It’s early in the morning, so early Venus is still visible in the sky, and Chad Brough of Omaha is performing burpee box jumps while more than half of the population of Omaha is still dreaming, and another small percentage of the city’s population is sipping their first cup of coffee.
Brough starts many mornings this way—exercising with a collective of men through a group known as F3: Faith, Fitness, and Fellowship. He’s been with F3 for more than 10 years, starting in Greensboro, North Carolina, where he had moved for work and was looking for a way to stay fit.
“When I started…I was a runner, and I had injured my foot, so I had been swimming laps. I hated it. It was like running on a treadmill in water,” Brough said. “A couple of guys invited me to F3."
Although he enjoyed working out, there was another aspect he appreciated just as much. “What I didn’t know is what a lot of other guys will say, 'there’s something missing in my life.'”
That something was fellowship.
“I’ve always journaled, throughout my life,” Brough said. “I read some past journals, and I was surprised how many times I journaled about loneliness. I was lonely and I didn’t know it. Men have a hard time admitting that.”
Through this group, he discovered he was doing more than just becoming fit.
“F3 became such an important part of my life in Greensboro,” said Brough, a health care professional. The group provided an outlet for a social life, hosting picnics and other outings on top of outdoor exercise sessions. He found a group of people he could have faith in through the circle of trust, a session held at the end of the workout where the men circle around a shovel flag—a garden shovel with a flag attached to it that is left in locations where F3 workouts are available—and are allowed to share what’s on their mind.
When he needed to move to Omaha, he knew that he would take these foundations of faith, fitness, and fellowship with him to his new home.
“I know what it’s done to change my life,” said Brough, whose F3 nickname is Wait Time. Nicknames are given to each member at the end of their first workout. “My father died at 60, I think he was a clinically and chronically depressed man. He was successful in business, but he didn’t take care of himself. I just decided I wanted to live differently.”
He continued, “I grieved losing F3 more than anything else, so when I came to Omaha, I was intent from the very first day I stepped foot in Nebraska to have F3 here.”
That was in 2016, and today, Omaha boasts more than 60 F3 workouts per week, with dozens of locations—none of which would have been possible without Brough’s enthusiasm for the group.
“The very first thing I did when I pulled my car into Turner Park in Midtown Crossing was I got out, opened my trunk, and put a shovel flag in the ground,” Brough said.“I took a picture of it, and that was my way of saying we are going to have F3 in Omaha someday.”
One by one, men began to join Brough. The first official workout session, in 2018, drew a group of about 20 men, which blossomed to 30. Weekend sessions began to have around 45 men at them. Within two years, F3 was officially registered in Omaha, or at least as official as F3 gets. They pride themselves on having a decentralized leadership.
“It’s this kind of yin-yang,” said Brough, who is chairman of the board of directors on a national level as well as a leader in the Omaha circuit. “We’re clearly a local operation. We do have a board and we do have a national nantan, but its organized kind of like a franchise system.”
The leader in each city is known as a “nantan,” an Apache word that means spiritual leader. They specifically use this term because, as Brough said, “what really distinguished the Apache from other Native American tribes was that they were decentralized, and they had a number of spiritual leaders that existed.”
While Brough himself is Christian, the group is open to people of any faith.
“We don’t lead with faith, but there’s an element in which we believe there’s a power higher than ourselves,” Brough said.
The national organization gave Omaha a $3,000 grant to cover travel for F3 members to come and teach the group their way of working out, and working. The Omaha franchise has blossomed to over 100 members, and Brough has spread his passion for this group to other areas of the midwest.
The Kansas City group has been in existence for around 5 years, and started, in part, through Brough.
“I found F3 through a an advertisement in Men’s Health,” said Jason Pitsenberger of Kansas City, who started F3 in his area with a man named Bill Green. “The second time I met Bill, we jumped in a car together, drove up to Omaha on a Friday, booked a hotel, had dinner with Chad and three other gentlemen from F3 Omaha, basically, for the purposes of greeting us, telling us what F3 was about.”
Pitsenberger said Brough is a guiding light in getting people together to not just exercise, but be there for one another. Many men are attracted to F3 (and women to the sister organization, Females in Action) because of the social aspect. Many are former military service people and want the structure and camaraderie they found through there; others need companionship as they have found their circle of friends lessen through divorce, death, children leaving home, and more.
“Chad really pushed that angle of F3,” Pitsenberger said. “People get different things out of F3, but I think the main, main thing is providing some type of community where guys can talk about struggles, about wins, about parenting, about relationships.”
The group has also expanded with a nonprofit branch called the F3 Omaha Foundation, which distributes scholarships in the name of a former member. Creighton baseball standout (and later Creighton baseball administrator) Chris Gradoville was a member of F3 before being killed by gunfire in 2021. Brough was instrumental in helping create the Chris Gradoville Community Leaders Scholarship, which is given to students who live by the credo of F3, especially pursuing strong relationships with others and helping create community.
Because, no matter if someone needs to lose 20 pounds or wants to gain muscle; if one’s doctor has mandated exercise for 30 minutes a day or simply let one know it’s a good idea to get 30 minutes of exercise a day, in the end, what matters is one’s fellowship with others.
“Every first Friday of the month we get together for lunch,” Brough said. “We have happy hours, we’re fortunate enough to have someone in the Vala’s family, and this year we had 2,000 people there as a part of F3. We do a lot together socially, because that’s where a lot of these friendships bond.”
This article originally appeared in the January/February 2025 issue of Omaha Magazine. To receive the magazine, click here to subscribe.
