On Hip-Hop breakdance burpees and EHing the future king of England to F3
We fell down. We got back up. Together—10,000 freaking times in about half an hour and raised a ton of money.
Sign up/log your burpees here.
You’re not going to do 100 burpees a day for a month and not buy a shirt are you?
MABA has gone international. We’ve got men on four continents attempting the annual Make America Burpee Again challenge — 3,100 burpees in January. Our friends in the UK call it the Centurion Burpee Challenge — I tried to talk them into calling it Make the Colonies Burpee Again, but they weren’t having it. Anyway, they have banded together to fall down, get back up, together for a good cause. AV (aka Peter Burnell-Jones), who posts in Godalming UK, explains.
How’d you get involved with F3? Who EH’d you?
In mid-September 2020 I had a personal life-changing event that made me truly sit up and make me look at who I was and who I wanted to be. It just so happened that a week later I was having dinner with a friend (@Nerd), and he started talking about this new men’s workout group (F3) and would I be interested in coming along and joining him for a session? My old-self would have likely said no, but I realized that I needed something in my life to not only better myself physically, but something that I could focus on and essentially distract myself, so I said yes. The rest is history.
After joining on the 28th September at #theway, Guildford UK, I poured myself into F3 and instantly felt and saw the benefits. Physically my weight started falling off and I healthily lost around 20kg (44lbs) in around 6 months. But the weight loss was not what was keeping me at F3, it was everything else that it provided. From meeting other HIM and joining in the 2nd F activities, but most noticeably, it was the 3rd F activities where I gained so much joy by putting others first, whether this was simple litter picking with 2.0's and fellow PAX, or last year's Burpee Challenge.
In March 2021 myself and Nerd set up and now lead a new F3 AO at #thelake, Godalming UK. This felt like a major step for me personally, but one that I relished. Since we started the new AO, we have had 131 BDs to date and average around 16 PAX members to each BD. It has been wonderful seeing it grow and most of the PAX who joined us on that first cold, wet and windy morning are still with us today.
What is the story behind the nickname AV (and I assume it’s pronounced A Vee, not av?)
I am lucky to be called AV (A Vee), as it was very close to being Helmet as I like to mountain bike ride. I gained the nickname as I am massively into my technology. Whether this is the latest audio product or setting up my home cinema with projector etc., I just love seeing what new products are coming to market. Quite often get asked for advice on various tech from friends. It can be an expensive hobby!
If you could EH one member of the royal family to a beatdown, who would it be and why?
That is a good question. It would have to be Prince William. Knowing that we were working out with the likely future Monrach of the UK would be an experience in itself. But the main reason would be the awareness it would raise for everyone in the UK of the benefits of F3 provides. Fitness of the mind and body should always be free and not commoditized. This would go some way to building upon the foundations that @Safari has already laid out for the UK.
You did MABA/Make the Colonies Burpee Again/the Centurion Challenge last year, correct? Why do you want to do it again?
I did indeed do the challenge last year, but after day 23 I had an agonizing pain in my right shoulder and had to stop. Turned out I had minor damage to my rotator cuff, and I was out of action for about 3 weeks. I put this down to me having only really been working out for about 3 months after doing nothing for about 10 years. So now I have had another full year of F3, 3 times a week, I feel stronger than ever. I did finally finish off the 3,100 burpees, but later than originally planned.
For you, it’s about far more than burpees. Tell us about the charity you are doing this for and why it’s important to you?
I totally agree, the physical element is a bi-product. This challenge is all about raising awareness for various local charities that support the community in so many ways. So this year the PAX have agreed to support Cranleigh RDA. They are a small charity that provide therapeutic horse-riding lessons for children and adults with additional needs.
All of their students gain so much in terms of self-belief, self-confidence and overall independence that they cannot get elsewhere. My son attends every two weeks, and to watch him grow in confidence as an individual has been amazing. The team there are such wonderful people who give up their own time to help others. So this is my way of saying thank you and hoping that the donations we can raise will help others in similar circumstances.
How can we contribute to the cause?
Putting it simply, by raising awareness of this fantastic charity. Last year, through spreading the word on our UK Burpee challenge across F3 AOs in America, we received many extremely generous donations from what were, essentially, complete strangers. It was so heart-warming and encouraging to know that others were willing to support what we were doing and trying to achieve. So if other fellow PAX are putting themselves out there and completing this challenge without doing it for a charity, then please adopt ours and know that for every Burpee you complete and therefore hopeful additional donations received, that you will be helping others in more ways than you could ever imagine.
My personal donation page is here.
We have also set up a team donation page here.
Check, please
In the last newsletter, I wrote about the generosity one PAX in St. Charles showed in offering to pay $1 for every burpee done on January 3rd at an AO called The Bayou. He set a limit of $10,000, which was like putting a wounded kitten in front of a wolf, a volunteer in front of a Nantan or a sad clown in front of @GMO.
So of course the men of F3 showed up and crushed that goal. We were 73 strong, by far the highest attendance F3 St. Charles: The Last Stop has had for a single beatdown since becoming a region 18 months ago.
I’ve been to hundreds of F3 workouts, but nothing like this one. We fell down. We got back up. Together—10,000 freaking times in about half an hour and raised a ton of money in the process.
We posted on a soggy field and easily dispatched the 10,000 goal and kept going. The highlight was Hip-Hop breakdance burpees—a burpee battle set to Michael Jackson’s Bad and meant to emulate East Coast-West Coast rapper feuds (and even funnier than it sounds). He invented those for the launch on Sunday, and they were so popular we all loudly insisted he lead them again, like kids begging for a bed time story if those kids were sweaty, smelly and covered in mud.
Though he intended to end the workout, he relented and called for the burpees that bear his name. “I was floored to have @hip-hop breakdance burpees demanded,” he wrote later. “What a weird thing to make a guy feel deeply touched.”
The donor, who has asked to remain anonymous, was thrilled to have his wallet $10,000 much lighter, and he pledged to make the “I am 3rd” burpee challenge a yearly feature of MABA. We, in turn, pledged to meet whatever goal he set.
Proof of the momentum coming out of the beatdown: By noon I had received a photo of one of those over-sized checks made out to Shriner’s Children St. Louis for $10,000. Our sweat was barely dry by the time the money was deposited.
Best recovery tips after three days of burpees
Rest
Hydrate
Lean protein
Be 30 years younger
Send proof of the weird places you do burpees
The annual “doing burpees in crazy places” is proceeding. Video or photo evidence is preferred so I can share it. Highlights from previous years include the Grand Canyon, multiple airplanes, the roof of a house and whatever the ice rink you play curling on is called.
