Troyis, a simple and addictive Chess puzzle game. I managed to break 100,000 on my second try. That probably represents the best I can do without more practice than I can spare, and is almost certainly a crappy score.

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.

The latest issue of Tyler Hass' Power Rings newsletter asks, "What is Exertainment?":

Okay, I made the word up, but someone had to do it. The term infotainment, which describes the conversion of news and entertainment, is now an accepted term. Even my spell checker did not complain. The combination of exercise and entertainment is the future of the fitness industry. Right now, the first baby steps are being made in this direction by mainstream companies. They are adding TV screens to treadmills, CD players to stationary bikes and mandatory lattes to aerobics classes! I think they are headed down the wrong path. First of all, how effective of a workout is a guy getting when he is sitting on a bike and reading the newspaper? My guess is that his life and well-being are not dependent on his fitness level. Secondly, they are trying to disengage your mind from the workout. Unfortunately, becoming fit is a process that requires full physical, mental and emotional engagement. I don't mean emotional engagement in a hippy, new-age way. I'm talking about toughness, perseverance and commitment. If you can't decide whether you want to train or watch Will and Grace , and the only solution is that you must do both... then fitness might not be for you.

I agree, but with some qualifications... When I started off trying to get my game back, exertainment was a great ice breaker. It wasn't until I had established a good base, and discovered for myself that exertainment (and moderate aerobic exercise) wasn't going to take me nearly far enough that I abandoned it for more committed workouts.

So this raises the question: does exertainment serve as a good stepping stone to more productive workouts, or does it keep people from fully embracing their commitment to fitness? Personally, in my exertainment phase I liked the TV and resented the exercise for distracting me from enjoying it as much. The TV was the carrot, the exercise was the stick. Once I turned off the TV, the exercise became the carrot. But I have no idea if this was because the exercise habit had finally taken hold naturally, or because the harder workouts were more rewarding and producing more obvious results (and were too demanding to do in front of the tube), or because the TV itself was keeping me from embracing the exercise for its own sake.

But the bottom line is this: if you are able to focus and enjoy whatever is on the TV while you exercise, then you're just doing aerobics, and really should mix in some intervals. If you're already doing intervals and still enjoy TV at the same time, you aren't doing your intervals hard enough.

The training paid off! My team, "Salt", qualified in the Masters division. We have a couple studs, but mostly we are a team full of role players from small towns, and it was a true team effort to make the grade at Regionals (especially after an abysmal Saturday showing in equally abysmal weather). I couldn't be more proud of my teammates, so many of whom (myself included) have never qualified before. Heck, many of our players have only ever played small-town Ultimate, and have little or no college or club experience outside that afforded by the gradual evolution of their local game.

So one of our guys calls his wife (who, like all frisbee spouses, is a champ) and tells her we made it. Her response: "That's great. The basement is flooded."

Ah yes, such is the life of the non-professional athlete. :-) Did I mention three inches of rain fell on us during Saturday play?

After you get 100 mundane pushups, get yourself some rings and try this variation on the workout. Better yet, don't wait. One workout can feed the other. I know I'm looking forward to the off-season when I can start trying some new things, including rings. I may try building my own (scroll down a few posts to the second set of homemade rings, then click "Next Page" for more details), but really when you consider labor (and the fact that I'll screw up at least once and likely unleash toxic PVC fumes on my family) the Power Rings price looks like it hits the sweet spot.

It pains me to write this, having been blown away by the five Cirques du Soleil I've seen previously (Saltimbanco, Quidam, Mystere, Alegria, and Dralion), but Varekai was merely very good. The other shows were entrancing/spectacular/[insert your favorite superlative here] from beginning to end. But Varekai? Sure, we enjoyed the show, and it got the standing ovation, but really I only stood up so I could see over everybody else who felt compelled to leap to their feet. Here's where it fell short (note that these are all things the other shows delivered beautifully):

• The unifying theme wasn't all that unifying. I still don't know what some stuff was supposed to represent.
• The clowns, for the first time, were very Ringling Brothers. Not that there's anything wrong with Ringing Brothers clowns, but until now the CdS clowns have been very distinctive, uniquely hysterical, and well-integrated (see note above regarding the weak theme).
• I do not, for the first time, feel any desire to buy the music for the show. I understand the dissonance was intentional, but was it really necessary to shine blinding lights into my eyes to underscore the discomfort?
• The acts were varying degrees of amazing, but not as uniformly as in years past. I don't think it's that I've seen too many of these shows, but perhaps.

All that said, it was money well spent and I'd go again. Five fabulous shows and one entertaining one is still quite a track record.

Today's Crossfit Workout of the Day—100 pull-ups! (with video!)— led me to a great thread over there on the virtues of the kipping pull-up. The whole thread is informative, especially Coach Sommer's posts.

While we're on the subject, Jim over at Beast Skills is on the rebound from a wrist injury. Gotta love a guy whose recovery is miles better than my best day. But anyway, further down in his post he describes a monster pull-up I haven't seen mentioned before: "the rafter chin". I don't think his training log is broken up into separate pages, so look towards the end of the 10/4/2005 entry.

Running Research News has a free sample issue (PDF) available, and it’s well worth your time. I found the hamstring strengthening article particularly informative.

Chandra at Lick the Spoon on her brownie quest:

Listen. I have tried and tried and tried all the brownies out there.... I have made them from a box, I have made them from a bag, I have made the from scratch and I have made them after a good shag.... and still I have not found THE brownie.

Happily, Nigella Lawson to the rescue. My, that’s a lot of butter and eggs!

How many weblogs sport a inaugural post that could save your life? Here's a video demonstrating how to save yourself if you fall through the ice. Our star (and my current hero) illustrates by skiiing himself into a icy hole in a frozen lake. There are at least five life-saving tips in that video that never would have occurred to me.

They really should tell us how he got his skis back though.

I understand the reasons for Lorem Ipsum placeholder text, but I like using The Iliad anyway. You be the judge:

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Mauris a nisi. Vestibulum a tortor quis diam dapibus pellentesque. Cras turpis risus, accumsan sed, porttitor eu, pulvinar eu, dolor. Sed ut justo. Aenean malesuada. Ut ac velit non libero varius ultrices. Sed consequat gravida magna. Curabitur eget orci sit amet dui convallis sagittis. Sed nec elit. Nunc lectus quam, fringilla vel, molestie quis, auctor ac, justo.

... or:

Sing, O goddess, the anger of Achilles son of Peleus, that brought countless ills upon the Achaeans. Many a brave soul did it send hurrying down to Hades, and many a hero did it yield a prey to dogs and vultures, for so were the counsels of Jove fulfilled from the day on which the son of Atreus, king of men, and great Achilles, first fell out with one another.

That's the opening paragraph of the Samuel Butler translation. A buddy of mine swears by the George Chapman translation, but I can't find it online anywhere.

On the one hand, I hate discovering my weaknesses because I really don't want to have any. On the other hand, when I find them I can work to eliminate them. I have the shins under control, and am working actively on my back so I can hopefully keep it from going out every other year. Up next? My rotator cuff. I haven't torn it or anything, but I have nagging soreness that is starting to get in the way of my pushups, pullups, and will certainly be an obstacle in some of the more advanced skills I'd like to tackle. So here's what I've learned:

From the March 2002 issue of Men's Fitness, Big-League Shoulder Protection by Roy M. Wallack:

The most common injuries in sports are to the shoulder. The overhead (military) press and deep dips both put huge amounts of stress on the shoulder (see tip No. 2). So does throwing a baseball, swimming, rowing, or swinging a racquet--anything that repeatedly puts your arm over your head, or raises it out to the side or pulls it in, exerting lots of extra force on the shoulder joint.

The problem is that the shoulder isn't as strong as it looks. The humerus (upper-arm bone) has a large range of motion only because it dangles precariously off the edge of the body. The humeral head is pulled sideways against the socket of the scapula (the shoulder blade) by a series of four small upper-back muscles collectively called the rotator cuff. These muscles are the foundation, the unsung heroes, the glue that holds the shoulder joint together. When they ate weak or overpowered, the humerus gets out of line and undue stress is placed on tendons and ligaments. And you feel pain.

It's easy to strengthen the rotator cuff muscles—if you can remember to work them, that is. Since these so-called "precision" muscles (which precisely center the humeral head) are invisible from the outside, they're easy to overlook. Big mistake.

We love to build up the glamorous "outside" muscles, the triceps, biceps, delts, lats. "Ironically," says Jobe, "the stronger these get relative to the rotator cuff, the more at risk you are of pulling the humerus out of its tenuous socket, injuring the AC joint (the juncture of the clavicle and the acromion, the front of the shoulder blade) and even tearing some tendons." The latter is the dreaded "torn" rotator cuff. Bottom line: Ignore the rotator cuff at your own peril.

That article also includes a laundry list of dangerous exercises, which includes pushups! Basically, it includes anything that puts your elbow behind your body. Sigh. I am unwilling, however, to give up dips and so thoroughly compromise the range-of-motion on my pushups. So hopefully strengthening my poor neglected rotator cuff muscles will do the trick. The article above has the exercise illustrations stripped, so here are some from The American Academy of Family Physicians and some more from Body Results.

Encouragingly, this happens not only to people like me, who are climbing the fitness ladder, but also to guys like Matt Furey, who stand on a pretty high rung:

What I have to tell you is something you can etch in stone right now. And that is ... There are muscles all over your body that cannot be adequately trained with weights or with body weight calisthenics.

You may wonder, how do I know this? Good question. I'll answer by telling you about the shoulder injury I sustained from a combination of:

a. wrestling
b. the gymnastic rings
c. throwing whip-like backhands

The injury sort of crept up on me. Thinking it was just a nagging annoyance, I kept on. Then, in December of 1999, a day after giving a seminar in Philadelphia, I could barely lift my right arm. In fact, the only way I COULD move it was by grabbing beneath the elbow with my left hand and pushing it where I wanted it to go.

I gave it a rest for a week and it felt a bit better, and so, even though I couldn't use the arm too well, I kept on wrestling, thinking I would eventually get over it. A month later, I stopped wrestling for two months to let it heal. Sure, it got better during that time - but it was still weak.

Whenever I thought I was much better, I would try some Hindu pushups. It would feel okay for awhile, but then, after a couple days, I was back to agony again. Through a combination of deep tissue massage and herbs, the shoulder would feel much better - but because the pain came back when I trained, I feared that my Hindu pushup days were over.

He then goes on to sing the praises of the Lifeline Chest Expander. I think I'm going to stick with the aforementioned exercises and stretches for now, but he does a quite a job of making it sound like the greatest thing since sliced bread.