How Fitness, Fellowship, Faith group helps Naperville men shape up, do good

There's mist in the air and dew on the ground as the men dash up arguably the biggest hill in Naperville, circling a set of five American flags and one other banner mounted on tall posts, then careening back down the grassy slope.

There's mud on the men's shoes and sweat down their backs as they lift cinder blocks they call “coupons” and conduct reps of planks or burpees or push-ups.

But at least there's light, as this workout comes after sunrise only once a week for the nicknamed participants in a year-old group called F3 Naperville.

The three Fs stand for Fitness, Fellowship and Faith - things the founders of the organization formed in 2011 in North Carolina thought men need in their lives to avoid becoming directionless slobs they refer to as “sad clowns,” says one of the founders of F3 in Naperville, Patrick Kathmann.

“You come out for the fitness,” says original F3 Naperville participant Frank Schulte, 44, of Aurora - nicknamed “Appletini” because he doesn't like beer. “You stay for the fellowship. The faith is the dynamite that puts it all together.”

F3, for the men who join its workouts as many as six days a week at one of six Aurora, Naperville or Oswego locations, is an organization worth being grateful for because of all of the growth - or shrinkage - it brings to their lives.

F3 workouts have helped Schulte lose weight, do good for nonprofit organizations and gain connections to other men living with purpose.

“It keeps me healthy and focused,” he said. “I've met 150 new friends that now have my back and I have theirs.”

When he heard about the workout-focused group, Maurice Uenuma of Naperville, nicknamed “Blart” for the 2009 movie “Paul Blart: Mall Cop” because he works in cybersecurity, knew it was exactly what he needed: fitness, fellowship and faith.

“Those are the three things that keep me going in life,” the 41-year-old Marines veteran said.

F3 is active on social media, with a presence on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and YouTube, and Uenuma says guys commit the night before to attending each weekday's 5:15 a.m. exercise session.

Without that online pressure, Uenuma and Wayne King of Naperville, nicknamed “Paula Deen” because he went to culinary school and works in management in the food service industry, say it'd be a lot easier to push snooze on that 4:30 a.m. alarm.

But snoozing won't build anything the group is trying to create in lives of the men it gathers. Waking up and following the leader - a different member each morning - is what builds the “special bond,” F3 participant Michael Ruffing of Naperville says they all feel.

Ruffing leads a Saturday workout one fall morning at Rotary Hill along the Naperville Riverwalk, nicknamed “Dark Tower” for the 160-foot Moser Tower that rises from the site. Although he joined F3 a few months ago, the 35-year-old who works in sales already has led eight or nine workouts.

Each F3 session begins with some fellowship, a time for introductions of “FNGs,” or Friendly New Guys. After this, the group immediately takes the few introductory facts they've heard about each new man and spits out a nickname. The leader then reminds members they're exercising of their own free will.

“We've got people of all different ages and shapes and sizes,” Ruffing says, “And that's part of the magic of it.”

The magic continues at the end of each workout of 45 minutes during the week - or an hour when the sessions begin at 7 a.m. on Saturdays. That's when the group circles up for each man to yell out his nickname and mention any social events or prayer requests. Then they circle even tighter, into a classic sports huddle, and bow their heads.

F3 participants pray to God, but allow each member to define faith for himself.

“Faith is not necessarily one of a religious mindset,” Kathmann says, “but one of, there's something bigger than you in this world and we're out there to serve others in this community.”

The group has given back through volunteer efforts with Loaves & Fishes Community Services, Feed My Starving Children and Ronald McDonald House near Northwestern Medicine Central DuPage Hospital in Winfield.

“We actively look for ways to volunteer,” Uenuma says.

And they actively recruit. Even as the men chug through hill repeats and brick-lifting circuits along the Riverwalk, they're calling out to other men on the path, “Please, come work out with us!”

Many men have, as the group has involved 225 people in the year since its founding.

Together, these men feel they're getting better - physically, socially and spiritually. They're finding, as Ruffing says at the close of one workout, “something else inside.”