Backblast: July 11th, 2026
AO: The Fortress – Grace Church – Perrysburg, OH
PAX:
Photon – Q
Binford
Carmen Sandiego
Coconut
Deliverance
Guardian
Longhorn
Meatloaf
Poe
Raven
Spaulding
Tarnished
Ukulele
Workout: The Big 4-0
FNG’s: N/A
Mission and Principles:
F3: Fitness, Fellowship, Faith
Mission: To plant, grow and serve small workout groups for men for the invigoration of male community leadership.
The core principles of F3 are that it is always:
1. Free of charge
2. Open to all men
3. Held outdoors, rain or shine, heat or cold
4. Led by men who participate in the workout in a rotating fashion, with no training or certification necessary. You versus you. Modify or stop an exercise if you need to. The most important thing is that nobody gets hurt.
5. Ends with a Circle of Trust
Credo: Leave no man behind but leave no man where you find him
Warm-up: Tarnished led something…might have been 40 (2 is 1) SSH in cadence…while YHC was finishing setting up after the ruck.
The “Thang”:
One of my most ridiculous creations yet, this birthday beatdown was designed around the idea of The Big 4-0, or in this case, four big “O”s. And when you think of four “O”s, who doesn’t think of a Venn Diagram? So the beatdown theme was born: a 4 circle Venn Diagram where all four circles overlapped in the center, creating 13 unique regions throughout. Each of the 4 circles represented a certain focus of the workout: Upper Body, Lower Body, Core, and Block. As the circles started overlapping, the exercise stations created 4 new imaginary circles within the Venn Diagram. Each of those circles was a “ring” of the new, imaginary target, and the exercises became increasingly difficult as PAX moved closer towards the bullseye of that target.
Each ring of the target consisted of 4 stations designated by cones, assembled in a circle whose outer diameters were 40m, 30m, 20m, and 0m respectively. All PAX started at the Block station on the outer most ring of the target and performed 40 reps of the exercise listed at that cone. Upon completing the 40 reps, a PAX would run around the outside of the ring of the target for a full rotation, past their most recent cone, and ending at the next cone, carrying their block to the next cone when necessary. This continued three more times until the PAX completed the work/run cycle for all 4 cones within the outermost ring. At the end of each completed ring, a PAX would grab his block and carry it to the starting cone of the next most inward ring. This was repeated until the PAX completed the 40 reps of the exercise at the bullseye of the imaginary target.
Exercises/cones were the following:
Area Exercise
Block: Curl
Arms: Merkin
Core: Big Boy Situp
Legs: Squat
Arms + Block: Overhead Press
Legs + Block: Block Squat
Legs + Core: Reverse Lunge
Arms + Core: Peter Parker Merkin
Legs + Core + Block: Block Reverse Lunge
Arms + Legs + Block: Thruster
Arms + Core + Block: WWIII
Arms + Legs + Core: Burpee
Arms + Legs + Core + Block: Man-Maker
Ended with:
Count-O-Rama: 13
Name-O-Rama
The Six – Carmen Sandiego
LDP3
Ball of Man
Spreadsheets from the Gloom: 72F with 95% humidity…and you felt every bit of both. And it was awful. This was essentially a beefed up, modified version of “The Eddy” formula, but instead of AMRAP-ing an exercise for 45s, PAX completed 40 reps of the given exercise…which was significantly worse, especially as the exercises got more difficult. 40 curls isn’t that bad, nor is 40 BBSUs, but 40 thrusters followed by 40 WWIIIs, followed by 40 burpees followed by 40 man-makers would slow down even the biggest of spoons and the most coco of nuts. It was an absolute burner, and the weather made it even worse.
That said, the formula worked extremely well. 40 reps is about the max that you’d want to allocate for some of those exercises, and even at that quantity, some exercises took forever. But a handful of guys did finish with a little time to spare. So another station, increased rep-count, or larger diameter circles could be utilized in a follow-up run. And for as complicated as the beatdown was on paper, it ran pretty flawlessly. However…it only worked well because of the prep-work. Stations and exercises were color coded on the asphalt, arrows were present to indicate direction of travel, and cones were strategically placed to indicate starting locations for each ring of the target. If it had rained or been dark, it would likely have been a disaster. Moving the blocks to the necessary stations was also a tad bit clunky, but given the setup of the beatdown, there was no real way to avoid it.
Oh, there were some “O”s in the playlist too. 4 of them, to be exact. The four most notable music artists that started with an “O”. And yes…it was pointed out that “The Offspring” technically doesn’t begin with an “O”, but YHC had to work with what was available.
“Pretty Fly (For A White Guy)” – The Offspring
“Don’t Look Back In Anger” – Oasis
“Skin Tight” – Ohio Players
“Crazy Train” – Ozzy Osbourne
“Come Out And Play” – The Offspring
“Wonderwall” – Oasis
“Love Rollercoaster” – Ohio Players
“Mama, I’m Coming Home” – Ozzy Osbourne
“Original Prankster” – The Offspring
“Champagne Supernova” – Oasis
“Fire” – Ohio Players
All in all it was an awesome birthday celebration and a great way to start a new decade. Was a pleasure to lead this one for sure.