Results matching “log”

KettlebellFor anyone considering adding a kettlebell or two to their home gym, here are a couple of points to keep in mind :



  • Kettlebells have traditionally been manufactured in various sizes, each of them based on the old Russian unit of measurement pood. A pood is equal to 40 funt (фунт, Russian pounds), and is approximately 16.38 kilograms (36.11 pounds). The pood was abolished in the USSR in 1924, but many kettlebells are still manufactured in multiples of 16kg.

  • Men usually start out with a 16kg(36lb) bell - this is the one I have, and it's harder than the weight would suggest. For anyone with a few years of weight training under their belt (and certainly for competitive powerlifters), or anyone over 183cm/6' and about 90kg/198lb, a 24kg bell is worth considering. If you get a chance to try one out somewhere before you buy it, pick it up and clean it. That'll give you a reasonable idea.

  • The female equivalents of the 16 and 24 are about 8kg and 12kg (on average - of course there are those who would easily work with more than this). Once again, if you can try before you buy, great. The thick handles and concentrated weight make a difference.

  • If you've already got a kettlebell and are considering a second, a typical progression (for men) is 16/24/32. Once you have these three, if you want more, start again at 16. There are plenty of exercises involving two bells, and many of these are easier with the same weight for each.

  • I've never tried the adjustable kettlebells - I'm sure that some of them are great - but remember that you'll be swinging them over your head, dropping them on various surfaces (particularly if you try a bit of kettlebell juggling - good fun), and generally giving them a bit more punishment than the typical dumbbells. Personally, I prefer the old-style lumps of iron for that reason.

  • If you do end up going for the traditional bells, remember that they last indefinitely and the design hasn't really changed over the years. If you see one on ebay, or a friend is selling one; grab it.

  • There are many more kettlebell exercises than you might imagine. It can be well worth investing in a book or DVD demonstrating some of the basic moves.

KettlebellFor anyone considering adding a kettlebell or two to their home gym, here are a couple of points to keep in mind :

  • Kettlebells have traditionally been manufactured in various sizes, each of them based on the old Russian unit of measurement pood. A pood is equal to 40 funt (фунт, Russian pounds), and is approximately 16.38 kilograms (36.11 pounds). The pood was abolished in the USSR in 1924, but many kettlebells are still manufactured in multiples of 16kg.
  • Men usually start out with a 16kg(36lb) bell - this is the one I have, and it's harder than the weight would suggest. For anyone with a few years of weight training under their belt (and certainly for competitive powerlifters), or anyone over 183cm/6' and about 90kg/198lb, a 24kg bell is worth considering. If you get a chance to try one out somewhere before you buy it, pick it up and clean it. That'll give you a reasonable idea.
  • The female equivalents of the 16 and 24 are about 8kg and 12kg (on average - of course there are those who would easily work with more than this). Once again, if you can try before you buy, great. The thick handles and concentrated weight make a difference.
  • If you've already got a kettlebell and are considering a second, a typical progression (for men) is 16/24/32. Once you have these three, if you want more, start again at 16. There are plenty of exercises involving two bells, and many of these are easier with the same weight for each.
  • I've never tried the adjustable kettlebells - I'm sure that some of them are great - but remember that you'll be swinging them over your head, dropping them on various surfaces (particularly if you try a bit of kettlebell juggling - good fun), and generally giving them a bit more punishment than the typical dumbells. Personally, I prefer the old-style lumps of iron for that reason.
  • If you do end up going for the traditional bells, remember that they last indefinitely and the design hasn't really changed over the years. If you see one on ebay, or a friend is selling one; grab it.
  • There are many more kettlebell exercises than you might imagine. It can be well worth investing in a book or DVD demonstrating some of the basic moves.

Bud Jeffries UnleashedIt looks as though Bud Jeffries - of Strongerman.com fame - has joined the blogging ranks. Welcome aboard.

Bud Jeffries UnleashedIt looks as though Bud Jeffries - of Strongerman.com fame - has joined the blogging ranks. Welcome aboard.

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 :


  • Modifying the way category archives are displayed, as per this article on underscorebleach.net

  • Use of the Ping-O-Matic service instead of individually notifying sites each time I added a post

  • Simplifying the archive templates. Several items which were previously incorporated into each page via the MTInclude tag are now part of the template. Slightly longer maintenance times; much faster rebuilds.

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

<MTBlogComments>
(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 :
  • Modifying the way category archives are displayed, as per this article on underscorebleach.net
  • Use of the Ping-O-Matic service instead of individually notifying sites each time I added a post
  • Simplifying the archive templates. Several items which were previously incorporated into each page via the MTInclude tag are now part of the template. Slightly longer maintenance times; much faster rebuilds.

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
<MTBlogComments>
(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.

Giving Feedback - SttB Articles

There are three ways to give feedback on this site, and I welcome any and all of them. To help keep the lines of communication as open as possible, I choose not to moderate comments or trackbacks (aside from use of various spam filters).

So far, so good.

Comments

There is a comments link at the bottom of each entry. This will tell you how many comments have already been left, as well as the author of the last one.

Several commonly-used HTML tags are allowed - in fact there are buttons provided to make their use even easier. A live preview is also available, just to give you an idea of how things will finally appear.

NB : commenting is automatically disabled on older entries (currently anything over 14 days). If you wish to express an opinion for one of the older posts, contact me using either the feedback form or via email.

Trackbacks

If you've posted something on your own site which may be of interest to visitors here, sending a trackback may be the way to go. The trackback URL is noted beneath each entry's permament archive (permalink) - simply copy and paste this into your blog software before you publish.

Feedback form

For anonymous feedback you might like to use this site's feedback form. The email address is only required if you'd like a response.

Giving feedback - Test articles

There are four ways to give feedback on this site, and I welcome any and all of them. To help keep the lines of communication as open as possible, I choose not to moderate comments or trackbacks (aside from use of various spam filters).

So far, so good.

Comments

There is a comments link at the bottom of each entry. This will tell you how many comments have already been left, as well as the author of the last one.

Several commonly-used HTML tags are allowed - in fact there are buttons provided to make their use even easier. A live preview is also available, just to give you an idea of how things will finally appear.

NB : commenting is automatically disabled on older entries (currently anything over 14 days). If you wish to express an opionion for one of the older posts, contact me using either the feedback form or via email.

Trackbacks

If you've posted something on your own site which may be of interest to visitors here, sending a trackback may be the way to go. The trackback URL is noted beneath each entry's permament archive (permalink) - simply copy and paste this into your blog software before you publish.

Feedback form

For anonymous feedback you might like to use this site's feedback form. The email address is only required if you'd like a response.

Email

The simple, direct mechanism of email is also available. You can get in touch with me via :

sttb at 99shadesofgrey dot com

Tiger Time - SttB Articles

A Tigers Time in the GymSaturday is rapidly becoming blog-finding day. In the midst of a bit of photo sorting (otherwise known as testing out the latest version of Capture One), I stumbled across A Tigers Time in the Gym (courtesy of comments on John's site).

Time to update the feeds.

Tiger time - Test articles

A Tigers Time in the GymSaturday is rapidly becoming blog-finding day. In the midst of a bit of photo sorting (otherwise known as testing out the latest version of Capture One), I stumbled across A Tigers Time in the Gym (courtesy of comments on John's site).

Time to update the feeds.

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