F3 Knoxville

Marginal Gains

THE SCENE: Weather advisory – super gloomy.
F3 WELCOME & DISCLAIMER: I don’t know what I’m doing.  Go home.  Don’t kiss me.
WARM-O-RAMA:
25 SSH IC.
PAX got their funk on.
Starting in Al Gore, we listened to James Brown – Sex Machine with a reverse squat on every ‘Get Up’.  We took it to the bridge and switched it up for Plank with Merkins then moved onto a low plank and did pickle pounders when required to “shake your money maker”.  Once warmed, we went ahead, hit it and quit.
THA-THANG:
A circuit around the AO, the parking lots of Circus Maximus and the Pavalon with Pain Stations along the journey.  25s (Two exercises at each station to a total of 25 reps).

  • AO – Rocky Balboas & Asymmetrical Merkins
  • Entrance to cloud – Big Boys & Hello Dolly (4ct)
  • Far end of lot – Plank Jacks (4ct) & Crab Jacks (4ct)
  • Top of Circus Maximus – Squats & Iron Mikes
  • Bottom of Circus Maximus – Captain Thors & Heels to Heaven
  • Pavalon – Dips & Table Rows

We made it to 3.5 loops.

MARY:
There was a tech breakdown so we had to make do with

  • 20 Big Boys IC
  • 25 Freddie Mercurys (4ct) IC
  • 15 Side crunches (4ct).

COUNT-OFF & NAME-O-RAMA
16 Strong
CIRCLE OF TRUST/BOM:
Sir David Brailsford revolutionized the UK cycling by making them focus on Marginal Gains.  Big changes are hard.  Instead, look for lots of small change that you can compound over time to make change a process.
MOLESKIN:
Hat Tip to Bunny for praying us out.
ANNOUNCEMENTS:
CSAUP’s coming.

4 Stations of the Barkley

THE SCENE: Cold. Damp.  Spitting snow at the end.
F3 WELCOME & DISCLAIMER
WARM-O-RAMA:

SSH, 4 ct, x 20 (IC); 2 burpees; CP, IC, x 5; 4 burpees; BAC, forward and back, IC, x 10 each way; 6 burpees
THA-THANG:
Mosey to the Overlook for a Barkley.  Grab a battle buddy, running the perimeter of the Asylum building, with 4 stations.  Each station has 3 exercises, 1 for each lap.

  • Station #1 (Overlook): Merkins x 25; CDD x 25; Dips x 25
  • Station #2 (Westside stop sign):  LBCs (4ct) x 25; American Hammers (4ct) x 25; Hello Dollys (4ct) x 25
  • Station #3 (Old rock pile): Squats (4ct) x 20; Smurf Jacks (4ct) x 20; Iron Mikes (4ct) x 20
  • Station #4 (Eastside stop sign): Burpees x 10; Man Makers x 10; Hand Release Burpees x 10

After finishing all 3 laps, wagon wheel for the 6 and mosey back to the AO
MARY:
Cat Gut leads the Pax in several minutes of Boat Canoe.  Finish strong with ATMs.
COUNT-OFF & NAME-O-RAMA

CIRCLE OF TRUST/BOM:

From Matthew  26:52-53: “Put your sword back in its place,” Jesus said to him, “for all who draw the sword will die by the sword.  Do you think I cannot call on my Father, and he will at once put at my disposal more than twelve legions of angels?”

In today’s world, gentleness is not really celebrated.  To show gentleness is to show weakness.  And yet, it is one of the Fruits of the Spirit (Gal 5:23).

When we look at the Jesus, we see that gentleness is a chief trait.  As he was being betrayed, arrested, and (as he knew), led off to die, he could’ve called down destruction at any moment. But he humbled himself and died for us instead.

Gentleness is strength and power under control

MOLESKIN:
Prayers to lift up our community, our nation, for Charmin’s cousin’s family after a sudden death, for Cat Gut’s nephew and his family, as he has been seriously injured in a motorcycle wreck.
ANNOUNCEMENTS:
CSAUP Jan. 30!  Sign up!

Farming Two Rivers

THE SCENE: 30s and a tad damp
F3 WELCOME & DISCLAIMER✔💪
WARM-O-RAMA:

Cherry Pickers, Windmills, Temp Merkins, Dancing Bear, Temp Squats
THA-THANG:
Farmer Carry CMUs to Two Rivers Church parking lot.

  • Sets of 30-25-20-15-10: Perform 1 set of Alpo, famer carry CMU 50 yards, Perform 1 set of Shoulder Press, farmer carry back to start.  Repeat with last sets at 10.
  • Farmer Carry CMU down the hill to bottom of parking lot. Parking lot is divided up into two square sections, a heavy side and a light side.  Group split into two (one attacking the heavy, one the light).
    • Heavy side: 7 cones with exercises at each – all with CMU, all while farmer carrying CMU to each.  Buy in with 5 Burpee jump overs. Exercises: 10 Thrusters, 10 Merkin Overs, 15 Shoulder Raises, 15 Shoulder Press, 15 Squats, 20 Curls, 20 Tri-cep Extensions
    • Light side: without CMU, Mosey around the section, 5 Burpees at start and every turn (4 corners total).
  • Groups repeated each side twice

MARY:
Flutters, LBCs, Box Cutters, Hello Dollies

COUNT-OFF & NAME-O-RAMA
11 Strong

CIRCLE OF TRUST/BOM:
Discussed January and the notoriously high rate of suicides this time of year.  Pay attention to those around you and be someone who is willing to be “in the fire” with a brother who is struggling.

Deuteronomy 30:19-20 “I call Heaven and earth to witness against you today, that I have set before you life and death, the blessing and the curse. Therefore, choose life, that you may live, you and your descendants; to love the Lord your God. To obey His voice, and to cling to Him; for he is your life, and the length of your days;

MOLESKIN:
Doubtfire showed up to Coffeeteria, but not the beatdown.

ANNOUNCEMENTS:
Blood Drive 1-29, Asylum CSAUP 1-30

Alphabet Soup

THE SCENE:
Frosty with increasing Gloom.

F3 WELCOME & DISCLAIMER:
I am not a doctor.  Keep your brothers distant and your snot to yourself.

WARM-O-RAMA:
SSH x 21 IC.
BBQ Squats x10 IC
Mosey around the parking lot to collect Archie, and head down to the block paved lots

THA-THANG:
The Q presented a sheet of 26 exercises – 1 per letter.  With a battle buddy, for more mumblechatter and letters, PAX worked their way through each F3 name with a run to the top of Baby Everest between each letter.  At the top of B.E. do one more merkin than last time, then back down to the start.

e.g. K=10 x Windmills, ascend Baby Everest, 1 merkin
E=Bear Crawl to other side of the road, ascend Baby Everest, 2 merkins
N=10 Merkins (4ct), ascend Baby Everest, 3 merkins,
T= etc…

MARY:
If this is a Kentucky workout, we have to finish with the Bicycle Race.  Freddie Mercurys to the tune of Bicycle Race, with a Big Boy every time FM sings Bike, or Bicycle.
To the eternal shame of the Mall Walkers, they watched and didn’t join in.

COUNT-OFF & NAME-O-RAMA
16 Strong, including 5 Mall Walkers, who couldn’t manage a single Freddie between them.

CIRCLE OF TRUST/BOM:
Eddie the Eagle was an Olympic Athlete and example to us all.  He was bad at ski jumping (relatively), but kept going to matter what.  As Pierre de Coubertin, the founder of the Olympics said “The important thing in life is not the triumph but the struggle, the essential thing is not to have conquered but to have fought well.”  Fight well my bothers, fight well!

ANNOUNCEMENTS:
CSAUP at the end of the month.  Order a new Asylum T-shirt to show off at the event!

[ The Scene ]

  • 30s

[ Welcome/Disclaimer ]

  • Welcome to F3: Fitness-Fellowship-Faith
  • Name is Steam and I’ll be your Q this morning
  • Couple of things before we begin:
    • I’m not a professional
    • You’re here on your own volition
    • And if you need to modify anything we do this morning feel free to do so but push yourselves and the men around you – they deserve it and so do you
  • FNGs? — 2

[ Warm o Rama ]

  • SSH: 30×4 IC
    • Take a lap
  • Mountain Climber: 30×4 IC
    • Take a lap
  • The Squat: 15×4 IC
    • Take a lap
  • Rockette: 15×4 IC
    • Take a lap
  • Rockette: 10×4 (5 F and 5 B)
    • Take a lap

[ The Thang ]

(1) 4 Corners and a Hill

  • 4 corners of the parking lot
    • C1: Merkins
    • C2: Squats
    • C3: LBCs
    • C4: American Hammers
  • 30 reps on a 1 count for each corner
  • After you complete the corner you’re on – run up the hill and execute 30 SSHs on a 1-count
  • When you get done with with all 4 corners and your hill runs and SSHs, find someone who’s not done and push them as they finish

(10 count)

(Mosey to crosswalk next to playground )

(2) Half and Half

  • 2 POCs/Paths: Light at the back end of the parking lot + lighted patch
  • half start on the lighted path
  • Half start moseying around to the parking lot with cars
  • Lighted path: 5 lights until you cut into the back of the lot with the light: 5 Attached at the hips (Merkin straight into a BBS)
  • Back end of lot light: (1 count)
    • 30 squats
    • 30 LBCs
    • 30 Carolina dry docks
  • Rinse and repeat this once for a total of 2x

(Mosey to the playground)

(3) The Last of the Benches

  • 30 squats
  • 30 incline merkins
  • 30 decline merkins
  • 30 step-ups

(Mosey to the AO)

[ Mary ]

ATMS YEAHHHHHHHHHHHH

[ COT ]

  • # off — 11
  • Name o Rama
  • FNGs — 2
  • BOM (2 Parts)
  1. 30 Reflections/Takeaways I Had in 2020
    • (1) — 1/4/2020 — from “Laws of Human Nature” — “Being able to understand more clearly that stranger within us would help us to realize that it is not a stranger at all but very much a part of ourselves, and that we are far more mysterious, complex, and interesting than we had imagined”
      • Romans 7:13-25
    • (2) — 1/7/2020 — I asked myself the question “What’s my no-BS assessment going into this year?” Here was my answer: “I need to keep fostering the mindset of “Keep Moving Forward” but sometimes that’s hard when it feels like I’m still in the thick of the fight. But in reality, I’ll always be in the fight until the end, it will just look different every year or so”
    • (3) — 1/22/2020 — I took this note while reading “Free to Lead” by the founders of F3, Dredd and OBT: “You have to improve. It’s an individual’s job to seek constant improvement. It’s the leader’s job to demand that he do so.”
    • (4) — 3/25/2020 — I went on a run this day and found myself on top of a hill and just had a good old yelling match of frustration and anger towards God. I was really pissed off and didn’t understand the events of the past couple of years and just found myself in this place of frustration with God. And then Isaiah 55:8 came to me — “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord.”
    • (5) — 4/9/2020 — (COVID ramping up) Listening to a Jerry Flowers sermon entitled “This is not my final destination” and he labeled exactly what I was doing during this season – I was being an Exit Strategist: wanting to get out of this season as quickly as possible, looking for an exit, trying to get out. And then he said this: “If God wants you in this place, in this season you find yourself in, there’s nothing you can do but be faithful and stop looking for an exit and start opening your eyes to the entrances He’s providing.”
    • (6) — 4/14/2020 — “I was born to walk through the fire, I was made to run through these flames. Yeah, even when I’m broken and tired, you are enough, enough, enough.” – “Enough” bu the Social Club Misfits
    • (7) — 4/16/2020 — I saw the different between the two words “though” and “yet” in Habakkuk 3:17-19 —> Though the fig tree should not blossom, nor fruit be on the vines, the produce of the olive fail, and the fields yield no food, the flock be cut off from the fold and there be no herd in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the Lord; I will take joy in the God of my salvation. God, the Lord, is my strength; he makes my feet like the deer’s; he makes me tread on my high places.
    • (8) — 4/19/2020 — “The true Christian life is one who lives an interrupted life; an individual who continually experiences Heavenly interference.” – Jerry Flowers
    • (9) — 5/12/2020 — The Father will always call the son back into “sonship.” This rocked my world by watching a Star Wars movie out of all things. But if God created all things than surely He can speak through all things as well. Watch the video (link below) and tell me you don’t see an incredibly powerful parallel between a father and his son. This sort of reminded me of the prodigal son as well. I dissected this video so hard and realized what a gift it was from God to me during this time.

                                        [ https://youtu.be/NF5M8WE4cKU ]

    • (10) — 5/17/2020 — “Eyes —> sight. Eyes of your heart —> vision.”
    • (11) — 5/21/2020 — “Once your heart has heard the music (of God), it is happy only when it is dancing.” – Robert Benson
    • (12) — 6/1/2020 — I was made very aware of how distracted I was. I could feel my mind being pulled in different directions. This is when the George Floyd incident happened and the riots started. I think God let me see just how distracted I was. This was a big takeaway for me — so that I could hear the call to “refocus,” “refocus,” “refocus.”
    • (13) — 6/18/2020 — “What do you do when you go to the place that God told you to go to, you’re doing what you’re supposed to be doing, and the brook dries up?”
    • (14) — 6/28/2020 — I was bestowed the wisdom of “Usually we’re going through what we’re going through because there’s something for us to do on the other side.”
    • (15) — 7/2/2020 — I was fasting with a small group of men from Fellowship Church called The Good Fight. And at 4pm on July 2nd I was under a ruck and praying for wisdom and discernment and realized I feel really connected to God and creation when I’m under a ruck.
    • (16) —7/23/2020 — “What would it look like for God to re-introduce yourself to you, from His perspective?” Think about the movie The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe where Aslan takes Edmond on a long walk after he rescues him.
    • (17) — 7/30/2020 — We need mentors and brothers that can call out the red flags when we don’t see them. A mentor of mine who’s about 20 years my senior did just that and it was hard to hear. But I needed to hear that so I could get out of a toxic relationship.
    • (18) — 7/31/2020 — Watch The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers and specifically watch starting at 1:18:00 aka “The Extraction Scene.” We are called by name. We are reminded that “too long have we sat in the shadows.” We hear our true name and are called further into it. We are reminded and loved enough to “breathe the free air again my friend” or son.
    • (19) — 8/10/2020 — Realized the necessity of reading “Waiting on God” by Andrew Murray, especially in this season/year. This was a book we were given at a 3rd F event a few years ago and it’s stayed with me ever since. The practice of “waiting on God” is difficult. And I did not do it exceptionally well this year.
    • (20) — 8/23/2020 — Learned about Critical Theory and it kind of blew my mind. Critical Race Theory is interesting too. Look it up.
    • (21) — 9/16/2020 — Here’s one way to prove that you have the power to change your thoughts: Picture a lion in your head. Got it? Good. Now picture a tiger in your head? Picturing a tiger? Congratulations – you just proved to yourself that you have the power to change your thoughts instead of be captive to them.
    • (22) — 9/21/2020 — Had a powerful collision-course encounter with Jesus at Bearden High Schoo, at the launch of Heart and Soul Church. Sometimes we find ourselves so enveloped in a powerful wrestle with God that when we finally let go and learn to release control He moves all the more powerfully.
    • (23) — 10/18/2020 — During a time of fasting I was given this verse for encouragement – Romans 15:4 “For everything that was written in the past was written to teach us so that through the endurance taught in the Scriptures and the encouragement they provide we might have hope.” There is always room for more endurance. There is always hope.
    • (24) — 11/20/2020 — I love facilitating. I got the chance to lead a men’s retreat the weekend of Nov. 20th and it was an honor to see God move and work during this time. He showed me the gift he’s given me to plan and facilitate.
    • (25) — 12/3/2020 — “The more I try and control the wheel and steer, the more I realize how much I’m not in control.”
    • (26) — 12/6/2020 — Content > comfortable
    • (27) — 12/10/2020 — Daniel 8:27 – “And I, Daniel, was overcome and lay sick for some days. Then I rose and I went about the King’s business…” You see two things right off the bat from a 90,000 view here: 1 – Some stuff happened (Daniel was overcome and lay sick) and 2 – Rise and still go about the King’s business. Has this year felt like that for you? Stuff goes down yet we still must go about the King’s business He’s called us to do.
    • (28) — 12/16/2020 — Read 2 Timothy 3:16. Now look at the Message version on the Bible app on your phone. You’ll see 4 things the Bible is doing for us: “Exposing our rebellion” + “Showing us truth” + “Correcting our mistakes” + “Training us in God’s way”
    • (29) — 12/20/2020 — “God is a good gift giver but not always the gift wrapper we want.” (James 1)
    • (30) — 12/27/2020 — “Little by little, one goes far.” – J.R.R. Tolkien

(2) Code Brown’s Message and Card for Charmin

– PAX thanked Charmin for his consistent and courageous leadership of the Asylum AO this year. A good leader knows how to lead. A great leader knows how to lead and follow. Charmin is a great leader.