With it currently getting colder here (although winter in Sydney isn't particularly cold), the backyard pool isn't exactly getting a lot of attention. Perhaps that's why I'm intrigued to read the blog of someone who's determined to compete in the swimming leg of this year's London Triathlon.
Welcome Old Ladyfish.
With it currently getting colder here (although winter in Sydney isn't particularly cold), the backyard pool isn't exactly getting a lot of attention. Perhaps that's why I'm intrigued to read the blog of someone who's determined to compete in the swimming leg of this year's London Triathlon.
Welcome Old Ladyfish.
Finding myself without the weights for a while was more than enough reason to track down a local supplier of Kettlebells. I'm not quite sure why, but everything to do with them - from the bells themselves to training manuals and DVDs - seems to be tucked away in various online stores and auction sites.
If you're looking for them, here are a couple of sources to investigate :
Octogen Fitness (Australia)
Although the shipping is a sizeable part of the cost (I was fortunate here as I live close to part of the team and was able to call and pick it up), this is a great source for the Kettlebells themselves in Australia.
Octogen also offer regular workshops to learn the finer points of Kettlebell training.
Australian Kettlebells
The only difference between these and their russian counterparts is the name which has been stamped on them. The starter sets are well worth considering, combining bells with a Pavel Tsatsouline DVD to get things moving in the right direction.
Mike Mahler (US)
I mentioned Mahler a while ago, and he's still working hard to keep his position at the cutting edge of Kettlebell training knowledge. His Kettlebell manual (.pdf) is a great place to start.
The above manual describes - and has photographs for each - over 40 exercises; covering both single and double kettlebell use. I tried a few of them this afternoon, and once I've been through the book I should have a pretty solid routine worked out. The book also has a couple of routines for those just starting out.
I'm keen to read some of Pavel Tsatsouline's writings on kettlebell training, and am most interested to hear from anyone who's already added a book or DVD to their own fitness library. For now though, Mike Mahler has ensured that I'll be enjoying a bit of pain.
Finding myself without the weights for a while was more than enough reason to track down a local supplier of Kettlebells. I'm not quite sure why, but everything to do with them - from the bells themselves to training manuals and DVDs - seems to be tucked away in various online stores and auction sites.
If you're looking for them, here are a couple of sources to investigate :
Octogen Fitness (Australia)
Although the shipping is a sizeable part of the cost (I was fortunate here as I live close to part of the team and was able to call and pick it up), this is a great source for the Kettlebells themselves in Australia.
Octogen also offer regular workshops to learn the finer points of Kettlebell training.
Australian Kettlebells
The only difference between these and their russian counterparts is the name which has been stamped on them. The starter sets are well worth considering, combining bells with a Pavel Tsatsouline DVD to get things moving in the right direction.
Mike Mahler (US)
I mentioned Mahler a while ago, and he's still working hard to keep his position at the cutting edge of Kettlebell training knowledge. His Kettlebell manual (.pdf) is a great place to start.
The above manual describes - and has photographs for each - over 40 exercises; covering both single and double kettlebell use. I tried a few of them this afternoon, and once I've been through the book I should have a pretty solid routine worked out. The book also has a couple of routines for those just starting out.
I'm keen to read some of Pavel Tsatsouline's writings on kettlebell training, and am most interested to hear from anyone who's already added a book or DVD to their own fitness library. For now though, Mike Mahler has ensured that I'll be enjoying a bit of pain.
Before heading back down to warmer climes I decided to try a few of the beers which rarely make it as far as Australian shelves (there'd be a fair bit of competition if they did). Tonight I came across the unusually named Riggwelter.
Riggwelter is a strong (5.7% alcohol by volume) ale from Yorkshire's Black Sheep brewery. It's an excellent drop. As for the name - which was the thing which caught my eye in the first place - it's from the Old Norse words rygg (back) and velte (to overturn). When a sheep is on its back and cannot get up without assistance, it is said to be rigged or riggwelted in the local dialect.
After a few of those I can testify to knowing exactly what they mean.
Before heading back down to warmer climes I decided to try a few of the beers which rarely make it as far as Australian shelves (there'd be a fair bit of competition if they did). Tonight I came across the unusually named Riggwelter.
Riggwelter is a strong (5.7% alcohol by volume) ale from Yorkshire's Black Sheep brewery. It's an excellent drop. As for the name - which was the thing which caught my eye in the first place - it's from the Old Norse words rygg (back) and velte (to overturn). When a sheep is on its back and cannot get up without assistance, it is said to be rigged or riggwelted in the local dialect.
After a few of those I can testify to knowing exactly what they mean.
Here's a quick look at the second round of changes (first round here) to Straight to the Bar.
Performance
This site (and cousins on 99shadesofgrey.com) has been growing organically for several years now, and was starting to show signs of age. This had become particularly noticeable in the painfully slow rebuilds; whether from leaving a comment or posting a new entry.
The solution involved a fair bit of pruning, and the cumulative affect of several minor tweaks wasn't bad at all. These included :
However, the change which made an enormous difference to the comment posting speed was this fix by Brandon Fuller. According to Brandon, it's a bug in MT 3.2; already fixed for the next release.
Live Comment Preview
Whilst reconfiguring the archival and commenting templates, I figured it was finally time to instate something which has been subtly suggested on a number of occasions : comment previewing. Looking at a few implementations of this on other sites, I soon realised that the most effective appeared to be those that offered a realtime preview of your input text (as well as the usual option to make changes).
Twisted Technology provided a simple bit of javascript for this purpose (even wrapping it up in the default MT 3.2x templates - unfortunately mine no longer resemble these, but it was a good start), which appears to be working fine.
Videos
It's been a while since I shot any video (I'm using a couple of DSLRs for most things currently; and there just isn't any video feature available). That will most likely change once I set things up in Australia.
For now, a list of older entries (which contain video) has made its way to the sidebar. Code is similar to the Category and monthly Archive listings.
Quicktags for Comments
Thanks to Alex King for this one. The magic of javascript controls the row of buttons immediately above the comment input area - these enable a bit of basic html formatting to be easily applied to comments. Links, bold and italic type, lists; the usual suspects.
Giving TrackBacks some love
The TrackBack seems to be Six Apart's forgotten child. For several years now it's been available for use in Movable Type, but never quite on the same level as commenting. This quickly becomes apparent when incorporating tags such as
(to count the comments in a particular blog) - there simply isn't an equivalent tag for TrackBacks. For just this purpose (counting TrackBacks) I'm using David Raynes' MTBlogPings plugin.Tagging
When it comes to tracking things down using meta-data, nothing beats the humble tag. In fact, users of MAC OSX have had this at their disposal for quite some time (and a recent article on Lifehacker discussed the power of it as a filing system).
For this site I'm using the MTKeywords plugin to automatically generate a list of tags for each entry; based on the entry's content and title. These tags are then linked to search results (again for this site) using the technique on Al-Muhajabah's Movable Type Tips. The tags appear below the archived copy of each entry.
Here's a quick look at the second round of changes (first round here) to Straight to the Bar.
Performance
This site (and cousins on 99shadesofgrey.com) has been growing organically for several years now, and was starting to show signs of age. This had become particularly noticeable in the painfully slow rebuilds; whether from leaving a comment or posting a new entry.
The solution involved a fair bit of pruning, and the cumulative affect of several minor tweaks wasn't bad at all. These included :However, the change which made an enormous difference to the comment posting speed was this fix by Brandon Fuller. According to Brandon, it's a bug in MT 3.2; already fixed for the next release.
Live Comment Preview
Whilst reconfiguring the archival and commenting templates, I figured it was finally time to instate something which has been subtly suggested on a number of occasions : comment previewing. Looking at a few implementations of this on other sites, I soon realised that the most effective appeared to be those that offered a realtime preview of your input text (as well as the usual option to make changes).
Twisted Technology provided a simple bit of javascript for this purpose (even wrapping it up in the default MT 3.2x templates - unfortunately mine no longer resemble these, but it was a good start), which appears to be working fine.
Videos
It's been a while since I shot any video (I'm using a couple of DSLRs for most things currently; and there just isn't any video feature available). That will most likely change once I set things up in Australia.
For now, a list of older entries (which contain video) has made its way to the sidebar. Code is similar to the Category and monthly Archive listings.
Quicktags for Comments
Thanks to Alex King for this one. The magic of javascript controls the row of buttons immediately above the comment input area - these enable a bit of basic html formatting to be easily applied to comments. Links, bold and italic type, lists; the usual suspects.
Giving TrackBacks some love
The TrackBack seems to be Six Apart's forgotten child. For several years now it's been available for use in Movable Type, but never quite on the same level as commenting. This quickly becomes apparent when incorporating tags such as (to count the comments in a particular blog) - there simply isn't an equivalent tag for TrackBacks. For just this purpose (counting TrackBacks) I'm using David Raynes' MTBlogPings plugin.Tagging
When it comes to tracking things down using meta-data, nothing beats the humble tag. In fact, users of MAC OSX have had this at their disposal for quite some time (and a recent article on Lifehacker discussed the power of it as a filing system).
For this site I'm using the MTKeywords plugin to automatically generate a list of tags for each entry; based on the entry's content and title. These tags are then linked to search results (again for this site) using the technique on Al-Muhajabah's Movable Type Tips. The tags appear below the archived copy of each entry.
In a couple of months I'll be relocating to Australia (slight change of scenery) and spent a bit of time this morning clearing out the garage a little. This finally gave me enough room to shift the bench out the way and do some full range deadlifts.
That extra range makes a big difference - I was starting to feel out of breath by the sets at 100kg. Looks like I've got some work to do.
Deadlift
4x10@60/132
2x10@100/225
In a couple of months I'll be relocating to Australia (slight change of scenery) and spent a bit of time this morning clearing out the garage a little. This finally gave me enough room to shift the bench out the way and do some full range deadlifts.
That extra range makes a big difference - I was starting to feel out of breath by the sets at 100kg. Looks like I've got some work to do.
Deadlift
4×10@60/132
2×10@100/225
