F3 Knoxville

Tag: MD Hammer

Let’s Go To The Beach

AO: asylum-pm
Q: Steam
PAX: Doubtfire (Nick Bond), Lizzy, Pusher, MD Hammer, High Heels, Brick, Rooney (Carl Whipple), Switchhitter (Tony), Colonel (Alex Wallace), Pele (Jon Lindberg)
FNGs: None
COUNT: 11
WARMUP
– The Mosey: to the Coliseum overlook
– Squat: 12×4
– The Mosey: down to the rock pile
– Curl: 25 up/down
– Chest presses: 25 up/down
– The Mosey: to the big tree
– Baby arm circles (F + B): 12×4
– The Mosey: to the road
– The SSH: 12×4
– The Mosey: to Muscle Beach

THE THANG
Muscle Beach Mania
(1) 10s
– POC: Muscle Beach + Pavilion
– Xs: Inverted Rows + Dips

(2) BB Pyramid
– Get a BB
– POC: Muscle Beach + Pavilion
– Pyramid: 3 levels (all reps as a team)
– L1: 400 LBCs
– L2: 200 knee-ups (Modification: Imperial Walkers)
– L3: 100 flutter kicks (2 count)
– While one BB is cranking out reps here, the other is running around to the other end of Muscle Beach and then knocking out 10 reps on one of the machines + coming back
– If you get done – help another BB team finish their reps

Time crunch — left Muscle Beach NLT than 6:18pm to account for the travel time back to the AO.
– Get a new BB
– Somewhere between here and the flag — share 1 thing that was good in your week and 1 thing that was challenging.
– Stopped 2x and asked different guys to share what they learned.

MARY
– ATMs
– Light stretching

ANNOUNCEMENTS
– The 2024 F3 Knoxville Leadership Survey is LIVE and the RDT (Regional Direction Team) wants to hear from YOU. Head over to the announcements channel or check your email to learn more about “the why” behind it and complete this year’s survey. Reach out to me with any questions/issues.
– 9 Year Anniversary Convergence: Saturday, November 16th @ The Asylum. More details to come. If you want to be on the planning team to help with this – let me know.

COT
>From The Screwtape Letters, by C.S. Lewis
Check out the passage I read from the book in this message thread for context.

Mini-Word built inside the Word — from the last line that I read: “The Enemy (God) wants a world full of beings united to Him but still distinct.”
– It’s an election year — tensions are high and you don’t have to look far to see how deep the division and emotionally charged rhetoric goes.
– Even though we are united in Christ (if you are a Christian) or united under the banner of F3, we are still distinct beings with unique thoughts, opinions, and world-views. This is good, btw.
– That being said — F3 is not the place to blast your political views out there in a way that isolates or excludes others. That’s anti-F3 mission. Respectful conversations? 100%. During the workout, let’s be about the workout and be about challenging and encouraging each other – not our political views. After all, F3 Core Principle #2 is that F3 is open to all men.
– Dark Helmet said it best when asked the question “What is F3’s position on this?” Relating to something political, viewpoint, etc.
– We don’t have a position as F3. The mission of F3 is to plant, grow, and serve small workout groups for men for the invigoration of male community leadership.
– If I can find this video/audio clip or message from him I will share it.

The part in there that really stands out for me is the line “He wants servants who can finally become sons.”

– John 10:10 — A thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I have come so that they may have life and have it in abundance.

– Galatians 5:1 — For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.
– The word “again” stands out to me and causes my focus to shift to the last part of Romans 7 and beginning of Romans 8

– MSG (22) Something has gone wrong deep within me and gets the better me every time. (23) It happens so regularly that it’s predictable. The moment I decide to do good, sin is there to trip me up. I truly delight in God’s commands, but it’s pretty obvious that not all of me joins in that delight. Parts of me covertly rebel, and just when I lease expect it, they take charge. (24) I’ve tried everything and nothing helps. I’m at the end of my rope, Is there no one who can do anything for me? Isn’t that the real question? (25) The answer, thank God, is that Jesus Christ can and does. He acted to set things right in this life of contradictions where I want to serve God with all my heart and mind, but am pulled by the influence of sin to do something totally different.

– Romans 8:1 — Therefore, (meaning because of everything I just stated) there is now no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus.

– Why? Romans 8:2 (MSG) — Those who enter into Christ’s being-here-for-us no longer have to live under a continuous, low-lying black cloud. A new power is in operation. The Spirit of life in Christ, like a strong wind, has magnificently cleared the air, freeing you from a fated lifetime of brutal tyranny at the hands of sin and death.

We are men are continuously learning what it means how to be a true son. And as He invites us further into redemptive sonship, we step further up and further into the men we were always called to be.

Don’t Be a Bystander!

AO: asylum-pm
Q: Pele (Jon Lindberg)
PAX: Steam, Brick, Lilydipper, Lizzy, Pusher, Drum Major, Tenderfoot, Pele (Jon Lindberg), Switchhitter (Tony), MD Hammer, Welches (Leland Murphy), Rooney (Carl Whipple), High Heels (Henry Ritchie), Title IX (Christian Prescott), Colonel (Alex Wallace), Fist Bump (2.0
FNGs: None
COUNT: 15
WARMUP: – 20 SSH (4ct, IC), 20 Moroccan Nightclubs (4 ct, IC), 10 Tennessee Rocking Chairs, 10 Windmills (4 ct, IC), and some Twisties thrown in for good measure.

THE THANG: MOSEY to the rock pile in front of the Colosseum. MOSEY to STATIONS at Base of Everest Summit. GRAB ~5 COUPONS (rocks) and MOSEY to STATION 1.
FOUR STATIONS, THREE ROUNDS: Start at any station, finish it, RUN A LAP PLUS ONE STATION and do the next one.
STATION 1 (IRON PAX):
ROUND 1: 7s WITH THRUSTERS AND HAND RELEASE MERKINS. MODE of TRANSPORTATION: BURPEE BROAD JUMP
ROUND 2: 7s (SAME). MODE of TRANSPORTATION: EL CAPITAN
ROUND 3: 7s (SAME). MODE of TRANSPORTATION: GORILLA RUN

STATION 2:
ROUND 1: Ab Blaster! 20x each of the following (all 4-count): American Hammers, LBCs, Flutter Kicks
ROUND 2: Arm Blaster! 20x each of the following: Hand-release Merkins, Carolina Dry Docks, Shoulder taps (2-count)
ROUND 3: Leg Blaster! AIKEN LEGS: 20 Squats,20 Lunges (2-count), 20 Squat Jumps, 20 Side-Straddle hops, left foot forward,20 Side-Straddle hops, right foot forward

STATION 3:
ROUND 1: BEARMUDA TRIANGLE! Bear crawl to first cone, 1 Burpee, second cone, 2 Burpees, third cone, 3 Burpees. Rinse and repeat
ROUND 2: Bearmuda Triangle, but…LUNGE to each cone and do 5, 10, and 15 Jump Squats at the three cones. Rinse and repeat
ROUND 3: Bearmuda Triangle, but… HOP to each cone and do 5, 10, and 15 Iron Mikes (2-ct) at the three cones. Rinse and repeat

STATION 4 (Benches)
ROUND 1: 20 Bench Dips, 20 INCLINE Merkins
ROUND 2: 20 Bench Dips, 20 Carolina Dry Docks
ROUND 3: 20 Bench Dips, 20 Shoulder Taps (2-ct)

(We got about 1/2 way through this beast before time)
MARY: Homer/Marge

ANNOUNCEMENTS:

COT: This week, on the anniversary of 9/11, I’ve been thinking about sacrifice. How does one prepare oneself to act selflessly to save others? Is that even possible?

Sully Sullenberger, the pilot of the plane that crashed in the Hudson in 2009, wrote about an experience he had when he was 13 in his book HIGHEST DUTY; he was at home watching tv and saw a report of a woman who was sexually assaulted and beaten just outside her house. She ended up dying from the attack. During the investigation, it was discovered that over 30 people heard her screams, but no one called the police because they thought someone else would, or they didn’t want to get involved. They chose to be bystanders.

People that choose NOT to be bystanders, and who choose under very stressful situations to put others’ welfare above their own, like all those who sacrificed their lives on 9/11, have a very different mindset. But why? How? Sullenberger writes in his book: “I believe many people in those situations actually have made decisions years before. Somewhere along the line they came to define the sort of person they wanted to be, and then they conducted their lives accordingly. They told themselves they would not be passive observers. If called upon to respond in some courageous or selfless way, they would do so.”

That is a DEEP COMMITMENT one makes with oneself. But he swore as that 13-year-old that he would never be a bystander, never let someone in need go without help. And he says that promise to himself ultimately helped him act instinctively to save 155 people that were in his plane the day it went into the Hudson River. I would wager that nearly all those First Responders who lost their lives at the Twin Towers on 9/11 had gone through a similar mental process at some point in their lives.

HIMs are not passive observers! My coach used to say before our soccer games, if you visualize it, you will do it. Take a moment and visualize how you would react in an emergency, what you would do if someone needed help in a life or death situation? Will you be a bystander? Or will you act.

Aluminum PAX

AO: asylum-pm
Q: Drum Major
PAX: Lizzy, Pele (Jon Lindberg), Lilydipper, Switchhitter (Tony), Brick, Steam, Rooney (Carl Whipple), Welch’s, Pusher, MD Hammer, Dain Bramage (Will Olson), Curveball, Abacus
FNGs: None
COUNT: 14
WARMUP:

10 Side Straddle Hops

10 rockettes

10 baby arm circles each way + overhead claps

10 cherry pickers

THE THANG:

Mosey to traffic circle – 20 flutter kicks together

Mosey to new parking lot by new baseball fields

Aluminum PAX modified workout

Set Tabata timer for 1 minute, rotating

When 1 minute timer sounds every time do 5 burpees. Then start in on the rotation of exercises.

100 squats

100 LBCs

100 SSHs

When you complete 100 of your exercise run loop mapped out around full outside of parking lot.

If you get through all 3, rinse and repeat.

 

Mosey to small turf baseball field and lineup up at home plate.

“Diamond of Fire”

1 man goes around bases forward. When he hits 1st base the next man goes. Everyone else does merkins until their turn comes.

After home lineup on other side as you come in and start doing box cutters until last man comes in then do the same thing going backwards (3rd, 2nd 1st, home).

 

Mosey back to flag, via Pickett’s Charge

MARY:

Ended with some stretching at the flag

ANNOUNCEMENTS:

COT:

Loneliness Epidemic article

Between 1990 and 2024, the percentage of college graduates who reported having zero close friends rose to 10 percent from 2 percent, which is upsetting enough. Among high school graduates, the percentage rose to a heartbreaking 24 percent from 3 percent.

For context about 55% in America are college graduates, so that leaves 45% who have a high school diploma or less.

In 1990, an impressive 49 percent of high school graduates reported having at least six close friends. By 2024, that percentage had been cut by more than half — to 17 percent. The percentage of college graduates with that many friends declined also, but only to 33 percent from 45 percent.

Causes? You may think politics, but I would say that may be more a symptom than a cause. Surely COVID and everything being online and the ease it is to isolate yourself, surely cannot help. We as a collective group need to worry less about the cause…

 

Article in NYT is quoted:

 

What is the most important single thing that you can do to heal our national divides and to improve the social and economic mobility of your struggling neighbors?

I’d submit that it’s not voting for the right candidate (though you should certainly do that), nor is it engaging in activism to raise visibility for a worthy cause (though I endorse that as well). Instead, it’s something that is at once much simpler but also much more difficult.

Make a new friend.

 

Maybe you could even make a new friend outdoors, away from your phone, spending zero dollars, while getting some exercise and hanging out with other guys where politics, education and economic levels are not a factor? If only such a thing existed, wow what a cool thing that could be. I reiterate Crash Dummies challenge from Tuesday. In the next month try and convince a FNG to come out, you may be helping them more than you realize.

Coach Dunn kicks off football season!

AO: asylum-pm
Q: F3 Pluto ( Hugh Nystrom)
PAX: MD Hammer, Lilydipper, Drum Major, Tenderfoot, Brick, High Heels, Pele (Jon Lindberg), Rooney (Carl Whipple), Switchhitter (Tony), Pusher, Curveball, Crash Dummy
FNGs: None
COUNT: 13
WARMUP: Coach Dunn had ‘em hit the ground for 20 merkins followed by a dedicated focus on loose groins

THE THANG:
First and foremost, this workout is dedicated to Coach Wayne Dunn, who worked as hard and inspired us to be ready for the start of football season. Actual quotes and insights provided from Coach Dunn to the innocent Pluto when he was a freshman in high school were shared with the Pax to help them mature and understand the ways of the world. We also played some football because it’s an American game and America is the oldest and greatest country in the world. Per coach Dunn.
– First set was a set of 11s featuring picnic table box jump Burpee’s and big boys
– Second exercise was an experiment to ensure we had football players. The PAX was divided into group of threes where a 5 minute monkey roll drill was completed.
– Next exercise was two laps around the back side of the asylum building with five Burpee sets split between each loop.
– Next exercise was of vital importance and was inspired by one of the Tennessee Vols away games this year the Pax was divided into groups of two that opposed another group of two in a modified version of the Oklahoma drill.
– After a 30 second break the Pax ran to the bottom of the hill completed 20 Merkins and ran back to the playing field.
– The final exercise was a game of touch football

Took a t
MARY: No Mary needed

ANNOUNCEMENTS: excitement about the new AO’s opening was discussed as well as the food Pusher was making.

COT: the queue discussed that he had had lunch with the Nantan today and had discussed with him the importance of F3 in our lives, especially as we all go through transitions in families, work, and life in general. In staying with his theme for the last couple of years, the Q shared the recent James clear newsletter available right here.https://jamesclear.com/3-2-1/august-29-2024

Stars and Stripes

AO: asylum-daybreak
Q: Lilydipper
PAX: Drum Major, Windex, Pusher, Doubtfire (Nick Bond), Tenderfoot, Glamper, Dain Bramage (Will Olson), Brick, Pele (Jon Lindberg), F3 Pluto ( Hugh Nystrom), Billie Jean, Honeydew, MD Hammer, Gridiron, Shogun
FNGs: None
COUNT: 16
WARMUP: 20 Side Straddle Hops, Curly Stomps, 8 Twistees, 10 Baby Arm Circles Forward, 10 Baby Arm Circles Backward, March around parking lot to Stars and Stripes Type Music, Butt Kick and High Knees around parking lot to Stars and Stripes Music.

THE THANG: Mosey to the Pavilion. We will do Elevens starting with 10 Picnic Table Pull-ups and 1 Bench Dip.
Mosey to Caribbean Parking Lot. We will go in counterclockwise circle stopping at every other island to do 10 Merkins. Those finishing first run back to meet the six. Rinse and Repeat with 20 Baby Crunches.
Mosey to the Mound. We will run up clockwise to the top and do 10 Decline Merkins on the benches there.
Mosey to Muscle Beach. Each man does 25 reps on exercise instrument of their choice, then runs to first crosswalk in parking lot, does one Burpee, and runs back to do 25 reps of next exercise of choice. After that, run to second crosswalk. Rinse and repeat to third crosswalk on the far end of the parking lot. All men finish by doing reps until the six returns from 3rd crosswalk.
Mosey on the sidewalk that goes past the Mound and to the shade tree where the sidewalk meets the Serpentine Trail. We will do 20 Flutter Kicks
Mosey on the Caribbean parking lot to the trail that goes back to the Pavilion. We will do 10 Tempo Merkins.
Mosey to the Pavilion. Drop off any unnecessary gear and then mosey past the batting cage area and down to the start of Cardiac. We will each get a boulder and do the following exercises in cadence:
20 Overhead Presses
–
20 Curls
–
20 Rows
–
20 Tricepts
–
Replace boulders. Next, we will run up Cardiac, stopping at the following to do the following exercises:
1st Turn, keep running!
–
2nd Turn, 20 Hello Dollies
–
3rd Turn, 20 Decline Merkins with feet on grass
–
Benches, 20 Bench Dips
–
Mosey to AO.

ANNOUNCEMENTS: UnCOVEred is Saturday, July 13 at the Cove at 7 am.

COT: Prayers for continuing healing for Maddie, Windex’s daughter. We found out after the COT that Maddie get’s to transfer from the hospital to a rehab facility today. Prayers of thanks for the recent “clean bill of health” that Shogun received. Prayers for the safe return of Pusher’s wife who will be heading back home from the Philippines this Sunday.

Message:
On this day of our celebration of America’s independence I have some quotes for you that reflect the principles our nation was found on. When I reflect on great American quotes I think of “Give me liberty or give me death” by Patrick Henry or “Ask not what your country can do for you but what you can do for your country” by John F. Kennedy. But here are five more quotes, not all by Americans, that reflect on America and it’s principles:
True patriotism springs from a belief in the dignity of the individual, freedom and equality not only for Americans but for all people on earth. –Eleanor Roosevelt
1.
Freedom is nothing but a chance to be better. – Albert Camus
1.
In America, nobody says you have to keep the circumstances that somebody else gives you. – Amy Tan.
1.
We are a nation of many nationalities, many races, many religions – bound together by a single unity, the unity of freedom and equality. – Franklin D. Roosevelt
1.
I think of a hero as someone who understands the degree of responsibility that comes with his freedom. – Bob Dylan
1.
Patriotism is easy to understand in America. It means looking out for yourself by looking out for your country. – Calvin Coolidge
1.
When thinking of that last quote, I think particularly of our military veterans who have fought to keep our country free. That freedom gives us “the chance to be better” like Camus says. It comes with responsibility as Dylan proclaims. And because of our freedom, as Tan states, we don’t “have to keep the circumstances that somebody else gives” us.