F3 Knoxville

2 For Tuesday w/Steam

F3 Q: 6.28.22

5:45pm – 6:30pm

Asylum PM

[ The Scene ]

  • High 80s
  • Sunny
  • Character-building weather

[ Welcome/Disclaimer ]

  • Welcome to F3: Fitness – Fellowship – Faith
  • My name is Steam and I’ll be your Q this morning
  • A few things before we begin:
    • I’m not a professional
    • You’re here on your own belief
    • You know your injuries if you have any so if you need to modify anything we do today feel free to do so, but push yourselves and the men around you. They deserve it and so do you.
  • FNGs?
  • Happy 2 For Tuesday!

[ Warm o Rama ]

  • Merkin: 10×4
    • Run to the sandbox and back
  • Merkin: 10×4
    • Run to the sandbox and back
  • Imperial Walker: 10×4
    • Run down the stairs and back
  • Imperial Walker: 10×4
    • Run down the stairs and back
  • Rockette: 10×4
    • Run to the sandbox and back
  • Rockette: 10×4
    • Run to the sandbox and back
  • SSH: 10×4
    • Run down the stairs and back
  • SSH: 10×4
    • Run down the stairs and back

[ The Thang ]

[1] Tower of Power

  • 4 levels
  • L1 (Top) — 20 reps on a 1 count
    • Merkins
  • L2 — 20 reps on a 1 count
    • Squats
  • L3 — 20 reps on a 4 count
    • Flutter Kicks
  • L4 (Bottom) — 20 reps on a 4 count
    • Imperial Walkers
  • After you get done with a level, run to the top, and then to your next level
    • Done with L1, run to the top and then back down to L2 instead of to the bottom
  • Once you finish L5: Hold up top and knock out LLBCs

[2] 2 For Tuesday — run it back, but this time, all together, and top down, rather than down to the top

(Mosey to the top of the Coliseum with the flag)

Plant Flag. 60 seconds of plank and starting out at the sunset, releasing stress and anger.

Run to the bottom of the coliseum and execute the core 4

  • LBCs
  • LLBCs
  • Cockroaches
  • American Hammers

Run to the top of the coliseum and execute the core 4 again.

Run back to the AO

[ Mary ]

SWS

[ COT ]

  • # off
  • Name o Rama
  • FNGs
  • BOM

Week 26 of the 2022 — The Halfway Point

We’ve been through 26 weeks of 2022 now. And it’s to be expected that before a new year, there’s vision-casting, goal-planning, organizing timelines and objectives and KPIs and such. Some people might call these resolutions. But why wait for another 5 months or so to do that? You have 6 months left in this year. How are you going to steward them?

And so I was thinking about some of the big things in my life that have already happened this year, and what to look forward to for the rest of the year. Some of them you all have seen and some of them you have not.

Big things:

  • Updated, re-vamped and handed off Beyond the COT, the F3 Knoxville podcast to Blindside in January
  • Proposed and got engaged in February
  • Re-launched a men’s ministry called The Good FIght
  • Changed jobs in March to a far better role
  • Planned a wedding from March to May
  • Left our home church and re-located to Fellowship

These are very visible things, and if you’ve been coming to F3 or follow me on social media you’ve probably had a front row seat. But here are some things you probably haven’t had a front row seat to in my life for the past 26 weeks.

  • Crippling anxiety
  • Depression
  • Addiction (overeating, pornography)
  • We left a church back in March and it was the hardest thing I’ve done so far this year
  • Financial distress

Whatever you have done and experienced the first part of this year, don’t let it control your outlook on the last half of the year.

Stay strong, keep the faith, fight the good fight, and reach out if you need help.

Cones + A Ball

F3 Q: 5/17/22

AO: Asylum PM

5:45-6:30

[ The Scene ]

[ Welcome/Disclaimer ]

  • Welcome to F3: Fitness – Fellowship – Faith
  • My name is Steam and I’ll be your Q this morning
  • A few things before we begin:
    • I’m not a professional
    • You’re here on your own belief
    • You know your injuries if you have any so if you need to modify anything we do today feel free to do so, but push yourselves and the men around you. They deserve it and so do you.
  • FNGs?

[ Warm o Rama ]

  • SSH: 20×4
    • Run down the stairs and execute 5 merkins
    • Run back up
  • Imperial Walker: 10×4
    • Run down the stairs and execute 5 merkins
    • Run back up
  • Rockette: 10×4
    • Run down the stairs and execute 5 merkins
    • Run back up
  • Cherry Picker: 10×4
    • Run down the stairs and execute 5 merkins
    • Run back up
  • Motivator: 5
    • Run down and execute 5 merkins
    • Run back up

[ The Thang ]

(Mosey down to the grass ramp)

  • 3 cones
  • C1: 1 man maker
  • Bear crawl to C2
  • C2: 2 man makers
  • Bear crawl to C3
  • C3: 3 man makers
  • Bernie sanders back to C1 and rinse and repeat 1x

(Mosey to the grass field below)

  • 6 cones
  • Corners are all squats (4)
  • 2 middle ones are Bobby Hurley’s
  • All cones = 20 reps
  • When you’re done with your reps at a cone, come to the middle and do 20 SSHs before reporting to your next cone
  • Clockwise
  • When you get make it around 1 full time, come to the middle and do LBCs

(Mosey to the Bowl)

  • 9 cones on the top of the bowl
  • Start at the grate: 50 SSH
  • Run counter clockwise to each cone and execute 1 Merkin, then back to the grate
  • Rinse and repeat, adding a Merkin each time

[ Mary ]

[ COT ]

  • # off
  • Name o Rama
  • FNGs
  • BOM

The Friction of Our Fathers

There was a talk I heard on a men’s retreat in early April that really struck a chord with me. It’s a subject that some of us run from, and others of us don’t, depending on your experience and journey with your own father. Here’s the breakdown of the talk, and then some of my own notes and study and takeaways as I have been processing this over the past month. 

  • “You know my dad used to be like this, and now he’s not. My dad used to be loud, and now he’s soft. That is possible men.”

Main Points

  1. We find ourselves in 1 of 2 places with “the friction of our fathers”
    • Still chasing their approval. Still chasing hope that they might see us as worthy. Still chasing value.
    • Maybe potentially proving them wrong.
    • OR — shadow side: “I will be like him.” And “You’re not going to be your dad. You can’t chase him.”

(Which one of these three places do you find yourself?)

  • “All I’d ever wanted is my dad to pursue me. Pursue me, I’m your son, come towards me, right?”

Are you trying to live up to the name or live up to the hype?

  • Your compass is pointed in the wrong place

    2. You have a Heavenly Father that is well pleased with you

    • Luke 3:22 — You are my son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased.
    • Are you trying to live up to the name or live up to the hype?
    • Your compass is pointed in the wrong place

________________________________________

  • Father is mentioned in the Bible (ESV) 1,024 times over 857 verses. That’s over 2 years of studying how God is a Father in the Bible and in our lives
    • All the way from Genesis 2:24 to Revelation 3:21
    • Genesis: 139x
  • 2 Corinthians 6:18 — And I will be a father to you, and you will be sons and daughters to me, says the Lord Almighty.

[ Closing the “Frictions” ]

These friction points are guideposts more landmarks, not things to be fearful of.

Philippians 3:17 — Join in imitating me, brothers and sisters, and pay careful attention to those who live according to the example you have in us.

Paul mentions “pay attention to those” or take note of those who live according to the example you have in us. Who are some men that you have taken note of in your life? Men that you pay attention to and where they step, you want to step?

— “Do this”

— Do these kinds of things

— Find some other people who are just a bit ahead of you who can set a road cone ahead of you and help be your guide

In John Eldridge’s book “Fathered By God”

  • John is telling a story and ends with this: “As I drove home I knew the gift had been from God, that he had fathered me through this man.
  • We must be willing to take an enormous risk, and open our hearts to the possibility that God is initiating us as men — maybe even in the very things in which we thought he’d abandoned us. We open ourselves up to being fathered.
  • You are the son of a kind, strong, and engaged father, a father wise enough to guide you in the way, generous enough to provide for your journey, offering to walk with you every step.

Ending: You are being so intentionally fathered by a God that has pursued you before you even arrived on the scene men. Regardless of your experience with your earthly father, let’s rest in that there is a “good good father” who loves you more than you can even fathom, and it’s because “it’s who you are. It’s who you are.” You’re loved by him. You’re loved by him.

No Flame Blower Outers Here

THE SCENE: ‘Bout 88 and breezy
F3 WELCOME & DISCLAIMER done
WARM-O-RAMA:

SSH, rockettes, this and that, runners stretch, and cherry pickers
THA-THANG:
Insert information about the workout.

  • Take all CMUs down 2 flights of stairs, 20 8 ct Spiders, CMU curls until the 6.
  • Bring CMUs up one flight, Run to road; 50 V Sit OH Claps, Run to trees; 50 kneel ups, Return to center, CMU curls until the 6.
  • Bring CMUs to the top and take them to the Bowl
  • Battle Buddy: one runs around the bench; the other Rows, OH Press, squats
  • Change Battle Buddy: one walks the CMU, the other does 20 Squats, run, catch, switch, repeat
  • In the Pit, 360 Merkins (L and R) return CMUs to Flag

COUNT-OFF & NAME-O-RAMA
12 Fake Gloomers
CIRCLE OF TRUST/BOM:

Adapted from Brene Brown’s “Atlas of the Heart” Chapter 2.

Schadenfreude is a compound of the German words “schaden” meaning harm and “freude” meaning joy.  Schadenfreude simply means, “pleasure or joy derived from someone else’s suffering or misfortune”.  And the world is full of it these days.

Schadenfreude is an emotion typically born out of inferiority rather than superiority.  It is also born out of fear, powerlessness, and a sense of deservedness.  Schadenfreude involves counter empathy, where our emotional reaction is incongruent with another person’s emotional experience.

While schadenfreude may be fun to say, it’s a tough emotion.  There’s a cruelty and insecurity about it.  Taking pleasure in someone else’s failings, even if that person is someone we really dislike, can violate our values and lead to feelings of guilt and shame.

When we feel schadenfreude, it shuts down the area of our brain we use when feeling empathy and lights up areas of the brain that make us feel good and entices us to engage in similar behaviors in the future.  Schadenfreude is especially seductive when we are sucked into groupthink.

It’s easy to build counterfeit connection with collective schadenfreude.  When we see someone who we don’t like, disagree with, or is outside of our group stumble, fall, or fail, it’s tempting to celebrate that suffering together and to stir up collective emotion.  That kind of bonding might feel good for a moment, but nothing that celebrates the humiliation or pain of another person builds lasting connection.

We often don’t talk about our schadenfreude because it can make us feel shame or guilt.  This came up a lot during the pandemic when vaccinated people struggled with feelings of schadenfreude towards anti-VAX folks who were diagnosed with COVID.

From the book:  I remember thinking one day, “It this who I want to be?  Someone who celebrates people getting sick or dying?”  I would justify it by saying they were threatening my health and the health of the people I love. In the end I couldn’t make it work with my values.  I mean, I’m still angry, but without a viable accountability strategy, it’s hard not to let schadenfreude take over.

Freuden-freude is the opposite of schadenfreude.  It’s the enjoyment of another’s success.  When others report success to us, they generally hope for an empathic response of shared joy.  Which is freuden-freude.

If instead they get a negative, competitive reaction, they may respond with confusion, disappointment, irritation, or all three.  Ongoing lack of freuden-freude can eventually pose a fatal challenge to a relationship, and in turn, repeated relationship failures often produce depression.  We suspect that depressed folks might exhibit deficiencies in freuden-freude.

Brown concludes with…In teaching our kids how to cultivate meaningful connection with the people in their lives, we’ve always told them that good friends are not afraid of your light and never blow out your flame.  And you don’t blow out their flame.  Even when their flame is really bright and it makes you worry about your own flame.

When something good happens to you, they celebrate your flame.  When something good happens to them, you celebrate their flame.

We always have our kids hold out there hands, palms flat, and say “If this is your flame and the wind picks up, good friends cups their hands around your flame to keep it from going out.  And you do the same for them.”

We have always said, “No flame blower outers” and that’s our way of saying less schadenfreude and more freuden-freude.

What does this mean for the men of F3?

  • Look anywhere in the world right now and you will see people deriving joy from other’s failures or misfortune.
  • Schadenfreude can make you feel good and really get stirred up in groups of like-minded individuals…and we are a group…so we have to watch ourselves.
  • Because it’s an emotion that rewards the brain, we need an accountability strategy to be sure it doesn’t take over. We need to be that accountability for one another.
  • As leaders in our community, we need to ensure we are protecting and celebrating everyone’s flame. Remember, “no flame blower outers here”.
  • And if we are being good leaders, we will take joy in seeing other’s flames shine even brighter.

ANNOUNCEMENTS:
We have Goober in our thoughts and prayers.

Are You Ready?

THE SCENE: Beautiful, sunny, 85 degress. Low humidity and slight breeze, but the heat of summer cometh…
F3 WELCOME & DISCLAIMER

Done
WARM-O-RAMA:

– 20 SSH IC

– 8 Tempo Merkins

– 8 Tempo Squats

– 8 Cherry Pickers (4-ct), in cadence

– 8 BAC forward, backward (4-ct, IC)

– Imperial Walkers until Swimmies joined us.

THA-THANG:

Mosey down Roadshow Run to path, admiring the nicely cut grass on Everest on the way down.

NICKLE DIME QUARTERS going south on the path.  (Run 1 light, do 5 reps, run 2 lights do 10 reps, run 5 lights, do 25 reps).

  1. Squats
  2. CDDs
  3. Dive Bombers

Mosey to Gravel circle near Field of Dreams.

NO MERCY (half) MILE

  • Near end: Lunge around turn
  • Run to ½ way point. 25 Merkins. Run to curve
  • Far End: Bear Crawl around turn
  • Run to ½ way point. 25 Squats. Run to Curve.
  • Rinse and Repeat.

Mosey to Roundabout south of the Colosseum, doing Imperial Squat Walkers and other maintenance exercises until 6 catches up.

Partner up.  One Partner runs to end of Roundabout, do 5 BBSs, 5 2-CT American Hammers, 5 Leg Lifts 3x increasing by 5 each time. Switch off after each set. Other partner does LBCs.

Return to AO

MARY:
Stretching with Pele. Ahhh…

steam
COUNT-OFF & NAME-O-RAMA
8 strong. Cheetah Boy not tagged.
CIRCLE OF TRUST/BOM:
Showed the PAX an inspirational video about F3 (hat tip to Blindside, who put it out on FB).  Here’s the transcript:

Make no mistake men. Every day you’re in a battle. A battle for your health. A battle for your family. A battle for your very soul. There are forces, seen and unseen, that want you to fail. They’re counting on you to fail. There are voices in your head that are reminding you of your past failures and telling you hey, stay in the comfort of your house, don’t come out to this work out, instead of getting out there, doing something difficult, and accelerating with other men who support you, and require your support in return. This is F3. There are no lone wolves. We’re a pack of men with a shared vision to plant, grow, and most importantly to serve, for the invigoration of male leadership in our community. We are… F3.

Are you ready?

MOLESKIN:
Prayers for Abscess’s recovery
ANNOUNCEMENTS:
Launch of new AO in Farragut at the end of the Month, the RAMPART.  May charity drive is underway.  Details to be posted on SLACK.

The Asylum PM’rs Take On The Compound

[ The Scene ]

  • 70s
  • Hot
  • Character building
  • Pre-Ruck with Guppy

[ Welcome/Disclaimer ]

  • Welcome to F3: Fitness – Fellowship – Faith
  • My name is Steam and I’ll be your Q this morning
  • A few things before we begin:
    • I’m not a professional
    • You’re here on your own belief
    • You know your injuries if you have any so if you need to modify anything we do today feel free to do so, but push yourselves and the men around you. They deserve it and so do you.
  • FNGs?

[ Warm o Rama ]

  • 10×4 Around the Clock Lunges (12, 3, 6, 9)
  • 10×4 Cherry Pickers
  • 10×4 Windmill
  • 10×4 merkins 
  • 10×4 SSH

Cash-In with some ATMs

[ The Thang ]

(Mosey to The Compound)

(1) The Timeless Classic: 11s

  • but since today is the 10th, we’ll just do 10s
  • Here: Merkins
  • There: Star jacks
    • (9 + 1, 8 + 2, etc)

(2) Battle Buddy Bays

  • 3 POCs or “bays”
  • 1 BB will wall sit up here + execute raise the roofs until recovered
  • 1 BB will run to the bay and execute 25 reps of an exercise at each of the 3 bays.
    • Bay 1: Merkins
    • Bay 2: Bobby Hurleys
    • Bay 3: LBCs
  • So you and your BB team will graduate from 1 bay to the next. Each BB will complete the X for each bay
  • The wall sits remain the same throughout

(3) There And Back Again

  • 2 POCs: The Compound + The Dock
  • Compound: triad merkins and run to The Dock
    • 1 reg, 1 wide, 1 diamond
    • Run up tue platform and back down, and then up to The Dock
  • The Dock: triad of squats
    • 1 reg, 1 sumo, 1 together and then run back to The Compound
  • Rinse and Repeat, adding 1 rep to each station (round 2: 2 reg, 2 wide, 2 diamond + 2 reg, 2 sumo, 2 together) until you complete 5 reps of each triad.
  • Recover at The Compound

[ Mary ]

American Indian run back up to the AO

BTTW (Balls To The Wall) to the AO about 50 yards out

[ COT ]

  • # off — 9
  • Name o Rama
    • Guppy, Brick, Drum Major, Crispr, High-Heels, F6, Mr. Jinxy, Rooney, Steam
  • FNGs — 0
  • BOM

For my BOM tonight, I’m going to try and listen to myself as I talk, because I really need to hear this, and I feel like this was  put on my heart to share as well, and just maybe, you’ll find some things that will apply to your life as well.

I’d like to start off by sharing a story.

Last night, I was asked to play goalie in my fiancé’s soccer game with her brother and some of the women she coaches at Johnson University. Now I played soccer growing up, and while I did play church league soccer, I also played competitively, but I was always a midfielder or forward. I ran and kicked, I didn’t block. So after some prompting from both my fiancé and future brother in law to play goalie, I said okay, knowing that this was about to be way better than I expected, or way worse than I expected. So we took the field and I was pretty pumped up.

Now I didn’t get too upset when the first 2 goals were scored on me, but man, the last 5 were brutal. One of the 5 was between my legs, another one out of the 5 I mis-timed and tipped it back into the goal for an own goal, and yet another one out of the 5 was shot from midfield and sailed past my head. I was furious. I was ashamed. I was humiliated. I was disappointed. I was upset. I used an expletive or 3 both in my head and out loud. I had failed. I had let the team down. I wasn’t good enough. I was furious with myself for my performance. Even in the midst of my fiancé, future brother in law, and some of the other collegiate women who were on the team’s “Hey you did great” and “We’re just out here to have fun” and “You did way better than I would have done” my internal programming and messaging screamed LIAR. FALSE. INCORRECT. NOT TRUE. I don’t want to be consoled, or comforted or your pity, I know how badly I did out there. After a hasty and very unloving hug and “I love you” I have my fiancé, I sped out of that parking lot in rage for how poorly I had performed.

One thing my fiancé said to me before I left was “You have to stop beating yourself up about this. You need to quit being so hard on yourself.” To which I replied a measly “yeah.” My internal response to this in that moment and all the way home and as I went to bed last night and woke up this morning was “NO I DON’T HAVE TO. I CAN’T STOP. I FAILED AND I AM GOING TO LET MYSELF KNOW IT. IF I STOP BEING HARD ON MYSELF AND BEATING MYSELF UP I WON’T BE GOOD ENOUGH. Whoah…..there’s something deeper there. My fiancé has not heard me communicate any of this to her yet, but she knows me well enough to know what type of humiliating and self-deprecating dialogue was going on internally for me.

Maybe you’ve heard these things before:

  • I’m my own harshest critic
  • I’m so hard on myself
  • I just beat myself up about this or that

As those goals continued to pummel me throughout the game, I kept thinking “Cmon Dan you’re better than this. You should be doing better than this. You’re failing. Goal after goal after goal, the same mental assault crashed like waves on a beach, louder and louder.

Until I realized this – and honestly the Holy Spirit loved me so well in this moment and helped me realize: You’ve never played goalie before Dan. Why did you think that? Why did you think you would be so much better than this? Why did you allow yourself to set standards of near perfection that you were never going to achieve? You’re destroying yourself mentally. I’ve never played goalie before guys. But it didn’t matter, I showed up and gave it my all, shouldn’t I have been better than this?! I MEAN CMON.

And maybe you’ve found yourself on the wrong side of a mental fuse the enemy has lit. And all he has to do is sit back and watch you start to believe that lie a little bit more and a little bit more until you’re furious. And humiliated. And have talked yourself out of grace, mercy, gratitude, and love.

As men we can be so hard on ourselves and beat ourselves up until we are mentally and emotionally and spiritually black and blue. STOP IT. Go easy on yourself. If you’re too hard on yourself like I typically am, here is something I found today, or that found me today, that helped take back some lost ground, mentally.

Three Warning Signs That You’re Too Hard On Yourself

https://www.desiringgod.org/interviews/am-i-too-hard-on-myself

            1. First, you’re being too hard on yourself if your failures to meet your standards result in a depressed loss of joy in the Lord.

“Christ has made you his own. That changes everything about how you run your race.”

            1. Second, it’s evidence of a person’s being too hard on himself if his failures result in hurtful anger: hurtful toward himself, inclining him toward habits that are self-destructive, or hurtful toward others.
            1. Third, it’s evidence that he’s being too hard on himself if his failures produce paralyzing fear or anxiety about approaching the tasks of his life. If he feels like he’s fallen short so often that he loses the capacity to attempt anything of significance, it’s evidence that he’s being too hard on himself in the sense that he’s not trusting Christ for the ability to keep him going.

So maybe we change the mental conversation and quit being so hard on ourselves as men. And maybe it sounds something like this:

“I’m not saying that I have this all together, that I have it made. But I am well on my way, reaching out for Christ, who has so wondrously reached out for me. Friends, don’t get me wrong: By no means do I count myself an expert in all of this, but I’ve got my eye on the goal, where God is beckoning us onward—to Jesus. I’m off and running, and I’m not turning back.”

‭‭Philippians‬ ‭3:12-14‬ ‭MSG‬‬ (https://bible.com/bible/97/php.3.12-14.MSG)