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F3 Nation stands for fitness, fellowship, and faith. It is likely the largest fitness or men’s group you’ve never heard of. An estimated 85,000 to 90,000 members meet at over 4,700 locations every week to workout, build relationships with other men, improve communities, and give each other fun nicknames. John “Slaughter” Lambert is F3 Nation’s outgoing CEO - the nickname is a Silence of the Lambs reference. We talk about how F3 became so successful, and what middle aged men are looking for today.
The interview has been edited for brevity.
Johnny
What makes F3 nation different from other fitness groups, and how does it get to be so tight knit?
Lambert
The thing about F3 that makes it different is that it provides men a sense of purpose. It really, to be honest with you, doesn't have anything to do with fitness. That's just what we call the magnet. Being designed to empower men to accelerate in their lives, that's the thing. Fitness is the easiest thing to attract men because the majority of guys running around my age, middle aged, have goals to be in better shape.
If you go to the gym, and you just go to the gym, nobody's going to care or notice if you show up or not. But if you tell a friend of yours “I'll see you in the morning,” and that alarm goes off, that's a little bit of the accountability to get you out of bed and get you there. And then once you form those relationships, you know, just like when you were in college, your friends were your life. And then we get married and we have kids and we have jobs, and we kind of lose sight of all that, and all of a sudden we find ourselves alone with no deep male connections.
So all of a sudden, you've got these friends that you can confide in again. It puts meaning back in men's lives. It gives them a sense of purpose. It gives them a feeling of impact, and it propels them to do some of the things that they've wanted to do in life and they're happy with who they are.
Johnny
Can you walk me through what an F3 session looks like?
Lambert
So the first thing to know is that it's really just a grown-up recess. One of the most commonly asked questions in F3 is, “why is it men only?” Part of that answer is because it's a safe space. And it's an intimate setting as well, which is inappropriate for somebody that may not be your spouse. So guys show up. It's usually dark during the week. Workouts are usually around 5:30 am. Some are earlier, some are a little bit later, but it's usually dark out.
And it's always outdoors. It's one of the five core principles of F3. So it's outside, it's in a park, it's in a parking lot of a school or shopping center – doesn't matter.
Typically for 45 minutes or an hour, depending on the workout, it is a combination of body weight exercises and some cardio. So there's a lot of push ups, a lot of burpees, a lot of partner carries, a lot of sprints, a lot of sit ups – those types of things.
So for 45 minutes, you hang out with your friends, you share some sweat, you exercise, you encourage each other. We make sure that nobody's left behind. Regardless of the fitness levels of the individuals, the group will always stay together. And then at the end of the workout, we get around another core principle of F3 in the Circle of Trust, which is where everybody stands in a literal circle. Because it is grown men recess, we give each other silly nicknames, and we count off. You say your hospital name, your nickname, and different places do it differently. This is the bonding-sesh. This is where we check in on each other.
Johnny
Is there something that you think is special about how the organization is run and, or how it's grown?
Lambert
Yeah, absolutely. I think the big idea is that we keep it small. It's incredibly simple to be considered an F3 workout. You've got 5 core principles, and that's it. There's a book by Ori Brafman called the Starfish and the Spider. And it's really centered around the fact that in the spider, you cut the head off, the spider dies. With starfish, the power is in the tentacles. We are the latter.
There's no top down organization here. There are no mandates that come forward. There's no thick book of rules and laws about how F3 works. People are free to lead. They're free to do whatever they want in their local F3 chapter. And, you know, you can show up at a workout at 5:30 in the morning and there's nothing more expected of you. There's no recording of your name and your contact information that's required. There's no dues that are collected. There's no requirement to listen to the podcast. You don't have to know who the executive operating group for the organization is. You don't have to know who the board of directors are. You don't have to know any of that. You can just show up again if you want and nobody's going to hassle you or bother you. Unless they are worried about you.
But with that being said, the other part of the success is that you'll show up in the morning, and it doesn't take you long before you figure out that you're part of this international organization. So if the beginning and the end of F3 was in that parking lot in Walla Walla, Washington, and whatever, elementary school, you know, it wouldn't have as much impact. But when you show up and you figure out that there's tens of thousands of men all across the world doing the exact same thing at that exact same moment, that does something to you, right? It FEELS like you’re part of this huge movement. Because, well, you are.
Johnny
Can you talk to me about Sad Clown Syndrome?
Lambert
The moniker comes from The Sopranos, when Tony's sitting in front of his therapist and talks about being a sad clown. You know, laughing on the outside, crying on the inside. And that's the embodiment of what we have tallied middle aged men to inevitably sometimes become. Because, like I said, when you're growing up, you've got all those connections, certainly in school, all the way through college, and then you get married and have kids and you have a job, and that all kind of gets lost.
So you go through life without a lot of meaning and purpose and certainly without any deep connections. You know, you end up having friends who are your neighbors or your work friends, or your wife's friends’ husbands, you know, those types of things. And there's really no deep seated connection for you. So you go through life trying to be a good dad, a good friend, a good husband, a good son, but there's something missing on the inside. So you put up this great front like everything's okay, because, you know, what else are you supposed to do?
And as we know, a lot of folks aren't very successful at that in regards to the mental health crisis in the country. So that's what we referred to as the sad clown. And what F3 aims to solve is that dying a little bit on the inside part, like I've described to you earlier, and it works pretty well.
You can find an F3 Nation chapter near you here and can find John on Twitter here.
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Attaboy Slaughter. Great stuff.