F3 A man who decides to turn his life around usually has a long list: work, money, marriage, faith, health. Where do you even begin? F3’s field manual gives an almost blunt answer. You start with your body.
Why does changing your life start with the body?
Your body is your most basic equipment. F3 puts it plainly: this fragile frame of flesh and bone is what carries your soul around. The soul cannot do well if the body is falling apart, and the body will fall apart if you let it sit. A body is made to be used. Leave it alone and it goes soft. Work it against steeper hills and heavier weight and it produces, in F3’s words, a bounty. It comes first for a simple, practical reason: nearly everything else a man wants to do rests on having the energy and steadiness to do it. So what does that discipline look like on an ordinary day?
What does daily fitness discipline actually look like?
F3 borrows an image from the old fitness pioneer Jack LaLanne: exercise is king, nutrition is queen, and together they make a kingdom. F3 adds a third piece, the self-control that keeps a bad habit from toppling the whole thing. Move your body, watch what you eat, hold the line against the distraction that would undo it. And the aim is specific: get faster, stronger, and tougher over time, in body and in mind. F3 even gives a plain test for why it matters. How much of a leader is a man if he gets winded pulling the family’s luggage off the airport carousel? What does a son learn from a father who cannot play catch in the yard for five minutes without sitting down? That test hints at a bigger shift in what a man is really training for.
Should a man just try to stay in shape?
No, and this is the surprise. F3 calls “staying in shape” the amateur’s goal. A man does not train to get good at training, or to look good at the beach. He trains so he is ready for whatever he will be called on to handle, and so the people who depend on him can rely on his strength. F3 puts it starkly: fatigue makes cowards of us all. A worn-out man is more likely to fold when it counts. So the goal is not to hold even. It is to keep getting a little stronger, because someone is counting on it. One practical tip F3 gives: the fastest way to get fitter is to keep showing up next to men who are a step ahead of you.
In Denver, that last part is the whole point of a workout in the gloom. Nobody is there to look good. They are there because it is easier to get up in the dark and push hard when a group of other men is already doing it beside you.
F3 calls this the King, the first step of getting right in the F3 Nation Q-Source, the field manual for virtuous leadership that F3 is built on. Read the full teaching: f3nation.com/king. F3 Denver is where men practice it. Find a workout.