F3 New Orleans

Category: New Orleans

  • Earlie in the Morning – from Heisenberg

    Warm up
    Grass Grabbers 10, Windmills 11, Imp Walkers 11, 5 burpees OYO, Deep Sea Diver (descending shoulder taps starting with 8 top step of Noma. 5 burpees OYO
    The Thing
    With the “Irish/Celtic/Sea Shanties” playlist from Amazon Music loaded we began 30 rounds of Tabata 40 seconds work 25 seconds rest. Stations 1. Step-ups 30lb ruck, 2. Dumbbell Curls using one foot on a stability pad, 3. 60lb Sandbag rows, 4Morrocan Night Clubs with 2.5 lb. egg weights,5. Heavy Jump rope, 27lb Kettle bell rows, Speed Rope, 20lb weighted Sit-ups.
    The Wrap up – 3 Sunday Mornings and 10 burpees OYO
    Welcome first timer Mr. Rogers
    COT

  • Spontaneous Q’ing – from Kenna Brah

    Arrived to find the PAX lacking a Q ( AKA Q’less), having missed my last TWO Q appointments, I decided to jump into the vacuum.

    Mosey to the Colonnade for warm-ups
    SSH
    IW
    LSQ
    REALLY SLOW VAGODAS/GRASS GABBERS
    Pivoted to some YOGA

    Without a prepared BD, I pulled out my trusty go to plan:
    10 things 10 times, for 10 rounds
    Each pax took a exercice
    Smooth – SSH
    Heisenberg – Burpees ( Big surprise)
    Vagabond – Air Squats
    Fracsac – LBC
    Catfish – 8 Ct Body Builders
    Cheesesteak – Lunges
    Maytag – Merkins
    Mr Rogers – Should Taps
    Christopher Robin – Alternate Leg Wife Pleasers
    YHC – BB Situps
    After 5 Rounds and a stunned look on the faces of the PAX we pivoted to each HIM chooses what to do next, then it all went crazy – Trust me. It was a more than adequate way to grow in leadership, creativity and all around fitness.

    COT

  • “Pain exists in the mind.” – from America’s Best

    What is the most resilient parasite? Bacteria? A virus? An ear (ehr)worm?
    No… a free men’s workout. Resilient… highly contagious. And once an idea for a beatdown has taken hold of the brain, it’s almost impossible to eradicate.
    Months ago, the idea for this beatdown was planted into YHC’s fragile eggshell mind by Paradox.
    Now, YHC had not seen Inception in years, so a refresher was necessary.
    (Since the movie is currently available only on Canadian Netflix, YHC may have had to commit some “light violation” of Netflix’s terms of service in order to view the movie.)

    Began as usual, with Warmarama, but YHC wanted to set up the disorientation and confusion early. Only 3 SSH were done; Enron looked up from setting his Whoop, and it was over.

    The first thang:
    The entire PAX enters together into the first dream layer:
    Dream on (Aerosmith)- Hold Al Gore during music, SSH during lyrics. Burpee on “sing,” merkin on “dream”, then change to hold plank and and merkins all subsequent “sing”s and “dream”s.

    Second Thang: for the next dream layer, it’s necessary to break into smaller groups.
    So we divided into partners and performed a Musical Dora – one partner does curls during song 1, and thrusters during 2nd song. Other partner is running a lap, and doing 5 derkins on the hill.

    Deepest dream layer: Limbo, on your own.
    In the world of Inception, Limbo is an “expanse of infinite raw subconscious,” described as “unconstructed dream space.”
    And so it came to be that we would suffer the deconstructed burpees of Yankee Jeaux’s dreams (Jurpees) in unconstructed dream space. AMRAP. On your own.
    For your listening pleasure: Sweet Dreams (are made of these) and Good Old Fashioned Nightmare.
    Not sure if the entire PAX experienced the extreme time dilation YHC did here, but these two songs seemed to last about 4 hours.

    “Non, je ne regrette rien” was the song used in Inception to alert the dreamers to wake into the higher dream state.
    So when it played, we ran a lap around the civic center to “kick” back out of limbo and up into the second dream.

    Second Thang again:Repeated Musical Dora, this time with sit ups on the (up) hill.
    May I submit that this exercise henceforth be known as “the drug mule”? Because when I was done I had so much grass in my crack I felt like I was crossing the border with Cheech and Chong.

    “Non, je ne regrette rien” played again, so again we ran a lap around CC (before song ends!) and reunited entire PAX to finish up in the original dream.

    And the last thang:
    “Wake Me Up” : flutter kicks until chorus. Big boy sit ups during chorus, Big Boy Sit Up Ups (stand ups)on “Wake Me”; Freddy Mercury during breakdown

    “Non, je ne regrette rien” was supposed to play one final time. Maybe we were supposed to run one more lap?
    Either way, not sure if we got to that final bit… but I hope this blast has summed up the rigorous confusion of the beatdown.

    COT. Goose prayed us out.

    Thanks for showing up for the mayhem. Always an honor to lead you maniacs.

    AB Sees…
    A parallel between Han Solo and Yankee Jeaux:

    How was I confident that we could make the lap around the Civic Center before that French song ended? First, a story:
    Han Solo claimed that his Millennium Falcon “made the Kessel Run in less than twelve parsecs.” Critics and nerds love to point out that this makes no sense, because a parsec is a unit of distance, not time.

    A few weeks ago, YHC was planning this beatdown and so asked YJ “how long does it take to run a lap around the Civic Center?” His answer: 0.3 miles.

    So how was I confident we would make it in time?
    Not at all. But Goose was back! And showing up only minutes after me, informed me “I’m going to run a few laps to warm up.”
    Giving me the perfect opportunity to time him… as long as we can all run like Goose, we should be fine. How confident was I that we could all run like Goose?
    Not at all. But sometimes you have to take a leap of faith. Or otherwise, “become an old man, filled with regret, waiting to die alone.”

  • – from Bolt

    The Chaos Monkey posted in another channel that he’d be at a retreat which meant no Q and YHC could take the ultimate anti-fartsack medicine—The Q…so he did.

    Warmorama with a special song for Frac and the usual: Peter Parker, Parker Peter, LSS, SSH, FAC, RAC, OH/Seal claps, IW, finish with Morning Calls. Make our way to the gym switching MOT at light poles (mosey, KnOT, high knees, open/close gate, lunge) along with three burpees at each bench.

    The Thang: 5 pax, 5 exercises for 1min. each (counting reps) with 10 sec to switch stations x 2 rounds with round 2 designed to exceed round 1rep count by 3 reps. All pax except YHC bested themselves on at least one station except YHC—blame it on the time change. Horses to stables, COT.

  • Do Hard Things or KnOT – from Hawgcycle

    I stole the title from Mayhem. It’s too good not to use.

    The overarching lesson of the book Do Hard Things is that toughness is not created by mercilessly driving someone past their limitations. That’s the old-school way of thinking about toughness. Think Bear Bryant’s Junction Boys or any Indiana Hoosier Basketball team under Bobby Knight. But science shows that people must be given some level of control over their situation to develop true toughness. The theory being that if everything you ever do is for a dictator, then when faced with a tough situation, you will likely give up in the absence of the dictator.

    Tuesdays at Pontiff are not the typical F3 workout. Pai Gow takes the Q for almost all of them and he prescribes the sprint workout for the day. The pax has no control over designing the workout. That is always done by Pai Gow. However, he is far from a dictator. He gives instruction and goals for completing the workout, but leaves the rest up to the Pax as to how they want to complete the workout.

    Today PVC, Two Yutes and I were faced with a Pai Gow – less workout. We started with a slow one mile jog. At the end of our warm-up we had a decision to make. Do we continue to take it easy and slow jog the rest of the workout or do we borrow one of the sprint workouts that Pai Gow has given us in the past and push ourselves? Suddenly the most recent chapter of Do Hard Things started to make sense. The temptation to slow jog the rest of the workout was there, and had we been beaten down souls every Tuesday, we might have taken the opportunity to take a Tuesday off. But we are not beaten down souls. Our pre-fontal cortexes are fully engaged and they encouraged us to do the hard thing:

    The Thang:

    One Mile warm-up. Sprint a 100, 200, 300 and 400 with a 100m recovery between each. Finish with a 400m recovery lap. Then repeat the entire set. We did 3 sets and covered about 4.5 miles.

    Meanwhile Tenderloin did his own thing on the track, while Scantron dictated the KnOT workout to Rougarou. Does Rougarou have any control? Is he building toughness or just hatred for Scantron? Only Roug knows.

    Things we learned:

    • Mosquitos eat bitcoin
    • More NHL players are born in January than any other month.
    • Dentists open at 7:00 am

  • 9 to the Left is 2 to the Right – from Hawgcycle

    Warm-Up:
    Moseyed to the t-ball field by the tracks. SSH x 20; IW x 20; LSS x 20; Tempo Merkins x 15; Windmills x 10; Jack Web to 10 (2:1 Air Press:Merkin)
    The Thang:
    We ran back to the rock pile to pick a rock and then returned to the t-ball field. We circled up and did a Rock Stack. We paused between each set of exercises to share the number of children each man has. Once we finished that we shared their names.
    • Man Makers x 5;
    • Man Makers x 5; Presses x 10
    • Man Makers x 5; Presses x 10; Squats x 15
    • Man Makers x 5; Presses x 10; Squats x 15; Curls x 20
    • Man Makers x 5; Presses x 10; Squats x 15; Curls x 20; Rows x 25
    • Man Makers x 5; Presses x 10; Squats x 15; Curls x 20; Rows x 25; Bench Press x 30
    We returned our rocks to the pile and finished with some Mary before Horses to the Stable back to the flag: LBC x 20; LBT x 20; Crunchy Frog x 15
    What we learned:
    • Hand Grenada named his kids Davis and Beauregard. Beauregard is a girl.
    • The Wedding Planner is a virile man (but we already knew that).
    • The most popular names among the pax kids were Colin, Christian, Colleen, Carrie, and Caligula
    • Mahatma and Boge named their kids the exact same thing
    • The Architect has never uttered a two-syllable word
    • Rudy originally told us he had three kids. When it came his turn to name them he only named two. He had originally miscounted.

  • The Prayer of Pain – from Cardinal

    We find ourselves in the season of Lent, where people tend to try to recommit to focusing on the spiritual side of things. YHC, being a Catholic priest, sees it often and often hears the question of feeling like you don’t know how to pray. Some have said the psalms are a great place to start, because it’s essentially a prayer book in the Bible. YHC would agree with that “some,” because it’s the psalms that first brought him deeper into a relationship with God. (Sky Q? Nah.) So a beatdown based on the psalms was devised that would prove to be less prayerful and more painful…

    A standard fare Warmorama was had, including imperial walkers, side straddle hops, arm circles and cherry pickers, high knees and butt kicks, and some self-love. First lesson of prayer – let go of expectations (like you HAVE to start with SSH) and be open to what God has to say.

    YHC crafted a playlist of songs based on several of the psalms. Each song was paired with an exercise, with the psalm’s number of reps having to be completed before the song finished. (So for example, the song based on Psalm 139 would require 139 squats to be completed in the duration of the song.) The PAX didn’t know how long the songs were, so it was a guess as to how much time you had to finish it. Numbers were pulled at random to really let God have the final say.

    The PAX had enough time for 5 songs, which were as follows:
    1. Psalm 46 – 8-count body builders
    2. Psalm 57 – Burpees
    3. Psalm 98 – Big boys
    4. Psalm 84 – hand-release merkins
    5. Psalm 16 – 15-yard-choice of crab walk or bear crawl

    A couple of observations…
    1. The plank jack in the 8-count makes a HUGE difference. The burpees after that felt like a breeeeezeeeeeeeeee….mostly…until the second half…
    2. YHC wasn’t entirely confident that he had matched the exercises with the rep count and timing that well, but the PAX handled it like champs. They dug into it with everything they had, and it was really a sight to behold. Many were able to complete most of them. But whether you finished it or not, it was clear they were pushing through without holding back. I could really give the Animal (who’s got that again??) to any of them.
    3. That drive also kept chatter to a minimum.
    4. YHC can’t count to above 20 to save his life.
    5. The last bear crawl, YHC witnessed a bear crawl race…AB’s bear crawl is really a sight to behold.

    In between each song, we had a couple 10-counts and a recovery lap to prep us for the next one.

    We finished with a light penalty for those who didn’t complete any (mercy, right?? SSH vs calf raises) and then a couple minutes of MARY to close us out.

    COT and Paradox prayed us out.

    Grateful to the PAX for pushing through this morning. One of them commented “Prayer, fasting, almsgiving…and pain, the 4th pillar of Lent.” Praying with the pain, with the hard stuff, even if it feels fruitless in the moment, is some of the most fruitful experiences of prayer I’ve ever had. When we keep giving everything, whether we feel like we’re failing or not, God can do incredible things. Keep pushing through, brothers, relying not on your own strength or measure of success but on His.

    “Lord of hosts, you’re with us
    With us in the fire
    With us as a shelter
    With us in the storm.

    You will lead us
    Through the fiercest battle
    Oh, where else would we go?
    But with the Lord of Hosts.”

    SYITG,

    Cardinal

  • Face off – from Wet Tap

    March 9, 2024
    F3. ““ the face off.

    It’s a very humbling experience when you only get one commit. All aspects of competitive work, and Dora fly on the window. Nevertheless, a beat down must be compiled. Who would YHC be without an objective pain and suffering.

    As I sat in my truck, alone, cold and tired nervously waiting for a familiar truck car, or even Prius, I contemplated the fact it would be a solo down. Alas, an unfamiliar face one of years gone by approach me. a sweet old lady with a sparkle in her eye asked if I knew F3? could it be that F3 has reached this far? She then explained that she is jackknife’s grandmother and the 2.0 would not let a Saturday beatdown go without his presence! What dedication! Not a minute to late America’s best showed up and jumped out his truck ready to tackle the inevitable showdown

    Warm Arama

    We triangle up and perform side straddle hops, high knees, and butt kicks by the way Honeysuckle, & Willie Mayes Hayes

    Thang1.

    Run Indian.
    We each lined up for a mosey and YHC instructed the crowd that 1st man would yell out an exicon approved workout and the Pax would perform 5reps of said exercise. Then 1st man would fall to the back of the line and the new 1st man would call out. The plan was for a mile run, but with the limited number of PAX, we capped it at a half mile. T-claps to AB for inventing the Arnold Schwarzenegger Merkin. This will come back again.

    Thang2.
    Reaction time. The entire PAX planked up face to face with a baseball in the center at arms reach. Once everyone was set anyone could grab the ball at any time. The winner would be rewarded with 10 merkins, while the losers inherited 10 burpees. At this time let it be known that Jackknife is faster than a rattlesnake. Whether it be equilateral, right angle or isosceles Jackknife was there, ball in hand, and a smirk that would make Popeye proud. 80 burpees in and Americas best announced that we should just do 20 burpees. Smarter words have never been spoken.

    Thang3.

    With Jackknife still clenching the baseball, we headed to the field. YHC asked him if he could throw the ball, and secretly had the notion to use that as a mark for distance.
    Well, 40 yards later we were bearcrawling there and back. 10 Chuck Norris merkins. Then lunge walk 40 yards and back.

    Thang4.
    At the monkey bars the PAX would static hold a pull up for as long as possible( chin over bar). 1st to fall won 10 Carolina Dayton’s, and winner took 25 LBC. We made it 3rounds til YJC called it.

    Thang5.
    Baseball field. PAX lined up on their 6 at home plate,first, and short. Everyone jumped up and it was a sprint to catch the man ahead of you. This went on until YHC found Jackknife. Replayed with an added” on your six to merkin” and AB found me. A punishment of 10 airsquats or air biscuits had us all suffering.

    Thang 6.

    A fun game of kicking a baseball to each other for a half mile. I have no idea what this is called in the exicon and I can’t find it anywhere. You know what I’m talking about and I’ll be schooled on when this backblast posts!

    We made it back to the flag and named off. COT and Jackknife prayed us .

    A great morning with great people.

  • The Art of the Poor Plan – from Fracsac

    9 Pax gathered around the shovel flag in hopes of a quality beat down from a Q that put significant effort into the planning of said beat down. YHC intended to do his best to let the pax down easy.

    The Great Lawn was like an anthill with busy workers assembling their vendor stations for the morning market, which was odd to see at 0630. So much for the plan thought out on the drive in.

    Brief disclaimer and mosey to the peristyle for the warmup. The speaker was playing classic 80s music and it was good.

    Head back towards the flag to stop at the truck for a few toys. Grab the 1.5 inch rope x 25 feet (or thereabouts), an exercise die (two would be dice), a frisbee, and a jump rope.

    Mosey to the tree line by NOMA. Separate into 3 groups of 3.
    Group 1 – Keeping the rope off the ground, run 5 trees, do 10 squats and return (timer). If the rope touches the ground it’s a 5 burpee penalty.
    Group 2 – Roll the die and do what it says.
    Group 3- toss frisbee, lunge walk to it, then 3 burpees.
    Rinse and repeat.

    Mosey to the Tulips and learn some useless tulip facts. Do some burpees. Do 3 minutes of Embrace the Suck.

    Mosey to the singing oak and do failure to launch, Embrace the Suck x 3 minutes, ring of fire.

    Mosey back to the flag.

    CoT

    NMM

    Apparently we had an FNG this morning. I learned this at the CoT, which is a problem if you’re the Q. Thankfully everything worked out, except the beat down was a total mess filled with useless facts and even wrong information. Regardless, calories were burned, sweat was drawn, and no man was left behind.

    Welcome Rebirth!!

    SYITG

  • Troops of St. George – from Safety Valve

    It’s not everyday that we get the feeling that we are improving the people and the world around us. When they come, we must be ready to share ourselves and experiences with others. Today, YHC had the privilege to lead 11 other men and 2.0s on our first Troops of St. George camping trip to Tickfaw State Park. Troops of St George is a group similar to F3 that builds brotherhood with other men, strengthens bonds between fathers and sons, and brings us closer in our relationship with God. So, it’s not by chance that a few of our F3 PAX have joined the troop recently.

    Started off with what F3 is and stands for (fitness, fellowship and faith). We discussed briefly the 5 principles and gave the disclaimer.

    Warmaramma
    SSH
    Toy soldiers
    Imperial walkers
    Arm circles forward
    Arm circles back
    Cherry pickers
    Self love

    Knowing that there likely would be a few new faces and 2.0s, YHC tried to keep this as mild and fun filled as a Safetysuckle Q could be. Some might say that YHC succeeded. Most would say the beatdowns that YHC comes up with is neither mild nor fun filled. Bring it up to “the board” if you are unhappy.

    Thangs-
    Indian run around parking lot to get new 2.0s familiar with standard practice. The 2.0s blew this up and even Suckle had a hard time keeping up.

    Tag – 2.0s are it, if dads are tagged have to do a 3 burpee penalty, 2nd tag is 6 burpees, 3rd tag is 9 burpees, etc. Flapjack.

    Partner up dads and 2.0s – part of F3 is about working together to achieve something bigger than you can handle alone. 4 cones set up 10 yards apart with 20 reps of an exercise done at each cone. Mode of transportation changed between each cone.

    Going there:
    20 Merkins
    Crabwalk
    20 Merkins
    Bear crawl
    20 Merkins
    Duck walk
    20 Merkins

    Going back:
    20 Star jumps
    Crabwalk
    20 Star jumps
    Duck walk
    20 Star jumps
    Bear crawl
    20 Star Jumps

    This is when things started getting a little too heated. Our troops of St. George Captain decided he had enough and had to go “quickly check on breakfast.” He was not seen again, and a fitting F3 name was given to him at the end of the beatdown.

    Duck duck goose. All PAX in plank position with feet pointing in. Plank held for duration. In classic duck duck goose style one person walks around and whoever gets tapped goose has to get up and try to catch the only PAX member before they reach the empty spot.

    Inch worm – Dads vs 2.0s
    Line up in plank position. Pax in the back bear crawls to the front. Basically, a bear walk Indian run. This went on to the end of our grassy area. About 75 yards. Dads won even with some questionable 2.0 bear crawls.

    To finish it off, Tubthumper by chumbawampa was played. SSH for duration of the song then burpees when it says “I get knocked down, but I get up again”.

    COT was explained to all. It’s important to have the support of every man around us. Sharing struggles and triumphs is important. Teaching our children the we love them and we are here for the times they succeed and the times that they fail is what being a dad is about.

    After count off, we had 7 new faces to name. I am grateful and proud of our core PAX members that joined today – Huge shoutout to Enron and Honeysuckle for helping the new face get through the beatdown and educating them in our ways. We came together to name the following:

    DNF (did not finish) – remember the guy that went “check on breakfast” to never return, yea that’s this guy.

    2.0s
    Waterboy
    The jet
    Squints
    Shark bite
    Red boudin
    Bucknife (changed after expressing his concerns about being named White Boudin-this was done without board approval, please don’t kick us out)

    T claps to AOL and Headcheese for making a comeback to the F3 scene. Hope to see yall more often.

    Intentions were raised and AOL prayed us out. Thank you allot waking up and showing up. It’s always a pleasure to lead.