Straight to the Bar always runs good stuff, tip o' the hat to them for these two videos. First, insane balancing and body control demonstrated by Rodney Mullin's skateboarding. Second, the Secret Service Snatch Test (SSST) involves snatching a 53 lb. kettlebell as many times as you can in 10 minutes (does the Secret Service really do that?). Anyway, Dustin Silveri scores 195 repetitions. The guy moved over 10,000 pounds from his knees to over his head in 10 minutes. I'll have to give that one a try (with a DB) one of these days. I bet it's a helluva workout.

Here a good article on why the Kettlebell Swing belongs in your fitness arsenal. I've never used kettlebells, but I do know one-arm DB-swings are fantastic. The swing forces you to maintain tension throughout the core (unless you want to throw your back out), works the whole posterior chain, and makes you generate the power and snap from the hips (your arm really just serves as a pendulum, and your grip keeps the DB from flying away, rather than having to actively lift it). At least, that's the way they feel to me.

Update: As usual, the Crossfit folks come through with a video ("Kettlebell Swing" on the list).

Two uses for a deck of cards (besides actual card games, that is):

1. Deck Workout: shuffle 'em up, put them face down, and turn the cards over one at a time. Perform the exercise indicated by the suit:
   • Spades: bodyweight squats
   • Hearts: pull-ups
   • Diamonds: push-ups
   • Clubs: four-count chinnies (left-right-left-right-ONE, etc.)
   Do repetitions in accordance with the value of the card, doing one for aces and ten for all face cards. You might want a multiplier in effect for the squats. And it certainly wouldn't take me long to resort to jumping pull-ups following this protocol.
2. Use the cards to keep track of circuits. For example, to keep track of the 10 circuits in Work Capacity 101 you'd deal out 10 cards, and turn one over after each time you finish a circuit. When they're all flipped, you're done (in oh-so-many ways).

I just tried a minor Tabata interval tweak:

First I set up the pull-up bar and then warmed up on my NordicTrack. For the first set, I cranked as hard as humanly possible on the NT for 20 seconds. I know you're supposed to go that hard whenever you do these, but this set really needs to be super-hard, like it's the only 20 seconds you're going to do, and you're going for the world record. Take note of how many calories you burn in that 20 seconds (so yeah, you'll need a machine with some kind of monitor for this flavor of Tabata interval). Now, during your 10 seconds of "rest" go immediately to the pull-up bar and do as many as you can, keeping count. You now have two numbers. Calories burned and pull-ups pulled. For your remaining Tabata sets, continue to go as hard as you can, but instead of doing them for time, do them for work. So in the second set, you stay on the machine until you've burned the same number of calories as in your first set, then you hop on the pull-up bar until you've done the same number of pull-ups as in your first set. Repeat for a total of eight to ten sets (four to five minutes of total work). Race against the clock, trying to stay within the time constraints defined by straight Tabata intervals. Do not dawdle as you transition from machine to bar and back.

The NT is slightly limiting in terms of how hard you can crank, so doing pull-ups during the "rest" really ups the intensity to a level I hadn't experienced doing unadulterated Tabatas on that machine.