It’s strange how you forget your experience with certain types of exercise when you are away for a while. It’s been a while since I have done any TRUE weight lifting, and by that I mean real anaerobic, no cardio, hard weight pushing, heavy mechanical exertion. You forget about the searing pain of lactic acid that flows and persists long after you drop the weight. You forget the kind of pump that makes you feel like your muscles are going to explode and prevents you from moving certain directions. It’s been a very long time since I have not been able to wash my shaved head because my arms mysteriously won’t reach because my biceps and shoulders are in the way. I have to admit, I kind of like it. I like it but I don’t like the extra poundage it brings. I am happy being 235 lbs, but I am still uncomfortable being 255lbs even if I know my body fat is falling. That said, I think it’s part of a healthy lifestyle circuit that at times you switch your training methodology from HIIT to Bodybuilding to Power Lifting to Cross Training. My recent days have included a mini-break from the Body Beast workouts to do a whole body bootcamp and a cardio day as a rest. For the bootcamp workout I did 10 movements for 100 reps each giving me 1000 rep total. It was not as hard as it sounds, some of the items were kinda easy.
Crunches
Heavy Bag Knees
Pushups
Standing knee lifts
Heavy bag kicks
Jumping Jacks
Side knee strikes
Military Pushups
Plank runs
Air squats
Once I felt like I was ready to get back to the lifting I started on the Bulk phase. This will be 2 weeks and then I will move along to either the build phase again or suck it up and go into Beast Phase although I am not really convinced it’s going to fit into what I am trying to do. I may have to back out and replace some of the “cardio” Body Beast with real cardio from Insanity.
So how is the second half of R11? I said at the Half Way Point that I was dissatisfied with the T25 and P90X3 system and I think I have managed to get over that feeling of frustration. The Body Beast workouts have me working a bit longer, a lot heavier and have me feeling like I am working hard once again. I am almost tempted to get back into a round of Pure P90X once this is done just to bring my cardio and bodyweight work back into line but we will see. I may enjoy being huge so much that Body Beast will get an extension into a round of it’s own.
FYI the BULK section is divided up further than the BUILD section was so I am committed to doing all 5 of the workouts twice in a 11 day period if I can manage it.