P90X hybrid - Day 3

Chest Shoulders Tri.  Took a slight edge off on the amount of weights from workout 1.  Ie, letting myself ease into it a bit more.  I did push on the curl exercises though since those were pretty much untouched on Day 1.  For Ab Ripper I did modified version of the first three moves and then did about 120 crunches.  Expect that my Abs will recover by Day 5 workout.  Tomorrow is the first Insanity day.  Should be manageable, although it will be painful.  Ie, sore muscles bouncing around is painful, but my legs are still pretty much fine.  I am hoping that since I have been doing Insanity workouts in the interim that my legs will not pay as much when I start hitting those again.

P90X hybrid - Day 2

Wow, AbRipperX killed me.  My abs were so sore today that I probably did about 30 minutes of Yoga.  Plank was impossible due to how sore my abs are.  Did lots of stretching and some balance.  As long as I can stick with the rest of Week 1 workouts I will progress, worst case I repeat Week 1.

P90X hybrid - Day 1

Chest and Back.  What a way to start!  :)  Last time I did P90X I went straight from 2 months of Power90 into P90X.  This time I am effectively starting cold.  Ie, I did cardio, but really hadn't done much strength workouts other than pushups for about 2 months.  Wow, much tougher starting from cold.  My main goal this time is to really focus on "Bringing it" and pushing hard in the workouts.  May have to start that focus in Week 2 as I can tell that the level of soreness is going to be high for the first 2 weeks or so.

Insanity is rough 6 days a week.

Combine the Holidays and its not a recipe for success.  :(  I restarted twice, but I think I am going to pass on full Insanity for now.  What I decided to do instead is a hybrid.  Starting a cycle of P90X with plyo and kenpo each week replqaced by an insanity workout instead.  This time I won't be doing lean plan I will go with classic instead.  Starting December 24th.

Insanity Day 10b

Did most of plyo circuit.  Will finish it tomorrow with recovery workout.  Will be a bit tricky since will be on the road, I think I can fit it in before I leave.  Then Thursday will be late night workout when I get home to keep on track.  I did the whole warmup with about 60-75 seconds of rest during the 3 times through the loop.

Insanity Day 9b

Pure Cardio day.  I think I hate this workout most.  Its just so relentless.  I am getting a little better at the warmup though.  As in I can see a glimmer of hope to one day make it all the way through all three rounds without stopping to rest.  :)

Insanity Day 8b

I missed two workouts so I am re-doing week 2.  Sore leg/hip/thigh area cost me two days workouts.  No more pain now so I will redo week 2.

Insanity Day 11

Really low energy today.  I couldn't bring myself to go do the recovery workout.  I did AbRipperX from P90x instead.  Been about 5 weeks since I did that routine.  Forgot how hard it is.  My abs don't like me now.  :)  I think this friday is the first Insanity Ab workout.  Will be interesting to see what that one is.

Insanity Day 10

Plyo Cardio Circuit.  That Phase 1 circuit with all the plank work just kicks my butt everytime.  I can't even touch the pushup/run then ski abs, then in and out ab sequence.  I do maybe half of the expected time for those exercises.

Insanity Day 9

Pure Cardio again.  That thing is just sick.  Its so damn hard to keep up that whole 12 min sequence with no set breaks.  I am doing about 30 seconds of each exercise instead of 60 by the end.  I made it through round 1 of the warmup before my HRM beeped the first time.  I was just wondering about abs and was thinking of sneaking in an AbRipperX, but then I saw that the cardio abs routine is added this week.  So I will hold off for now.

Insanity Day 8

Did the Power routine again.  Good workout.  Have troubles with the second circuit.  Just take lots of breaks as I just can't keep up.  Burning 800-900 calories per workout so far.  (except recovery, I didn't wear the monitor for that one)  Will be interesting to see how much change in the fit test on day 15.

Insanity Day 6

Did the Plyo routine again.  Worked on setting my heels down more frequently rather than spending most of the routine on the balls of my feet.  Helped with much less sore calves.  Other than just tired out of breath the main thing that I find limiting is the up and down moves.  The ones where you stand up or jump and then touch the floor.  I get light headed or slightly dizzy on those moves and have to take breaks too often.  Just glad my calves are finally back to normal levels of soreness and stairs are not agonizing pain.  

Insanity Day 5

Well, my calves continue to recover, that's the good news.  I had to do Pure Cardio, that's the bad news.  That is a wicked hard workout.  After about 15-18 minutes of warmup and the phase one which isn't easy, you hit the phase 2 section.  It is ~12 minutes straight, 1 minute per exercise, no breaks and they are not simple exercises either.  You know its rough when Shaun T is sending the video people off to the side for water breaks.....  Insanity is the perfect word for that.  The only good news is that it was a 34 minute workout.  (Plus 2 minutes of laying on the floor gasping for air) 

Insanity Day 4

I was so happy to see Recovery day.  Only 2 of the exercises were hard on the calves which was very, very needed.  I can walk mostly normally today, stairs are still not very fun.  I think I may do tonight and tomorrows workouts in standard cross-trainers and see if I can get my calves back to normal.  Looks like I may have another trip planned during the 60 days, so I need to get the workouts from DVD to my phone.  Luckily I don't need anything other than shoes to do the workouts so that will be much easier.

Insanity Day 3

Did the power cardio workout last night.  More strength exercises.  Good amount of pushup type exercises mixed with Cardio.  My calves are still on fire.  It definitely affected my workout last night and man I am avoiding stairs today.  Hopefully if I gut out the week with the rest day sunday I can get my calves to someplace without pain. 

Insanity Day 2

This is gonna be fun!  Did first real workout last night.  My 39 min workout burned about the same calories as most of my 58 minute P90x routines did.  890 calories.  Within 30 minutes of finishing workout the calf started to tighten up big time.  Its pretty sore today.  Should be fun for tonight's workout.  I will need to make sure I use my shakes and maybe will add some extra stretching to the routines to make sure my legs are limber.  I may try my normal cross trainers too.  The five fingers work pretty good, but they probably contribute to the extra strain on the calves due to pretty much forcing you to absord most of the impact of landing with your foot and leg muscles.  Never had an weakness in the knees, likely due to how hard my calves were working.

Insanity Day 1

Even the fit test is quite the workout.  One one of the exercises I think Tanya did 3x my number.  :(  I couldn't even do half of them for the full 60 seconds.  So that means I definitely have some good room to improve.  Sore legs for sure today.  So far I like the vibram five fingers shoes with the padded floor combo.  Hopefully with this program I can just drop some lbs.  I am going to attempt to cut out soft drinks as best I can as well.  I think that may be more difficult than the 60 days of insanity.

Day 90 (Week 13.6)

Forgot to come update.  So I did finish.  Ended up taking 104 days with the time off due to shoulder issue.  Got good results overall.  Didn't lose the weight I wanted to though.  Substantial strength increases though.  -4.5% bodyfat.  pushups increased from 19 to 28.  2 inches vertical jump.  +20 seconds of wall sit and +2 inches of reach.

I am currently awaiting the arrival for my Insanity DVD's.  I will plan to give that a shot for Nov/Dec with the hopes of just dropping weight.  Going to make an attempt to also drop soft drinks as I try Insanity.  Goal is 15-20 lbs.  Then will probably do another round of P90X after the first of the year.  I don't really see any need for X2 at this point.  I have so much room left to increase the difficulty on P90X before I worry about needing anything new.

Day 89 (Week 13.6)

Did half of Yoga.  No crane unfortunately.  :(  I just can't keep the feet off floor for more than about 1 second.  Need to drop some weight and then I should be able to manage it.  Tomorrow will finish Yoga and do the fit test.  Then plan to just do a mix of cardio, basketball and Core Syn workout until I start Insanity.

Day 88 (Week 13.5)

Did Core Syn today.  Went pretty well.  One minor success.  I figured out a way to do a Dreya roll.  I found that if I crossed my ankles I could make the butt-> feet transition.  Did it carefully to make sure I didn't hurt my ankles.  Was able to do 2 rolls.  Tomorrow is Yoga then fit test and done.

Day 87 (Week 13.4)

Did a hybrid yoga/ab ripper workout last night.  Will count it for stretch X.  Just two workouts to go.  Yoga and Core Syn.  Then two weeks of elliptical, basketball, and probably ab ripper to allow my knee, ankle, and shoulder to get rested up for Insanity.

Day 86 (Week 13.3)

Made it through Core synergistics.  Had to just do normal pushups instead of the one armed balance.  Also skipped the lunge-presses.  Still can't do a stupid Dreya roll.  Maybe second round.  Yoga/Core/Stretch to go.

Day 85 (Week 13.2)

Played basketball.  Will replace probably Kenpo with that.  Doing Core tomorrow.  First time in like a month I have done that one.  Just hope my shoulder holds out and then its smooth sailing to day 90.  (I think)

Day 84 (Week 13.1)

Pushed through most of Yoga. The shoulder did so-so with the down dogs. I did skip the down dog part several times though. Flexibility is nice, curious to see how it looks in fit test. Got close to vertical in shoulder stands, and my plow is now limited by my belly. :) Got two more chances to get crane. I would be happy with 4-5 second hold. Not sure it will happen though. Playing basketball tomorrow, then core.

Day 82 (Week 12.6)

Legs and Back, last hard workout. Now just recovery week and then fit test, etc. I still get crazy sore glutes from this workout. The 1-2 days after legs and back my legs just hate me. Got in a pretty good workout, pullups went pretty well too. It seems that I can do most things except down dog and some pushups cause shoulder issues.

Day 81 (Week 12.5)

Did some of Yoga today. Down dog not kind to my shoulder though. Probably going to have to do something else for week 13 as the Yoga on the shoulder is probably not gonna fly. May just mix up cardio/kenpo/plyo/core/stretch for the final week.

Day 80 (Week 12.4)

Didn't feel like yoga so I mixed it up and did Plyo. That workout is so hard to keep up with. It still amazes me that guy does it on one freaking leg. Legs and Back tomorrow, then yoga and recovery. Yoga shows up 3 times in the next 10 days. Ugh.

Day 79 (Week 12.3)

Made it through Back and Biceps. Couple of the pullups where at a crappy angle for the shoulder, but the rest was pretty good. Legs and Back should be fine on Friday. Have to see how Yoga goes tomorrow. Then Kenpo and start final recovery week. Looking forward to retaking the fit test and see how much I have improved.

Day 78 (Week 12.2)

Cardio today, play basketball for about 1hr 15 mins. Shoulder held up ok for hoops. Tomorrow is back and biceps so we see how it goes. I get through that and then its just yoga and then recovery week. Achilles is still tender. its sore after I play hoops. I stretch the heck out of it before and during play. Need to figure out how to get that back to 100%.

Day 77* (Week 12.1)

Started up again today. Shoulder still sore, I was able to do most of chest/sh/tri. Lightened weights on several things. I should be able to get through the final hard week. The tough workouts will be back and biceps and yoga. The cardio and legs and back should be fine. Then will have a nice break for the shoulder and will do basketball, and probably plyo/kenpo/cardiox/coresynergistsics to maintain until I start Insanity next month.

I need to memorize core synergistics. I think that one is the most balanced and best standalone workout. I know Tony swears by Yoga, but I just hate the vinyasas too much to pick that over Core Synergistics.

Day 75-6 (Week 11.5-6)

So I finished out the week by doing Plyo and Legs&Back. (minus the back) I ended up only missing Yoga. My shoulder is feeling better, but plan to rest it for a full week and then start week 12 after that depending on if there is any pain. So I may be able to finish one week behind schedule with some luck.

Day 74 (Week 11.4)

Well I won't be finishing on day 90. Maybe on day 100 if lucky. Doc says now lifting for 7-10 days. :( Got some anti-inflammatories and can only do cardio stuff for the next 10 days. Will plan to try and redo week 11 starting on day ~84 ish?

Day 73 (Week 11.3)

Shoulders and Arms. Went so-so. Skipped a swimmers and some of the fly stuff. Did the curls. Lightened weights on most stuff though. I am actually gonna go get a quick check on my shoulder today to see if its a strain or what. Depending on that I may finish the week or restart it next week.

Day 72 (Week 11.2)

Did Kenpo tonight. Was ok for most of it. Shoulder didn't like elbow series so I skipped it. Also knuckles. Taking it easy on the shoulder today, real test is tomorrow.

Day 71 (Week 11.1)

I was happy that today would be my last time of Chest & Back for this round. I had a pretty good workout. I like the new angled feet method I am using for the pullups. I did possibly have a setback though. My best guess is in the seated angled back fly exercise. I torqued my right shoulder. It doesn't feel like the actual shoulder though. More one of the top muscles in the upper arm. Had to bail on AB Ripper as even the arm motion in crunchy frog hurt too much.

Update:
Still tender and sore, but definitely better. I will probably juggle Tuesday's Cardio and try to pick whichever is easier on the shoulder. Probably Cardio or Plyo is better than Kenpo. Worst case I can just do Elliptical or something and see how it feels tomorrow. I am hoping I don't have to take a week off and repeat week 11.

Day 67-69 (Week 10.4-6)

Finished out the week. Pretty good workouts. Done with my HR monitor. I am sick if fighting it. Chest strap won't update, or 5 mins into workout it spikes from 120 bpm to 180bpm and won't budge unless I power cycle it. Combine this with the fact that is very inconsistent with letting you manually update by touching the face and I am returning it. Luckily I got the 1 year no argument return policy when I bought it. Going to get a different brand monitor this time.

Day 66 (Week 10.3)

Heel still tender this morning but a bit better. I skipped this morning workout and will plan to try and get it in tonight instead. I definitely think that exercise wise the basketball is easily on par with my cardio workouts, so I probably just need to get back in the swing of playing and also spend more time stretching prior to playing. Will update this later. I do not want to have to redo a week, so if I can stick to it while letting it get back to 100% I will. Luckily today is back and biceps which should be pretty easy on the achilles. Might have to replace tomorrows cardio/kenpo with elliptical or something if still tender. The real test will be Friday's legs and back. Need to be back to 100% by then. Could always push that til Saturday if I need to.

Day 65 (Week 10.2)

Hmm, we will see how this turns out. Decided to replace my workout today with basketball after work. Played 4 straight games of full court, about 90 mins worth. Great cardio. One downside. Strained my left Achilles/heel. Iced it as much as I could and see how it is tomorrow.

Day 64 (Week 10.1)

I love it when you are dreading something, then it turns out you don't have to do it. I was dreading chest and back, then looked at schedule and forgot phase 3 alternates weeks. Never been so happy to see Ch/Sh/Tri on the calendar.... 1200 calories burned with Ab Ripper. Great workout.

Day 62 (Week 9.6)

Did about 60% of yoga. Resting for next week. Forcing self to stick to it at this point. Its tough.

Day 61 (Week 9.5)

Busted out Cardio this morning. Yoga tomorrow and then the final push. Measured the body fat % today at nurse's office. So even though no weight loss in last month turns out I have lost 4% body fat. So that is nice. That works out to about 9-10 lbs of fat lost. Long ways to go yet. Still at 32%. My goal was 25% by the end. That seems like a fairly lofty goal at this point. :)

Day 60 (Week 9.4)

Gotta take pics tonight for day 60. Easy workout with stretch X. May swap in yoga though since will probably have more time tonight than tomorrow. Have to go get some shoes too. Want to try and play some basketball next week one day at lunchtime.

Day 59 (Week 9.3)

Kenpo today. Pretty good workout. Was a bit hot which is always fun on cardio routines. :) Not looking forward to Monday. Nightmares of chest and back hitting already......

Day 58 (Week 9.2)

Core synergistics went well. I split it and then I also did my missed ab ripper from Friday. I am all caught up now. Hopefully I am back to 100% for the final stretch starting next week.

Day 57 (Week 9.1)

First of two Yoga's this week. Ugh. At least its not chest and back...... Did most of the routine. Plan to finish the rest after core tomorrow, or with stretch on wednesday.

Day 55 (Week 8.6)

Did 3/4 of Kenpo. Ran out of time, too late. I also played golf so I got a bunch of extra walking and soreness. (many golf uses a lot of weird muscles esp in back and arms)

Day 54 (Week 8.5)

Legs and Back. Still sticking to classic schedule. The trick will be plyo. Freaking stretchy band broke today. So have to figure out how to fix it. One green band is not enough resistance. I am finding with a lot of the balance type moves I do better on the concrete than my padded floor. Too much padding with shoes and the mats and its too soft and harder to balance. This should help with some of the trickier ones like balance lunges, and sneaky lunges, etc.

Day 53 (Week 8.4)

Worried I would be super sore today so I did yoga last night. Turns out not horrible. I was worried about thighs being sore from Plyo, but turns out its sore calves. Now the question is will I get Kenpo out of the way tonight, or leave it for Saturday. Would be nice to have two days off in a row.....

Day 52 (Week 8.3)

Shoulders & Arms today. Went ahead and did Ab Ripper right after. Made it through without any crashing. Was actually able to improve my Week 3 reps/weights on several exercises. With Plyo last night and this routine this morning I am thinking I may do Yoga tonight in case I am super sore tomorrow. :) The one downside of classic is I am back to the back to back combo of legs&back with Kenpo.

Day 51 (Week 8.2)

Plyo X day. Actually my knees started bothering me a bit and I think its due to shoes + thick inserts + padded floor. Ie, to much flex. About halfway through I got rid of the shoes and just worked out barefoot. Was much better surprisingly. I gues with the padded floor I have I can get away without shoes even for jumping. I need to work on the gap jumps though. I can't figure out how to to the "straight guy" version yet. :)

Day 50 (Week 8.1)

OMFG, Chest and Back is brutal. All pushups and pullups. So much pain. Made it through barely. Left Ab ripper for the evening. Gonna try classic schedule for phase 3. Biggest concern is knees with Plyo.

Day 48 (Week 7.6)

Cardio day. Nice to have an easier workout then day off back to back. Still on the fence about lean or classic for phase 3.

Day 47 (Week 7.5)

Legs and Back day. Did pretty good today. Need to enter data this weekend. Boosted counts on a few exercises. I am liking the bands for pullups. Its obviously not as hard as the leg assisted pullups, but I really feel like I get more out of the reps. Also I think the I am more sore the next day since I started to the bands pullups for the second set.

Day 46 (Week 7.4)

Got busy today, ended up skipping Yoga. I will have to either do it as a double on fri/sat, or will make it up Sunday. I like having day off though on Sunday so probably will try and squeeze it in on Fri or Sat.

Day 45 (Week 7.3)

Pretty good workout today. Chest/sh/tri. Did a lot of early maxing on the pushups and kind of trashed my arms and I paid the price later. Especially on the one-armed. I wasned burned out like energy wise, my arms just wouldn't do what I told them to. :) I think that's a good thing.

Day 44 (Week 7.2)

Kenpo today. Kind of dragging on the back kicks. Was hot in the garage and I worked out in the evening so that didn't help too much. Its nice eating some carbs again though. Still up in the air for Phase 3. I may stick on the medium carb diet for phase 3. Also up in the air on the schedule. I am tempted to switch from lean into classic for phase 3. The biggest concern is Chest and Back, I just don't know how I am gonna handle that insane pushup/pullup rotation. It won't affect my choice though since I hav eto do it either way. Mainly its just swapping core for an extra str + ab ripper day. I probably wouldn't do plyo yet to spare my knees.

Day 43 (Week 7.1)

Started week 7 now. With my vacation week switchup I would only do two weeks before pahse 2 recovery week. I think that isn't really a great plan so I am going to do week 1 of Phase 3 next week and then do the recovery week. Today was Core. Bumped up some weights, overall all an average intensity workout.

Day 41 (Week 6.6)

Finished up the week with Cardio day. I like the swap of cardio/Kenpo. It makes the weekend seem like more of a break with the easiest workout then the rest day right after.

Day 40 (Week 6.5)

Legs and Back, doubled up the bands for second set of pullups. Worked pretty well. So now I do second set of pullups with heavy and medium bands at same time. Saved AbRipper for either tonight or tomorrow after Cardio. Probably tonight. Got all my back data entered into my tracking sheet from vacation workouts finally.

Day 39 (Week 6.4)

Yoga day. Did most of the routine. Skipped about 10 mins worth. The downward dog loops get soooo repetitive.

Day 38 (Week 6.3)

Chest/Shoulders/Tri today. Small improvement from two weeks ago. Switched to standard on the one-arm balance pushups. increased a couple weights. Ended up do AbRipperX last night so I didn't have to do it right after this workout. Hope to be less sore come Friday morning than I was last time.

Day 37 (Week 6.2)

Swapped Kenpo for Cardio. Had more time this morning so I will leave the shorter Cardio workout til Saturday. Decent workout this morning, but I did Core last night so had some issues with energy. Burned about 75 fewer calories than is typical for Kenpo. Probably will try and do AbRipper tonight to save time for tomorrow. Plus CH/SH/TRI is a bear.......

Day 36 (Week 6.1)

Core synergistics today. I am really feeling like this is one of my best workouts each week. Its a good variety, and only has a couple moves I can't stand. :) Burning over 1,000 calories each time, and I get a solid slightly sore all over return from the workout. Much preferred over the OMG I can't walk soreness after legs and back.....

Day 29-35 (Week 5)

Still Vacation time. Now into my recovery week.
Day 29: Core Synergistics. Great workout on this one. Over 1k calories burned. Did the workout at my brother's gym. Probably only half looked retarded over in the corner.
Day 30: Kenpo X again at the gym. Used the separate room so didn't feel as stupid. HRM died, no data. Turns out it was the chest strap battery. Not so great that it only lasted 5 weeks. Hopefully its cause it was old in the case. Replaced it and all is well.
Day 31: Driving today, hotel had workout center so I was able to do Yoga. Was nice to just jump in the pool right after.
Day 32: Drove rest of way home, rest day.
Day 33: Cardio X day today.
Day 34: Took a second rest day. Should have done stretch, but didn't
Day 35: Yoga X, good routine. Skipped some of the twists again. Great progress on shoulder stand and plow.

Back to normal routine now. I hope. Overall I gained 1 lb on vacation. I am fine with this since it was very hard to stick to the food plan while on the road.

Day 25-28

Vacation time.
Day 25 did Core in the morning.
Day 26 I was driving the whole day so took my rest day.
Day 27 I was only able to do AbRipper.
Day 28 I did the first Insanity cardio workout. Wow, that was tough. It does several similar exercises to P90X ones, but they are all faster. Ie, Heismans, with the triple step in the middle, but no pauses at each side. I was able to do about 60% of the moves until the downward dog style leg jumpy things at in the last circuit. Hell even the warmup for Insanity is hard. My HRM was beeping almost non-stop during this workout. I need to drop some lbs before I do this regularly. Knees a bit sore the next day. Although we did the workout on my friends hardwood floor too so that didn't help. Might not be so bad on my padded floor at home.

Day 24

Yoga today. Didn't do the whole routine due to time issues. Couple good points though. Was able to actually get up for shoulder stands today. Amazingly I am getting close to crane. I was able to get both toes up twice for about 1-2 seconds. Either core or cardio tomorrow. Probably core since cardio is easier to do on the road with none of my weights.

Day 23

Worst day yet. Soreness from Day 21 ch/sh/tri just hit me last night this morning. I was in pain doing the warmup running in place for legs and back. Ow. My chest is so sore from all the pushups. The good news is with my swapping weeks Its almost 2 weeks til I have to do that one again. :)

Did 2/3rd of legs and back this morning. Have to finish it tonight and then do AbRipper. Should be able to get it finished, biggest concern now is if my chest will be too sore for Yoga tomorrow. Hopefully its down to a mild ache so I can get through Yoga.

Day 22

Moved Kenpo up. While I still hate back kicks I am getting better on the left foot version. Its seems much easier for me to balance on my right leg for the left foot kicks than to do the reverse.

Saving CardioX for later in the week when no gear and time issues are tougher. Also I am doing Insanity on Sat so might just replace CardioX with that. I think I will do legs and back tomorrow, and then Yoga on wednesday. I should be able to manage Core on the road. I know I can get ab ripper in anywhere so I will probably get one round in tonight, and then do the other one on the road at end of week or make my friend do that one on the weekend.

Day 21

No rest this week. Completely reworking week 4/5 due to vacation. Doing week 4/5 this week, but modified order. I did first run of Ch/Sh/Tri today. Wow, so many pushups. I started about the first 2/3rds of the pushup sets with real ones, last few sets I started on my knees. Esp the one armed variety. Wicked hard routine. I expect a very sore Chest come Tuesday morning. Not able to do AbRipper after. I will fit in my 2 sessions this week, not sure which days yet though.

Day 20

Kenpo Day. Legs trashed. Backs kicks are so brutal the day after legs and back. Really wishing this week was recovery, but I gotta push through another week with the 4/5 swap. Thinking about starting week 4 a day early too so I have two rest days due to the driving.

Day 19

Excellent workout today. Small improvements across the board, but 1245 calories burned. Started using the bands for second pullup set. Doing 6 chair pullups with a lot of leg help and then 20-30 bands for the second set. Legs not liking me though. Tomorrow will be rough again after Kenpo. Then I get to do week 4 instead so no rest yet until vacation week. With any luck I might be down two lbs this week. Depends on how the weekend goes of course. Maybe Monday morning is a bad day for weekly weigh ins. :)

Day 18

Did strength portion of Yoga this AM, doing balance tonight. Then tomorrow starts the awful leg thrashing again.... Still can't do a lot of the twists my gut gets in the way. Missed most of the routine right before the warrior3/half moon twist stuff. I did those ones though. Those are wicked tough. Learned that those are one exercise where it pays to keep the leg straight. 2x as hard if there is a bend since then its all on one of your quads to keep standing up.

Day 17

Another round of Shoulders&Arms. Had a morning meeting so was an evening workout. Somehow I reset my HRM and so I did this great workout and busted ass and then I see I burned 588 calories with this + AbRipperX. Normally this is a 900+ calorie burn. Then I realized the error and saw that it had me do the workout at default which is like 145 lbs or something. Ooops. Oh, well. Made a note and moved on.

Some increases and some ill-advised ones where I ended up dropping back for the second set. Small improvements in AbRipper. I completed leg climbs, I actually found that getting the leg straight before I start raising it I can keep it straight and do a single high on the calf grab and then get fingertip to touch, or within a half inch when I don't quite get there. 300 pnt workout though. Still doing full body crunches in place of v up rollups.

I am thinking of adding a score or something that will take my rep/wght data and then assign a score to the workout. To track overall improvement. Would be tricky though since it would overwieght the high wght exercises like curls over things like in n out tricep extensions which use muck lower weights. Have to figure out how to factor in the weight part as a small multiplier on the reps. Maybe rep * 1.0x where x - weight amount and then just use 1 for anything with no weight.

Day 16

Cardio today. Dreya rolls still frustrate me to no end. Its gonna be a while on those. Came very close to making it all the way through power yoga portion. I did all the iterations, but had to rush through the transitions to keep up at the end.

Gonna swap week 5 and 4 for vacation and do recovery week on vacation. Although I will be mixing in two insanity workouts it will really be at the end of week 4 that I do those so I will still have the whole week of recovery schedule.

Day 15

Start of week 3.  Improvement over last week.  I made a conscious decision to try and eliminate Knee pushups from everything I can even if it means I only get 6 or 8 reps.  The sphynx today was the one tough one.  That is a DAMN hard pushup without knees.  Ran out of gas bigtime near the end today.  I just layed there during Dreya rolls.  Did the bonus round though, the break helped me.  Was pressed for time so I think I didn't wait long enough after I ate to start.  Day 16&17 should be interesting.  Have to workout super early since I have meetings and then health thing on wednesday that I have to be done working out 3 hours prior to.  Also cannot eat after 10pm the night before so that should be fun.  I am thinking about working out at night due to the food thing.

I think I will be ok for the vacation thing.  One of the friends I am visiting is doing Insanity currently.  So I may just have take yoga/core/cardio supplies with me and then do his insanity workouts with him.  I will probably take bands too and then just do what I can.  Maybe do legs and back on the road since I already know those moves and do the new one when I get back.

Day 14

Rest day.  Thought about doing stretch but only for about 3 seconds.

Day 13

KenpoX went well today.  Still suck at back kicks, really slows me down and can't keep up on anything that includes back kicks.  Did X jumps in all the "breaks" except the last one.  Legs wasted again though.  This combo runs the entire first two phases.  I hope I get more accustomed to it.  Otherwise it's a couple months of weekends with wasted legs.

Day 12

Legs and Back today.  Did AbRipperX after.  Killer workout.  78 mins, 1156 calories.  HRM was working overtime today.  Small improvement in AbRipperX  I am up to 280 points now in a workout.  I am just too slow for a lot of the exercises and do about half the reps even though I go the entire time limit.

Forsee one wrinkle in my plan.  May be going out of town on vacation most of week 5.  Much easier if it was week 4.  May swap schedule for week 4 and 5 since recovery week needs no pullup bar and hardly any weights.  Just a Yoga block and mat probably.  I will have a car DVD player for the kids, so I can just use that for the workouts.  Other option would be to try and find a gym at the location that I could use, but then I have to have the kids watched while I workout.

Day 11

Did the whole Yoga routine in one shot today.  I had to skip about 5 minutes of the first half.  Too many down dog loops.  Got one foot up in Crane for about 5 seconds.  I will be happy if I can do Crane by Day 60.  :)  Still unable to a lot of the "twist" moves.  I can't twist enough to get the elbows to leverage, etc.  Its a great relaxer though.  I hate the routine, but really like how you feel after you are done.  Next time I need to try the blanket under the shoulders.  My neck is a tad stiff from the Plow-Shoulder stand moves.

Day 10

Shoulders and Arms today.  Across the board improvement in weight and reps.  I now see why they are so detailed about recording everything.  Its really helps you not cheat yourself by doing something too light.  Glad I did AbRipper yesterday, was trashed by the end of the workout.  My obliques don't like me though.  Core Monday then AbRipper tuesday put the hurt on them.  :)  Holiday BBQ crap food is in the past, so expecting to be by the book this week on food.

Day 9

CardioX day.  Did better this week.  Still can't quite keep up all the way through Yoga.  I also did AbRipper today since tomorrow is busy day for me.  Saw a pretty big improvement in AbRipper this week.  About 40 total reps more than last weeks.  Will be interesting to see how much gains in wght/reps I get this week in the various programs.  Did decent on sticking to diet today.  I have made 10 shakes so far using the slow release Casein protein mix.  I still haven't figured out how to make it not suck.  The Whey tastes fine, I think it must be the flavor.  I will probably get chocolate next time or something.

Day 8

Lost 1 lb in week 1.  Today was Core synergistics.  Pretty close to last weeks numbers.  I did have a couple with big improvements over last week.  Stacked pushups, cresent lunges, and steam engine all showed good gains.  Couple were 1-2 reps lower than last week.  I forgot how many pushups in todays workout.  Oh well, tomorrow is cardio or yoga depending on if I swap.

Day 7

So nice to rest.  No workout today other than setting up the pool and awning for the kids.  That workout was followed by laying in a pool of cold water rather than one of my own sweat.  I pleasant change.  Tomorrow starts Week2.

Day 6

My legs are gone.  I hope I can walk tomorrow.  Yoga then legs and back then kenpo is brutal on the legs.  Also need to work on my feet.  I really prefer doing Kenpo barefoot, but my left foot/toe/ball of foot gets sore  Luckily I have rest+core day to let it get better before Tuesday.  Holiday week so I will probably do Yoga on tuesday and leave cardio for Thursday.  I still think Kenpo is my favorite Cardio workout, even with all the mule/back kicks.

Day 5

Legs and Back + AbRipper.  My legs are hurting.  Tony is not exaggerating when he comments about the calves on fire at one point.  Mine really were.  5 more reps and I would have fallen over.  I left AbRipper for the evening in the interest of time.  Its really tough to go from full str routine into abripper.  Maybe I drink my recovery drink in between or something to help me not crash.

Day 4

Wow, YogaX was much tougher than I thought.  The first half was very hard to keep up.  My shoulders feel it.  The second half I was actually able to do a lot of the exercises and was much more flexible than I expected and I actually liked it.  I even sort of got close to some sembelence of Plow.  Nowhere near Crane, not in 60 seconds or even 60 minutes.  :)  The timing is tough, but I think I like Yoga as a nighttime routine, its really great at relaxing you.  I need to get back on mornings though, Day 5 is gonna be a nighttime routine too due to schedule. 

Day 3

Arms & Shoulders + AbRipperX.  Longer routines mean more pain to schedule.  I switched my schedule today and got up at 5:30 am.  Ouch.  Got some breakfast and waited about 20 mins and then got to work.  Hard routine, but much more able to keep up.  The strength routines are far more scalable since you control the weights.  Had to go way lighter than I would like on the flys.  Esp in the bonus round.  My shoulders were thrashed and I couldn't even get 10's up!  Was surprised though, used the 20's more than I originally thought.  My 13.5s are a bit low though.  I think I may go with offset weights on each end so I can make them 16's  Couple exercises where I couldn't use 20, but 13.5 seemed light.
AbRipperX was brutal.  I am not used to being this wasted when I start it.  V-up rollups were horrible today, did worse than usual on the split situps.  On the plus side I did better than normal on Mason Twists.  Was able to do 30 with one leg up at a time and then actually got 10 in with both legs up.  Still can't get within 6 inches of the floor though.  Improved leg climbs too.  I figured out I can straighten out my leg and still get almost the ankle with first grab.  I am about 2 inches shy of the toe though with the leg locked out.  Also realized that it helps immensely if you keep the off foot bent and on the ground.  Much more stable platform.


Day 2 ended up being not so great food wise as I had two meals out.  Pretty hard to get by with 1 serving of carbs in 2 restaurant meals.  Today will be 100% on plan though.

Day 2

Today was CardioX.  The good news is its only 46 mins long.  The bad news is it has more of those stupid Dreya rolls.  Can't keep up with the Yoga part yet, but I always had issues with that in Power 90 too.  Have a bunch of odd side/back muscle soreness from Core yesterday.  Tomorrow should be fun with a strength workout + Ab RipperX.  Lunch out with work today.  It was Mexican food so I ended up going with the Fajitas.  Seemed to be the easiest thing to figure out how to map into the points system.

Day 1

Started this morning.  Core Synergistics done.  Had the biggest issues with Sphynx pushups and stupid Dreya rolls.  When she does that up-spin-roll move I want to punch her in the face.  Got all my food stuff setup.  Goodbye carbs.  See you in 30 days.  :(  I am hoping I won't be horribly sore, I did 5 workouts last week and had a fair amount of soreness, we will see how I feel around wed/thurs time frame.  That will probably be the first hurdle.  Also its Yoga day on Thursday.  Ugh.

Starting data & fit test:
Height 5'9
Weight 252
BF 34%
Pushups max: 21
Pullups max: 0
Wall sit: 64 seconds
In/Out max: 33
Vertical Jump: 11"
Curls: 15reps @ 25 lbs
Flexibility: -1"

Background leading up to P90X

I started in December of 2010 with tracking my food intake and controlling my calories.  From a start of 299 I was able to get down to around 260 with just food and using elliptical 1 or 2 times a week.  Then I got stuck at ~265.  I looked at P90X, but it was just not doable.  So I decided to do Power90 first. 

At 25-30 days in I moved up to level 3/4 and after a week or two there I started adding 10-20 mins on elliptical to the mix.  I decided to get ready to do P90X at day 60 and have been mixing in the P90X routines for the final 2 weeks of Power90 just to get familiar with the exercises.  I also replaced AbRipper200 with Ab RipperX for the last 2 weeks of Power90 too.  I will post my starting data here on Day1 but I expect to start the program at around 250 lbs.  I have greatly increased my strength on the Power90 plan and my waist size has decreased, but I really only lost about 10-12 lbs or so.

I am doing the Lean schedule and I will also be using the nutrition plan.  Calculator says I should be Level3 plan, but I will be doing level2 calorie intake since I want to try and lose some weight to make the pullups easier.  (and by easier I mean possible)  I also have protein supplements on order as I have had two people tell me I will die of soreness without them.  I swear the hardest part of this all is going to be giving up almost all carbs for 3-4 weeks of Phase 1.  I also may consider swapping in the Plyometrics workout in phase 3.  I did it once already and its was the hardest thing I have ever done.  I actually almost hurled.  How can I not try to add that in?  It almost seems like cheating that it isn't in the schedule.

I got my setup all ready and am just going to try out the rest of the routines this week and then take 2-3 days off before the start.

Bring it!

Welcome to my P90X blog.  There are thousands like it, but this one is mine.  (No really, there is a ridiculous number of these so they must help)  My start date is Monday June 27th, 2011.