Return of the Kettlebell is Pavel Tsatsouline's latest book. It focuses on building muscle mass while maintaining or improving strength and conditioning. The tools of choice are double kettlebell exercises organized in alternating two week blocks. One block is devoted to slow grinding movements: the Double Kettlebell Press, the Double Kettlebell Front Squat, and the Double Kettlebell Deadlift. The alternate block is devoted to explosive movement, specifically the long cycle double Kettlebell Clean and Jerk.

This looks like fun, but it's a pretty intense program, not something I want to do during the throwing season. Pavel suggests that you shouldn't start it until you've reached the "Enter the Kettlebell" Rite of Passage goals of a half bodyweight Clean and Press, and 200 Kettlebell Snatches with the 24 kg implement as used by the U.S. Secret Service. I'm some way from that, so I'll work on the Rite of Passage until the end of throwing season and see where I am then.

This program in this book is really intended for elite athletes who want to add lean body mass. I found it interesting though I don't think it's the right thing for me at this point in time. I'll practice the double kettlebell movements on some of my "variety" days which can be considered a kind of active rest. Good book, but not for everyone.

Python 3.1 was released last week. The faster IO module should go a long way toward making Python 3 a viable option for new projects.

Never Let Go is a collection of Dan John's writings on strength and conditioning training. Subtitled "A Philosophy of Lifting, Living, and Learning", it provides a pragmatic approach to navigating the tangled web of information about health, fitness, and athletic training. A certain amount of strength and conditioning is necessary for good health and is fundamental to fitness and athletic performance. How much and what kind depends on your goals, and Dan emphasizes that you need to need to stay focused on your goals.

The main points of Dan's strength and conditioning philosophy are:

1. The Body is One Piece.
2. There are three kinds of strength training:
   • Putting weight overhead
   • Picking it off the ground
   • Carrying it for time and distance
3. All training is complementary.

Each chapter is a lesson in the guise of an entertaining and enlightening story told by a master practitioner of the strength arts. Reading and rereading these stories will help you in your own strength practice, whether as a coach, athlete, or fitness enthusiast. As you read it you will sometimes think "I knew that", while realizing that you've just reached a better understanding. Dan teaches movements rather than muscles and you need to train the full spectrum of normal movement. However, if you try to emphasize everything, you end up emphasizing nothing, so he recommends a warm up that works a variety of movements which allows you to focus on specific goals in the main workout.

Since the body adapts to novel stresses, everything works but nothing works forever. Combined with everyone's unique genetics and history, this implies that you should try different things long enough to see how they work for you. If they don't work, move on to something else. If they do, continue with them until you stop progressing, then try something else. Keep a training log so you'll know what has worked in the past and can profitably be repeated.

"Never Let Go" is a worthwhile and enjoyable read for just about anyone. It's a great book on the pursuit of althleticism that should be read and re-read by anyone with more than a passing interest in health, fitness, and/or sports performance.

Since reading Enter the Kettlebell last year, I've made kettlebells the mainstay of my athletic training but haven't tried the Rite of Passage (ROP) training program advocated in it. It consists of a pull (Kettlebell Snatch or Swing) and a push (Kettlebell Press) in a light/medium/heavy pattern plus a couple of variety days and, leaving two days off each week.

I've decided that it's time to give ROP a shot and tested today to see where I am. I've been pressing the 24 kg kettlebell so I tried the 32, getting one rep with the left arm and two with the right. In the U.S. Secret Service Snatch Test with the 24 kg kettlebell, I managed 110 reps in 10 minutes. Should've been good for a few more reps, but I tested shortly after lunch and was flirting with Pukie.

My mother and brother are visiting for a few days from Houston. We drove over Trail Ridge Road to admire the mountain vistas.

Since I saw their booth at the Denver Auto Show, Lightning Hybrids has progressed from a body shell and bench top drive train demo to a functional prototype. I attended an open house at their facility in Loveland yesterday and am cautiously optimistic about their changes in X-Prize Cup, though I'm still skeptical about the clamshell entry and think their production schedule is a bit aggressive. I wish them luck.

Today was Ride to Work Day so I ignored the weather forecast and rode the VFR. My knees kept me from riding much last year. The VFR has a fairly aggressive riding position that flexes the knees a bit much. The exercises I've been doing are helping. I can make it to work now before it gets painful. We did have some afternoon thunderstorms, but I only caught a sprinkle.

Saturday Dan presented his philosophy of strength and conditioning, followed by catered BBQ. Later we were treated to a sample workout and individual instruction. I believe that everyone woke up muscles that they'd forgotten they had, no matter what kind of training they'd been doing.

Sunday we met at Mimi's for breakfast and I drove back to Lyons. My goals for the weekend were:

1. Secure a copy of Dan's new book.
2. Polish my kettlebell technique.
3. Find out why I don't need barbells. Dan advised me to stick to kettlebells when I visited him last Fall.
4. Have fun!

I achieved all my goals. My conclusion on barbell training is that last Fall I needed to focus on rehabbing my knees and shoulders, for which kettlebells are perhaps the best tool. Depending on where I'm working out, I'll do some barbell and dumbbell training, but I think kettlebells will be my mainstay.

In The Purposeful Primitive Marty Gallagher presents his strength and conditioning philosophy with the stories of notable strength and endurance athletes with his own experiences as a world champion powerlifter and coach.

While focusing on strength, Marty also recognizes the importance of cardiovascular conditioning and diet. He describes simple programs that have proven effective for both world class athletes and couch potatoes getting into shape. This book deserves a place in the library of all serious fitness enthusiasts, athletes, and coaches.

I competed in the Windsor Highland Games yesterday. It was part of a free community fair rather than a Scottish or Celtic festival. There was a Classic Rock band and games for the kids, but only one food vendor. The City of Windsor is planning to do it again next year. It has good potential.

I managed a new personal record of 15' in the Sheaf Toss and did OK in the other events. I need more practice.

We drove down to Albuquerque for the Rio Grande Valley Celtic Festival and Highland Games <http://www.celtfestabq.com/> last weekend. We arrived early enough Friday for some shopping and dinner in Old Town. Saturday turned out surprizingly cool and quite windy, but Sunday was beautiful, as I expected for New Mexico in May. The Balloon Fiesta Park provides an outstanding venue for this type of event, plenty of room, flat fields, and good parking.

Competition was keen, with field records dropping right and left. Duncan McCallum and Hunter Fobare swapped lead in the A class all day Saturday, with Hunter coming out on top. My throwing was mixed, with a personal record in the Braemar Stone, a new low in the Light Weight for Distance, and everything else about what I'd expect.

Mark Lutz is an outstanding trainer and writer. His Programming Python is the most most comprehensive Python text that I've found, weighing in at 1552 pages. It's not just long though, The detailed examples solving many real world problems in both desktop and server programming make it ideal for those who learn best by seeing how things are done.

I competed in the Cottonwood Highland Games in Holladay, UT yesterday. It was fun, even with the authentic Scottish liquid sunshine. I finished 4th of 4 in the Masters, but did manage PRs in both the Heavy and Light Weight for Distance events.

Following the traditional Heavy Athletics events was a Strongman competition consisting of a medley race with two lines 50 feet apart and an Atlas Stone, a water filled keg and barrel behind one of the lines. The objective was to carry each implement and put it down on the far side of the opposing line, sprinting back to the starting point to fetch the next.

The introduction to strongman events was interesting, though I have to admit that I didn't make it to the sprint. The Atlas Stone was wet and while I got it to chest height, I couldn't get it on up to my shoulder and didn't think I could carry it 50 feet in my arms, so I quit there. Maybe next time.

I met a great new group of throwers. I might just head back that way for the Utah Scot Fest next month.

I received my 28 pound Weight for Distance implement form Old Celt over a week ago, but just got around to breaking it in this evening after work. Nice toy!

I've been thinking of migrating my Plone website to something else. Release Candidate 1 for TurboGears 2.0 is out and it looks very promising.

I planned to participate in the TurboGears 2 sprint in Boulder today, but wasn't able to hook up with the Front Range Pythoneer sprinters. I stopped by Boulder Crossfit to check out their new facility, which is bigger, nicer and more conviently located. After getting back to Lyons I tackled the TurboGears 2 tutorials.

So far I'm liking TG2 better than Zope/Plone because it lets the operating system and database do what they do well rather than reinventing the needed functionality. It fits the Unix and Python development paradigms like a glove.

Duncan McGreggor has embarked on an interesting series of posts about cloud computing. Cloud computing is many things to many people, but Duncan's perspective is close to mine.

While LSD (Long Slow Distance) type training is most popular for cardio, research has shown that sprint intervals like the Tabata Protocol are more effective for developing VO2 max. In Viking Warrior Conditioning, Kenneth Jay presents interval training protocols that he's developed using kettlebell snatches. I enjoyed the book though it's a bit pricey for the amount of material presented.

I'm using his basic protocol of 15 seconds of snatches with the left arm followed by 15 seconds of rest, then 15 seconds of snatches with the right arm followed by 15 seconds of rest and find it to be a nice challenge. In addition to the cardiovascular conditioning, this develops the explosive power needed for the Highland Games Heavy Athletics events.

In The Wealth and Poverty of Nations, David Landes asks why some nations are very rich and others very poor. He examines the economic history of Earth in search of answers. He concludes that a combination of freedom, the rule of law, and competing interests have tended to generate the most wealth. Along the way he recounts many interesting historical episodes. Seems our government is heading the wrong way.

UC Berkeley researchers have demonstrated small machines that work directly from solar power. Both use sunlight shining on nanotubes to reduce the surface tension of water on which they are floating, causing force parallel to the surface of the water. Though they are less than a centimeter, the principle can scale up to larger machines that do useful work. Cool.

O'Reilly ha an interesting interview with Brian Kernighan about programming and languages used for it. My favorite quote: "The hardest bugs are those where your mental model of the situation is just wrong, so you can't see the problem at all."