Welcome

Welcome to my ever-evolving blog. It started out as a blog on Beachbody workouts and products, mainly when I was a Beachbody coach. I no longer coach, not because I don't believe in Beachbody's programs (I subscribe to Beachbody on Demand and use their workouts every day), I am just not a salesperson and hated that aspect of it. I am more than willing to answer questions about my experiences with their products and the various workouts, and I feel freer to do so without the appearance of giving a biased review of something.

I have also started adding reviews for various things I have purchased like movies, books, CDs, and other products. This was brought about by a fight with Amazon in which all of my reviews were removed over a completely bullshit allegation that I posted a review that violated their terms of service. After going back and forth with the morons in the community-reviews department (even after they admitted that my posts did not violate their guidelines) they restored my account (which took them six months to do), but I have been posting my reviews on my blog to have them preserved in case something like that happens again. And here, I will post uncensored reviews so I will swear from time to time and post reviews that may be longer than Amazon's character limit. Everything I post here on any topic or product is my personal opinion, and I take no compensation for any product reviews I post. I am a member of Amazon's vine program and because I get those products for free, I keep those reviews on Amazon only, but everything I have purchased with my own money, whether from Amazon or some other store/website/outlet, I will post here.  

I also plan to do some longer blog posts on various topics, such as how to learn physics, how to get through calculus, and longer reviews of workout programs as I do them. Basically, whatever strikes me as interesting at the time.  As you can see if you navigate around the blog, I had many years in between postings. During that time I was going back to school to get an engineering degree, and learning material that I avoided my first time through college was a different experience and one that gave me a lot of insight into how to do well in those classes, which I will try to impart here for those who are looking to get a science or engineering degree. 

Wednesday, March 14, 2012

How to succeed with working out...foundation, foundation foundation

As I was tutoring math today, I thought of a nice analogy to working out. I had a student taking a survey of calculus class who was horrible at algebra. Just like you will only be as good at calculus as you are at algebra, jumping into a workout that is ahead of where you should be can lead to problems. When Beachbody puts out a new workout, especially when there is a lot of hype around it, people want to jump in headfirst. Enthusiasm is great, but you need to know if you are ready for the workout. P90X was intended to be an advanced version of Power 90. Since P90x's popularity exploded a few years ago there are a lot of people that just start there. It certainly can be done as an initial workout with modifications, but I think if you start with a less intense program like Power 90 and build your way up to it, you will ultimately do better.

 To bring it back to the concept of math, if you go from pre-algebra to intermediate algebra to college algebra to pre-calculus etc, and really learn the material along the way you will do better in each class. Likewise, if you go from sedentary, to a program that will give you a good fitness level, going to a program like P90x and Insanity will be a lot easier. Plus, you will have a lot lower chance of injury and will be more likely to succeed. Above all, don't get discouraged if you cannot keep up with the people in the videos. Many of them have already done the entire program at least once, and are extremely fit. Make it a goal to get yourself to that level, but do the best you can, and try to do more each time. Just my two cents. As always, if you have any questions or comments you can leave a message here, or on my team beachbody profile page.

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