Just a miscellaneous update

Not much to report. We're remaining injury-free, and keeping at our fitness pursuits. We just finished one of our week-long breaks, but got back to stationary bike riding a couple of days ago. And we've once again started the arm toner phase of our upper-body strength training regimen.

I suppose I could report that we tried a spin class at a local athletic club just to see if it might provide us with some variation in our winter cycling regimen. But it's really not what we want for off-season training--mainly because it's too intense. We'll get enough intensity on the bike once we start riding on the road any time here, and up until we get off the road in November or so. No need for us to, as it were, artificially increase intensity such as they do in spin classes.

We did try about a month's worth of the S90 routine I recently reviewed, just to see how well we could work it into our overall fitness regimen. The results were encouraging. No plans yet as to how/where we'll work it in, but we will undoubtedly be using it for part of the year.

We've mapped out a longer-distance bicycle tour for this summer, part of which will involve riding with the SAGBRAW tour. So we're excited about that. Will be posting more about that in the future.

With the warm weather we're now seeing we're very eager to get back out on the bike.

Hello again, P90X!

We did the first in a series of alternate modified P90X sessions today--DVD 1, chest and back, to be precise. A pretty grueling workout.

I can understand now why I found the Power 90 and Arm Toner routines we were doing to be a lot more aerobic than the modified P90X routines we were doing earlier: it's because I can actually pretty much keep up with the performers on those videos.

With the video editing they do for these routines, if you are able to pretty much keep pace with the participants, you should be pretty winded throughout much of the routine. See, they're not actually doing all these exercises in such quick succession. Instead, "takes" from various studio sessions are being spliced together to make the full video.

With the P90X videos the same construction obtains, but the difference is that I can't keep up on these. The participants are able to do quite a few more reps on most exercises than I can.*

This is especially true of all types of chin-ups/pull-ups. I'd say that at my best when we were doing our modified P90X more regularly last year I could do 4 unassisted pull-ups/chin-ups. Now, I can only do 1 or 2. So I do what I can, then switch to assisted pull-ups/chin-ups.

I can do a lot more push-ups, but not as many as the P90X participants (probably 25-30 from a "cold start?" - don't know, since I've never tried to "max out" from a cold start). As a result, breaks between exercises are a lot longer for me when doing P90X routines than they are when we do Power 90 or Arm Toner routines. Thus, I have time to catch my breath and the whole thing ends up being less aerobic.

A further question is whether I should be disappointed about not being able to do more push-ups and/or chin-ups/pull-ups--especially given that I've been exercising regularly for a couple of years.

My answer is that, no, I'm not disappointed. I know I'm working hard and I know my muscles ache for some days after these exercises. And I'm gaining muscle tone and perhaps some mass. Those--especially the first--are my primary criteria for determining whether I'm getting the right kinds of benefits from these exercises. Number of reps is a pretty secondary concern for me.

Your thoughts on this matter? Feel free to offer them.

* Later reflection: it's true that the P90X participants can do many more of certain exercises than I can, as I've said. I've also realized on further reflection, however, that breaks between exercises on the P90X DVD's are longer than the breaks taken on the Power 90/Power Half Hour DVD's--deliberately so. Part of what they're so obviously trying to stress on the P90X videos is, after all, the importance of recording progress; so they deliberately take time between each exercise for the participants to write down their results (how man repetitions and/or how much weight they used).

Farewell, arm toner phase

I've been pretty lax about making blog entries lately, but give me a chance to reform my ways.

It all started with a last-minute trip I needed to make out east to get the new bike: obviously, it's difficult more difficult to blog--at least for me--when I'm away from home. Then, I needed to reassmeble to new bike. Plus, I got sidetracked by some other matters.

But I am still here and am still doing fitness. Our cycling mileage has gone down a bit as we get used to riding the new bike: this past weekend, for example, we only put in about 40-45 miles. That should continue to go up steadily, though, with increasingly nice weather.

And we've continued with our twice-weekly arm-toner/strength-training sessions. Even when we had to make runs out of town for one or a few days. We either used equipment we found and made due that way, or brought our own.

And like other routines headed by Tony Horton, we've enjoyed the arm toner phase. In fact, I already look forward to the time when we can go back to it. But, as I've forewarned in previous entries, the arm toner phase has now ended.

Effective starting this week, we'll start our summer routine. This will mean a lot more miles/time on the bike, and correspondingly less emphasis on upper-body strengthening.

We'll begin the new phase this week, and it will involve doing upper-body strengthening only one day (instead of two) per week. But we will be doing a more rigorous upper-body routine on this one day per week: we're going back to the 4 upper-body P90X routines we were using last spring and summer.

I've decided to christen this new phase the alternate modified P90X phase. What we'll end up doing is completing our fourfold P90X upper-body regime about once per month, rather than once every two weeks, as we had done last spring. So, over the course of the cycling season we'll probably do the whole fourfold cycle 4 or perhaps 5 times

I haven't yet worked out how/whether our ab/core routines, which we currently do twice a week, will change. But I'll be posting about that soon. More later on that.

Arm Toner overview, review

Yes, I'm still here. And yes, we're still exercising.

We managed to put in an 8.25 mile day outside on the tandem a little over week ago, then we got in a ca. 15 mile day a few days later so, with the nicer weather, we're getting fired up to do some serious outdoor riding. Hoping to get in at least one 100 mile day this year, but that's quite a ways off (mid-summer, maybe?).

And we're still doing our upper-body strength training. We just did our Arm Toner routine a couple of days ago (on Fri.), as scheduled. Which reminds me that I still need to provide an overview and review--which is the main topic of this current entry. Without further ado, then, on to the overview/review.

First let me just reiterate how glad I am that we found this Arm Toner routine. It really is very much what I'd been looking for for some time, i.e., and upper-body strengthening/toning routine that would be fairly short and less intense than the P90X routines we were doing about a year ago.

I'm a firm believer in taking it easy--"holding back," if you will--at certain points during the fitness year. This routine has provided us with the means for doing just that.

As I've observed earlier, the Arm Toner routine is one of five routines that make up the Power Half Hour fitness series. I haven't looked at any of the other routines and do not intend to--this one provides the only things I want from that regimen. And I don't know whether there are any dietary guidelines associated with the Power Half Hour regimen, as there are with P90X. Since we've had our diet pretty much under control for some time now, I'm not interested in learning or writing about any of those aspects of this regimen. No, my sole interest is in the particular segment that we're using--Arm Toner.

So, what is the Arm Toner routine? Put simply it's a fast-paced series of exercise sets for the upper body that are interspersed with a number of short stretching sessions. The exercise sets involve some calisthenics and some use of dumbbells (latex bands can be substituted for dumbbells). So, equipment-wise, there are minimal requirements, making it possible to do the routine in just about any location.

The whole routine is only a half hour long, though an off-the-clock, one-minute cool-down gets tacked onto the end--making it actually 31 minutes total. The video shows Tony Horton leading two participants in executing the routine. The exercise sets and stretch periods are of very brief duration, the longest being only one minute and the shortest being only sixteen seconds. There are seven stretch periods interspersed among sets of seventeen different exercises--some of which exercises get repeated (i.e., two sets are done).

Thus the important difference between this routine and others put out by the same company that I've used and reviewed here that is that there's almost no counting of repetitions; rather, almost all exercises are done according to the clock, i.e., for a brief specified interval. I find this approach of not counting repetitions but rather performing each exercise for a set time, refreshing and very effective for helping me reduce intensity.

Timing-wise the layout of this routine is a little confusing. The average duration of a set is only about 30 seconds, though some are quite a bit longer (fifty seconds) while others are quite a bit shorter (sixteen seconds). But if you're following along with the DVD you don't really notice that and just switch to the next set when instructed to do so. Below is a table that lists all the exercise sets and stretch periods along with their durations:

push-ups	20 seconds
lawn mower right	20 seconds
lawn mower left	20 seconds
push-ups	20 seconds
lawn mower right	22 seconds
lawn mower left	25 seconds
stretch	20 seconds
incline push-ups	25 seconds
hyperextensions	26 seconds
incline push-ups	30 seconds
stretch	30 seconds
diamond push-ups	16 seconds
back flys	25 seconds
stretch	30 seconds
heavy pants	22 seconds
stretch	23 seconds
military press	42 seconds
basic curls	31 seconds
military press	30 seconds
basic curls	26 seconds
stretch	30 seconds
swimmer's press	32 seconds
open-arm curls	33 seconds
swimmer's press	35 seconds
open-arm curls	33 seconds
stretch	35 seconds
21's (curls)	50 seconds
stretch	30 seconds
shoulder flys	30 seconds
1-arm tricep kick-back (right)	34 seconds
1-arm tricep kick-backs (left)	32 seconds
shoulder flys	32 seconds
1-arm tricep kick-back (right)	30 seconds
1-arm tricep kick-back (left)	32 seconds
stretch	26 seconds
upright rows	33 seconds
chair dips	32 seconds
upright rows	31 seconds
chair dips	37 seconds
stretch	40 seconds
triple whammy	62 seconds

I need to add that there is a 2:09 warm-up session at the beginning which is figured into the thirty-minute total for this routine. The ca. one-minute warm-down at the end--which I mentioned above--is not figured into the thirty minutes. See some snippets from this routine in the youtube video I've embedded below.

Also relevant in the way of general remarks are the names of certain of the exercises--names whose actual referent might not be readily apparent. "Hyperextension" may not, for example, be readily understandable as what is sometimes called the "superman": this is where you lay on the floor on your stomach and then raise your arms and legs off the floor and hold them there for a number of seconds. Yet more obscure will probably be the "triple whammy," which is a combination of three exercises also found separately in this routine: bicep curl, leading into swimmer's press which then transitions into tricep kickbacks (using both arms).

One of the first things the more mathematically-minded might note when looking over this table is that the times I've listed do not add up to thirty minutes. That's because several seconds always tick by between every set when no exercise is taking place: these seconds are taken up with Tony's bantering and/or equipment adjustment (two of the participants in the DVD are using adjustable dumbbells).

To summarize, I just want to reiterate how satisfied I am with this routine. It complements very well our exercise regimen in a number of ways: it focuses on upper-body strengthening/toning; it's short; it provides a decent aerobic workout; sets are done according to the clock rather than by counting repetitions; and for these reasons it provides a great alternative workout to use during periods when we want to lower the intensity level of our workouts. For these reasons, I highly recommend it--but do be aware that, if your fitness regimen differs significantly from mine, you may not find it so suitable. I should also mention in this routine's favor the cost factor: I paid just a few dollars on Amazon (shipping included) for my copy of Arm Toner.

On other notes, we begin another week off from fitness this week. It's the last week of lent, so we need to turn our focus to spiritual things. We will try to do a bit more walking this week, but we'll be off the bikes and not doing strength training for a few days.

Future plans: we will probably reinstitute our modified P90X phase soon--though we'll be making some further modifications. I'll write more about that later, but the basic idea is to switch from Arm Toner back to modified P90X, but to do the modified P90X only once a week instead of twice a week. Anyway, more on that soon.

Arm toner phase begins

As I've been mentioning, we've now commenced a new phase in our fitness regime--the arm toner phase. I had actually intended to begin this phase a couple of weeks from now, but we decided to start a little early.

As I mentioned in a previous post, we found a new Tony Horton routine that we want to work into our regimen, a routine called "arm toner." We just did it for the first time tonight. We'll be using this one twice a week on our strength-training days probably until April or May.

Preliminarily I can say we both liked it. It's a bit shorter than what we've been doing--just a little over a half hour. It doesn't contain any lower-body exercises, which is what we want for most of the year, focusing instead on the upper body. And it's pretty intense.

I'll give a fuller report later, but I'll just observe for now that it's a fast-paced routine that mixes one-minute exercise periods with 30-second stretch periods. A fuller breakdown and itemization of the routine will be forthcoming.

By the way, why am I naming the phases of our exercise regimen after mostly upper-body exercise routines? Because these are the variable part of our regimen. Bicycling is the constant part, so it makes sense to name the phases after the varying parts of the regimen.

Eureka, I found it!

I should acknowledge up front that the discovery I'll announce in this entry is likely to be earth-shattering mainly only to yours truly. It is something I had been searching for for quite some time, but had begun to suspect did not exist, so it's a relief to me that I finally found it. But since it suits a need that is peculiar to my own fitness ideas and program, what I've finally found is bound to constitute a ho-hum moment for most others. But, hey, this is my blog about my fitness pursuits, so I can exult in whatever I want, right?

Anyway, anyone who's read my previous blog entries will know that I've been on the lookout for an alternative upper-body workout. When I began looking for a good upper-body workout in the wake of my initial upper-body fitness forays which had been centering around using the Soloflex, I discovered the upper-body workout segments from the P90X regime. I excerpted the four P90X workouts that concentrated on the upper-body and began using them last fall in a twice-weekly, two-week rotation.

While I generally "enjoyed" (with such enjoyment as can be gotten from enduring these rather grueling workouts) the P90X exercises and learned a bit more about fitness from them, I found them too rigorous for my fitness needs throughout most of the year. I decided fairly early on that those workouts, though they could fit into our overall regimen, should be restricted to a certain segment of the year, and that during the rest of the year I needed to use something a little less strenuous.

So I started checking out other Tony Horton exercise regimes, thinking I'd be bound to find something that was less rigorous but that provided the needed focus on upper-body strengthening. After a lot of looking and sampling I settled on two segments from two similar regimes: one segment came from the Power 90 routine (circuit 3-4 sculpt); the other was from the Power 90 Masters series (circuit 5-6 sculpt). These were a bit shorter than the P90X routines we'd been doing (about 40 minutes as opposed to 55 minutes) and contained a good deal of upper-body strengthening exercises. We started using one each of these for our twice-weekly strength-training sessions.

But these routines also contained a few lower-body exercises, which I didn't really want in our routine (we use cycling for lower-body strengthening, as I've stated previously). So, these were not the perfect fit but, as I began to presume, might be about the closest I could find.

Well, recently I decided to do a little further searching and, lo and behold, I finally found the thing I'd been looking for for several months: a Tony Horton routine that was comparatively short and that focuses exclusively on upper body. It's from the Power Half Hour series, a segment called "Arm Toner."


This routine is really just the thing I'd been looking for to use during our more "relaxed" portion of the fitness year. We'll want to have a portion of the year when we're not totally forsaking upper-body fitness, but are doing just enough to keep the muscles limber and not turning to flab. It's also nice to work up at least a little sweat exercising the upper body.

So why is this routine such a great find? Well, it fills the bill nicely in terms of the length of the workout--exactly one half hour. Another nice feature is that there are no rep counts: you just perform a given exercise for a set amount of time--I think it's one or two minutes--then move on to the next exercise. I think you do two sets of most exercises--I've only viewed the whole routine once so I have not yet figured out its structure. But from what I've seen so far, this should fit really nicely into our fitness pursuits.

I managed to find a copy of just this routine on Amazon for a little under $7.00, shipping included--so the price was definitely right, too. I should mention on that note that the whole Power Half Hour regime actually consists in five or so different sessions and that the Arm Toner session is only one of the five. But, as was the case with other Tony Horton regimes, there's only one segment of Power Half Hour that really interests me.

It might sound like I'm turning this blog into some kind of promotion for everything Tony Horton puts out. I have to admit that I generally like the upper-body routines he's put together and that they're easy to follow. Another virtue of his programs is that they require very little in the way of equipment. Owing to this desgin feature these workouts incorporate a fair amount of calisthenics or bodyweight exercises--another big plus in my view. In my defense, I do have in mind in the longer term, once I've got more experience with upper-body fitness, creating my own routines. But, it seems for now there's not a very good way to dodge the accusation that I'm promoting his materials.

As for how we'll use the new Power Half Hour routine, I'm still deciding on that. At the moment I envision switching over to this for our twice-weekly strength-training sessions some time after that start of the new year. We'll probably stick with that until cycling season hits--say in April or maybe May.

On that note, I've been saying for some time now that I want a less rigorous upper-body workout specifically for the cycling season--so that our strength-training won't interfere with our preferred form of fitness, cycling. Well, I'm reconsidering where best in the fitness year more rigorous vs. less rigorous upper-body workouts belong. What I'm actually thinking at the moment is that we might cut our strength training down to once a week during the cycling season, but that the workout we would do during that part of the year will be an intense one. On that scenario, we'd do something like our modified P90X on Wednesdays (currently our rest day), while Mondays and Fridays (our current strength-training days) would be days off. That would provide the advantage of giving us rest days both before and after our most intense cycling days--Saturdays and Sundays. And our less intense cycling days--Tuesdays and Thursdays--would sandwich our strength-training day. On that scenario, our modified P90X would be a four-week cycle, and we'd do the cycle something like 4 or 5 times over the course of the bicycling season.

As the cycling season is winding down, say in October or so, we'd go back to our modified Power 90 strength-training regime, resuming our two-day-per-week strength-training schedule. This is all tentative and represents my thinking at the moment. Rest assured I'll be posting about whatever regime we end up adopting.

At some point I plan to list the exercises along with the structure of all the strength-training routines we do. So that's on tap for a future blog entry. I'm also thinking of offering my critique on the latest beachbody fitness hype--called Insanity (which I'm thinking, in my facetious way, of renaming to Stupidity). Look for those topics to be covered in future entries.