21 Days?

With the weather being as blah as it has, I haven't been getting in as much cycling as I'd like; four weeks from now I'll be riding over 200kms to raise money for the Princess Margaret Cancer Centre.  And I'm not even slightly ready.  Ugh.   Was supposed to ride my first 100km in a MEC ride this weekend, but it got cancelled due to flooding.  An inauspicious beginning :(

So I've decided to up my general fitness so at least I have a chance.  So I went back to Beachbody, which is where I got P90X3 (that story began here) and Core de Force and figured I'd see what else was there.  I know from my Core de Force adventure that I really need something that sticks to 30 mins to be successful.   So I filtered on this, which is when I got my first hint as to how atrocious their website really is.  *sigh*.  Filter was useless, so I did some searching and found a few possibilities.   One I liked the idea of was the 21 Day Fix.  Simply because I had enough time to complete the program, add one extra week, and have a few recovery days before the ride.  Perfect.

Now there are two options -- 21 Day Fix, and 21 Day Fix Extreme.   They have almost identical descriptions, but the difficulty rating is significantly higher for the Extreme version.  To put in perspective, it's ranked harder than both of the other two programs I've done.  So of course, feeling particularly unfit, I went for that one ;).

I also decided to subscribe to their online membership rather than ordering videos.  Since I seem to be doing these a lot, it seemed the most cost effective method.  And while the videos all work (although there was a delay before I could use them) I have to say the website itself and the member's dashboard are sorely disappointing.   They have the potential to be amazing and yet fail time after time *sigh*. However, I really just wanted the exercise, and that I have.

This video series has a fairly defined diet associated with it; I'm not playing that game ;-P.  The videos themselves are all half hour, and follow a weekly schedule.  So it will get boring fast, but it's only meant to be done for 3 weeks, so fair enough.

As to the exercise program, I'm conflicted.  I really dislike the trainer.  Her "motivation" makes me angry, and the constant reference to "booty" would alone cause me to lose any respect I may have had for her.  Also, her background exercisers are all bikini competitors (I didn't even know this was a thing?), which means they have amazingly sculpted bodies.  I understand this is supposed to advertise for the program, but to me it's demotivating -- they're so much more fit than I, that just because they can do something, doesn't mean I have a hope at it.   As opposed to P90X3, which had all very fit people but both A - people who at times struggled with the exercises, and B - people who do not exercise for a living and who got fit through doing that particular program.   And Core de Force has some awesomely fit people but a couple more normal body types who are managing it as well.   Again inspiring the competitive "if they can do it, so can I".

I also (so far -- I've only done 4 videos) do not like the exercises.   I haven't done one video where I'd look forward to doing it again.   The only plus is that most of them use weights, which I quite enjoy :).  And they use the fitness bands in ways I haven't seen before which is interesting, although kinda requires shoes which I'm not thrilled about.

I'm not alone!

So with all the negatives, what's the conflict?   Well they work.   Except for pushups which have always been the bane of my existence, I can do all the exercises.   By half way through most of the videos, whichever area is being worked is fatigued enough to be shaking.   And I am so very sore.   I think I'm still recovering from the very first day (when I did two videos because the website listed both and missed the critical "or" that is specified in the program materials).   The videos are also in an appropriate order so different systems are worked each day (in as much as isolation is possible).   And they do stick to half an hour, which means I can fit it in and still have time to ride my bike.

Weather's supposed to be better this week.  Fingers crossed!