F3 Mental Battle Day 2020 – 3/27/2020

For all of F3 Nation: March 27 is a special opportunity.  Last year Miyagi and Aerobie did a huge service to F3 Nation by shedding light on mental health among men after the loss of a close friend of Miyagi.

If you are missing someone whom you’ve lost  due to mental health issues or suicide and who was an inspiration or major part of your life, lift them up and do this work out in their honor.

If you or a loved one struggle with depression, anxiety, and mental wellness, take advantage of the opportunity to lock shields with other HIM who have your back.   Work out with a special focus, having that person or that challenge on your heart.

If you’ve felt the loving hand of Sky Q as you walked through a past valley of darkness in your own life, take advantage of the opportunity to listen to another man who may be going through his own valley and wants to talk about it during or after the COT on March 27.

March 27 will be a day to celebrate our fellowship and our ability to make an individual weight into a team weight. Let’s do this thing. Looking forward to it.

Below you will find a guide or an idea how you can lead a Mental Battle workout on March 27.  You don’t have to use this guide, feel free to make up your own as you see fit.  We encourage you though to leave some time during COT to remember any Pax we have lost, family or friends lost or struggling with mental health issues.

I’ve provided body weight and also kettlebell options if you are Qing a gear workout instead of a boot camp that day.

First I provide stats in regard to mental health, then below using those numbers provide each round of exercises.

Do your normal COP warmup, then move on to the suggestions below.

9% of men in the United States have daily feelings of depression or anxiety.
33% of those men mentioned above take medication because of those feelings.
25% of those men actually spoke to a mental health professional in regard to their feelings.
85 – White men aged 85 and above have the highest rate of suicide in the United States.

9 – Turkish getups
33 – Kettlebell swings or Calf raises
25 – Curls or Big Boy (WW2) Situps
85 – Flutters

17% have a common mental disorder, e.g. depression, anxiety, phobias, etc.
43% of adults believe they have had a mental disorder at some point in life.
25% of people with eating disorders are men.
20% of people will have a diagnosable mental health condition in any given year.

17- Cleans / Flying  Squirrels
43 – American hammers
25 – Merkins
20 – Flutters

20 – Veterans commit suicide daily
75% of deaths by suicide are male
32% of Americans have anxiety disorders
36% of all psychological referrals are for men.

20- Lawnmowers / Diamond merkins
75- Rosa Litas
32- Clean and Press / Jump Squat
36- LBC’s

Some final stats to consider: In the US, 7% of adults have major depression, 17% have depression, 13% of youths aged 12-17 have major depression which equals 3.1 million.  6% of people have PTSD or 12 million.

As time allows, feel free to repeat the sets again and be sure to leave time for COT and discussion of mental health and our own personal battles.

Let’s lock shields brothers!

If you have any questions, feel free to reach out to me on Twitter at @TheWestate and follow F3 Mental Battle at @F3Battle.

Also, on Mental Battle Day, please be sure to tag your tweets and other social media as #F3MentalBattle and #F3Battle2020.

  • The Mission of F3 is to plant, grown and serve small workout groups for the invigoration of male community leadership.

If you would like to listen to last year’s Roundtable podcast, visit:

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/f3mentalbattle-3-27-19/id1218921251?i=1000431825661

or Pick Up The Six:

https://soundcloud.com/f3pickupthesix/pick-up-the-six-f3mentalbattle

Drop Thrill Out!

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Thrillmania – Uno Style At JOC

So our fearless Site Q apparently wasn’t feeling well, so he left Kenyan and I to lead the way at JOC and this is the nonsense I came up with.

Take one deck of Uno cards and use your numbers 0-9 as follows.  1-9 equals your rep and 0 = 10 reps.  Strange how we never found a 0 today.

Color determines exercise:

Blue – Merkins
Green – LBC
Yellow – Squats
Red – Lunges
Skip – Run a lap
+2 – Pick 2 exercises, 2 reps of each
+4 – All 4 exercises, 4 reps of each
Reverse – Repeat last rep, but keep going around the circle (rule change from real Uno)
Wild – Change color/exercise

It was a fun morning, got a little warm out there in the fog.  Speaking of the fog, I wonder if some Pax got lost in the fog.  Anyway, thanks Big Papi for inviting me to Q.

I’m Site Q now for The Fort’s 0630 IR Friendly/Low Intensity workout at WEP in Fort Mill Saturday’s .  Would love to have any of you Q or join us.  0630 each Saturday.

The Thrill is gone!

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The Hindenburg Hop

Seven was the count for a cold crisp morning at Milkshake. There was some great fellowship this morning as we rucked/power walked around The Fort.

As we reached the top parking lot near Pikes, we circled up and did a little number called Pass the Dutchie. We took our rucks off and passed them around in a circle. There was an attack dog barking at us so after a few minutes, we decided to hightail it out of there and continue our our journey through The Fort.

As we reached downtown Fort Mill, we proceeded to do an Indian Plank up the hill. We lined up in a straight line in plank position and the HIM in the back of the line lunged to the front. We did a few rounds of this up the hill.

We headed down Tom Hall Street and Twister made a pit stop at Hardee’s. There were a few requests for biscuits, but Twister came back empty handed.

We started to make our way back to COT and we learned some interesting Fort Mill trivia. The Pikes building was designed to resemble the Hindenburg as the original owner was actually on the Hindenburg. I haven’t fact checked this, so I am just taking Twisters word for it. We may need to run this by Mayor Spitz to see if it checks out.

Back to COT for some praises and prayers.

– JWOW

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Happy Valentine’s Day, Happy Birthday, Birdcage is Bad at Math…

Well, there were a few things we knew and one thing we learned on this cool Friday morning.  First, it was Valentine’s Day and many PAX were trying to get some last minute swollness.  Second, it was Birdcage’s birthday and even though it was his special day, he wanted to spend it leading HIM in a local high school parking lot.  Finally, we learned that Birdcage is not good at Maths.  The other thing that he struggles with is BackBlasts, but for now we will set that aside…

Upon arriving PAX were treated to a warm up which included the tried and tested, moseying, side straddle hops, windmills, etc.  The warmup may have included none of these, but it was so forgettable that I have already forgotten…

It was at this point that the PAX were introduced to some of the worst math of all time as Birdcage led all to a parking spot that would serve as the starting point for the morning’s supply of heavy lifting.  “We will do one tricep extension in the first spot, two in the second, three in the third, etcetera until we get to the end,” Birdcage said enthusiastically.  “Are you aware of exponentials and how many we will ultimately do,” asked many self interested PAX.  The mumble chatter would be strong with this group…

Omaha was called by parking spot 21…  That was how the morning progressed, and in all honesty, it was refreshing to see Birdcage get worn out by some strong mumble chatter and much weeping and gnashing of teeth.

In the end all were recipients of some solid face kicks and pain implementation before a jovial name o’ rama and an enthusiastic rendition of Happy Birthday…

https://twitter.com/f3_uhaul/status/1228283967914303490?s=21

 

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Valentine’s Day Hangover Milkshakes for Everyone

Well, after very active Valentine’s Day celebrations there were 6 HIMs in need of recovery Saturday morning.  Almost 3 miles of ground covered, all while actively obeying traffic laws to ensure we did not have another run in with local law enforcement.

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Back to the bells

I had the date on my calendar, but when I got a reminder over the weekend from 3D, I couldn’t help but be excited!

While I’ve Q’d my fair share at the old digs (The Tomahawk), this was my first official Q at the Snake Pit!  As I’ve thrown down some memorable Qs (there was the time…nobody was allowed to put down their bell for the entire workout, or the time we did the catch me if you can and we ran all the way out to Dobys Bridge Road, or the Ring of Fire (had to be there))…so what to do….what. to. do.

So there we were, the morning of…the PAX rolled in, a disclaimer was disclaimed, and off we went…the PAX lined up for an Indian run, man in the back performed 3 KB burpees before running to the front of the line as went meandered our way all the way around the perimeter of the school grounds.

The PAX rallied up at the bottom of a hill where they were divided into 2 groups of 4.  Stations (cones) were set up instructing the PAX on what exercise to complete.  There were 4 stations about 15 yards apart with exercises as follows:

1. KB swings, 2. Alternating Lunges w/ overhead KB triceps extension, 3. KB squat, curl, and press, 4. swap the bell for a 35lb brick and run to a cone about 25 yards away and back (this PAX was the timer).  Exercises at each station were completed while the PAX were running.  To rotate, the PAX that completed the run made their way back to station 1, while all other PAX bear crawled with their bell to the next station.  After 4-5 rotations through the stations, the PAX returned to the starting location for PAX-led Mary and COT.

Always an honor to lead!

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the walking workout

Hive, the weather was clear, but wind was pronounced.  we had 10 at the hive so hive x2.  the workout was a walking workout times for each exercise.

kettle curls

tricept ,

side swings with step

butt kickers

halo

bob n weave

L,R,C mill press

Good mornings with step

lung swist

inch worm

clean l,r

Center high pull

butt kickers

duck walk

l,r, c. high hold

clean step

abs work , running man, 20 count, side hip lift 20 count, mak tar gi, 20 count, left hip lif 20 count, and mountain climbers 20 count.

stretch.

 

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LE TOUR DE WEP Dora Style

Great morning for a Q, my third one of the week, I was super pumped since my sidekick Sonic (2.1- 8 years old) accepted to take the lead roll and co Q with me.

This time I brought my battle rope and chatters started early, we welcomed all PAX. Drop Thrill was in charge of the milkshakers so off they went.

With the Bootcampers we grabbed the rope and moseyed/walked across the wet and cold grass to the playground for the warm up, many PAX whined about getting  their toesies wet but the idea is to get out of your comfort zone and accelerate, this is why you leave your fartsack every morning. We explained that we will move as a team and our team will be as fast as the slower PAX so we all encouraged each other to get better (this is what F3 is all about)

Warm up led mostly by Sonic:

Side straddle hops
Windmill
Weed picker
Low slow squat
Moroccan night clubs
Low slow merkin
Mountain climber

I mapped the park on my phone for 15 stops and we run in between stops (picture attached), we used the walking trail to run around the park. The idea was to complete the following Dora:

100 merkins (4 stops x 25)
200 carolina dry docks (5 stops x 40)
300 overhead claps (6 stops x 50)

We went back to our starting position at the playground for some fun with the battle rope.

Our team was split into two groups for some Tug of war competition, PAX enjoyed this part as adrenaline kicked in while pulling the rope in a friendly competition. I’m definitely repeating this in my Q’s

.

We had abut 11 minutes left so it was time for our superhero visit and the crowd started cheering:

Captain Thor
1 big boy situp,  4 american hammers
2 big boy situps,  8 american hammers
3 big boy situps,  12 american hammers
Progressive to 10 big boy situp,  40 american hammers

3 rounds of Superman to stretch the abs, honey mooners, downward dogs and tunnel of man for Sonic back and forth to finish our beatdown,

we finished our day running back to COT carrying the rope as a group.

We met with the milkshakers for namearama, announcements, prayers and praises.

Thanks to Slash for the opportunity to lead this great group of PAX, some of them I had only seen once or twice but it’s all about the camaraderie.

My 2.1 Sonic really enjoyed this as he does everytime he comes to F3 with me, all PAX welcomed him as one more of us encouraging him every minute, he’s only 8 but not afraid of the gloom.

TINSEL and SONIC are out!!

 

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Too Much Mania For Fort Mill

Today seemed like a good day to shake up things and try to get arrested.  But wait, I’m getting ahead of myself.

We headed out from WEP and took a nice slow stroll towards downtown.  Along the way stopping for a few reps and exercises now and then.

I should’ve known something would happen because when Wegmania and Thrillmania both occur at the same point on the globe, then surely Fort Mill’s Finest will show up and they did.

We were hanging out doing 11’s at First Baptist when not one, not two but three policy officers showed up asking us questions, apparently being tipped off that we were supposedly spray painting the fair church grounds.  Of course we weren’t, but I figured I’d just play it safe and we moved on from there.

After we made a full loop and made it back to WEP, we did a bit of stretching, and some reps and then waited around for Tinsel and his followers to make to back to COT.

Needless to say, the cops showing up wasn’t on my Q plans, but like life, you never know what might come at you.  #GetRight #LiveRight

We missed site Q Shady out today, but you guys did awesome and there was much fellowship had.

Anyone that knows of anyone out for IR or any FNG’s, please send them this way.  Milkshake is a great workout to either help with injuries, or to get your feet wet with F3.

Thanks Shady for the chance to lead.

Thrill out.

 

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2

Playing Games With The Gods At Pantheon

38 Special threw out a request for a Q for this week on Slack, gotta stay off Slack but I obliged and here I am.

There were many runners running and pre running and pre pre running but none of them wanted to hand with the gods, so we just had three plus myself.

The Uno deck was in play and the thang went like this:

Uno rules mostly, and each card number 2-9 equals the rep or 0 equals 10.

Colors determine the exercise:

Blue – Merkins
Green – LBCs
Yellow – Squats
Red – Lunges

Special cards:

Skip – Run
+2 – Two exercise, two reps each
+4 – Found reps of each exercise
Reverse – Repeato the last exercise
Wild – Change color and exercise

Burpee Penalty if you don’t have a match card (same number of color, or wild).

Thanks for putting up with my fun and games Q that I stole from 3D many months ago.  Hopefully it was  good one.

Many thanks to all Pax of F3 as I approach three years in the Gloom this March.

Also the Rooster and Yeti are fast approaching.

March 27 is Mental Battle Day in F3, with a focus on men’s mental health.  More info to come.

Thanks 38 Special for the chance to lead.

Thrill Out.

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