F3 Knoxville

Tag: Switchgrass

Absolutely

THE SCENE: Nice evening, temps in 50s.
F3 WELCOME & DISCLAIMER
WARM-O-RAMA:
Plank Stretches, 20 Plank Jacks, 10 Rockettes, 10 Tempo Merkins, 10 Windmills, 7 Full Body Twists, Little of This and That.
THA-THANG:

Mosey to the Caribbean parking lot.  We will run around the Caribbean stopping at cones to do the exercises listed.  Instructions on how to get to the next cone will also be listed.

  • Cone 1:  20 Squat Jumps then Bernie to Cone 2.
  • Cone 2:  20 Big Boys then Hop to Cone 3.
  • Cone 3:  20 Iron Mikes (2 count) then Lunge to Cone 4
  • Cone 4:  20 Diamond Merkins then Grapevine with right foot leading to Cone 5
  • Cone 5:  20 Star Jumps then Bernie to Cone 6
  • Cone 6:  20 Bicycle Kicks (2 count) then Hop to Cone 7
  • Cone 7:  20 Side Straddle Hops (2 count) then Lunge to Cone 8
  • Cone 8:  20 Shoulder Taps (2 count) then Grapevine with left foot leading to Cone 1.
  • Rinse and Repeat

Mosey to the street-side end of the Serpentine Sidewalk.  We will go on the Serpentine Sidewalk doing patterns of 1 and 4, where we will bear crawl to one light then run four more lights and repeat that pattern until we get to the perimeter trail.  We will then go back on the Serpentine Sidewalk but lunge for one light and run for four light, repeating that pattern until we hit the street.  The first brother to get to the street will sweep everyone back to the perimeter trail.

Mosey to Cardiac.   We will run up Cardiac stopping at the following spots to do the following exercises:

  • Turn 1:  20 American Hammers (four count)
  • Turn 2:  20 Hello Dollies
  • Turn 3:  20 Decline Merkins
  • Benches:  20 Bench Dips

Mosey to the bottom of mini-cardiac.  We will Bernie up mini-cardiac to the Park Sign then sprint the rest of the way up to the crosswalk. Then we will sprint back to the AO.

MARY:  Stretches .

COUNT-OFF & NAME-O-RAMA 
15 men, no FNGs.
CIRCLE OF TRUST/BOM:
Shaun Slate, the preacher at my church, said something recently that really got me to thinking.  He said, “We can be absolutely right.  But, if we do not love we are absolutely wrong.”

Think about that the next time you are debating with someone about an issue you feel strongly about.  “We can be absolutely right but if we don’t love we are absolutely wrong.”  Think about that when your child doesn’t live up to your standards.  Think about that when someone doesn’t worship the way you do.  Think about that the next time you argue with your wife.

I might get angry with someone for a stance they take.  I might think, why won’t that person get vaccinated.  Or why can’t he see how electing that money-spending candidate will effect the economy.  I can question their stance.  But, I shouldn’t let my questioning stand in the way of loving that person.
Too often we got on our high horse and fail to see the viewpoint of the other, thinking they are ridiculous.  If we do that, we are not loving them. 

As a therapist, I see this issue come up many time in marriages.  In the therapy session, each spouse wants to make their own point.  By golly, their spouse is wrong and they need to set things straight with the spouse.  But, focusing on the wrong and trying to set things straight is damaging the marriage.  In marriage, we need to love our spouses even when they are wrong.  And in life, we need to love other people, even when they are wrong.  

Thank you Lord that you are that way.  You continue to love us humans no matter how often we are wrong.  Lord, forgive me for getting on my high horse and sometimes thinking I am better than someone else because “I have it right.”  Firstly, I probably don’t have it right.  And secondly, if I am not hearing and loving that person, than I am absolutely wrong.

MOLESKIN:
Prayers for mother of Steam’s girlfriend as the mother is currently starting chemotherapy for cancer.  Prayers for Pusher as tomorrow is the anniversary of his widow’s death.  Prayers for religious mentoring for The King James.  Prayers for wife of Juke Box.  Prayers for Sparkler’s mother who lost her husband (Sparkler’s stepfather) about one year ago.  Prayers for Mr. Jinxy’s small grandchild who has a problem with her foot and for Hooker and his wife, Carli, who are the parents of the child.
ANNOUNCEMENTS:
Toy collection by F3 for charity.  Remember Judge Judy’s Christmas Party on Saturday, December 11.  You need to sign up for it on Slack.

Mini Seabiscuit at Asylum

THE SCENE: Mostly sunny ,slight breeze, low 80’s
F3 WELCOME & DISCLAIMER
WARM-O-RAMA:
SSH 33 IC

Cherry Pickers 20 IC

Michael Phelps  OYO

Baby Arm Circles – Up 10 IC

Baby Arm Circles – Down 10 IC

Merkins – 10 OYO

THA-THANG:

Partner Up, Grab your CMU

Mosey to south stop sign at “Y

Do 33 CMU curls

Mosey to Lower Gravel Loop

Each Team of 2 selects 1 or 2 exercises from following list:

SSH

Iron Mike

Merkins

CMU Overhead Press

CMU Curl

CMU Row

Squat

Jump Squat

BBS

4 ct American Hammers

Hello Dolly

Grady Corn

Bobby Hurley

Squat Jack

The Combined count of reps between the one or two exercise must add up to 33

For example, each person on the team does 33 reps. of chosen 1 exercise, or they each do 16 of one and 17 of another. Or 30 of one and 3 of another, etc. Must add up to 33

Do set of exercise, then run as follows:

1 lap, exercise, 2 laps, exercise, 3 Laps, exercise, 4 laps, exercise, 3 laps, exercise, 2 laps, exercise, 2 laps (goal is to complete 18 laps)

Mosey Back to stop sign at “Y”, do whatever set of 33 exercises you were doing at seabiscuit

Mosy Back to AO

MARY:
Insert information about any additional post-THANG work (if applicable).
COUNT-OFF & NAME-O-RAMA
19 HIMs total
CIRCLE OF TRUST/BOM:

Life is tough and full of unexpected challenges. We can be better prepared to face life’s challenges if we take control (the best we can) and make a plan. Of course, situations change and we may not follow our plan, but we are certainly better prepared when we do have a plan. Tonight my plan seemed simple (I had planned 18 laps plus mosey distance for everyone at a reasonable pace) to end up at 3.3 miles. I chose 33 because my late son Grady’s (F3 Quikrete) 33rd birthday was 10/17. We didn’t quite hit 3.3 miles but we got close. Situations usually never go as planned, but plans are invaluable.

MOLESKIN:
Insert any personal comments, notes, devotion content, etc.
ANNOUNCEMENTS:
Insert information about upcoming events, 2nd or 3rd F opportunities, and any other announcements.

Stick It Out for the Sticky Notes

F3 Q: 10.12.21

AO: Asylum PM

5:45pm – 6:30pm

[ The Scene ]

  • 70s
  • Sunny

[ Welcome/Disclaimer ]

Welcome to F3: Fitness, Fellowship, Faith

My name is Steam and I will be your Q this evening

Before we begin let’s get a few things out of the way:

  • FNGS?
  • I’m not a professional
  • You’re here on your own volition
  • If you need to modify anything we do this evening, please feel free to do so BUT push yourself and the men around you. They deserve it and so do you.

[ Warm o Rama ]

  1. SSH — 12×4 IC
    • Light mosey down the stairs
  1. Rockette — 12×4 IC
    • Light mosey up the stairs
  1. Windmill — 12×4 IC
    • Light mosey down the stairs
  1. Baby Arm Circles (Forward) — 12×4 IC
    • Light mosey up the stairs
  1. Baby Arm Circles (Backwards) — 12×4 IC

[ The Thang ]

Batcave

(1) DORA

  • Battle buddy up
  • Top of stairs: 300 merkins, 200 squats, 100 SSHs (together as a team)
  • Bottom of Stairs: 10 BBSs
  • BB1 is knocking out reps at the top, while BB2 is running down the stairs, knocking out the 10 BBSs, and then coming to recover BB1 up top at whatever # of reps he’s on  (finish all 300 Merkins, 200 squats, and 100 SSHs

(Mosey to the Colesium)

(2) The Gladiator

  • HQ for the Arena: 5 burpees, 10 merkins, 15 SSHs
  • Run down to the right
    • Halfway — 10 dive bombers
  • Run back up and complete the HQ Xs
  • Run down to the left
    • Halfway — 10 lunges
  • Run back up and complete the HQ Xs
  • Run straight down to the plateau
    • 10 man makers
  • Run back up and complete the HQ Xs

(Mosey around to the right to the Long Curve)

(3) The Long Curve

  • Release run

[ Mary ]

#StretchingWithSteam

[ COT ]

  • # off
  • Name o Rama
  • FNGs
  • BOM

“Do for a few, what you wish you could do for many.” — John Maxwell

What did Jesus do? He did for a few what he was going to do for many.

Here’s the deal with this picture below. I walked into Starbucks this morning to get my coffee on the way to work, and they had this little board up on a table, with sticky notes covering all of it. On these sticky notes were encouraging words, mantras, and more — based on the directions for people to write down something encouraging, positive, uplifting, and unique on a sticky note and post it on the board, to spread positivity throughout people’s day. Here’s the cool thing, and surprising thing for me actually — there were more mentions of Jesus, God, and Bible verses on this board that I thought. They actually outweighed everything else pretty much. So as I waited for my coffee, I wrote down one of my favorites, “Keep the Faith & Fight the Good Fight” and stuck it on there.

That reminded me of the John Maxwell quote. For me personally, sometimes I have all these big ideas that I want to start and implement and create for people all over, but then I see these sticky notes and it so quickly reminded me of “Do for a few, what you wish you could do for many.” The people that are immediately around me (family, friends, co-workers, etc), am I serving them well? So the question I must ask myself, and I believe we as HIM must ask ourselves is “what can I do for a few, that I wish i could do for many?”

And men, sometimes it’s as simple as putting a positive, encouraging, and uplifting message, verse, phrase, mantra on a sticky note. But what good does this sticky note (now with this powerful message on it) do if it is not shared and spread? So the Asylum PM men and I were discussing this tonight and I gave them this challenge: take this sticky note idea and implement it in your life this week. Write a personal favorite verse, encouraging word, positive phrase or mantra on a sticky note and give/share it with someone. You’ll be amazed at what something just as small as this can do for a few, to affect and serve the many.

Let’s take this a step further. I want to hear from you. Other men in our PAX want (and need) to hear from you as well. Across different AOs and parts of our city and region. So not only are we externalizing this, but we’re internalizing it for F3 Knoxville as well. Check out a new channel on slack called #sticky-note-encouragement. This channel will be created to allow the men of our region to do this. We all need encouragement, and sometimes it’s as easy as putting it on a sticky note and sharing it. #ISI

Where you’re supposed to be

THE SCENE: Beautiful, a tad warm, plentiful sunshine, low 80s, no breeze
F3 WELCOME & DISCLAIMER

Check, with special focus on our FNG, Chris, who is a mentee of Tank’s.
WARM-O-RAMA:

  • Motivators (Q butchered these, so we moved on after 6)
  • 7 BAC Forward, Backward  (4 ct, IC)
  • 7 Windmills (4 ct, IC)
  • 7 Rockettes (4 ct, IC)
  • 7 Tempo Merkins
  • 7 Cherry Pickers (4 ct, IC)

We established (not easily, mind you…) that 7 squared = 49. Apropos, as this was a 49th Bday Q, no?
THA-THANG:

MOSEY down to gavel circle across from Area 51 :

  • Birthday Sea Biscuit!
    • ROUND 1: Run a lap, 49 Merkins
    • ROUND 2: Run TWO laps, 49 BBS
    • ROUND 3: Run THREE laps, 49 SSH
    • ROUND 4: Run TWO laps, 49 Squats
    • ROUND 5: Run ONE lap, 49 Seal Claps

Mosey to Big Tree near Pickett’s charge.  Here there be Dragons!!

  • Welsh Dragon (7 count ascending).  Tclaps to F6 who did it without stopping to rest! (Q rested a bunch of times…)

MOSEY to Bottom of Pickett’s Charge.  49s! Do 4 reps of the exercise at the bottom of each of the three hill tiers, and 9 at the top.  The exercises are:

  • 4 Jump Squats, Run up first level, 9 more Jump Squats
  • 4 Lunges (2-ct), Run up second level, 9 more Lunges
  • 4 Burpees, Run up to wall at Coliseum, 9 more Burpees.

MOSEY to AO

MARY:
No time
COUNT-OFF & NAME-O-RAMA
15 strong.  Welcome FNG Iron Mike, real name Chris, an 11-year old mentee of Tank’s.  He wants to play middle linebacker in football, so we named him Iron Mike, with his approval.  Iron Mike and After Party not tagged.
CIRCLE OF TRUST/BOM:

I recently read the Language of God by Francis Collins, a physician and scientist who spearheaded the Human Genome Project.  He is currently the director of the National Institutes of Health.  The book discusses his struggles as a scientist to accept God, given his rigorous training in the Scientific Method, and his reluctance, at least early on in his life, to be able to rationalize a spiritual Father without being able to identify any actual evidence that He exists.  I’ll touch on some of the revelations and evidence that he lays out that builds his case for the existence of God in another Word, but I wanted to highlight one portion of the book today, because it seems timely.  Dr. Collins volunteered to go on a mission trip to a hospital in a small, impoverished village in Nigeria one summer, and in the book he admits that at the time he had some illusions of being sort of a Savior figure for the people there.  Here he was, a highly educated physician from America, coming to save the day for these poor villagers. But those illusions were quickly dashed.  He became frustrated that most of the illnesses he was called to treat were highly preventable with just some simple sanitary and medical standards.  The shortcomings of the facility where he worked were appalling… there weren’t enough hospital beds, X-ray and other basic hospital resources were lacking, etc.  Frustrated, disillusioned, and overwhelmed, Dr. Collins was losing faith that his efforts could ever make a difference.  And then a young farmer came in with an illness that at first appeared to be tuberculosis, but further testing revealed that he had fluid build-up in the pericardial sac around his heart.  The only cure was to draw out that fluid with a syringe.  In a modern hospital, this would be easily done by a computer guiding the needle.  But here in this hospital, Dr. Collins was forced to do it manually.  The man would die otherwise.  But it was terribly risky. Dr. Collins put the syringe into the man’s sternum, and was able to draw off the liquid without piercing the heart.  The farmer recovered, however, his long-term prognosis was still poor.  A few days later, he came across the farmer again, who said, “I get the sense you are wondering why you came here.”  Dr. Collins was shocked that the farmer had seen so clearly how he was feeling.  “You came here for one reason,” the farmer continued. “You came here for me.”  This was an epiphany for Dr. Collins.  He wasn’t there to be the great white doctor, saving an entire village.  He was there for that man.   As he puts it in his book, “We are each called to reach out to others.  On rare occasions, that can happen on a grandiose scale.  But most of the time, it happens with simple acts of kindness of one person to another.  Those are the events that really matter.”

As Steam said recently in a Word, You are exactly where you are supposed to be.

As another brother who is acting as friend and counselor to some people close to him recently said to me, “I’m exactly where I need to be”.

Maybe those simple acts of kindness will be so much more meaningful to others than you think.  Maybe your belonging to F3 is part of it.  Maybe that meal you deliver to Waxjob’s family will mean more to them than you can imagine.  Maybe the blood you donate on Friday will save someone’s life.  Maybe the Word you deliver at your Q will inspire someone to reach out to someone in need. Look for those opportunities, and then grasp them, even if they seem trivial.
MOLESKIN:
Prayers for F6 and his cousin, who is expected to deliver on Wednesday (update that the delivery was successful, and Baby Jasmine and mother are doing well). Prayers for Jetlag and his family.
ANNOUNCEMENTS:
Blood Drive Friday at Asylum, Hardship hill this Saturday!!

Be 20-60-20 or be like Brick!

THE SCENE: Balmy, humid afternoon

F3 WELCOME & DISCLAIMER

WARM-O-RAMA:  

Little baby arm circles, Side straddle hop, little this, little thay

Partner up, 4 rds of lateral jumps and jogging laps, switch off with partner.

THA-THANG:

  • 11’s with Jane Fonda’s, bear crawl up, crawl bear down
  • 20x-60x-20x running up 3 tiers of stairs. 1st group was meekins, bbs, meekins. 2nd group was A. Hammer, squat thrusts, A. Hammer. 3rd group was hello dolly, squats, hello dolly.

MARY:
Hold 30 second plank like Brick to finish out workout.

COUNT-OFF & NAME-O-RAMA
14 HIMS

CIRCLE OF TRUST/BOM:
Every person in an organization  or team fits somewhere it top 20%, middle 60%, or bottom 20%. The top 20% are the overachievers, who are going to succeed  most of the time. The bottom 20% are people, who put out little effort to contribute to the team’s success. That 60%, however, can be influenced the most when all remaining individuals come together contributing their 1%  When that happens that team  can ûmove in any direction to achieve great things.