In case you hadn't heard, Earth and Mars are the closest they've been to each other in 59,619 years — a mere 55.8 million kilometers (34.6 million miles) apart.  If you have a telescope or a pair of binoculars, you should be able to make out the rusty bright spot in the night sky with clarity that is truly a once-in-a-lifetime event (the next time Mars and Earth will be this close is in 2287 when the planets will actually be nearer each other than they are right now).

My apologies for the site being down the last day or so.  Apparently my service provider had made a change and incorrectly entered the IP address of the site.  Don't feel bad — I couldn't get to it to make any updates.  This is life, I'm afraid, and people make mistakes (that's part of what makes us human).

I realize I haven't updated the site much lately.  I have a lot going on right now and just haven't had much of a chance to work on it.  I am still alive, though, and I'm hoping to get back into some updates soon.  Sometimes life just gives you more to deal with than you really care to admit, which is where I am right now.

Once again I find myself evaluating my workout routine and making changes.  After my back injury and subsequent recovery, I've been in a constant state of evaluation so far as my strength training routine is concerned.  There are areas where I need to focus a little more effort, and there are areas where I've been pushing too hard.

For instance, I need to put more effort into my chest workout in order to get the results I want, thus I've added a supplemental chest workout to my Thursday routine.  This isn't permanent and will only last until I make some progress in that area, then I'll narrow it back down to one day per week.

Two areas (or one overall area) that I was overworking were my abs and obliques.  For that reason, rather than working those areas every day, I've consolidate those exercises to three days per week with one day of rest between each of those days.

I've also changed a few of the exercises and have increased the repetition range slightly in order to push myself a little harder.

My cardio routine still only consists of walking.  Since I always use the stairs at work, hour-long walks each day simply augment that and provide adequate cardio exercise.  Eventually I'll replace my bike and get back into riding.

I'm no longer getting up at 4:00 AM to hit the gym.  I just couldn't manage my time tightly enough to get enough sleep based on that schedule, so now I'm hitting the weights in the afternoon when I get home from work.  If I have to work late and am not able to go to the gym, I simply push that day's workout routine into the next day and perform two routines instead of one.  Since this isn't frequent, it shouldn't hurt me.

I stretch for 30 minutes prior to each workout.  I focus on the muscle groups that I'll be working that day but include a general full-body stretch routine as well.

I've updated the workout routine to exclude repetition numbers for exercises where the repetitions increase without limit (such as crunches, pull-ups, etc.).  For these exercises, the x in the repetition columns simply indicates that I don't have a limited or target range.  I simply force myself (to failure) by increasing the repetitions each week by at least two.  For instance, if I'm doing three sets of 20 crunches this week, I'll push myself to do at least two sets of 20 and one set of 22 next week.  Since these exercises don't include easily increased weight (only body resistance), it made more sense to remove the reps from the table and use a variable instead.

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The recent discovery of a planet 12.7 billion years old is forcing scientists to reconsider current hypotheses regarding how and when planets form.  Equally fascinating is the history of the planet itself and how it ended up where it is now versus where it started.  I highly recommend you read up on this fantastic discovery here.