F3 Knoxville

The Roof, The Roof, The Roof Is On Fire!

THE SCENE: A crisp and clear 30 degrees F.
F3 WELCOME & DISCLAIMER
WARM-O-RAMA:

25 SSH, 5 cherry pickers, 10 tempo merkins, 10 tempo squats, 15 mountain climbers
THA-THANG:
Mosey to the parking lot near the information center, south of the pond.

  • Suicides style, 10 merkins, 10 squats, 10 mountain climbers (4x) at the farthest line for each round. 10 lines building up, 9 lines coming back.
  • Indian run with a jailbreak back to the AO

COUNT-OFF & NAME-O-RAMA
19 HIMs went far keeping it simple and effective.

CIRCLE OF TRUST/BOM:
Pretend that you’ve heard of the legend of the world’s wisest man who will answer any question that is brought before him. But to get to him, you have to cross the high seas, traverse barren deserts, brave the frozen tundras and scale mountain peaks. You set out with a team but you were the only one to survive. What question would you ask him?

No such man exists but if he did and he instead found you, would you listen to his words if he had something to tell you? Would you give him your ear and attention. Would you study and then implement his words? He isn’t going to come find you either but he did leave you a letter. This is the book of Ecclesiastes, written by King Solomon.

He says you are over-investing in the things of this world. It is okay to have a woman in your life, she just shouldn’t be your life. It is okay to work and enjoy your work, but your life shouldn’t be defined by your work. Alcohol, foolishness, folly, and activity under the sun is meaningless, vanity, a chasing after the wind. This is like painting the walls in a burning house, you would never do that. This life too is fading away, it is the burning house, it is temporary. Do not over-invest in this life. In chapter three, he tells us not to get caught up in the details of life, that there is a season to all things. Enjoy or respect them in their season but as they come, let them also go.

In the 12th chapter, Solomon says that when all has been examined, nothing is left but to fear God and keep his commandments, this is the whole duty of man. God has placed eternity in our hearts (Ecclesiastes 3:11) and we will never be able to escape our design. That is why you see the rich, the powerful, the famous do stupid things because they are trying to fill the void in their hearts when eternity belongs.

Let us lead simple and effective lives, not over-investing in this temporary shelter, and we will be surprised by how far we can go.

MOLESKIN:

ANNOUNCEMENTS:

Echo

THE SCENE: 25* and a tad bit nippy
F3 WELCOME & DISCLAIMER
WARM-O-RAMA:

10xAbe Vigoda, 10xHairy Rockettes, 6xCherry Pickers, 20xLBAC fwd/bck, 10xTempo Squats, 10xTempo Merkins
THA-THANG:
Mosey to the hill above the big East parking lot for some 11’s.

  • At the bottom of the hill: Heels-to-Heaven
  • At the top of the hill: Jump Squats

Mosey down to the main road to the welcome center and use Judge Judy’s Light Poles for the following:

  • Move forward two light poles with a Jailbreak, once there perform 10xHR Merkins & 10xBBS
  • Bernie back one light pole and perform 10xBobby Hurleys & 10×4-count Mtn Climbers

Once we made it to the Welcome Center the Q called Recover to move on to the next exercise.

Battle Buddy up. One partner performs exercises in front of the Welcome Center while the other runs a loop around it. Exercises were:

  1. 100x Little Baby Merkins? (Not sure there’s a name for these. From a squat position place your hands on the ground and do limited range of motion merkins. Works the triceps more than chest.)
  2. 200x Squats – Called time shortly into these

Mosey back to the shovel flag. On the way the PAX completed one round of Reverse Indian run with 5 burpees each.

MARY:
No time!

COUNT-OFF & NAME-O-RAMA
11 Men braved the subzero temps this morning.
CIRCLE OF TRUST/BOM:
Make sure you are not living in an “Echo Chamber”. Constantly being fed the same information and ideas that you already believe without testing that truth. We live in a world that is designed to act as an Echo Chamber. Social media, advertisements, news articles are all tailored to you based on your interests and beliefs. It’s our duty to hold our truths and beliefs to the ultimate Truth, God’s Word. Nothing else in this world can prevail. 

MOLESKIN:
Kudos to Booster for coming out to ruck around us since he’s on the IR at the moment. Appreciate his support of the JUCO PAX.

Also, the PAX is requesting proof from Butterknife that he actually had COVID. His first workout back out and he ran laps around everyone. Hmmm…

ANNOUNCEMENTS:
Blood Drive today! CSAUP tomorrow!

Let There Be Light

THE SCENE: Mostly moony, 40 degrees F
F3 WELCOME & DISCLAIMER

Welcome to F3: Fitness/Fellowship/Faith

I am Survivor and will be on Q today.

  • This is a free workout.
  • I’m not a professional.
  • You’re here on your own volition.
  • Modify as needed.
  • I have a phone.

WARM-O-RAMA:

  • Reach for the Sky
  • Let it Hang
  • Roll Necks
  • Arm Circles Forward/Backward
  • Hip Circles (in cadence)
  • Cherry Pickers
  • Tempo Merkins
  • Side Straddle Hops

THA-THANG:
Let’s Rock – Shopping Mall West End:

  • Small Rocks – Arm Raises Forward, 45, Side, OH Clap x 25 each
  • Medium Rocks – Curls, Tricep Extensions x 25 each
  • Large Rocks – Shrugs/Calf Raises x 50

New Toboggan with LED (unsolicited Christmas present) must be used to Light the way up JUCOmanjaro:

  • Run to first white line, face right shuffle to next white line, burnie to next white line, face left shuffle to next white line, run to next white line and repeat to the top.
  • Stop 1/2 way for 25 LBCs in cadence
  • Resume run, shuffle, burnie, shuffle, run to top.
  • (No recollection of exercise at top of JUCOmanjaro)
  • Mosey back to 1/2 way for 10 Burpees
  • Mosey to bottom of the hill for 25 merkins and 25 mountain climbers (each leg)

Back to Let’s Rock – Shopping Mall West End:

  • Large Rocks – 30 Squats, 20 Shrugs/Calf Raises
  • Medium Rocks – Curls, Tricep Extensions x 25 each
  • Small Rocks – Arm Raises Forward, 45, Side, OH Clap x 15 each

MARY:
Partner up in Parking Lot – Pro-agility Shuttle while partner alternates Plank / Al Gore, then continue to switch for 3 minutes.

  • 25 Big Boys
  • 25 Supermans
  • 20 Heels to Heaven
  • 15 Pickle Pounders
  • 10 sec stargazers
  • 25 merkins

COUNT-OFF & NAME-O-RAMA

CIRCLE OF TRUST/BOM:
Salvation spreads by the blood of the lamb and the word of our testimony.  I just came out of a spiritual fog last week where I experienced no clarity, nothing going right, and God feeling distant, which had lasted a few weeks.  I am proud (through Christ in me) to proclaim that during that time I made no agreements with the enemy, with those feelings of despair, no agreements about losing God’s favor and no giving in to old sins.  There are things I no longer struggle with through freedom granted by healing, truth, warfare and union with God.  I’ve shared my cancer survival story and about having a baby post cancer, and I decided to share my testimony of salvation today.  (Note that was not said today – I have not shared this story to more than a few friends outside of family.)

I was saved at age 6 when my grandfather took me to the front of a Billy Graham crusade.  I was baptized and believed, trusted and worshipped God, but over time, my sin, hate for my step-dad, and agreeing with the lies of the world choked out any evidence of salvation.  At age 23, I found myself in a one-bedroom apartment in St. Petersburg, Florida with my nearest friend 100 miles away and knew it was time to seek Jesus.  One night, I was given a picture of all the layers of sin, evil and hate that had crusted over my heart all those years, suddenly being pierced by streams of light that kept growing and breaking away chunks until all the layers of my hardened heart were blown away by a light too bright to view.  I opened my eyes, stunned by the image, and to this day wish I could have kept my eyes closed.  I had never experienced anything like it before.  I also knew that the hate was still present for my step-dad, and Jesus was asking me to forgive him, as well as, ask for forgiveness for my part in it.  Years later after on this new path, I read 2 Corinthians 4:6 and I was blown away that I got to experience this firsthand.  “For God, who said, ‘Let there be light out of darkness,’ has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.”  (Proceeded to read much of 2 Corinthians 4.  Read 2 Corinthians 3 while you are at it.)

Psalm 91:1 on fridge before I left the house, “Whoever dwells in the shelter of the Most High will rest in the shadow of the Almighty.”

MOLESKIN:
I have not shared my testimony in the past because of fear of opening up too many unknowns and questions, but I know I need to because of 2 Corinthians 4:13, “Since we have the same spirit of faith according to what has been written, ‘I believed, and so I spoke,’ we also believe, and so we speak.”  Therefore, you do not need a vision to know without a doubt that if you believe, trust, worship and seek oneness with God thru Jesus Christ, you will “have this treasure in earthen vessels (body)” 2 Cor 4:7 which is the light in your hearts of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ (2 Cor 4:6)!
ANNOUNCEMENTS:
Prayers for 5K and Guardrail’s family friend’s marriage.  Guardrail announced needing help to move a friend in need at 1pm today.

Lean into the Hill

THE SCENE: Mid 40’s and rainy. PERFECT opportunity to embrace the day.
F3 WELCOME & DISCLAIMER – Administered + COVID + Cell Phone
WARM-O-RAMA:
Moroccan Night Club x 10 IC
Pickle Pounder x 10 IC
Lunges x 5 ea OYO
Tennessee Rocking Chair x 10 IC

Mosey to Canopy (brief respite to finish the warmup and demonstrate)
Monkey Humper x 10 ea
Prayer Squat (aka Air Squat while hands are in a prayer) x 10 ea
Monkey Humping Goblet Squat x 5 ea

THA-THANG:
Mosey to CMU pickup then to Freshman Hill

Freshman Hill
3 rounds, 5 reps each
Ex x 5 ea Top x 1 ea Core
Rd 1 Monkey Humper Merkin Flutter
Rd 2 Goblet Squat Overhead Clap Rosalita
Rd 3 Monkey Humping Goblet Squat Burpee
XY (Flutter + Rosalita

Put up CMU & rest. Shortcut mosey to Sophomore Hill

Sophomore Hill – abs for the 6, 10 reps with the 6, 2 rounds
Corner 1 Corner 2 Corner 3 Corner 4
Gas Pump BBS Heels to Heaven LBC
Bernie up Mosey Sprint Mosey

Walk to stop sign, long run to Mt. JUCOnte. Cross Hardin Valley Road:

  • Start at first tree/light pole
  • Do 10 Pickle Pounders
  • Lunge to next tree/light pole
  • Do 10 Pickle Pointers.
    Repeat. Original plan was to do this for 5 mins (2.5 up, 2.5 down) but we only had time for ~4 minutes up to make it toward our final destination.

Mosey to Mt. JUCOmanjaro. A few took a shortcut mosey (S/O to Erector and Spotter for the long way around).

Final hill: Go up JUCOmanjaro as far as you can get in ~5 minutes.

MARY:
No Mary today.
COUNT-OFF & NAME-O-RAMA
5 PAX leaned into the chair! (and Bernie even decided to join us post-workout!)

CIRCLE OF TRUST/BOM:
This is a bit of a continuation from Project: Friendship point #3 – know the Hill you’re willing to die on. Full disclosure – I got this from one of the pastors at my church and a fellow F3 PAX- Osteen!

The article I got for today’s themed Q (Freshman Hill, Sophomore Hill, Mt. JUCOnte, & Mt. JUCOmanjaro) came after I had an injury I’m still nursing where I can’t do merkins with proper form. Booster called out my Pickle Toe last Monday after I “smart sacked“. While I think my injury is legitimate, far Far FAR too often we let minor things in our lives get the best of us because we say/do a Knox Roll. Instead, as the article Osteen posted is titled, we need to “Lean Into The Hill“. What does that look like. From the article there are 4 points (rooted in Scripture):

1. Face our own hills each day (1 Corinthians 9:27) – We each face our own hills each day. It might begin with getting out of bed. It might be initiating a conversation we expect to be difficult. Or starting into work or schoolwork or yard work. We all encounter hills; some more, some less. And when we do, it takes more effort to keep putting one foot in front of the other. Again and again, we face challenges big and small. And when we do, what is our default? Will we keep stepping? Slow down? Stop all together? Or lean in?!

2. Develop the instinct (Romans 12:1-2) – Deep down we want to be distracted. Humans have craved and
found distractions for centuries; the digital avenues for it have simply made distraction even easier.

3. Look Through the Hill (2 Corinthians 4:16-18) – Just a few more minutes, and the hill will be behind me,
and I will be happier for having leaned in rather than having given in.

4. Jesus Leaned In (Heb 12:1-2) – Jesus “set his face to go to Jerusalem” (Luke 9:51). Why? “For it cannot
be that a prophet should perish away from Jerusalem” (Luke 13:33). This was emphatically not the easiest
path but the hardest. The greatest of hills. He would perish, he said, & in the worst possible way: on a cross.

MOLESKIN:
Prayed for Amish‘s family (his grandfather passed away Thursday). Prayed for Wanderer’s brother-in-law (recovering from COVID)
ANNOUNCEMENTS:
CSAUP this Saturday January 30th at The Asylum… in case you haven’t seen the 300 reminders on Slack for it this past 6 weeks!

Anchors Aweigh My Boys!

THE SCENE: Haze gray with heavy fog
F3 WELCOME & DISCLAIMER
WARM-O-RAMA:

25 SSH, 5 cherry pickers, 10 tempo merkins, 10 tempo squats, 30 sec dying cockroach
THA-THANG:
Mosey from the AO to the coupon pile

  • All reps using coupons
    20 Upright rows

    20 Straight leg dead lift

    20 Squats

    20 Curls

    20 Steering Wheels

  • 2nd Round with 19 reps
  • 11’s on the stairs to the athletic center carrying the coupon up and down
    • Pushpress down, tricep extension up
  • All reps using coupons20 Step over merkins 

    20 American Hammer release 

    20 trap raises

    20 Raisers 

    20 sec hold

  • Mosey back to the AO with a jailbreak
  • With arms extended (no breaks), we did 5 minutes of Gorillas (one arm touches the chest while the other is extended), little bird (9 inch up and down movement with arms extended to the sides), big bird (2 feet up and down movement with arms extended to the sides), wax on (small circles inward with arms extended to the front), wax off (small circles outward with arms extended to the front), overhead claps, seal claps, and a hold with arms extended in the front.

COUNT-OFF & NAME-O-RAMA
16 HIMs
CIRCLE OF TRUST/BOM:
So I spent 4 years, 1 month, 21 days in the United States Navy. I was the 1st LT, in charge of small boat ops, helicopter takeoffs and landings, RAS, topside preservation, docking/setting sail and anchoring at sea. 

An Arleigh Burke Destroyer is 509 ½ feet long and it has two anchors, a 9,000lbs (12 shots) centerline anchor and a 4,000 lbs. (8 shots) port side anchor. A shot of chain equals 15 fathoms, or 90 feet. The chain is color coded so you have an idea of how much chain has come released or brought up. One of my department’s responsibilities was to keep the chain painted black with a section of white links to mark 1 shot or 90 ft. If you do things right, you shouldn’t ever have to repaint the last two shots of chain which come from the shipyard painted yellow, then red. The saying goes, if you see yellow, start running…if you see red, you’re dead. The chain isn’t attached to the ship because it would rip a huge hole in the ship if the anchor were in a freefall. So when that red shot of chain comes up, it is like a firefighter’s hose or piece of spaghetti snaking all over the deck destroying whatever it touches. 

Dropping anchor is a violent scene…you can’t see that 9,000lbs anchor because it sits over the side but as it goes barreling toward the sea floor, it starts pulling all that chain out of the locker up on to the deck, down through the hole and into the water…rust and paint chips are flying everywhere. Initially, you pay out 3 times the depth of the water in anchor chain. The ship will then start back down to set the anchor into the sea bottom and keep the chain from piling up and kinking . 

What most people don’t know is that with big ships, it isn’t the anchor hooking into the ground that keeps you from drifting, it is the weight of the chain. Not only must it be strong and not break, but it has to be heavy, it has to have substance to it in order to keep the ship from drifting. 

Every 15 minutes, a quartermaster will triangulate the ship’s position based on three landmarks. The shape has a radius that it can swing in based on the amount of chain paid out already. If the ship is outside of the swing circle, you know that you are drifting and in danger of running aground on the land or rocks and eventually shipwrecking. 

We spent our morning getting heavy, working and building those big muscles. I hope it makes you tired throughout the day and sore tomorrow so that it reminds of the need to be heavy. You men are part of my anchor chain and I offer myself to be part of your’s. I rely on you to keep me from drifting because you are men of substance. 

As far as my three landmarks, I’ve got the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit to tell me if I get outside of the swing circle, to tell me if I am drifting. I may not read my Bible every 15 minutes, but I do read it every day to keep from running aground, to keep from shipwrecking. 

Hebrews 6:16-19

16 For people swear an oath by one greater than themselves, and with them an oath serving as confirmation is an end of every dispute. 17]In the same way God, desiring even more to demonstrate to the heirs of the promise the fact that His purpose is unchangeable, confirmed it with an oath, 18 so that by two unchangeable things in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have taken refuge would have strong encouragement to hold firmly to the hope set before us. 19 This hope we have as an anchor of the soul, a hope both sure and reliable and one which enters within the veil, 20 where Jesus has entered as a forerunner for us, having become a high priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek.