Backblast: January 31st, 2026
AO: The Battlefield – The Shops At Fallen Timbers – Maumee, OH
PAX:
Photon – Q
Arcy
Crawdad
Doogie
Fat Amy
Footloose
Isosceles
Norm
Quick Draw
Shepherd
Viper
Workout: Minus 25
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: In Cadence
Windmills (2 is 1): 10
Arm Circles Forward (4 is 1): 10
Arm Circles Reverse (4 is 1): 10
The “Thang”:
This was a choose your own adventure style beatdown. Goal was to complete 500 burpees, but you could buy down the burpee reps with certain numbers of reps of certain other exercises. Rules were simple. No burpees need to be completed at all, but need to be completed in batches of 25 when performed. Any alternative exercise on the list could be chosen at any time, but the required reps for that exercise HAD to be completed in total before the PAX could choose a new exercise. Performing the same exercise over and over was allowed.
Below were the buy-down exercises and their respective rep counts. Each completion of the full reps of one of the exercises counted towards 25 of the 500 burpees. If a PAX didn’t want to perform any burpees, they needed to complete one of the exercises and its associated rep counts twenty times.
Lateral Taps (Single 7m run): 50
Flying Squirrels (no merkin or jump): 50
Mt. Climbers (4 is 1): 50
Plank Jacks (2 is 1): 50
High Knees (4 is 1): 75
SSHs (1 is 1): 150
Ended with:
Count-O-Rama: 11
Name-O-Rama
The Six – Viper
LDP3
Ball of Man
Spreadsheets from the Gloom: Despite what YHCs weather app forecasted for the beatdown when the event was created, 6 days in advance, the “feels like” temperature was not, in fact, minus 25F. It was about -5F. But the beatdown was crafted around the idea, so we went with it anyway. Hey, at least it kept us warm.
This was another awful one, but PAX were able to choose their awful. Prefer the beating of burpees? Choose burpees, and only burpees, like Shepherd and Viper. Curious as to what 75 4-ct high knees feels like right off the bat? Choose high knees like Doogie. (It was a trap, by the way). Or just rotate as needed like the majority (high knees excluded). Or…if you’re really crazy, just do SSHs…the entire beatdown…all 45 minutes. Figured it was worth a shot, so YHC gave it a go. 3000 consecutive SSHs later and success! The equivalent of 500 burpees was, indeed, possible. (Though certain feet and calves might disagree).
Still trying to get some feedback on this one, but it seems like most of the equivalent exercises and their reps were pretty accurate and fair for a single round. Apparently the basement practice session the night before had some validity. However, some exercises are far more exhausting than others, making them much more taxing in the long haul. That was the case with the high knees. 75 4-ct did take the same amount of time as 25 burpees, but when an isolated incident. The high knees are not sustainable at that pace like burpees might be. Perhaps they could have been reduced to 50 4-cts like the other exercises. Hopefully some additional PAX feedback can help to tailor the rep counts to be more even for the next run.
Tracklist was also crafted around the 6-day look-ahead weather report and ended up being fairly accurate, with one exception.
“25 Degrees Below Zero” – The Blues Mystery
“Cold Day In The Sun” – Foo Fighters
“Cold Blooded” – Rick James
“Out In The Cold” – Tom Petty And The Heartbreakers
“Shiver” – Coldplay
“Cold Bitch” – Soundgarden
“Cold Hard Bitch” – Jet: Live 8/7/03
“Black Ice” – AC/DC
“Ice Ice Baby” – Vanilla Ice
“Cold, Cold, Cold” – Little Feat
“Snow” – Red Hot Chili Peppers: Live
This was a format that I semi-borrowed from Shepherd and it really fit the theme. If I’m honest, though, I was looking for a way/reason to attempt an entire beatdown of SSHs without forcing the rest of the PAX to do the same. This ended up fitting the bill perfectly. Mission accomplished. And it was a good beatdown to boot. It was a pleasure to lead this one and I hope to lead it again in the future.
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