F3 Knoxville

Category: Big Ball

Dora’s Rock Garden

THE SCENE: Hot and humid at 55 degrees and clear.
F3 WELCOME & DISCLAIMER
WARM-O-RAMA:
SSH, calf stretches, baby arm circles, cherry picker
THA-THANG:
Mosey down under the amphitheater and up towards the first bridge.

Last week at Asylum I learned about a circle burp- introduced it to the Big Ballers this morning:

Pax to the left of YHC begins with one burpee while everyone else is performing merkins. The burpee is then passed all the way around the circle. Once back to the beginning, burpees increase to 2. Repeat until everyone completes the round of 5 burpees. Pax switched from merkins to squats to diamond merkins to standing lunges.

Mosey down to the second creek greenway parking lot for a circle of pain: monkey humper.

Mosey to S7- prime for tailgating and prime for some makeshift CMUs with the large rock garden available.

Dora 123- partner up and complete 100 merkins, 200 LBC, 300 squats. To spice it up, each team has a rock they have selected from the rock garden. While the first partner is completing reps of the exercise, the other partner is completing a lap around the parking lot while carrying the selected rock

Mosey back up to the bridge over Cumberland for a quick ab circuit:

  • 10x Freddy Mercury
  • 10x Freddy Mercury reverse
  • 10x Crunchy frog
  • 10x Flutter kicks
  • 10x BBSU
  • 10x American Hammer

Mosey back down under the amphitheater. Just passed the Clinch bridge, go all out back to the flag.

COUNT-OFF & NAME-O-RAMA
Amazon, Magic Mic, Abort, Drive Thru, G-6, Air Gretzky, Postman, Frizzles (QIC)
CIRCLE OF TRUST/BOM:
Matthew 14- Jesus is exhausted and sorrowful when he finds out John the Baptist has been killed. He tries to withdraw but the crowds find him. Though facing the full range of human emotion he chooses to treat the crowd with compassion and performs the miracle of the feeding of the 5,000.

We often will face similar moments. People needing compassion and support even in moments when we feel completely poured out and unequipped. In those moments we can rely on Jesus. He knows, He challenges and He provides.

Proctasti-Nation

THE SCENE: A balmy 40 degrees with light rain. No snow in sight.
F3 WELCOME & DISCLAIMER
WARM-O-RAMA:
Some SSH to get the blood going. Imperial walkers. Calf stretch. Cherry pickers. SSH.
THA-THANG:

Burpee squat ladder: start with 1 burpee and 1 squat. Increase to 2 burpees and 2 squats, keep going until Q calls time. See how high you can climb.

11’s:    Merkin and Bonnie Blair

11’s:    Carolina Dry Dock and V up Rollup

4 Corners: Complete each of these exercises at every corner. Wait for all pax to finish the exercises before moving to the next corner:

  • 2 ct. Mountain climber (15)
  • Merkin (15)
  • BBSU (15)
  • Squat (15)

MARY:
Keep the legs up for the following:

  • Freddy Mercury (15)
  • Heels to heaven (10)
  • Flutter Kicks (10)
  • Hello Dolly (10)

Then some easy WW2 situps and American Hammer to finish it off.

COUNT-OFF & NAME-O-RAMA
Frizzles QIC, G-6 (respect x3), Magic Mic, Huffy (respect), Air Gretzky, Bunyons
CIRCLE OF TRUST/BOM:
I am a professional procrastinator- so I issued a challenge to name anything in your life you have been avoiding, write out why you have been avoiding it and then create some actionable steps towards tackling it.

Jelly Legs at the Big Ball

THE SCENE: Mid 20’s, cold and dark
F3 WELCOME & DISCLAIMER
WARM-O-RAMA:
SSH, Imperial Walkers, Rockettes, Cherry Pickers, Tempo Squats, Tempo Merkins, Baby Arm Circles
THA-THANG:

  • Amphitheater: 3 sets of: 10x Box Jumps, 10x Alternating Split Squats, 10x Big Boys, run the stairs, 10x Rows
  • Hill By Church: 10x Knee Tucks, 10x Squats, 10x LBCs, run the hill, 1 burpee at the top. Then 10x Mucho Legos with run and Burpee. Then 10x Knee Tucks, 10x Squats, 10x LBCs, run the hill, 1 burpee at the top again. Then 10x Flutterkicks, 10x American Hammers, 10x Hello Dollys, run the hill, 1 burpee.
  • Parking Lot at Edge of Park: 2 sets of: Walking lunges to each median, 1 rep of Mucho Armos at each median, then reverse the direction of the walking lunge after each median, followed by a sprint back to the starting point
  • Stopped at bridge over Cumberland for 33 Big Boys in honor of the Bulldogs taking down the Tide
  • Mosey home

COUNT-OFF & NAME-O-RAMA

CIRCLE OF TRUST/BOM:
Last week got into a conversation with one of my students on discipline in regards to our walks with the Lord. This reminded me of a message from a conference in the past where the speaker talked about the same topic and recalled growing up on the west coast and observing what she called “surfer boy” culture. High school students that would get up around 4am to travel to the beach, throw on a wetsuit, get into cold and dark waters, all in hopes of catching a few waves before school started. Something that always stuck with me is that she said she doubts that the thought of discipline ever crossed the surfer boys minds, because they loved what they were doing. A combination of passion and discipline is what leads to lifestyles. I pointed out that though we likely feel like we require discipline, we aren’t much different. The guys this morning woke up somewhere between 4:30-5am, the night after a big game, the morning before a full day of work, to come outside, in 25 degree weather, to have some punk kid with no level of authority tell them to run up a hill a bunch of times. That requires discipline as well as an appreciation for more than just a workout. Chances are the other 2 F’s help fuel our desire to be a part of this. I also challenged us to consider where else in our lives can we match that same level of discipline with passion. Whether our marriages, jobs, kids, friends, neighborhoods, etc, lets not let this meeting of passion and discipline be exclusive to 5:30am workouts

Big Ball 2021 Year In Review

THE SCENE: 55 and damp, thankfully the rain stopped just in time for us to run around outside
F3 WELCOME & DISCLAIMER
WARM-O-RAMA:
SSH, Amazon’s Shoulder Shredders, Tempo Squats, Cherry Pickers
THA-THANG:
Like last year, this work out served as a recap of memorable beat downs from this year at the Big Ball. Everything we did was something someone else introduced us to or was based off another work out

  • Control Freak Burpos (Night Shift from NC): Burpos (Burpees minus the jump, staying in a squat when standing) on a “control freak” cadence, meaning each position in the exercise was determined by how I called it out during the count. Example, one rep we went 1-2-3-4-3-4-3-4-5-6, meaning we did 3 push ups in the burpo. 10 reps total
  • Plank Frog (Fixer Upper): Like leap frog but in a plank. Two lines formed, everyone held a plank, whoever was in the back of the line jumped over everyone else and took place in the front of the line in a plank again. We did this until everyone crossed the field.
  • Billy Madison/12 Days of Christmas (Frizzles/Drive Thru, Wedding Singer, and Huffy): Billy Madison is 12 rounds of escalator, building upon each other from 1 to 12, 12 days of Christmas is the inverse. So in honor of these 4 Q’s we did the 12th round. Each man gave us an exercise, once we had 12 listed we did 10 reps of each followed by a lap around the amphitheater. Exercises were: Flutterkicks, Burpees, Hello Dollys, Long Duck Dongs, Rows, Squat Jumps, Smurf Jacks, Bus Drivers, Big Boy Sit Ups, American Hammers, Calf Raises, and Merkins
  • Doras (Pfieffer): Pfieffer led us through similar Doras on a game day in the pouring rain. One partner did Burpee Broad Jumps while the other worked on chipping away at 100x Merkins and 100x Squats. We played with Judge Judy rules, so the first pair to finish got to call recover for everyone
  • Building Blocks (Tank): 4 cones were placed on the sidewalk next to the lawn. We started at one end of the lawn and ended at the other. Each cone had an exercise, and reps increased by 5 each cone. Round 1 was running to each cone with Merkins (5, 10, 15, 20), then a jog back once finished. Round 2 was bear crawl to each cone with squats. Round 3 was bunny hops with Big Boy Sit Ups

MARY:
I was hoping to finish with some ATMs (Abort) but we ran out of time
COUNT-OFF & NAME-O-RAMA
Had Poison from VA and FNG Icebreaker join us
CIRCLE OF TRUST/BOM:
Talked about how New Years serves as a great opportunity to not only look forward and set goals and hopes for the future but to also reflect on the past as well. I encouraged us to think through what are things from this past year that we want to hold onto as we move forward and what are things we want to reach for next year. For me something that hits both those categories, which has been my closing word after every Q this semester, has been continuing to develop the habit and discipline of “preaching the Gospel to yourself daily”, as Jerry Bridges puts it

Flathead’s Pulpit

THE SCENE: A clear and balmy post-Christmas 56 degrees.
F3 WELCOME & DISCLAIMER
WARM-O-RAMA:
SSH, Imperial walkers, Bear hug, Daisy pickers, leg stretches, Hillbillies, Merkins, Tempo squat
THA-THANG:
Began with a quick mosey to the Big Ball itself. Stop for a circle of pain merkin style. Mosey on over to the Performance Lawn for a quick circle of pain howling monkeys.

YHC located a conveniently placed whiteboard with what looked to be a decent enough workout titled Flathead’s Pulpit:

  • 40 squats
  • 30 lunges (single)
  • 20 BBSU
  • 10 2-pump burpees
  • Lap around the lawn
  • 10 burpees
  • 10 4-ct flutter kicks
  • 10 8-ct bodybuilder
  • 10 6-ct SSH
  • Lap around the lawn
  • REPEAT

This was not as much as it sounds.

MARY:
Back at the flag we knocked out some Freddy Mercury’s, LBCs and V-up rollups to finish off strong.
COUNT-OFF & NAME-O-RAMA
Frizzles, G-6 (respectx3), Buttercup, Stacks
CIRCLE OF TRUST/BOM:
About a year ago my good friend Flathead (John Lex Kenerly) finally broke me down with his EHing and I agreed to attend an F3 beatdown in Macon, GA. I had turned him down many many times and never imagined I would ever be the guy working out at 5am. But that first day in the gloom was incredible experience and my life has truly been profoundly changed because of F3. When I moved to Knoxville back in July, one of the first things I did was make sure to post at Big Ball and immediately found community.

What Flathead did for me, we should try to do for others. Whether that means dragging someone to F3, or something completely different- we should assess the people in our lives and look for ways to meet them where they are and then do what we can to help them out. The F3 credo is “Leave no man behind but leave no man where you found him.” As we show up in the gloom to continuing sharpening one another, let’s find ways to take that sharpness and help those around us.
MOLESKIN:
If you ever get the chance to meet Stacks- ask him where his name comes from.