HAPPY NEW YEAR!

some people don't wait until the New Year to attack their goals..

New Years schedule update:
Saturday 9am Pain Clinic
Monday 9am only (no evening classes)
Tuesday - regular schedule back in effect (5pm & 6pm)

You guys have made 2011 one hell of a ride. I'm working on a video slideshow to recap all the incredible stuff you all did and it's truly inspiring. 1000s of pounds were lifted/swinged/snatched/pushed, dozens of miles were ran, and 100s of pounds were lost in the process. Throughout it all, we've grown in numbers and strength. And I challenge each and everyone of you to make 2012 stronger and better. Just keep fighting and kicking ass with a smile on your face (much like the Honey Badger's above smile after she told that rope who is boss).

Be safe guys...look out for another, and have a great New Years, it is well deserved!

Now Is the Time

THE HAMMER!

I received an email the other day from a prospective client who is thinking about joining PSKC. It kinda fell along the lines of "I need to be in better shape" before I start and worrying if they would "fit in".

Let me tell you about Mike " aka the Hammer". I was at the Water Shop one day refilling the jugs when a guy asked me about the gym. I told him to take the intro and come on down. A few days later he walked in ... and hasn't left since. That was roughly just a little over a month ago.

Now some of you may not know who he is because he doesn't say much, but the Hammer is always smiling and happy to be there, not to mention busting his ass in the process. Also, you put a sledge in that dude's hands and watch out! Here's what Mike posted on the PSKC Facebook page a few days back:

"Just want to say thank you to Dale, Mo and everyone that is PSKC. Tomorrow will make it a month since I've started at PSKC and after a weigh in today I've lost 20lbs. Wish I would've found out about PSKC a long time ago."

He also told me the other day that for the first time in a long time he can now buy XL shirts instead of 2XLs.

Mike could have sat around longer telling himself he needed to get in better shape or tried to make excuses for not starting. You don't need to "get in shape" before coming here, you just need to promise yourself that this year will start something that will last for the rest of your life.

It's that time of the year when people endeavor to make resolutions to get healthier. Two weeks to two months go by and that fire slowly begins to flame out. This year promise yourself to transform your body and mind into the strongest and most resilent machine..

As my mentor Josh Bunch recently said;

"Visions are not goals to be jotted on paper this New Years. They are but ideals burnt into your heart you can not live without. They are born a moment in time that we remember forever."

When will that time be for you?

Speaking of time...it's time for Recipe of the Week brought to you by Quadzilla!

Last week we satisfied your Toro Loco cravings, this week we're helping you out with your China City pickup.

PORK FRIED “RICE”

WHAT YOU NEED:

1 lb Ground pork

1 small Cauliflower

1 Zucchini chopped

2 Carrots chopped

1 shallot ( or 1/2 onion) small dice

2 cloves garlic fine dice

2 eggs

1 tbsp coconut oil

1/2 tsp ginger

1/2 tsp oregano

s&p to taste

WHAT TO DO:

Cut cauliflower tops off and pulse in food processor until it resembles "rice"

Brown ground pork in a large pan and once cooked, remove pork to a dish to add at the end, keeping the rendered fat.

Cook onions on medium heat in the pork fat until they start to soften and add carrots and zucchini.

Cook for a couple minutes stirring frequently. Reduce heat to medium low and add garlic, ginger, and oregano, after about half a minute add "rice" and pork. Stir and cover for a couple minutes until rice is tender.

Fry up the 2 eggs in coconut oil, chop them in the pan and add them to the gang. Jade East has nothing on this!

Shaking Off the Christmas Hangover..

Christmas cookies, Christmas cookies, and more cookies. It was good to get back in the gym and shed off the junk food funk. We had a really good showing this morning and also got to watch Ninjy do her birthday burpees!

happy birthday Ninjy!

This week there will be some minor schedule changes for the New Years week. All evening classes this week will be at 6pm only. Here's the breakdown:

Tuesday - 6pm only
Wednesday - 9am & 6pm
Thursday - 6pm (we will still host the deadlift crew at 7pm)
Friday - 9am & 5pm
Saturday - 9am Pain Clinic

We will start back on regular schedule Monday, January 2nd. Also speaking of New Years we are changing the way we do our intro classes. Intro classes will now be by appointment only and they will cover 2 X 1 hour sessions. As a beginner you must complete both 1 hour fundamental sessions before you can attend regular classes. Cost for the beginner's program is $40.

We are now accepting positions for the first beginners program. Please email me at: louisdaleking@yahoo.com to reserve your spot now. Make 2012 your strongest, healthiest, and funnest year yet!

A VERY MERRY CHRISTMAS TO PSKC

Wishing you all a very Merry Christmas!

We just wanted to take a quick minute to wish all of our PSKC family a very Merry Christmas. You guys are truly a gift to us that gives every single day. We are truly blessed and fortunate to have the members that make up our PSKC tribe.

soo damn cool

And want to especially thank you guys who gave us all gifts this year! The staff is enjoying our cheat day with all the great cookies, chocolate pretzels, buckeyes, and cinnamon rolls. And we will definitely being loving the extremely badass custom sign that Pops and you guys put together. Also want to send a big thanks to coach Trappy and Cyborg for getting the Oly lifting shoes!

Finally, Santa didn't forget you guys either. Because we've seen a big increase in the amount of female lifters who are attending squat and deadlift sessions, Santa got you a little something for the badass chicks...

Pink Inzer Power belt..

Now, don't go getting all excited. That will be the first and LAST pink item at the compound!

Merry Christmas guys. Hope you get to enjoy much needed family time with your loved ones. I cannot thank you enough for the year round gifts you all give to us. God bless..

P.S. Monday schedule: the only class on Monday will be the 9am option. No evening classes..

Recipe of the Week: Trappy's Taco Pile

Can't "cook"? No problem...

Don't have enough time? No problem...

This week we bring you the eloquently named "Trappy's Taco Pile". This is especially good if you get the hankering for some Toro Loco goodness, just forget about the tortillas, rice, and beans..

WHAT YOU NEED:
11/2 pounds of lean ground beef (or buffalo, deer meat, ground turkey, etc)

1 can of tomato sauce
1 tbl Cumin
1/2 tbl Paprika
1 tbl Chili powder
Salt to taste
Pepper to taste
1/2 tbl Garlic powder


Toppings
Lettuce, green onion, tomato, black olives, guacamole, salsa and jalapeños.

WHAT TO DO:

Sauté your beef (for the West Siders, that means place in skillet and stir around until it's brown)

Add tomato sauce and seasonings and simmer for about 15 minutes.

Top with your choice of toppings and enjoy!


Boom! It's that easy! Dig in amigos....

PSKC Around the World..

Repping PSKC in the down under...

Portsmouth, Ohio: population of approximately 20,000

Worldwide Internet users: approximately 2 billion

The Internet can do some pretty damn cool things. To the willing there isn't a single topic that you can't learn about. From cold fusion, to Hinduism, to advanced mathematics, to sports, to news, and even about kettlebells...knowledge is a click away. 

A pretty cool feature for a website and/or Facebook page is an analytics app. It basically tells you how many page hits/visits you get and where they are coming from. Every couple weeks I'll take a look and see how traffic is looking for the blog. I'm always amazed at the reach we have outside of Scioto County. Since we started up our website, here's a list of countries were people log on and visit the blog:

India


Ireland

Brazil

Ukraine

France

Canada

United Kingdom

Australia

Germany

Russia

Colombia

Slovenia

Argentina

Poland

At first I thought these folks must have stumbled upon our site by accident (as I'm sure most of them have), but then each month I began to notice a steady amount of folks visit the blog from those countries on a routine basis. Pretty damn cool, giving a little Appalachian American kettlebell culture to the world can't be a bad thing.

Then it really hit home when we got in our new hoodies and shirts, I received two separate emails from two guys in Australia (on separate sides of the continent nonetheless), asking if they could buy some PSKC gear. It was one of the cooler things that has happened. It wasn't the fact that these guys wanted to shirts, it was what they told me.

Bobby wrote:
"I'm a big fan of your gym and what you do and represent. It's very inspiring to see how in touch with your community you and the gym are and what you guys do to help better it.  I would like to one day run a business with sense of community like that.  The training programs, videos and everything have provided me with heaps of awesome stuff that I have been using with my clients and groups as well, so for that I say thank you.  Buying a hoody and representing like that is a small way of showing some love.  It is indeed a weird and wonderful world the internet.."

Bobby from all the way in Saint Kilda, Austraila

After David, from Bridgetown Austraila (10467 miles from Portsmouth) received his hoodie, he emailed me:
"Got the hoodie mate! It's a ripper. Really well made, even the "Boss" was impressed. Do I freak my neighbours out climbing ropes in the trees of my backyard....yes, do I freak my neighbours out smashing an old tractor tyre with a sledge...yes I do. Do they look at me weird when they see me lifting and throwing an old log around over and over again....Yep! At least I can look a little more presentable now"

David down in Bridgetown, Austraila

It's truly humbling to see people out and about in town proudly representing their PSKC gear, let alone get awesome photos of people across the world. But this photo of J.J. wearing his hoodie as he was heading out to Recruit training for the USMC made my heart feel the warmest...

God speed brother..

So to those outside our small town, thank you for logging in and checking us out. We are proud of our tiny town. Our town like the world has some problems, but nothing that can't be fixed as long as there's good people willing to do what needs to be done...

USMC & PSKC Round III

I want to express a huge thanks to the members of PSKC who came out and volunteered their time and energy to help run the USMC event on Saturday. Both PSKC and RSS Huntington are indebted to you all for your never ending support.


 Each event continues to grow and get better, yesterday was pretty damn awesome. This time around we wanted to provide more of a mission driven aspect to the training. Upon arrival we broke the poolees into a platoon formation, and assign members to designated squads. The first phase of the mission of the mission was move a "disabled vehicle" from the Forward Operating Base (FOB) to the Combat Outpost (COP). Each squad would rotate pushing duties at each block. The approximate distance was 1 kilometer.

Once they arrived at the COP, they rested and recovered for a few minutes, believing all they had to do was push the vehicle back to the FOB and call it a day.

However, at the COP, the platoon received a different mission. Behind the flood wall we had our Phase II station set up. Each squad had to hold a 95lb barbell overhead while the remaining squad members ran 2 X levee sprints.

receiving in brief

After the levee Phase it was time to RTB (return to base). Only this time, at each intersection the Platoon received small arms fire and had to fight their back to base. At each intersection the entire platoon did 2 X burpees. As they progressed further they did 2 more burpees for every intersection they crossed. 

the final push

And as usual throughout the day...THE WIZARD ALWAYS GETS HIS VICTIMS...

introducing a new way to "Tebow"

A sincere thanks to you all. We couldn't have done it without your support. To the young men and women of RSS Huntington, keep up the great work and we applaud your future service to your country. 

Recipe of the Week: Quadzilla's Tasty Burger

"mmmmm...this is a TASTY burger"

Today in the gym was all about squats, followed by more squats, and finishing up with squats.
3 X 5 Front Squat
3 X 3 Overhead Squat
Finisher : Whole lotta squata 20/10 X 8 (3 rounds) of bottom to bottom air squats

Your lower body is in need of some serious recovery. What better than a delicious recipe from Quadzilla herself to start the recovery process.

QUADZILLA! Some nicknames are self explanatory 

This week we bring you a badass burger recipe. Not just any burger, one tasty ass burger (Pulp Fiction fans will get this reference. If you've never seen Pulp Fiction, yes Ninjy I'm talking to you, watch it!)


WHAT YOU NEED:

1 shallot diced

2 cloves garlic diced

1/2 zucchini diced

1 1/3lb lean ground turkey

1 egg

3 strips bacon

2 portobello mushroom caps, stem removed

Handful fresh spinach

WHAT TO DO:

Preheat oven to 350.

Cook bacon in skillet over medium heat.

Drizzle mushroom caps with olive oil and pop in oven, gill size up. Remove after 5 minutes.

Meanwhile chop zucchini, garlic, and shallot, and add to turkey. Add the egg to help bind it all together because the turkey is so lean. Form into 4 burger patties.

Once bacon is cooked to desired crispness, remove and drain bacon fat. Leave the excess bacon evidence in the pan. Cook turkey burger in pan with bacon goodness.

Eat a piece of bacon (yes it is mandatory) 

Add fresh spinach to mushroom and top with burger and bacon. 

If you're really hungry use both caps as one "bun". 

your "bun" 

You'll need a knife and fork for this one!

Eating primal differently does not suck! Samuel L. Jackson does not lie, trust me this is tasty!

Quick note about this Saturday. Once again, you guys have stepped up tremendously to help out for the Marine event on Saturday. I cannot thank you all enough. Since the event begins at 0900, we will have the Pain Clinic promptly at 0800. So get up, get your coffee then get ready for some partner suffering and an amazing rest of the the morning with some future Marines!

5 Minute Snatch Test

Tonight we hit up a fundamental kettlebell test of manhood, the RKC Snatch test. The gold standard is to complete 100 reps with a 24kg (male) and 16kg (female). As you can see we had a pretty good showing, minus the fact we didn't train specifically for this event.

Before we launched neck deep into the Snatch test, we worked on strength development with the floor press and renegade row. It's always great to see new folks learn movements they wouldn't do anywhere else.

Don't forget about the upcoming Marine event this Saturday at 0900. I emailed out the mission brief for Operation Horsepower. If you still want to volunteer or just come spectate, email me at louisdaleking@yahoo.com

USMC/PSKC Part III - Saturday 17DEC

It's that time again! On Saturday 17DEC at 0900, PSKC will open up its doors to host future Marines and warriors of our nation. We will put them through a few hours of physical training and team building workouts designed to better prepare them for recruit training.

I'm calling on your support to make this happen again. We will need volunteers to help run the event smoothly. The last two times have been outstanding. This time we are going to step it up a notch and really provide a mission focused event for these young men and women that will test their physical and mental strength and most importantly teach them to work as a team under stress.

We need at least 8-10 volunteers to be assigned to each squad of future Marines and help guide them their mission. Please email and or Facebook me to let me know ASAP if you are able to volunteer your time to help out. Once I get the cadre of instructors together, I will email you out your assignments and how the day will flow. Trust me...you won't want to miss it.

This week we worked a multiple of movements and skills and also got a chance to work on some time based workouts. On Monday we went the classic Training Room "2 minute torture" ...see below for an example of what one round looks like.


Then for Tuesday's Mudder workout, we stole a page from SOF WODs for the workout.
Every minute on the minute you complete:
20 squats
30 pushups
25 (4 count) flutter kicks
12 pullups
1 minute of jump rope
Repeat this sequence for 45 minutes!

the pregnant pride of Sardina

Wednesday we combined heavy deadlifting and handstand pushups for the skill, then went into a finisher of:

5 rounds

Power Clean 105/75 - 12

Box Jump - 12

such an inspiration!

get some Kevin! Our favorite retiree killing HSPUs

On Thursday, we worked some Olympic lifting with the Snatch then the workout was:

 Double KB Squat 44s/26s

Push Press 115/85

K2E

10-9-8-7-6…all the way down to 1

Friday we worked on pistols with rope climbs then hit up a triplet of 

Wall Ball

KB High Pulls

V-Ups

30-20-10-5

1st rope climb!

BEST..PHOTO..EVER

Saturday of course was our weekly Pain Clinic...

Definition of partner suffering

See you guys tomorrow for the 9am and 6pm classes. Get up the great work and don't give into the temptation of "taking the holidays off". Continue to strive and progress...it's the best gift you can give yourself..