F3 Knoxville

Around and Around

THE SCENE: mid-60’s and actually feeling pretty good
F3 WELCOME & DISCLAIMER
WARM-O-RAMA:

SSH x20, Windmills x10, Tempo Squats x10, Grady Corns x15, Cherry pickers x5, a little bit of this and a little bit of that.

THA-THANG:
Mosey to splash pad for Around and Around

  • Round 1 — 10 burpees, lap around parking lot
  • Round 2 — 10 burpees, 10 iron mikes, lap around parking lot
  • Round 3 — 10 burpees, 10 iron mikes, 10 jump-knee-tucks, lap
  • Round 4 — 10 burpees, 10 iron mikes, 10 jump-knee-tucks, 10 squat jumps, lap
  • Round 5 — 10 burpees, 10 iron mikes, 10 jump-knee-tucks, 10 squat jumps, 10 plyo-merkins, lap
  • Round 6 — 10 burpees, 10 iron mikes, 10 jump-knee-tucks, 10 squat jumps, 10 plyo-merkins, 10 v-ups, lap.

5 minute complex:

  • minute 1 — reverse lunges
  • minute 2 — reverse lunges + squat
  • minute 3 — reverse lunges + squat + inch-worm
  • minute 4 — reverse lunges + squat + inch-worm + merkin
  • minute 5 — reverse lunges + squat + inch-worm + merkin + shoulder tap

Lap around tack

Ring of Fire — merkin style.

MARY:
LBC (4-ct) x20, Side crunches (4-ct) x10 each side, Peter Parkers.

COUNT-OFF & NAME-O-RAMA
11 PAX + 1 unicorn

CIRCLE OF TRUST/BOM:

Matthew 8:23–27

Jesus Calms a Storm

[23] And when he got into the boat, his disciples followed him. [24] And behold, there arose a great storm on the sea, so that the boat was being swamped by the waves; but he was asleep. [25] And they went and woke him, saying, “Save us, Lord; we are perishing.” [26] And he said to them, “Why are you afraid, O you of little faith?” Then he rose and rebuked the winds and the sea, and there was a great calm. [27] And the men marveled, saying, “What sort of man is this, that even winds and sea obey him?” (ESV)

Jesus was asleep in the boat for us. Everything he did was for us. Many people know he died for us — as a punishment for our sins so that we could be forgiven. He rose again for us that we might rise again. He also lived for us. When the storm was breaking out with chaos and confusion, He was asleep because he perfectly trusted God. When I get anxious or fearful or fail to respond like this, I remember that He was asleep in the boat for me — that God now views me as if I responded like that.  

ANNOUNCEMENTS:
Hardship Hill coming up soon.  Equalizer work day on our obstacle tomorrow. Be on the look-out for plywood.

Every day is chest day

THE SCENE: 78 and a little muggy
F3 WELCOME & DISCLAIMER
WARM-O-RAMA:

SSH X 20, mosey to the flag.  at flag do Merkins, round the clocks and imp walkers
THA-THANG:
Start “at the playground ya know“.

6 stations:

  • Pull ups x10
  • shoulder tap merkins  x10
  • Imperial walkers x20 4-ct
  • wide/reg/narrow merkins x5
  • Round the clocks on three cones (total of 12)
  • incline merkin thrusters up the snake

mosey to the tennis courts.

suicides Burpees on each line. 10 BBS or 20 LBCs every time you hit start line.

Rolling Army merkins, lunges, bear crawls and reverse lunges across mid court.

 

MARY:
Flutter kicks and side crunches
COUNT-OFF & NAME-O-RAMA
7 pax
CIRCLE OF TRUST/BOM:

Morning // Start with Gratitude to Your Wife

They say one of the most important things you can do in the morning is to show you are grateful for what you have in life. One of the best ways to get into a positive mindset first thing in the morning is to say a prayer of thanks to God. His mercies are new every morning. One of the greatest ways to appreciate your wife is to show your wife that you are thankful for her in the mornings as well. While that’s not always the easiest thing to remember (especially before the first cup of coffee), it’s not that difficult to say a few grateful words to her and remind her why she matters to you and to God.

Do something special – something unexpected like taking care of a household chore that your wife doesn’t like doing or making sure breakfast or lunches are ready for the kids (if that is something she normally does). You can also speak kindness with a thoughtful compliment or by expressing gratitude for what she is giving you.

Freshen Up Your Thanks

The best way to reap the benefits of gratitude is to notice new things you’re grateful for every day. Gratitude journaling works because it slowly changes the way we perceive situations by adjusting what we focus on. Gratitude notes are even better.  While you might always be thankful for your wife, merely writing “I’m grateful for my wife” week after week doesn’t keep your brain on alert for fresh grateful moments. Get specific by writing “Today my wife helped me organize my office” or “My wife helped me think through that challenging situation at work.” And be sure to stretch yourself beyond the great stuff right in front of you. Opening your eyes to more of the world around you can deeply enhance your gratitude practice. Make a game out of noticing new things each day.

MOLESKIN:
Buy white chalk
ANNOUNCEMENTS:
Hardship Hill is back on for Oct 3rd

No Unicorn, No Problem

THE SCENE: Like working out in a humidor

F3 WELCOME & DISCLAIMER – oops

WARM-O-RAMA:

  • Cherry Pickers IC, Windmills IC, This & That – Led by Ribbed

THA-THANG:

5 Burpees at Starting Line

Run to Farthest Cone (#5) and perform 25 each Split Squats, Diamond Merkins, and Dead Bugs

Back to Start Line: 5 Burpeea, Cone #4 (20 reps)

Rinse & repeat | Plank to wait for the six

11s – Single Leg Glute Bridges & Single-Leg Dead Lifts

MARY:

  • Nah

COUNT-OFF & NAME-O-RAMA

CIRCLE OF TRUST/BOM:

Prov4:7-Above all and before all, do this: Get Wisdom! 

“Every system is perfectly designed to get the results it gets.”

This has certainly been my experience–my previous plan for fitness, that centered around the treadmill in my basement and lacked any real accountability or fellowship was perfectly designed to produce a lazy, soft version of me.

When it comes to getting wisdom, I think that quote still applies: I believe there’s only one place that wisdom comes from—God—and if I don’t have as much as I’d like, I need a deeper connection with that source, but I can’t just will or wish it into being any more than I could will or wish myself into better fitness: I have to make a change. So whatever you’re seeking, whatever you’re striving for; and maybe it’s wisdom or maybe it’s connection with someone close to you or maybe it’s your nutrition or parenting or finances: whatever results your getting now, the system you have in place is going to keep producing those results. So I’m asking myself: Where in my life do I want to see different results? That’s where I need to consider a change. You can ask the same question.

MOLESKIN: Great work by the PAX. Loved the mumble chatter and appreciated the patience for a surprise Q.

ANNOUNCEMENTS: 

In His Mansion

THE SCENE: Insert info about the weather, etc.
F3 WELCOME & DISCLAIMER
WARM-O-RAMA:

20 Side-Straddle-Hops, 10 Burpees, 10 Plank Jacks, 5 Burpees, 10 Cherry Pickers, 10 Imperial Walkers, 10 Windmills, Michael Phelps

THA-THANG:

Each man picks up a pair of bricks from my truck.  We then run to parking lot by entrance to Northern Ball Fields.  There will be exercises posted at each corner of the parking lot.  Do the exercise listed, run around the parking lot, then do the next exercise listed.  Always have bricks when running.  Once exercises at one cone are complete, go to the next cone and do those.  When a man is done he will have done 12 exercises (3 from each cone and run around the parking lot 12 times).  Here are the exercises from each cone:

  • Cone 1:  1. 50 Overhead Presses with Bricks  2. 20 Big Boys  3. 50 Curls with Bricks
  • Cone 2:  1. 50 Rows with Bricks  2. 20 Big Boys  3.  50 Wings Up with Bricks
  • Cone 3:  1. 50 Wings Out with Bricks  2. 10 Mini Man-makers 3. 50 Wings Down with Bricks
  • Cone 4.  1. 50 Punches with Bricks.  2. 10 Mini Man-makers  3. 50 Triceps with Bricks

Mosey with bricks back to the truck and replace them there.

Mosey to stop sign at Northeastern corner of admin bldg.  We will do 20 American Hammers.

Mosey down steps to small alleyway.  Pick teammate. We will do Doras.  Teammate runs up stairs, around to beginning of alleyway and back to teammate while teammate does exercises.  Teammates the switch off.  Here are the exercises:

  • 150 Squats
  • 150 Big Boy Situps
  • 100 Merkins

Mosey to Parking Lot that semi-circles by soccer fields.  We will Bernie for 20 fence stakes then lunge for 10 tent stakes and repeat that pattern to the end of the parking lot.

Mosey to beginning of mini-cardiac.  Bernie to park sign, then sprint the rest of the way back to the AO.

COUNT-OFF & NAME-O-RAMA
13 Men, no FNGs
CIRCLE OF TRUST/BOM:

Thomas Merton:  “Creation isn’t something that just happened in the beginning and then God walked off and left us to our own devices.”

Imagine if that were true.  God created this universe and everything in it and then said, “Good luck everybody, I’m going to sleep.”  Would the creator do that?  I don’t think so.

Thomas Merton:  “Creation is going on all the time.  That creation is absolute and perpetual.”

That creation is a gift and a miracle.  It surrounds us and is within us.  Yet, we so often fail to see it.  Some of the great church hymns have God saying to us (or use to Him), “Abide in Me”, knowing that we so often fall short in doing so.

James Finley describes this failure to see God’s gift to us in this way:

What if all along you’ve been living in this incredible mansion all your life but through a tragic mental condition you think you’re living in a little tent behind the garage?  And every week your psychotherapist comes over for your weekly session, and your therapist says, “Look, I wouldn’t, honestly, I wouldn’t lie to you on this one.  You’re in a mansion.  You’ve been living in it all along.”  You say, No.  No.  I . . . as a matter of fact, I don’t even think I deserve to even try to get in there, actually.”  In God, we live and move and have our being.  We’re living our life in the vast interiority of God pouring Himself out and giving himself away as every breath and heartbeat, as every passing moment of our life.  This is confusion.  Jesus called it blindness.  Buddha called it ignorance.  We don’t see the God-given, Godly nature, the boundary-less generosity of every blessed moment in our life.”

To abide in God is to accept his gift, to recognize His beauty, to breath it in what John Eldredge calls “The Sacred Romance.”  Other spiritual writers call it the “Sacred Dance.”  To abide in God is to ask him to abide with us.

I will close with some lines from the song “Abide With Me”:

Hold Thou Thy cross before my closing eyes
Shine through the gloom and point me to the skies
Heav’n’s morning breaks, and earth’s vain shadows flee
In life, in death, O Lord, abide with me.

MOLESKIN:
Prayers of praise for Lillydipper’s wife (done with double masectomy surgery) and Choir Boys’ wife (does not have lymphoma and is getting rehab for the pain she is experiencing); prayers for wife of Mr. Jinxy who will have surgery on September 17; prayers for Lulu and Doubtfire who both have lost their mothers this past month.

The Essential Isn’t Imposed

THE SCENE: Misty and humid, temps is 80s
F3 WELCOME & DISCLAIMER
WARM-O-RAMA:

20 Plank Jacks, 10 Burpees, 10 Windmills, 10 Toes Reaches, 7 Wide Arm Circles Forward, 7 Backward
THA-THANG:
Mosey to stop sign at northeastern corner of Admin Bldg.  20 Hello Dollies.

Mosey to perimeter trail and head west.  We will follow the perimeter trail north to the shaded tree by Lyons Bend.  20 American Hammers.

Mosey to Mt. Everest.  We will do 40 Baby Crunches, then run up to large tree, circle around it and return.

Mosey to shaded area by water bldg.  20 Flutter Kicks.

Mosey to North Shore gate and head east on trail.  There will be cones in flat grassy area to the right.  We will divide up men to start at different cones.  We will go counter-clockwise to each cone. The cones will list exercises.  We will do circle the cones three times doing the first exercise listed the first time there and continue in sequence the next time there.  However, before starting into the next sequence of cone exercises we will make a full circle around the cones.  Here are the exercises for each cone:

  • Cone 1:  1. 20 Bobby Hurleys.  2. 20 Smurf Jacks.  3. 20 Star Jumps.
  • Cone 2:  1. 20 Big Boy Sit-ups.  2. 20 Squats.  3. 20 Bicycle Kicks (4 ct)
  • Cone 3:  1. 20 Iron Mikes (both legs = 1).  2. 20 Mountain Climbers (both legs = 1).  3. 20 Shoulder Taps (both shoulders = 1)
  • Cone 4:  1. 20 Merkins.  2. 20 Carolina Dry Docks  3.  20 Diamond Merkins

Mosey to beginning of parking lot at Area 51.  We will Bernie Sanders to the curb by the grass, then run back to the starting point of the parking lot, then Bernie Sanders back to the curb again.  Next, at curb we will do 20 Toe Taps (4 ct).  Then we will run to the road up top where there is a shaded tree.  There, we will do 30 Second Leg Lift.

Mosey to bat cave.  From the bat cave we will sprint to the administration parking lot.  Each man walks back to bat cave after the sprint, then sprints to parking lot again.

Mosey to AO.

MARY:
20 Hello Dollies, 20 Tempo Merkins.
COUNT-OFF & NAME-O-RAMA
20 men, no FNGs.
CIRCLE OF TRUST/BOM:

Quote from James Finley, a theologian and former monk who studied under Thomas Merton: “That which is essential never imposes itself for love is always offered, it’s never imposed, and that which in unessential is constantly imposing itself.”

God created us in His image.  He made us for communication with Him.  We fall short in life if not with Him.  We are in need of Him.  Without Him we are thirsty.  Without Him there is something wrong in our lives.  His love is Essential.  And, as James Finley says, his love is offered freely to us.  It is not imposed, it is not forced upon us. It comes to us in so many ways: the playfulness of a child, the chance for rest or Sabbath, the words of the Bible, the laughter among friends, intimacy with a partner, the love shared by a neighbor, the smile of a stranger, the songs of the birds, the beauty of the mountains, the plains, the wind, the sky, God’s creation.  Notice how these Essential things hang back, they do not force their will on us, they do not impose themselves.  Notice how we have to truly look, to truly listen, to truly observe in order to appreciate them.  It is like pulling over to the side of the road to really enjoy a sunset.  You sit there in your car and our blown away by the beauty.  And then, after you start the car up and drive on home, you think to yourself, I need to do this more often, I need to truly take this beauty in each day.  It is like when you hear a great song that makes the hair rise on your skin and you think, how beautiful, how powerful, this song makes me want to be more than what I have been.  Or, it is like when you are at worship and hear a particular sermon that makes you almost want to cry and you think, man, I need to remember this, I need to take this into the fiber of my being . . . and, a few days later you kind of forget what the sermon was all about.

A problem we humans face is that, like Finley claims, “the unessential is constantly imposing itself” on us.  What are some of these unessential things?  Wealth, power, fame, success, popularity are examples.  Think about our daily lives.  Think about what the world says we should be.  We are constantly bombarded by shoulds in our lives. “I should do more to rise to the top at work.”  “I should work more hours so that I can make more money.”  “I should get a bigger home.”  “I should get a nicer car.”  “I need to participate in more organizations so that I am doing more with my life.”  “I gotta make that deadline.” “I should be slimmer and more fit.”  “I should spend more of my time working for charities so that people see how much I am giving to others.”  “I need to be the top salesman in my region this year”.  “I need to belong to that country club because it is populated by some of the most notable people in Knoxville.”  I am not saying that any of the above things are unworthy.  But, they are unessential.  These shoulds are often what we pay the most attention to.  And by doing that, we lose sight of God’s creation, God’s love.  We miss out on what God has made essential for us.

Lord, help us to spend more time focusing on the essential.  You have given these essential things to us because you love us.  You don’t impose them on us.  You give us free will to accept them because you know that true love cannot be forced upon us.  Help take our eyes away from what is unessential and keep our eyes on you.

ANNOUNCEMENTS:

Prayers for Title -9 as he adjusts to living in Oregon, for Lily’s wife who will have double mastectomy surgery on Wednesday, Augut 19, for Thunderstruck’s mother as she faces chemotherapy and blood transfusions, for safety of the F3 dads and kids at camp this weekend, for the AO in Morristown that we helped start.  Steam will be going to the Morristown AO workout to support them this Saturday and welcomes anyone who would like to go with him.