Legs and Back.
It’s February now, I am not able to exercise with the walkout doors open in the summer heat. The claustrophobic feeling of the basement is starting to feel like cabin fever. However, I was handling things well, regardless of the horrible shape in which I find myself. That was, until today. Legs and Back is a tough workout, especially with my history of one weak leg due to back surgery and a history of pull up free workouts. However, over the past year my chin ups are imporving drastically but my leg… well, it’s not really doing much improving. It is Friday night, I did Legs and Back after work today, the toughest day of the week for me. I was conditioned through years of growing up role modelling my father to regard Friday as the day of recovery. It is like you work all week so that Friday night you can blow off the week and do whatever you want. Mostly that doesn’t include working out like a badger on dexedrine. The workout itself wasn’t too taxing. A couple of times I was close to failure with my legs and bearing in mind that I am a good 20lbs (to be kind) over what I was when I finished round one I am not surprised that my legs were giving out.
Back went OK too although I find that my numbers are down from last time, a reflection of the fact that I was in shape when I started last time. However, not to harp on the issue of my being out of shape it’s about the fact that I am getting back into shape…
I found that after the workout that I had a mean sugar craving, maybe due to the high protein content of my diet today but whatever it was I thought a little tea with a spoon of sugar would fix it. It didn’t. I devoured the pita pit veggie pita that I had from work and about 2 litres of water by which time I felt like I was about to explode. Better than a dozen cookies I suppose. I did have a couple of small individual zize chocolates left over from our Switzerland trip after the New Year just to take the edge off.
**Note: August 2011. It`s no wonder I wasn`t getting anywhere with weight loss with that attitude. It was like flying blind until I realized diet was the key. I knew it all along, I just was in denial.
So I have figured out why I am hating P90X all of a sudden. It is this lingering painful last rest week. I have always been the type who like to finish practice with a sprint. When I played rugby throughout all my youth either in England for my school or County, here in Canada for my High School, Town, University or Province it was ALWAYS the case that conditioning was last thing at practice. That way you left everything you had on the field and left with a real sense of achievement and pride. Finishing the P90X program with a rest week is like Friday practice before the game. It’s just lame. I wanted to be shredded and beaten down, to be chiseled and have abs like granite and after the last week of resistance training I did. It’s now almost 2 weeks later and I still haven’t got through the rest week because I am not achieving anything. That lack of final punch has left me unmotivated and listless. If the program had been P83X it would have been almost perfect. The only thing that would have made it better would be a week of stress testing workouts. Some way of really pushing you past your boundaries to see what you and your new body can do. Sadly, I think that they have taken that theory and instead of making a kick-ass, bust your balls, show me what a frigging hero I have become week, they have made a “new” program called P90X Plus out of it to wring more cash out of their bloated cash cow that is Beachbody.com.
