Supreme 90 day: the poor man's P90X?

Here's the review of the Supreme 90 day (S90 hereafter) regime I recently found. We've now done a few of the routines and so have a decent idea about its pro's and cons. I'll begin with some caveats.

My first caveat is that this is only a partial review of the regime. Like P90X, S90 offers a variety of work-outs and apparently even some kind of diet plan. As was the case with my partial review of P90X, though, several of the workouts do not interest me, so I've not tried, and do not plan to try, them. And, as with P90X, the dietary rules are not applicable to me so I have not even looked to see what the dietary plan is like. I can thus only offer a partial review--a review of the parts of this regime that interest me and that I intend to incorporate into my own exercise regimen.

As a refresher on my "partiality" in writing reviews of fitness regimes, I will just reiterate the following factors: 1) I do not need to lose any weight and so am uninterested in diet plans; 2) the mainstay of my fitness regimen is an aerobic activity--cycling--so I am uninterested in both aerobic and leg-strengthening routines; and 3) what I am interested in is augmenting my base fitness activity with some toning/strengthening routines for the upper body. Now you have some idea of why I am offering only a partial review of S90: I don't intend to address the parts of the program that don't interest me and that I don't use.

You may guess from the foregoing remarks that I don't intend to review the S90 plan as a whole. By that, I mean that, like P90X, this program is undoubtedly structured in a certain way, with certain DVD's meant to be done on certain days and in a particular order throughout a 90-day period. Well, since I'm picking and choosing from this program what I want to use in my own regimen, I'm not in a very good position to assess their plan for executing the series of exercises they offer. In fact, I've not even looked at that plan, and do not intend to. It's irrelevant to my aims. So, sorry I can't provide feedback on that.

Another caveat I will make concerns the title of this review. As you will note both from the title and from the few paragraphs I've thus far written, the P90X program is being invoked as a sort of standard against which I am judging S90. The main reason for that, in case it's not obvious, is because this program clearly styles itself after P90X: a 90-day program marketed as one that will get you in great shape, that uses minimal equipment and can be done in the home, that is comprised of a series of roughly one-hour exercise routines, each contained on one of several DVD's (10 in total) that make up a set, that offers a diet plan, that has an instructor accompanied by a small group of participants who help to demonstrate exercises--they even use the same scientific-sounding (but, ultimately bogus) concept of "muscle confusion" as a sales gimmick. The list of similarities could go on.

As someone who is fairly familiar with P90X, I've in fact speculated as to how this program came into being. Of course only the folks who planned and produced this program know the answer for sure, but I can conjecture some enterprising individual thinking to themselves "P90X is a great program, but its price probably scares off many who might otherwise give it a try. So what if something comparable were produced but sold at a much lower price? The market has already been prepped and there must be quite a number of folks who would buy a 90-day routine sold at a much lower price. . . ." Etc., etc.

I'm pretty sure something very much like this scenario is what actually led to the conception and production of the S90 exercise routine. Thus the title of this entry--"the poor man's P90X." Hard to see how the creators of S90 could object to that if my speculations are anywhere near valid.

Now, gauging by what I know of the P90X crowd, many of them are liable to look on S90 with disdain--as a cheap, perhaps even unworthy--imitation P90X. That disdain stems, I think, from the innate human sensibilities of allegiance and loyalty--sensibilities which, in this case, I think are being subverted by, and wrongly devoted toward, capitalist entities whose interest in health, exercise, and individual well-being is dictated solely by profit margins. Not to veer further into philosophical considerations, let me just point out that I feel absolutely no allegiance or loyalty to P90X or the company that markets it.

Zero. Nada. I like the exercises they present and have enjoyed certain health benefits from using them in a disciplined way, but I'm not going to pretend that this company has some sort of monopoly on any aspect of the field of exercise and health. No, I take the same stance toward them and their products as they take toward me: to the extent that their products are of use and beneficial to me, I'm willing to buy and use them. When they cease to be useful or beneficial, or if find something I like better, it's good-bye charlie to P90X and the associated company and products. In short, I am an absolute and total non-partisan when it comes to P90X and the company backing them.

To summarize, you'll find no life-changing testimonial in this review. Given the shape that I'm in, even if I were to do this program to a "T" over the specified 90-day duration, I'd say the results would be almost negligible. So I don't look to S90 for the types of reasons the company who sells it hopes I might. Rather, I aim to use parts of it in my existing fitness regimen and this review will be mostly a rehearsal of how well or poorly it can augment that.

The review

This review concerns the set of 10 DVD's sold under the name "Supreme 90 Day," all of which DVD's I've viewed, but only 4 of which I've used. The 4 I've used are labeled: Chest and Back; Back and Bi's; Chest, Shoulders, and Tri's; Shoulders and Arms. The 6 remaining ones that I've not tried are labeled: Legs; Cardio Challenge; Tabata Inferno; Total Body; Core Dynamics; and Ultimate Ball. I've noted why I'm not interested in leg-strengthening exercises or cardio routines--which tells you why I won't be using the Legs, Cardio Challenge, or Tabata Inferno DVD's. I may, at some point, test out the Total Body, Core Dynamics, and Ultimate Ball DVD's. But for now I'm using just the 4 I listed and am most likely to incorporate just those into my long-term fitness plan.

I suppose I should mention at this point as well that the company sells a separate abs/core DVD as well, marketing it as some kind of supplement you can get for "only" another 5 dollars (or, in marketing speak, $4.99). There is enough ab/core work in the other DVD's--as I'll presently explain--for my purposes, so I didn't get and won't review that ab/core DVD here either.

I feel as though I should actually be writing two reviews: one largely positive and that reflects my own rather unique fitness situation and needs, and one mostly negative review for S90's target audience. You see for me S90 is a great find. I'm very happy I found it. It will fit nicely into my fitness regimen and I'm very pleased at the low price.

But for the target audience, i.e., the group to whom S90 is being marketed, I presume the program will be something of a bust. You see, this is a fairly advanced fitness regime and, moreover, one that is rather poorly "choreographed" (more on the poor choreography later). The target audience, on the other hand, seems to to be low-income couch potatoes. Thus, I foresee many people buying this program on a whim, trying to follow along with the first few DVD's and having difficulty, owing to both the advanced fitness level required and the poor choreography, getting discouraged, and then abandoning the program. For these sorts of people, S90 will turn out to be a waste of time and money.

If you fall within the S90 target audience, consider yourself warned: you may well end up being disappointed. That said, there have to be more folks out there like me who, despite the program's shortcomings--and it does have some notable shortcomings--can nevertheless make good use of it and for whom it will be well worth the modest price. It is mainly for these latter that I write this review.

I begin with a list of pro's and cons that, as I intimated earlier, will use P90X as something of a standard. First, S90's pro's: 1) all routines I've used begin with a warm-up of core body muscles--in fact, we've suspended our ab work-outs while testing out S90 on the assumption that we get an equally good core work-out from the S90 warm-up; 2) use of a balance ball for many exercises, which helps to engage more muscle groups; 3) fairly short routines, running between 22 and 32 minutes; 4) a fairly advanced program, something good for me because I've been exercising regularly for a few years and am up for the challenge; and 5) a modest price.

Here are the cons: 1) the routines are plagued by poor choreography, meaning that the routines were not sufficiently rehearsed, which lends the videos a bit of a chaotic feeling with some participants finishing before others and instances in which example exercises are poorly or wrongly demonstrated--it can thus be difficult to follow along at times; 2) the videos appear to suffer from cheap production and are somewhat amateurish; 3) most of the participants appear to be either models or fitness professionals; 4) from some internet postings I've read, it appears that the company marketing the product is somewhat unscrupulous, apparently attempting to hound callers to their toll-free number into buying a lot of their other merchandise (which is why I recommend buying them through a retailer like Bed, Bath & Beyond or Walgreens).

These observations having been made, what's on the DVD's? Each DVD I've used has 3 segments: 1) a warm-up session that goes for about 5 minutes; 2) the workout to which that DVD is devoted; and 3) a cool-down session--again running about 5 minutes. The warm-up and cool-down sessions are on separate tracks from the main workout, and same warm-up/cool-down sessions are used for all DVD's.

As with P90X, the videos have a few participants demonstrating and executing the exercises while a "coach" urges them on. All the DVD's I've used so far have 4 participants.

S90 differs from P90X in the number of exercises and the way they are structured. The P90X routines I've used usually have you doing just one set of any given exercise per session, though one of the DVD's does involve two "rounds." That latter DVD has you doing two sets of each exercise, one set in each round or half of the session.

With S90, on the other hand, each exercise comprising the set is repeated: most of the exercises on the DVD's I've used are repeated 3 times. The typical structure is as follows: a set of 3 exercises is introduced and demonstrated, then the exercises are executed in sets of 3. To make up an example for this explanation, say the 3 exercises are pull-ups, push-ups and chair dips. After the demonstration of how the exercises are done, the participants then do a set of pull-ups, then a set of push-ups, then a set of chair dips, and they repeat that cycle 3 times. Breaks between each of these exercises are to be minimized. Once this complex of 3 exercises is repeated 3 times, the next threefold complex of exercises is demonstrated, then executed.

Overall, then, there are fewer exercises in S90 than in P90X, but more total repetitions of each of the exercises are performed in S90. Each of the S90 DVD's I've thus far used has you doing 3 or 4 of these threefold complexes in the session. So S90 is comparatively more repetitive than P90X.

The main flaw I've found in this program, as I've mentioned, is poor choreography. By that I mean that insufficient time was devoted to determining how well the home viewer might be able to follow along with the video participants. The fact that at least some of those participants seem like they may be fitness professionals is related: given that fitness is their profession, they are in better condition than most of us and can thus perform these exercises quickly. In order for those who are not fitness professionals to follow along, the professionals should be making a special effort to perform exercises more slowly and deliberately, but sometimes they are not. In fact, in some of the DVD's, one or more of the participants may get significantly behind the others. Thus, the participants are not always doing the same exercise at the same time--which could introduce confusion for some. From my observations to date it seems that the first DVD in the set suffers most from this flaw, while subsequent DVD's are a bit better. But there is some element of chaos in all the DVD's I've viewed in this respect. I personally do not find this especially distracting but others may.

In the way of other major contrasts between P90X and S90, the S90 routines I've done involve more use of dumbbells and less use of calisthenics or bodyweight exercises than do the P90X routines. While various types of push-ups are to be found in the S90 routines, there is nothing like chin-ups/pull-ups, tri-ups, or chair dips. So, though there are some calisthenics/bodyweight exercises in S90, comparatively there is more focus on use of dumbbells.

Some of the exercises found on these DVD's are similar to those found in the P90X repertoire, but there are enough differences to make these S90 routines a welcome variant for those who use P90X routines over longer periods (we've been incorporating parts of P90X into our regimen for over 2 years now). A few exercises in S90 are essentially the same as those in P90X.

The fellow who leads the exercise routines is Tom Holland. He definitely doesn't have Tony Horton's charisma or knack for lovable obnoxiousness, but I find him to be a welcome break. His demonstrations of technique, while at times a bit too fast, are generally easy to follow. Unlike Tony, Tom mostly walks around talking and coaching, not doing most of the exercises. Not a minus in my book, but a point of contrast.

About the only thing I can say about the nutrition program is that it has the name of Tosca Reno attached to it. I have no idea who she is but have read some internet postings indicating that her association with this program is something positive.

At some later date I may post a list of the exercises found on each of the S90 DVD's I use. There are not that many on any given DVD, so that will be easy enough to do.

I will just reiterate in closing that, for my purposes, S90 is working great. It fills a need I have to further vary my upper-body strengthening/toning exercises and for the price it has been well worth it for me. If you are in good condition like me, even though your fitness aims and needs may be different from mine, you may likewise be pleased with this fitness regime.

If you're not in very good shape, however, S90 may not be such a good program to start with. But if you take things slowly and put in the time and effort to figure out the structure of the routines, you may be able to benefit from this regime. The key for those of us who are less fit will be patience--which will likewise probably mean taking longer than 90 days slated for completing the program.

Supreme 90 day?

Ok. I quite by chance happened to glimpse a TV advertisement for yet another 90-day fitness regimen--by chance because I really watch very little TV and, even more importantly, because I view almost no commercials (thanks to MythTV DVR/PVR!). In fact, it was really only because I recently migrated my MythTV DVR/PVR to a newer machine and was thus doing some experimentation with it, that I saw this ad.

Most immediately the commercial caught my eye because, well, it looked a lot like the P90X regimen but seemed to have been done by a completely different company. What was additionally a bit arresting is that the advertised price was far lower than P90X--only $20.00 (the marketing euphemism for which is $19.99). Oh, and shipping and handling sets you back another $6.00 (as you'll deduce from the comment above, that's non-market-speak for $5.99).

Finally this advertisement held a continued interest for the following reason: I've been considering how to further vary our upper-body strength training and it seemed as though it might help me accomplish that. I'm not feeling the aftereffects of our sessions nearly as strongly as, say, even last year. That, and just the desire for greater variation in our routines, made this seem like something worth pursuing. Would it be different enough from P90X to give the needed variation? That's one thing I hope to find out soon, and which I plan to share on this blog.

So I began trying to find out more on the internet about this routine. Well, this really was quite the chance occurrence: I, who miss at least 99% of all the commercials that occur during the limited amount of television I watch, appear to have seen some of the earliest advertising for this routine. Seems like it's only just now getting out to customers.

My internet searching didn't turn up much. Apparently this routine is so new that no one has yet written any full-fledged reviews. I did find some worthwhile snippets on it here and there--"worthwhile" meaning they were written by people who'd actually viewed and/or used the routines, as opposed to sites that try to disguise marketing hype as user commentary. Though the little real information (as opposed to marketing hype disguised as information) I found seemed to indicate the exercise routines might be worthwhile, I gathered from some of the commentary I found that the company marketing this regimen is rather disreputable.

In the end, I decided to plunk down the modest price--though I did make sure to go through a national retail store (Bed, Bath, and Beyond) who will be selling this set rather than having any direct dealings with the shady company doing the marketing. The set is due soon and I intend to use and review it on this blog (e-mail notifying that the order was shipped is dated 1/28/11).

That's the news for the moment. So, watch in the coming days for the review I'll be writing of this P90X knock-off.

LATER NOTE: I see now that one of the links I provide above has a comment stating that these DVD's are currently available at Walgreens (in the "As seen on TV" section).

Review of scooby

In this entry I'll offer a review of a site I stumbled across when looking up fitness information about a year or two ago. The URL for that site is www.scoobysworkshop.com.

I was pleasantly surprised when I found this site--mainly because the author of the site and I share similar fitness philosophies. The author of that site goes by the nickname "scooby," by the way, thus the title of this entry.

Scooby demonstrates bench press

It was refreshing to find scooby's site because, unlike the vast majority of fitness sites on the internet, he's not trying to sell you anything. Rather, he advises against buying expensive equipment and/or instructional material, encouraging readers to buy just a few used weights. His workouts are designed to be performed in a home setting, so gym memberships are likewise not promoted by him.

What's more, scooby even provides a wealth of material, including instructional videos, all for free. I would definitely advise anyone interested in starting a fitness regime to check his site. Even rank beginners can find useful material there--he's not at all elitist in his approach.

And he's not an amateur either. By his own admission, he's been lifting weights for 30 years--another reason I felt a kinship with him; he's pretty close to my age. His fitness pursuits all these years seem to have focused mainly on bodybuilding.

Which will clue you in to the aspect of his site that I find not so helpful. As you will know if you've read other entries in this blog, I'm not really interested in developing bigger muscles--"bulking up" as they call it in some circles. For one thing, I don't think there's a whole lot bulking I could do at 51 years of age, even if I wanted to. But then there's the fact that I wasn't interested in developing a bodybuilder's physique even in my younger years when it would have been feasible.

For my taste, there's too much emphasis on scooby's site on things like gaining muscle mass and reducing body fat--both obsessions for those who go in for bodybuilding. That said, he does have a good deal of information that can be helpful to those such as myself who are not pursuing a bodybuilder's physique. It just takes some ferreting around to find it.

For example he's got some good nutrition information and even recipes. And his videos give good demonstrations of proper form for various exercises. Scooby also provides a review of P90X which happens to agree pretty substantially with my own review written a couple of years ago.

So, all in all, scooby's site is a net positive. Anyone interested in fitness is bound to benefit from having a look. So, go check him out!

On the fitness front, we decided to take a week off this week. We're moving from one apartment to another so we're getting exercise from that. And we just give ourselves a break from time to time during the year. This is one of those times.

Blood pressure update

I need to offer an update on my blood pressure issue--high blood pressure readings having been a major factor in the development of my current exercise regime and in the institution of this blog. But before getting to that matter, I'll need to address another health issue that I've suspected might be related to the increased blood pressure--insomnia--as well as a new medication I've been taking in response to that issue. Follow me?

I finally decided to see a specialist this past summer about my insomnia issue, i.e., a doctor who specializes in sleep disorders. I described my problem and what I'd done so far about it--mainly, that I'd used zolpidem with limited success. She decided to offer a new medication; Lyrica.

Long story short, Lyrica has been fairly effective in resolving the insomnia issues. It's not the "silver bullet" by any means. I still have difficult nights on occasion. But it is the most effective sleep aid I've tried to date, and compared to life without Lyrica, the old "night and day" adage applies: I am sleeping much, much, better.

No more rising after only 3 or 4 hours in bed because I can't get back to sleep after having awoken for the 10th time. No, on almost any night I take the Pregabalin (Lyrica) I am in bed for at least 7 hours. I may not sleep as deeply as I should, and may still wake up a few times during the course of the night, but I don't have much problem falling back to sleep when that happens. So, the quality of sleep I'm getting has improved markedly over the past few months.

Now, back to the blood pressure issue. I'm no longer taking blood pressure readings with any regularity, as anyone who's looked at my blog entries on this subject over the last 9 months or so will know. But I do still get measurements taken when I have a doctor's visit or some medical procedure. And I stopped taking some time over the course of the summer when we were doing a lot of biking, the medication (hydrochlorothiazide) I'd been given for high blood pressure. I've taken that only a few times over the last several months.

The last few times my blood pressure has been measured, it's been pretty close to normal--systolic from about 122-132 and diastolic in the lower 80's. And that's a great relief, i.e., to be heading into winter, when my blood pressure usually goes up, with blood pressure pretty close to normal despite being off hydrochlorothiazide.

I hope what's happening here is that my supposition that chronic insomnia was causing my blood pressure to rise is correct, and that the Lyrica, which has greatly increased my quality/quantity of sleep, is what's brought this about. While I don't like the idea of taking Lyrica long-term, it seems at the moment the lesser of two evils: it might keep my blood pressure in check while allowing me to go off hydrochlorothiazide.

I remain on the lookout for alternative sleep aids. But that's a subject for a future entry.

13-14 miles over the weekend . . .

Our cycling mileage has definitely gone way down now. We're hoping we might get in 10-12 miles today--still waiting to see if the weather holds out.

Ok, so if we might get in 10-12 miles today, why am I crowing (in this entry's title) about having done 13-14 miles over the whole weekend? Well, here's why: because we didn't do that on the bike. We walked 13-14 miles--about 6.5 on Sat. and about 7.5 on Sun. We even carried packs and hauled home a few groceries on those trips.

Granted, there's nothing "sexy" about that kind of workout. But you still feel it, and I have no doubts whatever that it is a good fitness activity. After all, walking's been nearly the sole form of human fitness activities from the dawn of human history--which, as some would tell us, began when man "left the trees."

So, we're back to mixing in some walking now that the weather's not too favorable for cycling. And we love it. I recommend you give it a try.

Instead of jumping in your car to drive to your local fitness center, why not walk, then cut your workout a little short? Or even replace your cardio workout altogether with a good, long walk--and do some errands along the way to convince yourself that fitness and practicality don't have to be polar opposites.

I could go on a good, long rant about that, i.e., about segregating fitness from other life activities, something done in isolation from them--some sort of fitness purist attitude, I suppose. But, maybe I'll rant some other time.

Try walking! We have, and we love it!

New phase begins soon

We'll be ending our alternate modified P90X phase soon. We started it back in May, I think, as a new experiment in changing up our routine over the course of the year. It was intended to allow us to focus more on cycling, and a little less on the upper-body strength training we do to augment that.

Alt-Mod-P90X was to last for as long as we could put in decent mileage on the bike outdoors, and that time is pretty much here. The daylight hours have shortened considerably, so that limits riding time. Though the weather so far has been fairly mild--and we got in some nice, shorter rides this past week, there have been periods when we've had to resort to the stationary bikes indoors. All that spells the impending end of this Alt-Mod-P90X phase for this year, and back to one of our other, twice-weekly upper-body workout routines.

I wanted to make the change this week, but I got really sick last weekend. I'm still recovering. So we're taking a week off before beginning the new phase--it'll start next week. At that point, we'll go back to our modified Power90 phase.

I continue to think about ways in which we might further vary our upper-body strength training. I've considered kettlebells, but no immediate plans for that--other than a huge design improvement in the equipment that I'd like to make (soft instead of hard kettlebells). Maybe I'll post some details about that plan later.

Other than that, what I'd really like to try is some basic heavy lifting--something along the lines of geriatric power-lifting. It looks interesting and various things I've read recommend incorporating heavy weights. Problem is, the equipment. I don't want to buy a whole bunch of weight to keep around: I'd certainly only use it for a very small part of the year--and maybe not even every year. Likewise, I'm not too hot on paying to use the weights elsewhere. Having an (admittedly modest) exercise facility right in the building where you live kind of spoils you: no expense, no travel time to and from the gym, etc.

So those remain abstract ideas for now. I'd like to try them, but it's gotta fit into our schedule and budget, and at the moment I can't see how it would. And we've got something that seems to work pretty well for now.

End of season conditioning

We managed to get in a 50-mile day, about which I was pleased. We even managed to get in a 60-mile day, about which I'm even more pleased. So I think I can truthfully say that we're pretty much where we were at, fitness-wise, prior to going on vacation at the end of the summer.

The signs are all there. The lactic acid build-up that occurs when riding really hard up hills and that makes you wonder whether you can still keep your legs moving when you're near the summit, becomes less bothersome--you feel some soreness but the pain is not such that you wonder whether you can keep moving. I wonder, by the way, what is the explanation behind this aspect of fitness? The weight is still down: by the way, I've been hovering at right around 200 since toward the end of summer, sometimes a pound or two below, sometimes a pound or two above.

I think this signals that the end of cycling season is just about here. We won't have too many more nice days for riding. If we'll see another 50, I don't know. But I hope so--at least maybe one last day this season.

And probably around the beginning of November is when we'll go back to our twice-weekly strength-training workouts (the modified Power90 phase). Less time for cycling, more time--and energy--to work the upper body.

Where I'm at now

This is a follow-up to my post about resuming exercise after vacation, having not done much intense exercise for about 3 weeks. As a means for providing you with what I hope may be helpful information, what were the effects of the 3-week break? And how long has it taken/is it taking to get back to my previous level of fitness?

First, a couple of caveats. Our most intense exercise season is summer, and it's more intense because on some days we're spending 6 or 7 hours exercising (long bike rides). And when we're not spending that long, we're spending at least an hour, and oftentimes more, on the bike. Compare that to the half-hour to 45-minute stints we do in winter. We can expect a big difference in terms of conditioning in those two seasons, right?

Well, when we left for vacation we were pretty close to the peak of that intense exercise period--maybe just a little on the downhill side of it. And now, having arrived back from that 3-week break, we are really beginning to wind down the more intense part of the fitness year: the days are growing shorter and cooler, so the opportunities for long bike rides are dwindling.

How wish we could get in another 70-mile day this season! But we'll be lucky if we can get in one more 50-mile day, I think.

I think that covers my caveats. The salient point to draw from all of that is that we're winding down our intense physical activity season, and so are beginning the portion of the year in which our fitness level is correspondingly lower. What I'll say, in a nutshell, then, is that we won't be getting back soon to the level of fitness we had prior to going on vacation: we'll be aiming for that middle of next summer, instead.

So, how are we doing in terms of getting back into the fitness routine after our 3-week break? Pretty good, I'd say. Those first few bike rides I did not at all have the feeling I had prior to vacation, when I had plenty of strength to get up hills and then recovered quickly afterward. No, it actually surprised me what a struggle it was to get up those hills the first few rides, and how winded I felt. Likewise, that first alternate modified P90X workout was tough, and I felt like I was functioning at about half capacity (lingering jet lag didn't help, either). I was slightly worried.

But we've now gone for our eighth ride or so--including a 34-mile day--and I feel my conditioning coming back pretty good. Likewise, our last alternate modified P90X session went pretty well--only a few "sissy push-ups" during the second half of the routine.

All that to say that, when it comes down to it, it's taken me about 3 weeks of our regular workouts to get somewhere close to where we were before taking our 3-week break. Pretty sensible, when you think about it: a break of X days will require X days of re-acclimation.

I don't know if this formula is age-related. Would I need that much time if I were, say, in my twenties, to get near the condition I'd been in before the break? I would guess not, but that's just a guess.

But this blog is for people around 50 who are getting into, or sustaining fitness, so I'm not really interested in figuring out the recovery-to-age quotient. It suits my purposes to say "hey, if you're around 50 and you take a break from fitness of X days, you'll need about X days to get close to the fitness level you were at when you started your break." I hope that proves helpful to someone.

Sometime soon I'll offer another entry mulling the purpose of this blog, it's direction, and what I intend to do with it as contrasted with other blogs. Stay tuned.

Kinda like starting from scratch . . . well, almost

Three weeks away from our exercise routine. It's not like we just laid on our butts all that time, though. We at least put in many miles walking.

But getting back to our alternate modified P90X has gone slowly. That first session was a killer that had my arm muscles trembling all evening afterward. And I took it pretty easy during the workout since jet lag has not yet worn off and I was feeling kind of out of it (bad headache). I'm feeling soreness today, too, but it's not as bad as I thought it might be. It'll be interesting to see how long it will take to get "back to form" in terms of upper body fitness.

And we've taken a couple of shorter rides as well. Hope to get in some miles this weekend--hopefully 30-plus each day.

So three weeks off is a definite fitness setback. It was a needed break and I'm glad we did it. But we'll be playing catch-up now for a bit.

BTW: The wife gained 5 lbs. on our vacation while I lost 2 lbs. One of the grave injustices of life!

So we're going along . . .

Sadly, we had to cut way down on mileage on the bike recently owing to a writing deadline I was trying to meet. But we've kept at it, getting in 5 - 10 miles on biking days or, worst case scenario, a half hour on the stationary bike.

We also had to cut in half our alternate modified P90X sessions a couple of times since we got started too late. But only twice.

Last week we did the full session we had scheduled. And over the weekend we managed to get in a couple of 25-mile days.

We'll have to make a break soon, since vacation is coming up. I'm torn about whether to just stop exercise routines during that time: I know we're bound to do a lot of walking, so it's not like we'll be just laying around all day.

Somehow a total break seems the right thing to do. I know I'll miss exercising. And that should help us to get back to it with a vengeance after we return from vacation.

Just a few thoughts . . .