The Miami Friday Night Fit Club Featuring P90X

I’m tired, I’m sometimes cranky and I don’t always eat correctly for someone that is trying to get back into shape, to be the finely tuned physical specimen that I once was. OK, that may be pushing a bit, but I’m sure you all know exactly what I mean. Most of us already know what it takes to live a healthy lifestyle and also how much work it will take to get us back on the right track.  Notice I said “get back on the right track” as healthy lifestyle for most of us this will require an ongoing process of many things working together. This is what my cardiologist lovingly refers to as a lifestyle change.

Most of us have the best of intentions when beginning a new diet or workout routine, and go at it like gangbusters for the first week or two and then something happens. It may be that one day that the kids are running late for school, or you had to work late at the office, or your legs are just a bit sore or something that will put you off your game just enough to say, I’ll just work twice as hard tomorrow. Three weeks and 10 pounds later you are wondering what happened yet keep delaying getting back into the flow. We’ve all been there, and have all tried to figure out how the other guy can keep it going while you are struggling.
Well, a group of P90X coaches and clients have figured out a great way to not only keep you on track but bring in others who either don’t know how, or are having trouble keeping it going. The Miami Beach Bodycoaches have created the Friday Night Fit Club.

For those of you who don’t know what P90X is, or have not seen late night TV with the amazing Tony Horton (51+ years old!) putting a varied group of P90X devotees through their paces, it is a set of DVD’s that is designed to work each and every muscle group in your body. It is a system that can be done in your home with relatively little or no equipment and uses a concept known as muscle confusion which by varying the workouts slightly your body will not get used the same routines working the same body parts over and over, thus eliminating what is know as the plateau effect. This combined with a nutritional routine can have some amazing results.

So how does this Friday night Fit club work into the equation? Many of us get bored doing our routines night after night. These routines are tough, and after a while we get weary of our friends calling to go out for the evening and we have not yet done our workouts, which ultimately leads to blowing off one or two routines or even the entire workout, thus pretty much negating all the previous hard work we have put in. The Friday night fit club is as much of a social experience as a workout. Being a P90X’er myself I was getting a bit bored and found myself on that slippery slope of making excuses to blow off a routine. My good friend Jack Hays a Beach Body Coach (the people who bring you P90x) asked me to come to a new program he and some other coaches have put together on Friday Nights, in which they invite those who are active in the Beach Body fitness programs, or just curious, to join in on a group workout at a local venue they rent for the evening. When I showed up there were about 20 people there from all stages of fitness, beginners to those who where ripped and lean. To make a long story short, It was a blast! Not only did I get an incredible cardio workout that night, I got to try some of the products that are available from the Beach Body Fitness team. At no point was I treated like a customer, but as a long lost friend. I made lots of other new friends that night and am looking forward to the next Friday Fit club meeting. Although to the coaches, this is a business as well as a lifestyle, in this great social atmosphere it feels like an event, with raffles and sharing of stories and lots of great information. To this group of coaches, it’s as much community service as it is a business.

If you find yourself in Miami one Friday night and need a great workout the Friday Night Fit club is free, fun and an incredible workout. It will also help keep you off that slippery slope of justifying missed work outs.

Fading Glory? Or Aging Gracefully?

 

Fading Glory? Or Aging Gracefully?

Today’s essay is a bit different from anything I have written before. Everything I write in this article has been kicking around the inside of my brain for weeks, months, dare I say a few years, and it’s not getting any better. It is now that I look to you, my faithful blog followers, to please consider the following, feeling free to share similar experiences you may be going through as well.

While it seems strange to write, and even more surreal to hear spoken out loud, I am in my late 40’s, and nearing 50. Yes, 50 years old. Not 50 dollars, not 50 pounds, but I have spent nearly half a century on this Earth. While the number itself does not bother me, as it does some, the transformations my body is going through is quite bothersome both mentally and physically. From an early age, I was always very athletic, playing baseball and football on a both a collegiate and professional level, while taking pride in the shape I was in and the strength, stamina and speed I had. So far this sounds not so unusual, I know; we’ve all had our ‘hey day’ where we were at the top of our game and in the best shape of our lives. While many find that entering into middle age is the best time of their lives; a time to rejuvenate, focus on health and fitness in hopes of extending life expectancy, I find myself in a different category at the present time (but with any luck, you will see a post a few months from now where there has been progress and transformation taking place).

After having suffered various athletic injuries and had a near-death car accident or two, I have now come this far to find myself lacking energy, struggling with chest pains (yes, they’ve been checked out and I was told it was stress) , stomach & digestive maladies, constantly tight, aching muscles, routine headaches…. I think you get the picture. What I don’t ‘get’ is how I got this way. I am someone who, just a decade or so ago was out to conquer the world… I was braving wild rapids, trekking across the globe to make it to Everest, spending much of my time as a dive master off the beautiful coral reefs in the state I call home. I love the water; being out on the open sea with the warm salt water spray leaving a trail behind me as I head to my favorite fishing grounds. I am at total peace in the water. When I’m diving, the problems of the world are left on the surface, with nothing but captivating creatures and awe-inspiring formations in an underwater world where time ceases to exist (well, okay… Keep an eye on the O2 left in the tank, for sure, but you know what I mean).

Now that I am dealing with all these injuries and age-related consequences, I find myself depressed. Depressed that I have weight to lose and it’s hard to come off at this age; particularly when I have the legs of a 20 year old but carry all my weight in my stomach. I’m now very hesitant (I sometimes even use the word ‘scared’) to dive and do what I love most, for fear I could have a heart attack. I can’t walk up a flight of stairs without feeling winded!

I know all you fitness buffs out there will say “cut back on your portions, what are you eating, are you drinking lots of water, are you exercising….?” The answer to all of these questions is a resounding “yes!” which is what makes this all so frustrating. I like to walk; I load a book on tape onto the iPod and take walks along my favorite bays or a bike through the Everglades. I bought a Wii Fit, a Wii Active; a recumbent bike for the road that I thought would put the least amount of stress on my injured neck/shoulder. I’ve joined gyms; standard gyms, gyms that offer spinning classes, boxing gyms. I love to turkey hunt and scout the woods prior to opening season, but now even that is something I won’t do alone, for fear I could experience problems in the woods.

My question to everyone out there, and please DO reply to this post, is this: What have you done, or do you currently do to either deal with ‘old sports injuries’ / ‘old age’, or to KEEP yourself healthy and strong as you advance in years? Do you know of anyone that has been an inspiration to you, who has helped you along the way? Please tell us your story, so we can ALL continue to be ‘out there’ doing what we love to do most… Spending time in the Great Outdoors and having a high quality of life.