F3 Knoxville

Tag: Guardrail

Cold and Difficult Things

THE SCENE: Clear, calm 21°
WARM-O-RAMA:
Kept it quick to get moving.  Maracan Night club, Side Straddle Hops Imperial Squat Walkers
THA-THANG:
8 HIMs +  5 Rushers + 1 surprise Rucker

1st Cold thing: the Guardrail (obligatory with the name and all) 30Dips, Plank with feet on Guardrail

  • Black snake the long way to the big parking lot
  • Hard thing 1: 20 Merkins/20 BBS then 15/10/5.  Just like we did on Monday.  Did you feel stronger?
  • Bernie to the new parking lot for Guantanamo Line (Feet up while one guy runs the line and tries to throw feet to the ground)
  • Hard thing 2: Little Drummer Boy Lead by Median (Side straddle hops, high knees & Burpee with each “rum pum pum pum”  22 if you are counting.
  • Hard thing 3: Mosey to CMU pile & partner up for 2 cycles of each team collectively performing
    • 20 Pull Ups
    • 40 Tri curl with CMU
    • 60 Overhead Press
    • 80 Squats
    • 100 Curls
  • Long way home via courtyard with a some bear crawls down some stairs b/c why not

MARY:
Dealers choice of Freddie Mercury, Box Cutters, Pickle Pounders, Imperial Walkers, Heels to Heaven, LBC
CIRCLE OF TRUST/BOM:
Last week was Thanksgiving and maybe you went around the table and shared something you were thankful for but this morning I’m going to challenge you each to think of something hard in 2020 that you are thankful for. Maybe it was a hard workout or maybe it’s something bigger than that.

Thankfulness is not sticking our heads in the sand and pretending like 2020 has been great in every regard. Biblical thinking on suffering is not taking that approach of being thankful in all circumstances (1 Thes 5:18) by simply thinking of the eternal hope that we hold onto and ignoring the pain of loss.

It is not mutually exclusive to be thankful and affirm that COVID has caused a lot of pain this year. There is the loss of life and health. There is the loss of normalcy. There is the loss of hugs at a Thanksgiving gathering or travel to see loved ones. The economic loss is real too.

My suffering was good for me, for it taught me to pay attention to your decrees.  Psalms 119:71 NLT

Pain insists upon being attended to. God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our consciences, but shouts in our pains. It is his megaphone to rouse a deaf world.
C.S. Lewis

If we really graduate from God’s school of Thankfulness, we are thankful not just in the trial, but for the trail. And not just because the pain brings us closer to God, though that would be worth it, but because God knows what He is doing and the pain, the loss, the trial are part of His will because he loves us.

Consider Christ who suffered and was not at all outside the will of God. It is in these sufferings we can be closest to God.

Instead, be very glad—for these trials make you partners with Christ in his suffering, so that you will have the wonderful joy of seeing his glory when it is revealed to all the world. So if you are suffering in a manner that pleases God, keep on doing what is right, and trust your lives to the God who created you, for he will never fail you.
1 Peter 4:13‭, ‬19 NLT

“The dominant characteristic of an authentic spiritual life is the gratitude that flows from trust – not only for all the gifts that I receive from God, but gratitude for all the suffering. Because in that purifying experience, suffering has often been the shortest path to intimacy with God.”
– Brennan Manning

Powerful time of sharing challenges from the year that we are thankful for.

MOLESKIN:
Thank you guys for sharing your hearts.  It was great to look in your eyes this morning as you shared some really hard things that this year brought.  God has carried through us all a lot.  God has given us hope and to see how we have drawn closer to him.  It’s an honor to see God at work in each of you and speak truth into our hurts: God is bigger than that challenge, God wants you to draw near to him in the hurt.
ANNOUNCEMENTS:
Based upon the amount of steam rising off all your shoulders and heads you worked really hard this morning, but @spotter takes the prize for looking most like he was on fire.

Cover to Cover

THE SCENE: 40ish and rainy…GREAT!
F3 WELCOME & DISCLAIMER
WARM-O-RAMA:
Cherry Pickers x10, Hairy Rockettes x10, SSH x30
THA-THANG:
Mosey to pull-through and perform 20 merkins/20 BBS x repeato reducing by 5 each round.

Mosey to library overhang.

Ascending suicides with burpees under the library overhang and heels to heaven under the cafeteria overhang.

Start with 5 of each and add 5 each round while sprinting between the two overhangs. 105 burpees/105 heels to heaven

Next, split PAX into two groups. Group 1 lunged to the cafeteria wall then sprinted to the library. Group 2 bear crawled around library overhang then sprinted to cafeteria overhang. If you pass another PAX while in the rain, both have to perform a burpee. Repeat for three rounds.

MARY:
Flutter Kicksx30, Hello Dollysx20, Freddy Mercuries x15

COUNT-OFF & NAME-O-RAMA
11 men drug themselves out of bed knowing it was low 40’s and raining to go outside and beat themselves up. Awesome!
CIRCLE OF TRUST/BOM:

2 Thessalonians 3:13-15

13 As for you, brothers, do not grow weary in doing good. 14 If anyone does not obey what we say in this letter, take note of that person, and have nothing to do with him, that he may be ashamed. 15 Do not regard him as an enemy, but warn him as a brother.

These three verses offer a lot of great advice for us to take to heart. Read them, apply them, and get better. Let’s look to our brothers and strive to bring them up, even if that requires causing shame. For through that shame, they will either decide to make themselves right or will continue in their lost state.

MOLESKIN:
Proud of the JUCO crew that made the hard choice this morning.

ANNOUNCEMENTS:
Join the service channel and look for opportunities.

Here Am I, Send Me!

THE SCENE: High 30’s with the wind chill.
WARM-O-RAMA:
Warm-up: Cherry pickers, baby arm circles, side straddle hop, merkins, etc., ~5 min.
THA-THANG:

  • We began with weighted shoulder exercises, front, side, seal & overhead claps (15 each).
  • Brief mosey on the scenic route around shops, 2nd entrance of Pellissippi where we did Gores and planks.
  • Mosey to guardrail derkins, calf raises, & dips.
  • Mosey to coupons (along the way, we did duck walk as well as 2 lines of alternating burpees, lunges, jump squats, etc.)
  • Coupons: 30 each: curls, back/lat, shoulder tap planks, tricep, thrusters, with various coupon-core exercises mixed in.
  • Run up hill to 3 pull-up / hold Gore alternate, followed by Rifle carry coupon.
  • Mosey back with various exercises along the way.

MARY:
Various core exercises (Imperial walkers, pickle pounder, etc)
COUNT-OFF & NAME-O-RAMA
12 HIMs, 1 FNG: Butterfly. Wanderer, Wheelchair, Survivor Survivor, Almost, Guardrail, mailbox, spotter, Pool Boy, Butter Knife, Footsie, Hound Dog, Butterfly
CIRCLE OF TRUST/BOM:

I teach at the Southeast Institute of Biblical Studies, a 2-year, tuition-free school. Men who graduate receive a Bachelor of Biblical Studies, having completed an intense program. This year I taught Hebrew grammar/vocab, Research & Development, and am currently teaching the 2nd year students Prophets I. Prophets I is Isaiah, Jeremiah, & Lamentations.

Our word this morning was from Isaiah 6, specifically, a favorite of mine, and one that reminds us of our calling as men. It is my prayer that each Christian would undergo what I call, “an Isaiah 6 moment.”

As Isaiah stands before the throne of God, he sees God’s holiness and his own wretchedness. Seraphim call out, “Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord of hosts, the whole earth is full of His glory.” Isaiah is undone…ruined, a man of unclean lips, living among a people of unclean lips.

Yet, God prepares and uses him anyway. A burning coal is touched to his lips, not to harm him, but to purify him. In like manner of Christian baptism, we are buried into the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus, not to harm us, but to cleanse us and begin a new life of service as those who have received the forgiveness of sins.

Isaiah then overhears a conversation among God and the heavenly host, “Who will go for Us?” Isaiah responds, “Here am I, send me.” Because of what God has done for him, there is no other response to be uttered. Perhaps, as we age, we lose the zeal of hands shooting up like they did in a grade school class, “pick me, I know the answer!” or a sports team, “put me in coach!”

God, in fact, gives Isaiah his commission, to go and preach a terrible and difficult message. Isaiah, understandably, asks, “Lord, how long?” God responds that his commission will continue until the cities are devastated and without inhabitant…until God has removed men from the land.

Isaiah received a tough ministry. Thankfully, we aren’t living in the days of the Assyrian conquest and the Babylonian destruction. Nevertheless, we live in strange times: COVID, election uncertainty, civil unrest, moral decay…and it’s only November!

We are called, though, to understand a spiritual message and receive Isaiah’s example. Whether it is in my faith, my family, my job, F3, or any area of my life, I should see that God is looking for “a few good men” to stand and deliver. We aren’t promised easy; yet, we are challenged to faithfully deliver His message.

Who will go? Do we understand what God has done for us? And how does that make me respond? You? As for me, “pick me; put me in coach; Here am I, Send me.”

Pick Your Pain

THE SCENE: Cold but not that cold
F3 WELCOME & DISCLAIMER
WARM-O-RAMA:
After being late to my own Q due to loosing my phone while setting up the workout and being frustrated with myself we got started.  Thanks Judge for getting us going on time……reach for the sky, let it hang, hillbilly squats, 5 count plank with Merkins x 12, high knees and burpees, BBS

THA-THANG:

Mosey to my truck to grab my gloves, which I also forgot in my frustration of being late….Then mosey up to guardrail behind Maple Street shopping center.

20 – Dips / Decline shoulder taps __Lap around the shopping center

20 – Derkins / Up / Downs ____Lap

20 – Rock OH claps /  Rock Seal claps___Lap

Mosey to JUCOmanjaro

Pick your Pain – Further you run – less reps.   Everyone got to choose their distance each exercise.  If you choose to stop at first cone (10 reps x exercise multiplier), second cone (8 reps x exercise multiplier), third cone (6 reps x exercise multiplier), fourth cone (4 reps x exercise multiplier), fifth cone (2 reps x exercise multiplier), or just keep running to the top if you hate the exercise.

Round the Clock Merkins x 1

Burpees – x2

BBS x3

SSH x 4

Mosey back towards the AO for some Dan Taylor – 1:4 Squats / Lunges adding 1:4 at each light pole.   Worked our way up the hill to 5 squats and 20 Lunges and then came back down to 1:4

MARY:
Had time for a little Mary – Hello Dolly, Pickle Pounders, maybe something else.

COUNT-OFF & NAME-O-RAMA
15 HIMS including 2 for Rush

CIRCLE OF TRUST/BOM:

As those that have been around and heard me share over the past year there is normally a common theme where I share where God has used many people in my life to share the same message over and over again until my stubbornness is overcome and I am willingness to stop and listen.   Felt like that happened again this week.   Through the JUCO-Challenge where each day several brothers have been sharing scripture or inspirational messages Kick-Flip the other day shared this quote from Charles Dickens “Reflect upon your present blessings—of which every man has many—not on your past misfortunes, of which all men have some.”

Probably less than 24 hours later, I watched my wife struggle in pain after having surgery and hear her whisper more or less the same thing.   She said it’s days like these that I realize how much I take for granted just a normal day.   We remember the blessings on the special days, but what about the normal days.    Do we still see the abundance of blessings in the normal days.     A normal day where the sun rises and you wake up warm and dry in a cozy bed, a normal day where there is an abundance of options for what to eat or what to wear, a normal day where you have a job to do and a car to get you there.   A normal day where we are surrounded by friends and family.    I am guilty way too often of taking for granted the normal days.  All across the globe and even in our local Hardin Valley community for many of our neighbors their normal day doesn’t look any like what I described.    Judge has challenged us to step up our game in serving those around us where normal is different.    Let’s rise to the challenge men.   We are called to be different, looks different, act different, love different, serve different.   Remember what Jesus told his disciples in Mark 10:45   “For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.””

ANNOUNCEMENTS:
Still collecting coats – let’s finish strong – reach out to a few friends, coworkers, neighbors, etc and see what you can gather up for those in need.

Sprints, Merkins, and Squats

THE SCENE: Crisp and Cool
F3 WELCOME & DISCLAIMER
Fitness, Fellowship, and Faith not Fitness, Faith, and Fellowship
WARM-O-RAMA:
10 Burpees for my mistake…
Side straddle hop in cadence 20
10 merkins In cadence
Arm rotations thumbs up in cadence
Reverse thumbs down in cadence
Moroccan nightclub 20
10 Windmills in cadence
5 burpees on your own
Side straddle hop in cadence

THA-THANG:

  • Sprint 10 merkins
    Sprint 10 squats
    Rinse & repeat
    Walking lunges to the starting point
    Plank Jacks
  • Sprint 10 merkins
    Sprint 10 squats
    Rinse & repeat
    Walking lunges with rotation to the starting point
    Flutter kicks in cadence
  • Mosey the parking lot

  • Sprint 10 merkins
    Sprint 10 squats
    Rinse & repeat
    Walking lunges with rotation to the starting point
    Freddy Mercuries kicks in cadence
  • Mosey Parking lot
  • 20 Curls w/ CMU while partner holds plank x 2
  • 20 Tris w/ CMU while partner holds plank x 2
  • Bear crawl
  • SSH
  • Shoulder Taps

MARY:
N/A
COUNT-OFF & NAME-O-RAMA
12 HIMS
CIRCLE OF TRUST/BOM:
1 Thessalonians 5:16-18
Rejoice always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.
MOLESKIN:
Thanksgiving is coming up soon. What are you grateful for? I encourage you to practice an attitude of gratitude. Count your blessings, not your short comings. This will help you realize how truly blessed you are.
Thank you for putting in the work and continuing to challenge me and each other!
ANNOUNCEMENTS:
BRING YOUR COATS TO THE AO!! ANY AND ALL COATS.