FIT NEWS
Fitness, Fellowship & Faith It’s 5 am on a Thursday morning. The street lights are still humming in the distance. Their pale yellow lights reflect off the frozen branches of trees as they bow over the street.
Every workout ends in a Circle of Trust (COT). Which consists of the leader (aka the “Q”) sharing something that has been on his mind. It can be a devotion, a recent lesson learned, a quote, etc.
Many popular parks of Memphis like Sea Isle, Overton, and Tom Lee are empty despite a thin line of men jogging down a path, running through a field, or climbing a steep set of stairs. Many of them donning a white circular logo on the center of their chest.
To wrap up the workout, there is always an optional Parking Lot Coffee (PLC) event for the guys to hang around to drink coffee and have fellowship.
THESE ARE THE MEN OF F3 MEMPHIS. Founded in Charlotte in 2011, F3 has exploded across the nation. Tennessee alone hosts F3 organizations in Memphis, Nashville, Franklin, Murfreesboro, Chattanooga, Knoxville, and more. F3 is a national not-for-profit network of men who work out in peer-led groups. The three F’s stand for: Fitness, Fellowship, and Faith. The F3 website states their mission statement is “…to plant, grow, and serve small workout groups for men for the invigoration of male community leadership.” F3 workouts are free and open to all men, held outdoors, and happen rain or shine. Men circle up to hear directions from a non-professional peer leader. These leaders take turns administering a boot camp style workout each and every day of the week. Workouts often consist of kettlebells, cinder blocks, sandbags, running, interval training, rucking, pull-ups in a horse stable, carrying heavy things across a field, tires, jump ropes... the list goes on. These acts of pain and suffering commence for 45 minutes (except for Saturday mornings at Shelby Farms, they are an hour long).
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These men are not all cut from the same cloth. The gaps in ages span decades, from men in their 20s to men in their 60s. There are electricians, software engineers, cartoon artists, executives, lawyers, physicians, and more. It is a diverse group. However, within the diversity of the group lies an unbreakable commitment to one another. This commitment is exemplified in the F3 Motto: “Leave no man behind, leave no man where you found him.” Not only are the men of F3 Memphis committed to one another, but they are committed to the communities of Memphis, Germantown, Collierville, Lakeland, Arlington, Bartlett, and more. They’ve lent a hand in the 2019 flood in Germantown and worked with nonprofits like SOS and Streets Ministries. The layers of F3 are as deep as the men who are involved. It is a group of men who have planted roots of physicality, fellowship, commitment, faith, service, and friendship that will serve this community well for years to come. To find out more about F3 Memphis and the F3 organization, go to F3Memphis.com and F3Nation.com.
