Like I said, lots to talk about.   I want to bring up the latest endeavor from the American Kettlebell Club.  They recently introduced a new spin on kettlebell lifting which they refer to as " Strongman ".  The rules of this game are pretty simple.  It is one arm jerks and one arm cleans.  Only one hand switch is permitted.  The lifter gets 4 minutes for each drill and jerks are done first followed by a rest period of at least 30 min and then cleans.  There is a ranking system.  For men it starts at 32kg and goes up in 4kg increments all the way to 48kg, for women it starts at 20kg and goes up to 36kg.  To make rank you need to do 24 reps per side per event. That means for example for a female competitor would achieve the highest rank if she could do 24/24 jerks and 24/24 cleans with the 36kg bell within the 4 minutes allotted for each event.  There are no weight classes so its pretty simple. Score is based on combined totals of lowest arm total for each event, for example if I did 15 jerks with my right and 2 with my left and then 10 cleans with my left and 20 with my right my total score would be 12.  Even though you can move up in rank it doesn't mean you'll win a contest.  At the end of the day its all about reps.  These events make for some interesting contests.  Even at the debut there was a nice contest going.  The 48kg Battle of the Andrews may indeed become the stuff of legend:  Andrew Durniat vs Andy Fitting.  After all the smoke cleared Andy Fitting won with 36/36 jerks and 37/37 cleans for a total of 73.  Andrew Durniat had a score of 70.  I am willing to bet this friendly rivalry isn't over.  These guys are going to continue to train and compete.  In addition the event was well received by both the kettlebell and strongman communities so I fully expect some other big strong guys are gonna roll up on this.  Attention John Buckley, Ken Blackburn, Mike Mahler and anyone who has one of my monster bells.  I think those may be very useful in training for this stuff. I suspect soon there may be a need to increase the weights in this game as the Andrews are already making the 48kg bell look too easy!

I see several advantages to this type of event.  First it is one bell so folks aren't as limited by flexibility.  Second heavy weights are used and everybody likes displays of strength. Third the sets are shorter so it is more fun for spectators.  Watching someone suffer for ten minutes as in traditional kettlebell sport seems a little less appealing to some for whatever reason.  I also think this is a great way to get more folks into kettlebells.  I haven't seen any youtube footage of the battle yet but I suspect it will be forthcoming soon.  Not to worry.  For your viewing pleasure here is Andy Fitting setting a world record with the heaviest official kettlebell in the world.  I wonder where that came from? ; ).  72kg 19Jerks!  This is insane.  This bell has to be experienced in person before you can get your head around how heavy it feels.  It wants to crush you.  If you are in the neighborhood stop by and you can see the crown bell I have in my basement.  I won't even go near that gravity hog.  It is practically glued to the ground. 

Way to go Andy.  Funny thing is the heaviest bell Andy has is the 52kg Buffalo bell I made for him.  It must be something in the water there.