Among the many things I would like to learn but haven't yet is unicycling. A buddy of mine shared these great videos with me awhile ago, and I was reminded of them when I learned one of my daughter's friends learned how to ride, so thought I'd post them here:

• Universe II trailer (MOV, 6.6 MB)
• Unizabatrailer (MPG, 4.3 MB)
• Into the Thunder Dragon trailer (MOV, 14 MB)

Always on the lookout for new ways to hurt myself.

Quick background: I tried twice to make a slammable medicine ball but neither held up. Then I found this approach by Pierre Auge on the Crossfit forums. I resolved to give it a try, but didn't get around to it until recently. In the meantime, a new four-page thread based on enhanced instructions from Pierre appeared, and I finally gave it a go. And it worked! I now have a twenty pound basketball that I can inflate so it bounces slightly, and I can slam the heck out of it with no (so far) big sandy mess to clean up. Here's my version of Pierre's instructions (the instructions are his, the particular experience is mine):

1. Get a cheap rubber basketball, the tougher the better. I think I paid $6.
2. VERY IMPORTANT! If you're going to want to inflate the ball, then the very first thing you should do is inflate it and let it sit around for a day or two to make sure the damn thing doesn't leak. I am speaking from bitter experience: it is quite a letdown to spend hours (really, hours!) filling the ball with sand only to discover a leak near the valve (that you couldn't possibly have caused) days later. *&$#! cheap-ass Walmart ball...
3. Once you're sure you have a good ball, grab the spike from a radial tire plug kit (it should include a spike/rasp, a plug-insertion tool, some cement, and some plugs which are basically long gooey strips of rubber or something) and puncture the ball with it. I actually drilled a hole in my ball, but I read later that stabbing might be better, as no material is actually removed from the ball with a stab. So far no problems with the drilled hole though. No matter what, you want this hole to be as small as possible while still admitting the rasp.
4. Insert an inflation pin into the ball valve. This will allow airflow out of the ball when you pour the sand in. Surprisingly important. Oh, so I guess this means you'll want your hole somewhat near the valve so it stays clear of sand as you're filling. I put mine on the next black line over from the value (in the picture above, you can see the inflation pin in the valve, and my hole is very close to the right edge of the picture).
5. Get a funnel. It will have to be fine enough that you can jam it into the hole, but not so fine that the sand won't flow through it. I used one of those diner ketchup bottles (pictured above) with the tip cut off at an angle (I tried cutting the tip square on one, but then I couldn't jam it into the hole).
6. Pour your sand through the funnel into the ball. A surprising amount can be said about the choice of sand. I used play sand and it was a pain to get into the ball. I would fill my ketchup bottle (which also had a hole in the bottom for airflow purposes) jam it into the ball, and a trickle of sand would flow in before it would jam. So I'd jiggle it around, and it would flow a bit before jamming again. So I held my random orbit sander against the bottle, and the vibrations kept the sand flowing. I don't know how long it took me in total, but I do know that I watched all of The Memory of a Killer (good movie!) on my tiny 7" portable player under flimsy headphones against the whir of my orbital sander, standing on the cement floor of my cold workshop and probably only did three-quarters of the job in that time. It would be much better to rig up some self-filling solution, kinda like my ketchup bottle but much bigger so you can fill it and walk away while the ball fills. I'll leave that as an exercise for the reader. Anyway, back to the sand: some Crossfitters recommended silica sand, as it is finer (I think it's used for sandblasting, among other things). I already had the play sand though, and I could only get the silica sand in 100 pound bags. Besides, silicosis is such an ugly word. Very recently somebody suggested using sugar, which I bet would flow nicely. You could probably get 20 lbs. for $10 or less. Anyway...
7. After the ball is as full as you want it, rasp around in the hole to clean it, then follow the instructions on your tire plug kit to patch the hole. Then slather the plug and surrounding area with Shoe Goo for a good seal. Leave it alone for 24 hours.
8. Inflate as desired, and get slamming!

A couple other notes:

• Clearly getting the sand in is the big chore. I read on one of the Crossfit threads folks that recommend an approach where you slit the ball or cut a flap into it instead. When I did this the ball did not hold up to slams, but it's entirely possible they are better patchers than I am.
• Suddenly $50 or whatever it is for a twenty pound slammable ball doesn't look so bad. :-)
• Thank you, Pierre, for the great instructions!

Art De Vany reposts a letter in defense of Barry Bonds. I think I'm going to have to read his paper.

Jane Brody's perspective on recent studies that might otherwise lead you to load up on the fat and drop the supplements. Love the dog anecdote:

Since the dog had no idea what the capsules were for, or even that he was getting them (they were hidden in a meatball he swallowed whole), I knew there was no placebo effect.

« via Health & Fitness Blog »

I wouldn't want anybody here to actually think I'm good at the stuff I write about. So, details on my embarrassing workout of the day, 100 burpees, as fast as possible. While burpees figure prominently in my routines, I've never actually tried this before.

My time? 15:58.

Shhh... Hear that? If you listen real close you can hear hear folks clicking the "unsubscribe" button in their newsreader of choice.

15:58!? Fer cryin' out loud. That's barely over six per minute! Anyway, enough lamentation. Here's how it broke down for me. I figured I'd tackle it in 10 as-fast-as-I-can blocks of 10, with the minimum rest between blocks. My first block of 10, which is when I should be able to record my best time, took 40 seconds. That is not very good. I'm not sure why I'm so slow at burpees, but I keep working at it. Anyway, if I did them straight through at that pace I'd be looking at around 7 minutes. Of course, fatigue sets in, so subsequent sets take longer, and rest between sets takes longer, and before I knew it I'd nickle-and-dimed my time to death.

My pipe dream was 10:00. At 13:00 and two sets to go I was gunning for 15:00. Pretty much killed me to get under the 16:00 wire.

Consider this a public service. On many a gung-ho site (you know who you are :-) you are encouraged to post times, and one notices a preponderance of superhuman times. One might develop an inferiority complex ("everybody can do these workouts better!"). My theory is that folks with non-superhuman scores are less inclined to post, skewing the sample. That, my friends, is where I come in.

P.S. Score above recorded with a bad shoulder and pulled abdominal muscle.

P.P.S. Immaterial. Even healthy I doubt I would have cracked 15:00.

P.P.P.S. Yet.

A late morning diversion for you: a variety of impressive Capoeira moves. Proof that you can never tell what a guy can do just by looking at him.

Duct Tape. Fantastic. But for use on sucking chest wounds? <shudder> I love the irony that it is actually terrible for duct work.

I've been wanting a tool like AutoHotKey for awhile, particularly for "Hotstrings" (expansion of custom abbreviations in any window!). I just installed the script referenced at the end of the Hotstrings description, and it works great! « via lifehacker »

I've been a bit at sea since finishing the 10-week sample program in Infinite Intensity. I figured I'd revise it slightly and go through it again, but haven't gotten around to the revisions yet, so have been picking and choosing workouts while I waffle. Last week I found myself on a GPP/core day, but without enough time to do both. I didn't want to pick one over the other, so this is what I came up with:

• Body Rows x 30 seconds
• Mountain Climbers x 30 seconds
• Weighted Russian Twists x 30 seconds
• Rest x 30 seconds
• Repeat 10 times

Set things up so you can move between exercises without rest. I felt this one in a bunch of different places for a few days: hips, upper back, lower ribs, obliques (really noticed it sitting up sideways to get out of bed the next morning). Some notes:

• The closer you are to the floor on the body rows, the more challenging they are, but they still aren't nearly as hard as pull-ups. Still, they are a good movement and work the muscles a bit differently. And if you're babying a shoulder that doesn't like going overhead at the moment, they are a nice substitution. If you prefer pull-ups but can't do 10 good circuits of them you can do negatives after you run out of gas (jump to the bar and lower yourself) or static holds (perhaps jump to the uppermost position, hold, lower halfway, hold, lower and hang, keeping shoulders activated).
• To do mountain climbers, assume a push-up position. Sprint in place, pistoning your knees to your chest as fast as you can while keeping good form. The less your butt bobs up and down, the better. The closer your knees get to your chest, the better. The faster, the better. If you haven't done these before, you will find them surprisingly tiring.
• To do weighted Russian twists lie on the floor with your knees bent like you're about to do sit-ups. Holding a medicine ball with both hands, bench press it to the fully extended position and hold it there. Now do a partial sit-up and hold. From this position, keeping the medicine ball extended, twist back and forth, first bringing the medicine ball towards the floor on one side, then the other, maintaining tension throughout your core. You can do this without the ball to make it easier (just clasp you hands). You can do it on an incline bench to make it harder.

Scott Sonnen's floating lever progression is great, with videos of some exercises I'd love to start incorporating, the elbow-lever push-ups, if nothing else. Looks like great core work.

Often the catch-all "men's magazines" fitness stuff is hit or miss, but I took away a couple useful things from the Seven Numbers piece from Men's Health.

Apparently 24 is the magic number when it comes to L&HF-favorite almonds. The notion of pinning it to a specific number is silly, but if you're like me and you tend to overeat at dinner the concept of "front loading" with something densely nutritious seems reasonable.

Also, as a big fan of preventative icing, this caught my eye:

10 Minutes: Spend this amount of time icing after a run to save your knees from osteoarthritis. Weight-bearing exercises, such as running or playing rugby, draw blood and a lubricant called synovial fluid to your joints. And that's good ­ while you're exercising. But if extra synovial fluid and blood stick around for too long, the cartilage can crack and osteoarthritis will eventually develop. That's why post-exercise icing is so critical: "The ice makes the extra fluid run away from your joints, and then your lymphatic system filters it out," says physiotherapist Kevin Olds.

« via HealthHacks »

George Cooke has a good post up on "Intensity", in which he analyzes the Phil Jackson quote, "intensity is full alertness and a commitment to execution and fundamentals". Like George my definition was of the less constructive "go harder, be more aggressive" variety. All these years of "we need to be more intense" instead of "we need to focus." Alas.