For the majority of us we have an average of 5 of gym time a week (if you’re lucky). Out of 168 hours a week, you’ve only got 5 hours a week to train. That’s 300 precious minutes.

Within those precious 300 minutes a week, you’ve got to do your part. You’ve got to earn it.

This was a key takeaway I learned from the Fundamentals seminar at Gym Jones a few weeks back.

“YOU BECOME WHAT YOU DO, MORE IMPORTANTLY, YOU BECOME WHO YOU HANG AROUND. SO CHOOSE YOUR PEERS AND INFLUENCES WISELY”.

Set a higher standard for yourself. Don’t conform or believe what society claims is “hard”. Modern day society is weak, mediocre, and excuse driven. Everyone gets a trophy, no one earns anything. Don’t believe them…this is not you.

Push yourself and those around you. You’ve only got 300 minutes a week, respect that.

During those 300 minutes you have to got to be willing to commit, to attack, to journey deep within yourself and embrace the pain. Afterall, “pain is not your enemy, it is your call to greatness”.

For those 300 minutes through your effort and intensity you can create an amazing environment for people to train. PSKC is 4 walls and a roof…the magic is the people..the environment…the intensity. Don’t just TAKE from it…GIVE to it.

Give to it by being relentless by refusing to listen to the weakness in your mind telling you it hurts.
Set a higher standard.
Become the higher standard.
Don’t let anyone around you accept anything less..

Crush your weakness.
Every fucking minute….
300 minutes…time is ticking. What are you going to do about it?

We are thrilled to announce that PSKC CrossFit will be hosting a SEALFIT 20X Challenge on Saturday November 2nd!

What is the 20X Challenge?

“The 20X event is a one day (12-14 hour) crucible delivered by SEALFIT certified coaches at CrossFit gyms and other training sites around the country. The objective of 20X is to transform and expand your definition of your capabilities as an athlete and human being.

20X demonstrates that you are capable of at least 20 Times more than you think you are. You will experience a permanent shift in your awareness and confidence. This training is a great mental toughness preparation for the famous Kokoro Camp, which you may decide is your next 20X goal after the challenge. You will test yourself against the SEALFIT standard and learn techniques that will allow you to dominate many of life’s challenges. You will gain mental toughness and a warrior’s non-quitting spirit as you learn to embrace the suck, become a world class teammate, and find your true potential!”

CLICK HERE TO REGISTER

Sign up quick as they are only accepting 30 slots for this unique training. We are the only gym in the Midwest that is hosting the crew from SEALFIT.

Check out what some CrossFit Games competitors have to say about SEALFIT:

Free feel to email dale@www.pskccrossfit.com with any questions. See you November 2nd!

Saturday Pain Clinics are “fun”…you get a partner and share the suffering. We break out all the toys and start the weekend off right. If you’re curious about PSKC or CrossFit come on down this Saturday at 9am to check us out for a FREE workout. Just show up around 8:45am to sign the waivers and we’ll get to it. No sales pitch, no pressure, just an awesome workout with awesome people.

After the workout, we’ll hang out for a bit then head over to the new building for a tour. There’s been A LOT of progress in the last couple of weeks. WE ARE PUMPED!

Hope to see lots of new faces this Saturday. If you plan on attending shoot an email to dale@www.pskccrossfit.com .

SEE YOU SATURDAY

You Will Overhead Squat..and You Will Like It

This cycle our lower body movement will be the overhead squat and upper body movement will be the split jerk. These are most advanced movements in the macro cycle (close to year’s worth of programming). Go ahead and take 2 minutes to get your bitching over with about the overhead squat..we know it’s not your favorite and we know you don’t like it…and we know you have (insert any excuse here) why you “can’t” do them. We don’t care..you’re gonna do them anyways.

The good news is that you’ll have 6 weeks to practice them and get better on them. It’s important that you get in on Monday/Wednesday to get your training maxes established. Of course you can skip every Monday if you want. Then again you’re the one who has to live with yourself …just saying.

The biggest problems you don’t like the overhead squat is your lack of mobility (especially in the thoracic/hip areas). We’ll be teaching you all mobility drills to get these areas prepped for lifting. So stay with it and spend the necessary time getting prepped and warmed up. This cycle you’ll have the opportunity to see HUGE increase in your PR with this movement if you stick to it.

And now for this week’s of programming:

Monday
Skill:
Find training max for OH squat

Finisher: 12 min amrap
6 oh squats ( 75/115)
12 push ups
15 box jumps

Tuesday
5 strict pull ups / muscle ups
3  heavy thrusters
20 min cap to achieve maximum weight and rounds

Finisher: Do heats if necessary. 10 min cap

21 15 9
Deadlifts (155/225)
Slamball
Oly option: 5×2 full squat snatch

Wednesday

Find training max: split jerk

Finisher: 30/30/30 x4
Mountain climbers on rings/rock hold
Goblet squat/ wall sit
Push press/ oh hold or handstand hold
Flutter kicks/ flutter kick holds

Thursday
Oly. Option 5×2 full squat clean plus 1 jerk

Parter up: 7 rounds of
3 reps bench
3 deadlift
3 kb front squat
* increase weight each round

Finisher: relays of
8 x100 m lane of pain sprints

Friday
Gate sprint
100 DU
100 sit ups
80 DU
80 push ups
60 DU
60 step ups
40DU
40 t2b or k2e
20DU
20 HSPU
Gate sprint

This photo is what we’re all about…bonds forged through sustained effort and intensity. Each drop of sweat is like another link in the chain. This is what I loved about the Army, the friendships and bonded formed under the most stressful of situations.

“We few, we happy few, we band of brothers, For he today who sheds his blood with me shall be my brother.”

CrossFit offers a similar format.  Communal suffering is an incredible relationship builder. If played organized sports you can relate, and that’s the best way to describe it..a team atmosphere, all year long. You grow and suffer day in and day out together.

In addition to the team building atmosphere we offer, it’s an amazing stress reliever. It might just be the only period of the day where you shut off your phone, disconnect from the “world”, and focus on yourself. It has a very focused meditative effect where it’s just you and the task at hand.

A few weeks ago I had the great pleasure to meet and learn from Dr. Theresa Larson DPT.  “Doc” is awesome and incredibly helpful. In a quick weekend, she taught me a crap ton about mobility, helped me with my low back, and made time for my endless questions.

Here’s a quick list of why Doc is so awesome:
1) She’s a former Marine
2) She’s close to 8 ft tall..not really but she’s pretty tall.
3) A former pro softball player
4) Worked and studied under Kelly Starrett of mobilitywod 
5) Loves to help veterans through Team RWB

She recently published an article detailing the psychological benefits of CrossFit and it speaks a lot to the incredible stress relieving benefits that is can offer. Be sure to check her website out and on Facebook. She’s an amazing resource.

Speaking of amazing..check out Sass’s 200lb clean!

Videos are awesome and that’s why our latest obsession is Instagram’s ability to offer video clips. We will try to post short lil clips everyday of what is going down in the gym. So be sure to follow pskc_crossfit on Instagram to check in on the action. You’ll be sure to get great actions pictures and videos like this:

Great work this week, the end of another strength cycle and the numbers show you guys put in the effort.

We’ll finish it out strong on Friday and of course an epic Pain Clinic on Saturday. See you guys at the gym!

For over the last year and a half I’ve completed and participated in an online program called “Unbeatable Mind Academy“. This program has been developed and led by Mark Divine, the founder of SealFit, a former US Navy SEAL who has gained a lot of success within the CrossFit and Special Operations community for his approach to developing mental toughness and cultivating the warrior spirit.

CrossFit has the ability to give and teach you many things about yourself. There is no better program for developing your personal physical fitness. Clean and jerks, muscle ups, deadlifting, double unders, box jumps…doing physical things you once thought were impossible. That’s just the physical realm…the real break throughs occur mentally. That’s also where all your personal failures occur as well….the mind.

It’s impressive to watch someone string together multiple muscle ups, lifting massive amounts of weights, but to me the most impressive thing to watch is to witness someone make the decision they are going to do something. To watch them fail, fail, and fail again…becoming a victim of self doubt….of fear. Then something clicks…something made the connection mentally to believe..to commit..then it happens…victory. Imagine if we could harness that belief daily? That’s where UMA comes into play. It teaches you the fundamentals of developing mental fitness and toughness.

“Victorious warriors win first and then go to war, while defeated warriors go to war first and then seek to win.”
-Sun Tzu

There are many tenets I’ve been fortunate enough to experience through this program. The military was my best teacher and I was blessed to have been taught by truly the “best of the best”. As a young officer I was fortunate enough to have landed an assignment with the best and brightest minds the Army has to offer. Men forged with a physical tenacity only matched by their intelligence. Many of the lessons I was too young to fully appreciate and absorb. But through the UMA, CMDR Divine has been able to bring those lessons to the general populace.

The biggest lessons I try to utilize in my daily practice are
Developing breath control
Interdicting negative thought patterns (Fear Wolf/Courage Wolf)
Developing powerful positive visualizations
Focused Mediation

Here’s a clip of those mental toughness practices in action during a 45 minute plank hold.

Here’s another clip of CMDR Divine explaning the Unbeatable Mind Program:

If you’d like to learn more about the program, click HERE. If you don’t want to enroll in the program, I highly encourage you to spend some time and get signed up for their free program.

Now here’s what is in store for you this week. You’ll have plenty of opportunities to harness mental toughness this week as we’ve picked some team WODs and some other tough ones where you’ll have plenty of opportunities to really focus on being present and decide if you’ll feed negative or positive energy to your mind and body. We will also be testing out your new maxes for the power clean and bench press. You’ve worked hard over the last 6 weeks, now it’s time to let it show.

Monday:
10 minutes to establish 1RM Power Clean
Conditioning:
Teams of 4 (only one rowing/airdyning at a time)
300 cal AirDyne Race
*non-working teammates must hold barbell (135/95) overhead. Up to team to strategize. (15 minute cap)
rest 3 minutes
3000m Row Race
*non-working teammates must hold 4 x (53/35) KBs in Rack position. Up to team to strategize. (15 minute cap)

Tuesday:
10 minutes to Establish 1RM Thruster:
*olympic*
10 min to establish 1RM Squat Clean

Conditioning:
5 rounds
5 Deadlifts(275/155#)
10 lateral bar burpees

Wednesday:
Max Bench:
Conditioning:
“Minute to Win It”
60 seconds max calories on AirDyne
Rest 1:30
60 seconds max burpee pullups
Rest 1:30
60 seconds max Goblet Squats (70/53)
Rest 1:30
60 seconds max Double Unders
Rest 1:30
60 seconds max burpee box jumps

Thursday:
With a continuously running clock perform 1 strict pullup on mintue 1, 2 pullups on minute 2, etc until you cannot perform the pullups in the allotted minute (10 minute cap)
rest 2 minutes…
Then perform the same for STRICT HSPU
*Olympic*
10 minutes to work up to a heavy hang squat Snatch (during pull up portion), then follow same rep scheme on the minute as class strict HSPU section with 75% of the highest successful hang snatch (1 on minute 1, 2 on minute 2 etc.)

Conditioning:
Teams of 3 – “Frianabeth” from the Validus Games
Fran – 21-15-9 Thrusters (95/65) & Pullups
Diane – 21-15-9 Deadlifts (225/155) & HSPU
Elizabeth –  21-15-9 Power Cleans (135/95) & Ring Dips
(15 minute cap)
Only one athlete working at a time, must switch out every 30 seconds until all workouts are completed.

Friday:
Stoplight Run with 20lb med ball
20 kb swings (53/35)
7 kb thruster each arm
5 rounds

Apologize for the lack of posts but the last few weeks at PSKC have been insane! Two weeks ago we held our 3rd Annual Gauntlet Competition which was an big success. Athletes ranging from North Carolina, Kentucky, West Virginia, and all over Ohio came to Portsmouth to throw down. This year’s competition was intense.

We kicked off event #1 with a front squat ladder that topped out at 315 for males and 205 for females. If you made it all the way through the ladder you were then placed into a final jeopardy edition of the front squat where the heaviest attempt completed won the event, but if you went and heavy and missed the lift no credit was given. Graham Spagnola took first place for the guys with a BEEFY 370 front squat.

The women’s front squat finals was EPIC. Ninjy and Desiree Jones both went head to head picking 230, both of them nailed it…then came 240, both of them nailed it. Now onto 250! Desiree barely missed the attempt while Ninjy stuggled through and made the attempt.

Event #2 was a spicy triplet consisted of:
Power Cleans (155/105)
HSPU
Lateral Bar Burpees
It was a 7 min AMRAP with an ascending rep scheme of (2-4-6-8-etc)

Event #3 was a brutal chipper of:
600m Run
10 X Master P (Power snatch to overhead lunge) 95/65
30 x Toes2Bar
20 x KB snatch each arm
10 x Master P
There was  a 12 min cap.

After the 3 events we took the top 4 finalists from each category and pitted them head to head against one another tournament style. The winners would advance to the finals.
The semi-final event was a 5 min AMRAP of:
3 x Double KB Thrusters ( 70/44)
5 x Deadlift (275/185)
7 x Box Jump (30/24)

Then onto the finals, which was:
2 minutes max Ground to Overhead (205/135)
1 minute rest
2 minutes max calories on the Airdyne

The atmosphere, energy, and environment was incredible! We want to sincerely thank the athletes, judges, volunteers, spectators, and sponsors. We are indebted to each of you for helping create such an incredible event!

The very next weekend PSKC was in DC to participate and coach in Team Red White & Blue Veteran’s Athletic Camp at CrossFit Rubicon. This was such an incredible event and was honored to participate. No better way than to spend a weekend coaching functional fitness to active duty and veterans. Also had the chance to connect with other affiliate owners and learn about mobility, nutrition, and goal setting.

Team RWB is all about helping veterans integrate back into the civilian world through exercise. If you are a local Iraq and/or Afghanistan veteran and looking to get involved in CrossFit, email dale@www.pskccrossfit.com. We are working on sponsoring a free year membership for a local combat veteran.

And this weekend we’re heading up to our friends at CrossFit Endeavor for a team competition! Any and all are welcome to come out and support our 2 teams. Of course afterwards we’ll be visiting PSKC North (aka World of Beers) for some celebratory brews.

We keep busy. No rest for the wicked and we will always keep rolling, one event after the other. You’ve got choices in life..sit back and watch life go by or go out there and make things happen.

Life is meant to be lived. Don’t sit back and wish you could do something, get out and equip your mind and body to make it happen. Get busy living…

HONOR THE FALLEN…BY CHALLENGING THE LIVING
It’s Memorial Day week and we’re getting after it. This week we’re stepping it up a notch as a small token to honor those who have sacrificed so much for us. Beginning Tuesday and running through Memorial Day we’ll be hitting up a different Hero WOD to memorialize those who gave their lives so we may be free.

Monday and Wednesday we will still test out our maxes so that the following week we can flow into a much needed deload week before we start back up with a new cycle. So below you’ll see a day by day schedule of what’s in store:

Monday:
Test out front squat max then end with a bodyweight circuit finisher

Tuesday:

“Manion”

On Friday we did the “Glen” workout;
30 clean and jerk 135/95
run 1 mile
10 rope climbs
run 1 mile
100 burpees

That day we had over 30 people dive head first and tackle this WOD to honor a great man. Most important was the display of motivation and community each person had for one another. Take a look below..

That’s an example of just why we’re different and what we offer…together. You’re the one doing the work, but you’re not doing it alone.

This is the last week to enroll and get in on our current rates. Our next beginners program is taking place this Wednesday at 630pm, email mo@www.pskccrossfit.com to reserve your slot!

We also have some new swag for $20:

To make room we’re putting the old gear on clearance, $10/shirt or 3 for $25:

First come first served! Train hard and we’ll see you at the gym!