Backblast: October 27th, 2025
AO: The Gauntlet – Rivercrest Park – Perrysburg, OH
PAX:
Photon – Q
Big Spoon
Flipper
Guardian
Irish Hoss
Madden
Mile High
Rumor
Workout: Burden In My Hand
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
SSHs: 20
Chain Breakers: 10
Suck Its!: 10
The “Thang”:
Simple premise. There were two sets of cones spread 10 yards apart. PAX started at one line and moved back and forth between the two sets of cones for the entire beatdown. The catch was that they had to hold their block with the same grip the entire beatdown, as they would for a man-maker. There were three MOTs that they could rotate between, but they could never do the same MOT back to back out-and-backs.
Rifle Carry
2-handed farmer carry
Ape Hop
In the event that a break was needed from movement, a PAX, at any time upon returning back to the starting line, could elect to perform 10 man-makers before the next MOT. It ensured they never let go of their grip while also giving a minor reprieve to the weight of the block.
There was a 5 minute EMOM timer running throughout the entirety of the beatdown. Every time the EMOM sounded, PAX had to drop their blocks and perform 5 burpees.
Ended with:
Count-O-Rama: 8
Name-O-Rama
The Six – Flipper
LDP3
Ball of Man
Spreadsheets from the Gloom: This was inspired by the Soundgarden track Burden In My Hand, and a burden it was. Not sure my grip strength has every been tested so heavily at a beatdown before. It seemed like PAX were begging for the burpee EMOM to go off to get a reprieve. That said, it was necessary. The originally plan for the EMOM was to perform Thrusters, but it was obvious before the first timer even beeped that it would be required to be able to put the block down every once in awhile. No sense in getting carpel tunnel or dropping a block on a head.
Other than that though, it was a great concept. There was just enough MOT variation (combined with the man-maker option) to make it doable while still remaining incredibly tough. Anything longer than the 10 yard out and back probably would have been too much.
There were a handful of good tracks that made this playlist shine, targeting live versions wherever possible.
“Burden In My Hand” – Soundgarden: Live From The Artists Den
“Hard To Handle” – The Black Crowes: Freak ‘N’ Roll…Into The Fog
“Never Let You Go” – Third Eye Blind: Live At Red Rocks
“Hold On” – Pearl Jam: Live in Philadelphia 10-30-09
“Heavy” – Collective Soul: Live
“Never Let Me Down Again” – Smashing Pumpkins: BBC Session
“Never Gonna Give You Up” – Rick Astley: The Prince’s Trust Rock Gala 1988
“Never Let You Down” – The Verve Pipe: City Winery New York 4-23-23
This was a good one; a concept worth exploring further with different twists. Hope some PAX enjoyed the flavor as much as I did.
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