(alarm buzzing) - [Jason] It's just after 5:00 AM, barely a car on the road.

Most people still sleeping, morning rush hour yet to begin, but back in the shadows off Providence Road, you'll find them.

- One, two, three.

- Three.

- [Jason] It's an early morning workout.

It takes place every single day.

- It fulfills a man's need and drive for purpose.

One, two, three.

- Seven.

- We're middle-aged men and we just didn't wanna be fat anymore.

- [Jason] A combination of stretches, strength training, and running.

- We just knew that there were a lot of men that needed this.

- [Jason] But there's no personal trainers, no gym memberships to pay.

All guys have to do is simply show up.

- We plant, grow, and serve small workout groups for men in order to invigorate male community leadership.

- [Leader] All right, right hand high.

- [Jason] This is F3 Nation, Fitness, Fellowship, and Faith.

It's part workout group, part military style boot camp, and part fraternity.

- As I like to call this, grown man recess.

Like this is, you know, like this is adult playtime.

- The credo is, we leave no man behind, but we leave no man where we find him.

- [Jason] It all started on 1-1-11.

January 1st, 2011 when a few friends decided to branch off from a weekend workout group they'd already been in.

- First day we got 30 guys.

- Okay.

- Which I thought was New Year's resolution, right?

Not gonna see it again.

Next week we had 32 guys.

- How to count is based on the military system of counting during physical training.

We modify it to keep it simpler.

- [Jason] David Redding spent nine years in the Army, but after getting out and going to law school, he had some trouble staying in shape.

- And I would lose the same 30 or 40 pounds over and over again.

So, I was looking for a way to be more consistent and I thought if I worked out with some other guys like we did every morning in the Army, we had physical training every morning.

That way I would have a reason to get up and go out.

- At the time, I was watching a lot of "Colbert Nation," "The Colbert Show."

(dramatic music) (eagle screeching) And I said, I like "Colbert Nation," why don't we do F3 Nation?

And that was how it came about.

- [Jason] The early morning workouts are generally 45 minutes long and take place seven days a week, rain or shine, with most of the guys going to about four or five workouts a week.

- That brotherhood, that support, just the push for everyone to be successful in the workout and do the most that they could was enough to bring me back the next week and it snowballed from there.

- That's really the band of brothers type element that forms within a small workout group.

- [Jason] To lighten the mood during workouts, some good natured ribbing of one another is common.

And over the years, guys have developed their own jargon.

Words, letters, and abbreviations describing things.

FNG for example, stands for friendly new guy.

- We call the exercises weird and funny things.

A lot of pop culture references, you know, kinda end up in there, particularly if you're kind of that Gen-X ish age, you know, all those 80s and 90s references.

- This is not something that you're gonna experience in a formal gym by any means.

No one's gonna normally come up to you and make fun of your shorts or talk to you in a manner that might be slightly derogatory.

That's just simply the nature of it.

- [Jason] And everyone who attends gets a nickname.

- The nicknames are just a, it's kind of part of the tribalism of it.

- [Jason] Nicknames like Alby, Hello Kitty, Dark Helmet, and Ruby Slippers.

- Snowflake, Tin Cap.

We say it has to be kind of slightly insulting.

That's kind of part of it, right?

- You got a buddy back home, if a guy's got a big nose, he's the schnoz.

I mean, he's not wondering if he has a big nose.

He knows he's got a big nose.

- And quite frankly, it's what most people will remember about an individual is perhaps that nickname.

And so, it just became an easy way to meet and get to know people on a different level.

- All right, any announcements?

- [Jason] The workouts always end with what the guys call the circle of trust where they make announcements and go around the circle with each guy saying his name, nickname, and age, it's all about building camaraderie.

- Hi, Frank, Full House, 39.

- Full House.

- Matt Rose, Jewel, 36.

- His weights, Cornwallace, 28.

- [Jason] What started in Charlotte has gone worldwide with F3 groups now in 48 states in more than a dozen countries.

- I'll go visit family in another state.

I'll just hop on the website, figure out if there's a workout and show up.

And they're like, oh, you're from, they love it.

You know, they're amazed to see somebody from another place come by.

They're excited to have you there.

You get to find out a little bit about their traditions.

- There's a guy out in the Puget Sound who has started an F3 workout inside the prison.

- And what's happened is you've seen these great expansion of it because we're reaching so many different men at so many different levels and that perhaps to me is the part that shocked me the most is just to how deeply we've connected with men at all ages and all stages of their life.

- [Jason] What's made F3 such a success, the guys say, isn't the free workouts, it's something else.

- We were an exercise group for a while, but we became a leadership group pretty quickly and that's really what we still are.

- We aren't here as a workout group to get men more fit.

That's gonna be a byproduct of the fact that we are here to unlock the man that you were created to be inside you.

That's what we're here for.

That's what I'm here for.

- That's the mission of F3.

Plant, serve, and grow small men's workouts in order to invigorate male leadership and that male leadership occurs as men come together and something unique occurs when they work out together.

And from there, a man's decision is to take steps within their own life, is completely up to them, but we've just seen magical things happen.

- [Jason] The guys take turns leading the various workouts, have developed a foundation, and volunteer in the community.

- If you see a bunch of guys in black T-shirts with the F3 on it on the side of the road, they're not looking for trouble.

They're probably picking up trash.

- [Jason] From Charlotte to around the world, F3 is building male friendships and creating leaders all while breaking a little sweat in the process.

For "Carolina Impact," I'm Jason Terzis reporting.