Vacation's Over -- Take It Easy

Vacation's over. You ate and drank your way to oblivion. Now the bill's do. It's time to hit the gym or streets and you just don't want to. Well, it's not that you don't want to, it's that you know what's waiting when you get there.

Exercises that were pretty effortless before you left on your trip are going to be hard as hell. A ten pound weight is going to feel like twenty pounds. The first five miles are going to feel like ten. And the ring around your waist that you worked off the last couple of months is going to be jiggling like a Jello belt.

Yick.

The strong temptation is to throw in the towel and let your body continue to enjoy the lazy, hazy, crazy days of vacation even at home. You'll pay the bill another time.

Don't do it.

A better solution is to not pretend that you're in the exact same shape and condition you were in when you left. Instead, recognize that you've lost a little fitness edge and ease back into your routine. This is the smart approach on two counts:

1. If you immediately jump back into the intensity of workouts you were participating in before you left -- before you let yourself go for a week or more -- you're at greater risk of hurting yourself.
2. Backing off a little bit on weight, distance or time, will keep you from becoming discouraged by the inability to work out at the level you did before your trip.

If you take this approach, you will not only enjoy your workouts, but you will be amazed at how quickly you recover your pre-vacation level of fitness. Now get to it!

"No Mas" Panama City, Panama

Flexibility is the secret to great travel experiences. This lesson was never more relevant than during my recent seven day tour of Panama City, Panama.

Upon my arrival in Panama City, a forest of buildings topped by construction cranes made it readily apparent that the city is in the midst of a condo building boom. (The last time I saw that many cranes was a few years ago in Ft. Laurderdale, FL. I hope Panama City doesn't face the same busted fate.)

I never suspected that the building boom would impact my travel plans, but it did, in a big way. Before leaving for Panama, I read the Lonely Planet guide and listed a number of nightclubs with salsa music and notable pubs, including El Pavo Real -- where John le Carre wrote his thriller The Tailor of Panama -- that I intended to visit.

On the first day, I hailed a cab in front of my hotel -- the Hotel Costa Inn, an affordable but somewhat gritty hotel with great service, a great but humble restaurant, and a rooftop pool with a panoramic view of the city and harbor. A cab pulled over. I gave the driver the address of El Pavo Real, the pub I wanted to visit. After a brief but wild roller-coaster of a ride through the congested streets of Panama -- which is typical of the taxis there -- we pulled up to an address and found not a happening spot, but a vacant lot. The photo in the upper left is the site where El Pavo Real stood from 1981 until quite recently.

The taxi driver looked at the lot and said, "No mas." This routine was repeated five more times with other clubs and pubs I had hoped to visit. It was funny to find empty lots the first couple of times. Then it became depressing. I began to suspect that the downtown area had been gutted of every hotspot to make way for new condo towers.

The choice at this point was A. Stay in my room and drink myself silly on Balboa beer for seven days or B. Find out where the new clubs and pubs were located. I opted for B.

Using my laptop to browse the Web and reading a few local rags, I was able to assemble a new itinerary. And the work was worth it. Among my great and unexpected finds were Sabor de la India, a superb Indian restaurant in the business district; Hacienda Columbiana-Panama, a restaurant in the marina district that had a hot salsa band playing on a covered patio; and The Buccaneer, a great seafood restaurant in the marina district with a fantastic classical guitar duo playing flamenco and jazz standards. Locals also suggested a couple of casinos that had salsa music and salsa lessons on select nights, but I really like to spend my time in much more genuine local settings.

All the restaurants, pubs and clubs I discovered during my trip to Panama served as great ways to end days spent exploring the city, traversing the Panama Canal in a ferry, taking another ferry out to the historic Isle of Taboga, and trekking through the city's municipal rainforest park -- home to monkeys, sloths, tropical birds and, most amazingly, lizards that run upright on water to escape predators.

Ahhh. Flexibility.

How Much Weight Should I Lift?

This is probably the most frequently asked question I heard when I was a gym rat. The answer depends on your objective. If you want to gain bulk, lift weight at your absolute strength limit and perform eight to ten reps. If you want to tone the muscles you already have, lift a lighter weight but perform 12 to 16 reps.

The important question isn't really "How much weight should I lift?" It's how much can I lift with control and good form.

The worst mistake you can make is lifting an amount of weight that forces you to contort your body. If your neck, shoulders, arms, back -- especially the back -- or legs are out of alignment when you lift, the odds are you are going to suffer a catastrophic injury that could put you out of lifting for months, or worse forever, which kind of defeats the purpose of lifting.

Pick a weight that challenges your muscles when you're exercising with proper form. It will ALWAYS be less than the amount that you can jerk up in a contorted shape, but it will contribute more to your overall strength, tone and fitness in the long-run than attacking a pile of weights like a maniac.

We all know people who took the maniac approach, and not many of them are still fit in their thirties and forties, nor can they participate in the full range of sports they used to enjoy. The people I know who went the maniac route usually suffer chronic neck, shoulder and back pain. What a reward for all their hard work.

When you approach dumbbells or load a bar, increase the weight in the smallest increments possible until you reach the maximum load you can handle with good form. If later in the workout, you're starting to lose good form, lighten the load a little. As Tony Horton says in the P90X workout series: "Don't be a hero." He's right.

P90x is a great way to learn the proper way to perform a wide range of exercises. My review of P90x on RuggedReviews.com covers the DVD set and includes links to reviews of equipment you'll need to take on the challenge.

Most of all, when you're engaging in any fitness regimen, focus on your ultimate objective, which should be a healthy, vibrant and fully mobile body.

Consult your physician before you undertake any exercise program.

Will Boredom Be The Death Of You?

Boredom is a funny thing. Well, maybe not a funny thing. It's too boring to be funny. The strange thing about boredom is that you can actually become so bored, you're not aware you're bored. That's when boredom takes over your life and you're officially in a rut.

Years ago, I read an article by a professor who blamed boredom for every ill on the planet. He said bored people tend to drink more, eat more, take illegal drugs, commit more crimes and generally be crummy to the rest of the world. I lampooned his opinion in a newspaper column I was writing at the time. But I couldn't let the topic alone. Why? Because it struck too close to the core. I was officially in a rut.

Next month, the Journal of Epidemiology is going to publish research from the University College London that found that while boredom probably isn't a direct cause of death -- I mean how can you hurt yourself by essentially shrugging at the world? -- but it does, in fact, lead to bad habits that contribute to death. Researchers Annie Briton and Martin Shipley said bored people may be more prone to drink, smoke and use drugs. They may also have a psychological problem.

What they're saying sounds logical to me. I've been at my worst when my daily life was boring me to tears. It wasn't until I acknowledged the problem -- my addiction to boredom -- that I set out on a five step program to recovery. RuggedReviews.com is my shrine to the activities that led me out of boredom.

The basic recovery program entails:

1. Admitting you have a problem. If everything seems so familiar and uninteresting that you're convinced you're living the same day over and over and you're not happy about it you're probably bored. Or, worse, in a rut.
2. Seeking out new activities that stimulate you. Some people know from past experience what they truly like to do in life. They just lose touch with the activities somewhere along the way. Most of us, however, have to spend some time sampling different activities before we find the ones that appeal to us.
3. Dedicating yourself to sticking with the activities -- as long as you like them. Few activities worth pursuing are mastered in a day. The very act of mastering a skill can wipe out boredom long before the payoff of mastery.
4. Finding new activities if the current list begins to bore you. There is a seemingly endless list of activities that you can use to fill your day. Whenever the current list starts to bore you, seek out new activities.
5. Never giving up. The minute you give up seeking ways to get out of a rut, you will officially be over the hill.
   

The list of activities that have made my life fulfilling includes traveling everywhere from remote deserts and mountains to the biggest cities in the world. Having a wide range of experience is very stimulating to me. I also enjoy sports as simple as running and weight training or as equipment intensive as kayaking and primitive camping. You'll also find me at home at some point every day working on my guitar, photography, Web design and writing skills.

My anti-boredom efforts might sound pretty frantic, but the activities actually are woven very comfortably with my real estate and personal responsibilities. Most of all, they give me something to look forward to every day.

I hope the gear reviewed on my Web site RuggedReviews.com gives you some ideas to make your own life more enjoyable.