The Fortress (Grace Church) – Mike “Photon” Bauer

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Backblast: April 11th, 2026

AO: The Fortress – Grace Church – Perrysburg, OH

PAX:
Photon – Q
Binford
Carmen Sandiego
Deliverance
French Fry
Landslide
Oil Change
Tarnished

Workout: Stepping In

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

Chainbreakers?: 10
Arm Circles Forward (4 is 1)?: 10
Arm Circles Reverse (4 is 1)?: 10

Another late BB…don’t actually remember what the warmup was. If there even was one.

The “Thang”:

This beatdown was designed around the idea of “stepping in”.

The beatdown consisted of 4 stations designated by cones, assembled in a circle whose diameter was 100ft. Each station focused on a single type of exercise. PAX split up into 4 groups and each started at adifferent cone. In a given round, the PAX would perform the type of exercise listed on their cone for 50s followed by running around the outside of the "eddy" clockwise for a full rotation, past their starting cone, and ending at the next cone. PAX could then rest until the run timer went off. This continued three more times until all four groups had performed the work/run cycle for all 4 cones. At the end of each round, the PAX moved each of the 4 cones inward towards the center of the "eddy" by 3 yards, and the run timer was reduced by 5 seconds. Every 2nd complete round, the intensity/difficulty of the exercise listed on the cone would increase, going from standard exercises -> explosive exercises -> block exercises. So as the PAX got closer and closer to the center of the "eddy", the time between rounds got smaller and the intensity of the work required to escape the "eddy" increased.

Beatdown was intended to go 6 full rounds, but we ended up running out of time after round 4.

All PAX finished with a set of 10 in-cadence burpees.

Exercises/cones were the following:

1.) Flying Squirrels -> Burpees -> Man-Makers
2.) BBSUs -> Sprinter sit-ups -> WW1s
3.) Merkins -> Jumping Spiders -> Pull-through Merkins
4.) Squats -> Jump Squats -> Thrusters

Ended with:
Count-O-Rama: 8
Name-O-Rama

The Six – French Fry

LDP3

Ball of Man

Spreadsheets from the Gloom: This was a last minute audible. With Coconut being out sick, I was asked to “step in” and take the Q. Reaching back into the vault, The Eddy seemed like it was tailor made for the occasion, and a perfect opportunity for Perrysburg PAX to experience the full extent of this absolute burner. And a burner it was.

The first run through only got through 4 rounds…didn’t even make it to the block work. But this version ran the beatdown to completion. This is a beast of a beatdown, driven by the hard run between stations. Starting with 40s was a little aggressive, but a 2nd round run timer of 40s seemed just about right. It was doable for someone working hard. Starting with 45s in round 1 is probably the perfect time for an IPC type intensity of this. The 5s reduction every round seemed to scale relatively well, even into the block rounds. Speaking of which…the block rounds were absolutely brutal. The only rest was a sprint around the eddy, otherwise non-stop block work. Really fit the theme of the eddy getting stronger and stronger as you got towards the center. And the non-stop AMRAP finale at the end was the bow on top.

Different reason behind the beatdown caused an adjustment in the playlist:

“One Step Closer” – Linkin Park
“Two Step” – Dave Matthew’s Band
“Gimme Three Steps” – Lynyrd Skynyrd
“Step By Step” – New Kids On The Block
“1, 2 Step” – Ciara
“Footsteps” – Pearl Jam
“Footsteps In The Dark Pts. 1 & 2” – The Isley Brothers
“Move Your Feet” – Junior Senior
“Ain’t No Half-Steppin’” – Big Daddy Kane
“Stepping Stones” – G. Love & Special Sauce
“Keep On Steppin” – Mike Clark Jr

Always a pleasure to lead this group of fine men, but it’s even more fulfilling when a brother asks you to step-in in a time of need.

We missed you out there Coconut, but we held down the fort in your absence.

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