F3 Knoxville

Category: The Project

Shovelflag Handoff at The Project

THE SCENE:  68 and clear – perfect.
F3 WELCOME & DISCLAIMER:  Administered
WARM-O-RAMA:

RFTS/LIH
Willy Mays Hays
Seal squats
Down/up dog
Mountain climbers
Merkins

Mosey to the Friendship Bell
10 lateral box jumps
20 dips
30 derkins

THA THANG:

Dirty MacDeuce
1. 12 Flutter kicks (4 count)
2. 12 Shoulder taps (4 count)
3. 12 Hello dollys
Run a lap.
Repeat x 4

Mosey to K-25 Hill
11s – Burpees and Freddy Mercury (4 count)

Long Bernie up the road

MARY:

Mosey back to the Friendship Bell

Mucho Chesto

Freddy Mercury IC

Another Mucho Chesto

Another Freddy Mercury IC

COUNT-OFF & NAME-O-RAMA

Me and 22 of the best men I know

CIRCLE OF TRUST/BOM:

We showed honor to Erector and acknowledged that The Project exists today because he and others (Rocket, Chaco, Snaggletooth, Samaritan) launched it in February 2019.  What a positive difference it has made in my life – and in the lives of many other men in the Oak Ridge area.  T-Claps, brothers!  Erector led for a while, then Snaggletooth, and it was my joy and honor to lead for a season, and today it was a privilege to pass the flag to a man whom I esteem so highly.

The mission of F3 is to plant, grow, and serve small workout groups of men for the invigoration of male community leadership.  Fitness is not the endgame or the goal.  Your virtuous leadership – in your family, in your work, at your church, in this community – that is the goal of F3.

What makes a man a Leader?  What enables a man to do what a Leader does?

What F3 says it takes to be an effective leader are these four capabilities;

  • Vision – the ability to recognize Advantage and the Movement required to achieve it
  • Articulation – the act of describing his Vision to others
  • Persuasion – the initiation of first Movement
  • Exhortation – A leader is ready to use Exhortation to incentivize his followers

But an Effective Leader is not necessarily a Virtuous Leader. For that, F3 says he must also possess the Leadership Virtues.

  • Candor: graciously telling the hard truth and demanding to hear it from others
  • Commitment: unwavering loyalty to the Group and unflinching determination to accomplish its Mission
  • Consistency: to be unchanging in nature, standard, or effect over time
  • Contentment: stability of emotion engendered by the Consistent pursuit of Joy rather than Happiness
  • Courage: setting aside fear to turn hardship into grace

To Lead Right a person must be both an Effective and Virtuous Leader

We could have a BOM on each one of those capabilities and virtues separately – but I wanted to cover the whole F3 leadership model this morning as an introduction for the man who is accepting the shovelflag.  That dude is the whole package.  He possesses every one of these capabilities and I’ve seen each of the virtues reflected in his life.  Mathlete is going to be an outstanding leader of this group – and I look forward to following his lead and am excited to see where we go!

MOLESKIN:

If he had been there, Baby Chest would have loved the double Mucho Chesto.

Mucho gracias to our visitors from JUCO, Shamrock, and Equalizer – awesome to see you guys!

PRAYERS / ANNOUNCEMENTS:

Prayers for Ribbed’s wife’s healing, for Boy George’s wife’s interview today, for an unnamed F3 brother.

Here am I! Send me.

THE SCENE: Cool and comfortable (for August)
F3 WELCOME & DISCLAIMER
WARM-O-RAMA:
1. Projectivator
2. Tempo Squats
3. Cherry Pickers
4. Tempo Merkins
THA-THANG:

  1. Mosey to the bell
  2. Read Isaiah 6:8:  And I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?”  Then I said, “Here I am! Send me.”
  3. Ask for a volunteer.  They will run the loop while the group does merkins awaiting their return.
  4. Repeat this until each PAX has run the loop cycling through these exercises:
    1. Merkins
    2. Big Boys
    3. Squats
    4. Merkins
    5. Flutter Kicks
    6. Lunges
    7. Merkins
    8. LBCs
    9. Step Ups
    10. Merkins
  5. Run a lap together and continue to the playground
  6. 10ish pull ups
  7. 5 wallpies
  8. 20 inverted rows
  9. Run to the bell
  10. 20 Dippity-do-das
  11. Run another lap and finish at the flag

MARY:
PAX ab rotation

CIRCLE OF TRUST/BOM:
1. Isaiah 6:8-13
2. God asked for a volunteer.
3. Isaiah volunteered without hesitation and without knowing the task.
4. God sent him to send a dire warning to the people of Israel.
5. How hard would that message been to carry and deliver?
6. How is that message any different than the Great Commission? (answer: the Great Commission has hope)

ANNOUNCEMENTS:
AOQ change next Tuesday! Family workout September 3. Iron PAX!

Heavy Pyramid Scheme

THE SCENE: Low 70s, but feeling cooler. Still gloomy as all get out.
F3 WELCOME & DISCLAIMER
WARM-O-RAMA:

  • High knees
  • Projectivators
  • Tempo squats
  • LBACs
  • Michael Felps
  • Tempo Merkins
  • Newton’s cradle

THA-THANG:

  • Pool Wall – 10 Wallpees
  • Play ground – 10 pull ups
  • Mosey to recruiting center, Grab a block, two if available
  • 10 of each exercise, move two parking spots between each, return to start and repeat with 20, then 30 reps.
  • 1 minute plank
  • Lunging no cmu
    • Squats
    • Merkins
    • LBCs
  • 1 minute plank
  • Cusack with one cmu
    • Heavy squats
    • Curls
    • OHP
  • 1 minute plank
  • Farmer carry two cmus
    • Stacked squats
    • Elevated, deep Merkins
    • Double bent over rows
  • RTF

MARY:
One more minute of plank.
COUNT-OFF & NAME-O-RAMA

CIRCLE OF TRUST/BOM:

On Tuesday, Skewer was playing music from Mega Man, and it reminded me of a cool story that I wanted to share. The first Mega Man game was released in 1987 and was universally considered a failure. It sold poorly, it reviewed with mild enthusiasm, and if you have ever played it, you know that this was because it was just not that good. Interesting elements, but nothing came together, generally poorly executed. Consequently, Capcom had not planned to make a sequel, but the director convinced the company to allow them to make the game as long as it didn’t interfere with their other work, i.e. on their own time. So a small team of passionate creators went to work, and one year later released Mega Man 2, which remains the highest selling game in the franchise. This quote sums it up: “So we, of our own accord, got together, spent our own time, we worked really, really hard, you know, just 20-hour days to complete this, because we were making something we wanted to make. Probably in all my years of actually being in a video game company, that was the best time of my working at Capcom, because we were actually working toward a goal, we were laying it all on the line, we were doing what we wanted to do. And it really showed in the game, because it’s a game, once again, that we put all our time and effort and love, so to speak, into it, designing it.”

To me, this is a great story that expresses the power of a small group of people working with passion and commitment on a project. The idea that you need a massive organization with massive funding to accomplish great things seems to be deeply engrained in our cultural psyche, in spite of the niche creator culture that thrives online. So I think it is a good reminder of the power that a Team can possess, unified in purpose, with members freed to lead in their areas of expertise. Big organizations with design teams and bureaucracy can only produce the milk-toast junk that occupies 95% of the modern market, relying on people’s addiction to novelty just to break even.

Real success, resulting from innovation, comes out of a Team. And as Mr. Inafune points out above, it’s the best environment to work in.

MOLESKIN:
Awesome to see Snaggletooth out again, even if he had to jet early.
ANNOUNCEMENTS:
Family workout Sept. 3rd. Flag handoff Aug 23rd. Iron Pax Challenge in September – Get Ready.

Superhero Smackdown

THE SCENE: cool 73 degrees
F3 WELCOME & DISCLAIMER
WARM-O-RAMA:
5 Chattanooga cherry pickers. 5 Knoxville cherry pickers. 10 Side straddle hops. 5 Michael Phelps.

THA-THANG: mosey to the friendship bell 

  • Bizzaro vs Superman merkin (4  rounds of 20)
  • Megaman vs Iron Hulk (1 round of 20)
  • Chuck Norris. merkin  ( 20 reps)
  • 20 iron hulk
  • Little baby arm circles\backward baby arm circles
  • 320 seconds of plank hold

MARY:
Level 1 Bruce lee Abs workout

  • American Hammer
  • Leg raises
  • LBC’s
  • Awkward turtle (heel touches)
  • Hundred
  • COUNT-OFF & NAME-O-RAMACIRCLE OF TRUST/BOM:
    Psalms 25:14-22, 26:1-2, 27:4-6, 14
  • MOLESKIN:  Finding the secret of the LORD
    Who has God’s secret? Seen in 25:14-22
  • How do you find God’s secret? Seen in 26:1-2
  • What is God’s secret? Seen in 27:4-6,14

ANNOUNCEMENTS:

Borrowed Ethos

THE SCENE:  73 and clear.
F3 WELCOME & DISCLAIMER:  Administered faithfully, even though the PAX were eager to get started.
WARM-O-RAMA:

  • SSH
  • KCP
  • LBAC F&B
  • Mosey
  • Tempo Squat
  • Mountain Climbers

THA THANG:

Mosey to the Rock Pile.  Toys are set out in a circuit.  Visit each station for 50 seconds, switching with the timer.  No rest in between.  Keep track of your total number of reps.

  1. Tire hit
  2. Goblet squat
  3. Ball Slams
  4. Jump rope
  5. Battle rope alternating waves
  6. Thrusters
  7. Stack squat
  8. CMU swings
  9. Heavy Lunges
  10. Curls
  11. Bench Press
  12. Single Arm Row (Left)
  13. Pull ups
  14. Hanging Leg Raises
  15. Mountain Climbers

Mosey recovery.

Round 2:  Flip the cards.  Can you beat your total number of reps from Round 1?  Exercises were;

  1. Tricep extensions
  2. Tire flip
  3. Jump rope (double under)
  4. Slam ball launch
  5. Blockees
  6. Battle rope slams
  7. OHP
  8. Plyo merkins
  9. Heavy Al Gore
  10. Good mornings
  11. Single Arm Row (Right)
  12. Farmer Step-ups
  13. Hanging Leg Raises
  14. Pull ups
  15. Flutter kicks

MARY:

5 minutes of Mary – dealer’s choice

COUNT-OFF & NAME-O-RAMA

Me and 11 of the best men I know

CIRCLE OF TRUST/BOM:

The United States Coast Guard tracks its lineage back to August 4 of the year 1790, when acting on the recommendation of then-Secretary of the Treasury, Alexander Hamilton, Congress established the Revenue Marine and authorized the construction of a fleet of ten small ships, whose responsibility would be enforcement of our nation’s first tariff laws.  In the early 20th century, that organization would merge with the U.S. Lifesaving Service to form the U.S. Coast Guard, dedicated to saving life at sea and enforcing our nation’s maritime laws.  On this, the birthday of the Coast Guard, we drew our inspiration from that organization’s Ethos.  The United States Coast Guard’s Ethos is this:

  • I am a Coast Guardsman.
  • I serve the people of the United States.
  • I will protect them.
  • I will defend them.
  • I will save them.
  • I am their shield.
  • For them I am Semper Paratus (“always ready”)
  • I live the Coast Guard core values.
  • I am proud to be a Coast Guardsman.
  • We are the United States Coast Guard.

When your life’s purpose is outside of yourself (and bigger than yourself), living purposefully requires self-sacrifice.  To be a high-impact man, we are called to self-sacrifice and to live not for ourselves, but for others.  Within F3, we say “Live Third”, which is to “consistently and deliberately place oneself behind Creator and Community”.  God, then family, then me.

Philippians 2:3-4, “Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others.”

I frequently struggle with this, but this morning shared a recent victory.  Tomorrow, we close on a new home.  We’ve been looking for almost 2 years and the reason it has taken so long is 100% me.  The reasons we started looking for a new home were, 1) to have more bedrooms so we could become a foster family, and 2) to be closer to the activities for my wife and kids.  I then layered on top of that short list ALL my interests; a pool, a workshop, the right “look”, a short commute…me…me…me.  I lost track of our original two objectives and became consumed with my own interests.

About a month ago, the reality of my selfishness hit me like a falling ton of bricks and I vowed to set my long set of “wants” aside.  So, when my wife brought me a listing that she wanted to see, I said, “go and see it, I’ll watch the kids”.  When she came home and said it would work for us and wanted to make an offer, I agreed without stipulation.  We offered…they accepted…we’re moving.  It’s not exactly the home I would have picked for us (which, BTW, probably does not exist) – but it is perfect for what the family needed.  After 2 years of thinking and acting selfishly, I was finally able to Live Third and put their interests ahead of my own.

In homage to the Coast Guard, we borrowed their ethos and re-purposed it for application in our lives.  We substituted “husband” and “father” into that Ethos – and it made a pretty good operating standard for Living Third. 

  • I am a father. I am a husband.
  • I serve my family.
  • I will protect them.
  • I will defend them.
  • I will save them.
  • I am their shield.
  • For them I am Semper Paratus
  • I hold myself accountable to high values.
  • I am proud to be a father. I am proud to be a husband.

BB Reader,
In what ways are you putting your interests ahead of your family’s interests?
How can you practice Living Third this week? 

MOLESKIN:

  • Nice to have Chit Chat from downrange again!
  • Ocho is crushing it!  Keep it up!
  • What?!?  Nobody beat their score from Round 1???
  • Missing you, Snaggletooth!

PRAYERS / ANNOUNCEMENTS:

  • Workday this Saturday
  • Family Workout this Saturday
  • Shield Lock Pool Party this Saturday
  • Prayers for Tuba and Boy George