Blog - Baltimore Kettlebell Club

The Ups and Downs of Expanding into a New Location

July 19, 2021

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April 26, 2021 I’m writing this after having verbally accepted the terms of a new location for Baltimore Kettlebell Club. I’ve been working on securing this spot for about 6 months now. The fact is, I’ve been looking to move for years now. The current location has its limitations; it’s hard to find, parking is a pain and there is no professional courtesy from the neighbors. I’ve visited many potential locations to move BKC to over the years but…

10 Things I’ve Learned in 10 Years Being a Gym Owner

June 16, 2021

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5 years ago I wrote an article “10 things I’ve learned in 10 years of being a kettlebell instructor” It’s now been 10 years that I’ve been a gym owner so I figured it was time that I write this piece. Before we begin, let me first say that my gym, Baltimore Kettlebell Club, is a private training studio. We are a StrongFirst accredited gym and we offer group classes and personal training only. This is not the kind…

Discipline, Self Control and Personal Responsibility

April 12, 2021

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I often talk about how much I’ve learned through strength training. Things like work ethic, goal setting and perseverance, but all of these lessons follow a similar theme. That theme is discipline and self control. However, it wasn’t until recently that I came to understand that these two things are different. Self discipline says “go” whereas self control says “no”. In other words, starting an exercise program and giving up sugar are two different psychological processes. It requires discipline…

One Year of Live Workouts on Facebook

April 5, 2021

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I began doing Facebook live workout videos a week after the shutdown happened in March of 2020. It has now been over a year since that first nerve racking recording. I started doing live workouts to help our gym members, and others interested in kettlebells who wanted to continue working out from home. At BKC we lent out all of our kettlebells so those stuck at home could still get in a training session. Strength is important, and we…

Struggle for the Kids

January 8, 2021

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As the world we know continues to change it’s hard to know what to think of it. With political unrest and tensions on the rise, it doesn’t seem like 2021 is going to be any easier than 2020. Once again I find myself losing sleep trying to make sense of it all. I try hard to be optimistic, but it doesn’t always work. I have 5 young children that I worry about. What kind of country will they inherit?…

What COVID did to me and my gym

January 1, 2021

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This article is going to have two parts: The enforced shutdown of Baltimore Kettlebell Club due the COVID pandemic My families actual infection of the virus which came 8 months later The Shutdown On March 16th 2020 the Governor Larry Hogan issued a shutdown order for gyms across the state of Maryland. We immediately switched to a virtual platform; at first exploiting a loophole in the governor’s mandate by doing Live Streams of our regular classes and operating as…

Evolution of Kids Fitness Classes

June 3, 2020

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We started Kids Fitness Classes in 2018 because we had just started homeschooling our oldest daughter. One of the reasons we chose the homeschool route was because we felt that we could do better educating her in (at least) two subjects that were very important to our family – fitness & business. So our kids program was geared primarily towards homeschoolers and as such, I wanted it to have an academic component as well. With that in mind I…

The Everyday Program

May 17, 2020

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6 weeks ago I started doing overhead presses everyday in a program I called my #quarantineroutine The reasons for doing the same lift every day were twofold: 1) to inspire the members of BKC to continue training during the shutdown 2) just to see if I could. Conventional bro science tells us that we cannot train the same muscle groups every day. I’ve never really questioned that logic because it seems to make sense. Your muscles need time to…

Top 3 DIY Equipment (Quarantine Routine part 5)

May 4, 2020

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Here’s my top 3 recommendations when it comes to DIY equipment, plus some training commentary on each… Sandbag Pull Up Bar Dumbbell / Barbell I keep coming back to strongman style of training in these articles because this is where it really shines! Everything you see today in strongman competitions started with homemade equipment! A bunch of dudes in garages and basements, making weird things to train with. To us, a sandbag is not an unusual training tool. In…

Quarantine Routine – The Problems with Training at Home

April 27, 2020

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With gyms being closed for over a month now you’ve either continued your training at home or you’ve stopped entirely. In parts 1–3 of this series I laid out the why and how for your quarantine routine. In this article I will discuss how to overcome the problems of training at home. Before I opened BKC, I trained at home. In fact, I grew up with a home gym in my parents basement. I trained for my first strongman…