MUKILTEO — They come from different places, geographic and otherwise.
Ken Gack, 41, is a Lake Stevens resident who grew up in Minnesota and was a mediocre athlete as a boy. Erik Kasabuske, who is 28 and lives in Renton, played football at Wisconsin Lutheran College. And Kasabuske’s wife Kat, 31, simply enjoyed hanging out at the gym.
Gack, Erik Kasabuske and Kat Kasabuske all came on different paths, but they all ended up at the same place — as U.S. national powerlifting champions who train at Gold’s Gym in Mukilteo.
Gack is the reigning masters (40 and over) USA Powerlifting (USAPL) champion in the 220-weight class for the second year in a row, and has represented the U.S. each of the last three years at the International Powerlifting Federation world championships. Erik Kasabuske won the USAPL open championship this year at 198 pounds and has gone to the world championships the past two years. And Kat Kasabuske won her USAPL women’s title a year ago at 123 pounds (she finished second this year) and has been to worlds the last two years.
In fact, Erik Kasabuske and Kat Clark (Kat Kasabuske’s maiden name) met at the world championships in Johannesburg, South Africa, in 2010, and were married earlier this year.
Powerlifting is comprised of three standard lifts — squat, bench press and dead lift. To do well in the sport requires a considerable amount of strength, but also a good bit of skill and technique.
Or as Gack explained, “You can be strong and then you can be good, and those are not necessarily the same things. There are nuances to the lifts to get the most out of them, and it takes a lot of skill to do them properly.”
The three are members of Team Phoenix, a 22-member squad that trains at Gold’s Gym under the tutelage of coach Kevin Stewart of Lynnwood. Gack, and the Kasabuskes credit Stewart with helping them excel as powerlifters.
“Kevin Stewart will get every single pound you have in you,” said Gack, who works as a project manager for IBM.
“He knows what we’re capable of even when we have no idea,” added Kat Kasabuske.
The training is arduous and involves eight to 10 hours in a typical week. But the payoff comes in competitions, when they get to test themselves against other elite lifters from elsewhere in the country and around the world.
During an event like nationals, Gack said, “you walk out onto a platform, you’re staring out at a crowd of people and there’s the heavy weight on your back. But when you finish the lift and see the white lights (from the judges, confirming the lift), it’s a huge rush.”
Erik Kasabuske compares the feeling on the platform “to drag racing. It’s really short, but it’s really exciting. You’re only lifting weight for a few seconds, but when you walk up there everything else just kind of zones out. It’s just you and weights, and to me it’s a very euphoric feeling.
“I loved playing football,” he added, “but for me it doesn’t compare to this.”
His wife is drawn by “the sense of community and belonging” that develops among powerlifters. The sport “has such a tight-knit community of extremely motivated people,” she said, “and everybody is very supportive. It’s like a family and you really do feel like you belong.”
That family, of course, includes her husband, who is also her training partner, making the Kasabuskes somewhat unique in the powerlifting world.
“We share common goals and we understand each other,” Kat Kasabuske said. “We’re both doing the same thing and we both understand the pressures that are there, so it makes it much easier for me to support him and for him to support me. It’s awesome.”
Gack and the Kasabuskes are all bidding for repeat national championships and maybe some world titles, too. But in powerlifting, there are always new goals awaiting, sometimes on the very next lift.
“My lifting career has really been a series of goals,” Gack explained. “My first goal was to be able to bench (press) twice my body weight, and it took me 10 years to get that. And then when I started competing, my goal was to make it to nationals. The thought of winning at nationals never even occurred to me and the thought of making it to worlds never even occurred to me. So I’ve gone so much further than I ever even imagined.
“You set your goal,” he said, “and then when you hit it you say, ‘What’s the next goal?’”
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