKINE:

ANNOUNCEMENTS: Plankpril is ongoing, today is 90 seconds if you want to join in! (add 6 seconds of plank time each day for the rest of April)

COT: Great news for our friend Backrow’s wife, the chemo was successful and she is now in remission. Continuing to pray for the health of those who are suffering and ongoing strength for us all as we face the challenges of this life.

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Pain Train is back baby!!

AO: offthebooks
Q: Wolfpack
PAX: The Banker, Siri, Merchant, G-string (Eli Kresta), Three Stooges, Sooie
FNGs: None
COUNT: 7
CONDITIONS: Little chilly, but clear and comfortable.

WARMUP: Jumped on the train and moseyed to the incredibly well lit and large church parking lot across the street. SSH, BACs, BAC BACs, Overhead Claps, Imperial Walkers, WMHs

THE THANG: Run to a location, perform Tabata exercises (90 second work/45 second rest)

Red Caboose
– Merkins
– Spiccoli’s

Amphitheater
– Wall Sits
– Burpees (jump up onto stage at the top and back down)

Gazebo
– Dips
– Incline Merkins

Playground
– Skullcrushers
– Pull Ups
– Step Ups

Red Caboose Field
– LBCs
– Plank
– Merkin Ring of Fire

MOLESKINE: Incredible to see the desire and support for growth in the Bellevue area… next 7 weeks Q’s are scheduled! Three Stooges bounced quickly so didn’t make it in the pic, but can confirm he was there! Sooie christened the caboose by accidentally dropping smashing his Nalgene into the ground in a sheer demonstration of Bellevue strength and power.

ANNOUNCEMENTS: Plankril Day 5. F3 Huntsville is converging on Franklin AO Armada tomorrow morning. Ping G-String for details if you’re able to head down and show some support for our Franklin brothers.

COT: Reminder to PAX to seek out ways to be inspired and in turn seek opportunities to inspire others. Loving kindness and good vibes for all prayers.

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Last Minute Switch

AO: thestronghold
Q: Red Skull
PAX: Shocker (Mark Holmes), Chunks, Dan and Dave, Minnie Pearl, Bill Dance, Decaf, Young and Restless, Yak, Frozen, Westside, Pacer, Trajectory, C#, Triple Sevens, Blitz, Sgt Meatball, Mr. Clean
FNGs: 1 Mr. Clean
COUNT: 18
CONDITIONS: A chilly 46 degrees

WARMUP: Mosey to the gravel lot for a Toga-inspired warm-up:
– Motivators
– Slow and Low Squats
– Imperial Walkers
– T-Ups
– Scorpion Stretch

THE THANG:
– Run to the front STEM parking lot for some EMOM work: 15 burpees, 20 squat jumps, 25 WWI’s
– Run to the NSA parking for another round of EMOM work
– Run to the Dept of Safety parking lot
– 15 burpees then Lt. Dan’s with locked arms to the next light
– 20 jump squats then bear crawl to next light
– 25 WWI’s then crawl bear to final light
– Run to the helipad – 15 burpees
– Run to the maintenance parking lot – 20 jump squats
– Run to the smoke stack – 25 WWI’s
– Run to the hill for two attempts at crawl bears up the hill
– Run to the StartEx for a little Mary

ANNOUNCEMENTS: The Stronghold is headed to Franklin to defend the flag. Join us at The Armada at 0630 for a Mid-TN / Alabama convergence.

COT: Prayers for strength, courage and wisdom

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It takes movement … so, move!

AO: the-knoll
Q: morning star
PAX: Sooie, Wolfpack, Siri, morning star, Right Said, El Capitan, Merchant, Malibu, Ex-Pat, Pebbles, Big Red (2.0), Bumble Bee (2.0)
FNGs: None
COUNT: 12
CONDITIONS: low 40s and not too bad

5:30 – welcome to the knoll, where 2.”a are always welcome. Took a moment to appreciate the birds.

Mosey to the flood monument bench

WARMUP:
Circle up for Lazy imperial walkers, all arm movements balanced on one leg (alternate to other leg when you lose balance): LBCs, reverse LBCs, put your glasses on, take your glasses off, jimmy goes to Egypt, slow merkins, low slow squats

THE THANG:
30 rounds of 5 seconds of work, 25 seconds of active recovery, alternating between merkins and jump squats (or modification).
– roll after merkins, before getting up
– lots of variations of active recovery and silly interactions after squats

Mosey to the playground, find a bar and do a max habg, mosey back and plank to wait for six.

YHC remembered the disclaimer…

Repeat 30 rounds.

Mary:
– Alternate crab walk and cat/baby crawl back to playground.
– Baby rocking to wrap up

MOLESKINE: I’m a leadership and personal development geek. I love thinking about it and practicing it. I enjoyed sharing some thoughts on it today. Remember that to bless simply means to find good and call it out. Don’t forget to bless yourself as you practice blessing. It’s a skill. I also enjoyed all the laughter and horse play during our active recovery. Joy is also worth practicing.

ANNOUNCEMENTS:
– plankril today is 1min 16 seconds
– 5 mile Saturday run to support Richland creek, meets at Richland park, see Right Said for details

COT:
– Counts, names and announcements
– The founders of F3 thought they men functioned best when they were aware of and connected to something bigger than themselves
– Took a moment of silent reflection to connect with personal SkyQ … consider someone you’re close to, picture their face, what might be one thing you could do to deepen your connection? Commit to doing that today
– YHC blessed the PAX to go forth and practice bless today
– Poured ginger tea as YHC shared on leadership (see below)

Here is a framework for personal acceleration:
– draw a y and x axis … the y axis represents your motivation: who are you serving? Bottom is you, top is others … the x axis represents type of action. The left is responding (following or participating) the right is initiating (leading)
– bottom left quadrant is participating to serve yourself
– top left is participating to serve others
– Top right is leading to serve others
– bottom right is leading to serve yourself
– growth is recognizing what quadrant you tend to be comfortable in and then considering moving to another quadrant to practice something you may not be as comfortable in
– The key to maturity is to keep moving through the quadrants to be well practiced in all, there’s no “bad” expression here

Wolfpack encouraged the PAX to make their comfort spot with an x.

YHC encouraged the PAX to consider a growth edge: challenge yourself to do something you don’t normally do. That may be initiating or participating. That maybe to shift your focus to yourself or to others. Honor to each man in his unique journey. We all bring a contribution that is valuable.

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OTB Run

AO: the-castle
Q: Chunks , Splitter
PAX: Splitter, Chunks
FNGs: None
COUNT: 2
CONDITIONS: Brisk at first, but could have survived with only a Tshirt

WARMUP:

THE THANG: 3.5 Mile party pace run. Discussed family, dad life, and how to grow F3 here in the north.

Started and ended at Just Love Coffee. Next week is TBD, so keep an eye on this channel.

MOLESKINE:

ANNOUNCEMENTS:

COT:

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Leg Day

AO: middle-tooth
Q: Young Pawn
PAX: Betty Ford, Cowboy, DrRupp, moneyshot, Oatmeal, Pole Dancer, Rocket Mortgage, sooner, Toothless, TheShield, Topanga, Stinky Pete (F3 Chapel Hill), Overnight
FNGs: 1 Overnight
COUNT: 14
CONDITIONS: :barely_sunny:

WARM UP: :plank: ⭕️
It was day 2 of plankpril so all pax needed to do a 66 second plank. We stood in a circle and took turns doing a plank while the rest of the pax did 66 seconds of warm up exercises including arm circles, imperial walkers, lunges, Bonnie Blairs, squats, and others.

THANG 1: Lopsided Races :man-running: :bear:
Pax paired off and repeated raced to a mark 5 yds away and back. One pax in each pair sprinted and the other bear crawled. The winner of the race had to go 5 steps farther in the subsequent one. The sprinters won the first couple and then crawlers started to even the tide.

THANG 2: Dorabell :school_satchel: :kettlebell:
Pairs did a Dora with 100 each of squats, Freddy Mercurys, fire hydrants and Lt. Dans. Plus, there were two kettlebells (16 and 24 kg), after both pax in a pair carried one it was passed down the line.

MOLESKIN: YHC has been away on a health hiatus and it felt good to be back. Grateful for F3 Nashville.

COT:
:pray: Prayers for grief and healing

ANNOUNCEMENTS:
:beers: Brewsday postponed until next week, see 2ndf

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Games with Dad – Bring your kids to workout, part 2

AO: the-knoll
Q: Wolfpack , Sooie, Ex-Pat, Pebbles
PAX: Aflac, El Capitan, Siri, Sooie, Ex-Pat, Wolfpack, morning star, Merchant, Firefox, Bumble bee (2.0), Awesome Axolotl (2.0), Link (2.0), Birdman (2.0), White Pony (2.0), Rubiks (2.0)
FNGs: 2 White Pony (2.0), Rubiks (2.0)
COUNT: 16
CONDITIONS: warm, overcast and delightful

WARMUP: (Wolfpack and Link)
I Spy With My Little Eye – Various stretches while Link called out different parts of the playground he spies (Top of a slide, a pole, a ladder). PAX has to run and touch that spot on the playground.

THE THANG:
Part 1 – baseball practice (Pebbles)
Pax team up with a 2.0 for infield practice. 1 Pax does exercise while the other runs the bases. Switch between exercise and running for 2:30.
– First Base – Lunges
– Second Base – Carolina Dry Docks
– Short Stop – Burpees
– Third Base – Merkins
– Catcher – Squats

Part 2 (Ex-pat and Birdman)
2 min each circuit, 30 sec rest/explain and mosie to other area
1. London bridge – dad goes into bridge and kid army crawls under then dad comes down or not and kid continues to make circles
2. Leap Frog to next exercise
3. Slow hold tandem crunch – face each other feet together and hold hands, one moves to a low hold for 10 seconds and then switch. Keep going for all time
4. High skip to next exercise
5. Hold squat jumping jacks – dad holds a squat and kid does 15 jumping jacks and then switch
6. Bear crawl to next exercise
7. Stacked push ups – dad on ground, kids hands on back, dad does merkin then kid does one – go till fatigue
8. Ladder – take turns following each other through the ladder making up steps as you go

Mary (Sooie) – PAX choice

MOLESKINE: this was round 2 and we’ll continue this each month. Was great to see 2 new 2.0s!

ANNOUNCEMENTS:
– pre-hab continues at 5:15 before the workout
– Plankril is on!

COT: (Pebbles)
We have many roles as fathers. One of the most important is to teach our kids what’s right and wrong. However our delivery (tone, body language, etc) is just as important as our message. Sometimes we need to be firm and enforce consiwuiendes and other times our kids need complete mercy. May we consider this and have discernment.

Requests shared and prayers said.

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Tortoise & Hare v3

AO: thestronghold
Q: Red Skull
PAX: Hacker (Franklin), Chunks, Judy, Decaf, Longhorn, Popper (DR from Alpha), Yak, Frozen, Westside, Pacer, Trajectory, C#, Triple Seven, Blitz, Sgt Meatball
FNGs: None
COUNT: 16
CONDITIONS: Windy, 72 degrees with occasional rain drops…perfect weather for a PR!

WARMUP: SSH, Slow & Low Squat, IW, Right/Left Stretch, WMH

THE THANG:
RUN!! We took the normal 3 mile route. No route disruptions encountered today.

Plenty of time for some Mary while waiting for the six. Mary included burpees, SSH, lunges and more burpees before dropping to the ground for some flutter kicks, prom dates and hello dolly’s

MOLESKINE:
We are in week four…the hardest week of the 40-Day Challenge. The 4:13 Strong men were invited to dig deep and keep pushing. A positive attitude and an honest effort is all it tasks to stay on track.

ANNOUNCEMENTS:
4:13 Strong is headed to Franklin on Saturday to help defend the flag. Join us at The Armada at 6:30am and help keep Alabama from going home with our flag.

COT: Prayers for strength, wisdom and courage

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I pity the fool that thought this would be a “fun, light-hearted workout”

AO: westeros
Q: Sally
PAX: Natural Ice, Red Skull, Spinal Tap, Pep, Chunks, Vector, Michelin Man, Crawlspace, Tim the Toolman, DintyMoore, Grape, Cash Cab
FNGs: None
COUNT: 13
CONDITIONS: Foolish and Foolhardy. Definitely sleeves-optional.

WARMUP: Warmup mosey to courts + active stretches upon arrival.

THE THANG:
1. EMOM – alternate suicides with 10 burpees.
2. Deconstructed Burpees (atomic thrusters, merkins, squat jumps, burpees) from 1 to 10
3. Hill sprints forwards + backwards, some dealer’s choice routines.

MOLESKINE: (Can someone tell me the difference between this and announcements?)

ANNOUNCEMENTS:
– Plankril
– UFC Fight Night – see 2nd F channel
– Franklin vs. Huntsville contest

COT:
– Shooting victims at restuarant in Nashville.
– For those returning to church at Easter
– Gratitude for my wife finishing her defense.

Quote from “Into the Breach”:
I hope, too, that you will take what is helpful, bring it to the Lord in prayer, and go forward confidently in your vocation as men. Our life in Christ is not one of “do’s and don’ts,” but an adventure in authentic freedom. Embrace that freedom in order to place your life at the service of Christ, beginning in your home and radiating into the world.

Always a pleasure to lead. Sally out.