John Brookfield and Jon Bruney World record feat of strength

I got an email from John Brookfield asking me to pass along this information

On Saturday November 1st in Fairmont North Carolina at 2:00 in the afternoon John Brookfield and Jon Bruney will be pulling a semi-truck a distance of one mile plus using only their physical strength and mental discipline.

This will be a World Record. John Brookfield and Jon Bruney have performed this record feat on several other occasions, however, this time they will be pushing the limits as they increase the poundage of the load and also push themselves to complete the mile course as quickly as possible.

Many are saying that this feat and test may be the greatest physical achievement ever accomplished when it comes to strength and endurance. Come out and witness this event and walk with them as the push themselves to keep the semi-truck moving through the street. For more info on the location or more specifics please contact John Brookfied by email at john@powerropes.com.

102 workouts

It's time!
I am pleased to announce the official launch of the 102 Kettlebell Workouts eBook, the sequel to 101 Kettlebell Workouts. The regular price is $27, BUT....
I am going to give a 15% discount until 12:00 midnight Central time tonight 9-20-08.
This link is all you need to get a copy.

Still a few spots left.

For my final US kettlebell workshop of the year, in Nashville TN on Oct. 18th 2008.
We'll be covering the RKC basics and I'll answer any specific questions that come up as well.
Nashville workshops = less travel expense for me so they are always a little lower in price.....
You can sign up here.

How's that Warrior thing going Dave?

Well. Very well, in fact, thanks for asking.

Last week before departure to CT last thursday I tipped the scale at 267.5lbs. I started at about 276 on the Friday before going headfirst into the WD, which was one day shy of 5 weeks.

Of course the scale is about the lousiest measure of what is really going on with a body. Up until Saturday I was feeling really strong and was puting the hurt on a half dozen or more phonebooks a day in addition to swings, pullups and other Hardstyle excursions.

This cold has whipped my ass for the past few days and I have been over hydrating to be safe. I have also had practically no appetite. This morning I was an even 270lbs. I feel my strength returning, which is good because I gotta go to Texas and St. Paul back-to-back weekends very soon.

Conratulations

Congratulations to the newly promoted Senior RKC instructors:
Shaun Cairns, Jon Engum, Brad Nelson, Doug Nepodal, and Will Williams
And new Team Leaders -
Cortez Hull, Dan John, Peter Lakatos, and Jeremy Layport
I am excited to work with you at future RKCs.

UPDATE:
My cold is releasing it's grasp on me. I have spent most of the last 3 days in a Thera-Flu induced coma. Today I am sniffly, but better. I'll prbably train a little tomorrow.

Triple Skillet Roll

My first attempt at the 3-in-1 roll up, in front of probably 150 people at the Ryan Lee Bootcamp Friday night social.

There was no beer available, all they had was Budweiser, so I had to say "Hold my wine and watch this".

I learned this from Dennis Rogers. You can too, if you click HERE.

Brian Grasso of the IYCA

Brian offered up this testimonial for me at the Ryan Lee Bootcamp over the weekend.

Brian is the Founder and CEO of the International Youth Conditioning Association
and is a respected and outspoken leader in the youth athletic development industry.

He's written feature articles for sport training magazines throughout North America including, Men's Fitness, Men's Health, SportingKid, American Track & Field and Personal Fitness Professional.

Speed Switch for Kettlebell Snatches

Seven years

Purposefully Primitive cardio

In The Purposeful Primitive Marty Gallagher describes three modes of cardiovascular training:

1st way-Steady state aerobics. Choose your cardio mode, such as outdoor walking, and hit it in a steady fashion for the prescibed time period. Keep a steady, even pace and heart rate.

2nd way-Interval training. Alternating periods of high intensity "bursts" with lower intensity recovery. Alternating sprinting and walking, or snatches and jogging meet the bill for this one.

3rd way- "Aerobic sessions with a strong element of resistance". Generating sustained strength for an extended period of time. It is intense AND sustained. It apparently reconfigures the muscle in a way that develops more mitochondria, dubbed "Hybrid Super Muscle" by Ori Hofmekler. Kenneth Jay's VO2 Max protocol is an example. The Secret Service Snatch test is another.

But what if you combine? What if you begin with 2nd or 3rd way and then after you start to get fatigued you ease into 1st way to prolong the calorie burn and finish things off? That's what I did today.

Warmup-Some bending and card tearing. Strength training.

3rd way beginning- 40lb weighted vest + 20:00 of 24kg snatching (total 280 reps). The first 100 reps are on the video, done in 4:00.

5:00 recover and rehydrate

35:00 1st way finisher-outdoor walking.

According to my heart rate monitor, I averaged 150 beats per minute for the hour and burned 1108 calories.

Like Godzilla

I am going to Tokyo! I'll be teaching 2 kettlebell workshops there on November 1st and 2nd. I have been in working on nailing down the details with Taikei Matsushita RKC II, and we finally got it all figured out.



Imagine if HE had used Kettlebells!

Cornering a Phonebook

As promised, here it is.

The cool thing about the corner tear is that is impossible to fake or use a "trick" to accomplish. It requires grip strength, period. You either grip and rip or you don't get the tear.

Warrior Diet

So 16 days in I am tipping the scale at 269 (down from 274 on day Zero). Strength is good, pressing, pullups and destroying phonebooks, steel, etc. are all progressing. Shorts are getting loose.

I have settled into the "groove" of this warrior diet thing MUCH easier than I expected. I understand the "mental crispness" of the undereating phase that I have heard and read so much about. Food choices for the big meal have ranged from very clean (steak, eggs, salad, yogurt w/fruit, nuts, peanut butter, steamed veggie) to not-so-clean (wedding cake, a couple of fast food burgers, fries, frozen custard). I drank some light beer at the wedding on Saturday too. Utterly disgusting. I prefer beer that I cannot see through. I have had wine a few evenings as well. Dark, red, dry. We returned from southeast Missouri last night with a cooler full of farm-raised beef from my in laws. Meat is good food.

Today I met Mandy for lunch as it is our 2nd wedding anniversary. I had a Ceasar salad and a little gumbo. Tonight we'll make pizza and drink some wine.

Training today: 20 minutes of continuous snatching with 16kg, switching hands every minute, 20 rep per minute pace except at 12:00-16:00, where I sped up to 26 reps per minute.
My new Heart Rate monitor says I averaged 154 for 22:00 (include a little walking around after the set) which is 84.6% of my Max HR. I have been inspired by Marty Gallagher's Purposeful Primitive in this respect as well.
Strength work today was phonebooks, I finally got a corner tear on Nashville Yellow Pages. Youtube will be up soon.