Getting back into your schedule is often harder than you think. The best way, then, is just to shut up and do as you are told. So I stuck with Tony and the gang and did the whole workout without skipping. It was a relief, gave me a great workout and got my focus back. It was a little odd doing the long slow weights thing again but made a nice change from the HIIT stuff I was doing before. I did find it challenging going at a slower pace though. I got a little restless about half way through, but instead of rushing ahead and skipping the time on the DVD I chose to rest, push out a few more reps and keep pace. I was so inspired that the next day I did the same with Shaun T and did Plyo Cardio but included all 3 rounds of the warmup and did every exercise as Rx’d. It was actually easy to keep pace and not think about it instead of planning which bits to skip and how to modify the workout. Since this is a reintroduction of sorts after a few days off, it has made the transition much easier.
It’s now Christmas Eve and I have to plan the next few days, there will be lots of food which is OK, but I really need to keep some sort of workout schedule going even if it is in room calisthenics at the Motel 6!
So I did a quick search for Hotel Room workouts. I found this which is uninspiring to say the least, this turbulence training bit which is more like it and finally an entire site dedicated to working out on the road. It’s really not rocket science, I mean the pushup and the squat / lunge are the basis for most of these workouts, so throw in some creativity and you should be all set.
In order to get back into the swing, I decided on skipping yesterday, going today and then starting up where I left off again the following day. That means tomorrow it will be back to normal programming and I think an adherence to proper duration and form to get me back to where I should be.
Today, tabata again this time with 135lb bench, alternating lunges, dips and pull ups. I may have strained my groin.
Not much else to report other than the scale claimed I was 251.8 this afternoon which would be more than 30 lbs less than when Mum and Dad left around mid October, a short 2 months ago!
Merry Christmas to me!
By the way, here are some things that weigh 30lbs
A 4 year old child
$600 in quarters
A medium sized Beagle
60 cups of water (around 15 liters)
My Christmas Stocking (I hope… hint hint)
Well, I didn’t take 64 off and today and tomorrow will be reinstatement days…
As you have noticed by the date on the post that it has been 10 days since I posted. Thankfully not 10 days since I did anything but a handful due to severe illness. We spent 4 days in Las Vegas doing the typical Vegas things other than a day we spent out at Red Rock Canyon hiking where, finally, my Vibram Five Fingers KSO shoes finally came into their own. I will write more about our adventure this week but for now I wanted to place hold my return to working out after 5 days of severe stomach bug suffering. My return, I decided, should encompass everything in order to get it all moving again, in fact, I thought that 2 days of Tabata covering all the basic movements would do.
Day 1 looked like this:
Tabata Something Else:
20 seconds of work followed by 10 seconds rest 8 times.
4 rounds with no rest featuring push ups, squats, clean and press and pull ups.
It ended up being 16 minutes of hell during which time I failed to complete any of the Tabatas. Being off (and being sick) totally sucks.
Tomorrow I thought I would do something similar using shoulder press, bicep curls, situps and chin ups but we shall see how sore I am.
I decided that I would modify my work yet again and this time develop a short workout that I could measure for rounds and time. That means you take certain movements and repeat them to failure which will give you both a repetition goal and a time goal. For me, because it was chest, shoulders and triceps I did bench with 135 lbs (due to my still sore shoulder), kettlebell swings or snatches with 25lbs and bar dips.
AMRAP
10 bench press (should be bodyweight) 135lb
10 single arm KB swings with 25lb (should be 35lb or 55lb) Technically I did one arm snatches, weight going above my head.
10 bar dips
Result: 7 rounds in about 22 minutes.
I managed to get through 7 rounds before my KB swings gave out. I was disappointed that I couldn’t bench my bodyweight for the workout but since my shoulder is still tender, although much better, I have to be careful. Surprisingly the KB swings didn’t hurt but were damn hard work. That was the first time I had ever worked KB swings into a workout, mostly because I don’t have KBs but use dumbbells instead. There is a great deal of technique involved with the KB swings and I don’t recommend doing them without doing a good deal of research into form before you start. THere are plenty of videos on youtube that will show you shockingly bad form and could lead to injury so do some searching and find input from people who are certified to teach the KB workouts.
I found a good site HERE with a list of available and recommended form for KB movements.
Took a day off, I guess you could have seen it coming after yesterday’s slanted entry. Was welcomed to work this morning by being sent to the single most distasteful piece of fitness dreck that I have seen since the old days when the pedestal girls used to do workouts on City TV while being filmed from underneath… You guessed it, “The Situation” has a workout video that drips with douchiness and rampant Italianism.
I literally dragged myself through this workout. Maybe I am overtraining, that did come into my mind again. Maybe I should be sticking to 3 on 1 off or 4 on 1 off. I don’t know but what I do know is that it is harder than ever to keep going through the workouts. Maybe my carbs are too low, maybe my GI intake is too low, I am not certain. When I look at my fitday though, it seems like I should be feeling better than I am. That is why I think maybe it is overtraining not out of whack eating. I am scheduled to do a major workout today, P90X chest shoulders and tri and it may not be prudent given that it will be my 5th workout in a row with a preceding set of several 4 and 5 workout stretches behind me. Trouble is, I don’t feel better when I don’t work out for a day and that scares me. I do realize now I think about it that my sleep isn’t where it should be. Maybe that is the issue, an extra 2 hours a night might fix me up completely. For now, I will soldier on with the CS&T today and see what tomorrow (rest day) feels like. I did shovel for about 25 minutes this morning too, at 530am which was an unexpected surprise.
BTW I was down only 1lb this past week, currently at 258.0
D61 – Due to be Back and Biceps P90X but I got the foolish idea that I would like to try out the Tabata protocol which according to Crossfit is:
For twenty seconds do as many reps of the assigned exercise as you can – then rest 10 seconds.
Repeat this seven more times for a total of 8 intervals, 4 minutes total exercise.
The score is the least number of reps for any of the eight intervals.
I had planned to do pull ups and double bicep curls and thought that 2 rounds of each would suffice so I did the folowing:
20s of pull ups +10 sec rest x8
20s of bicep curls (25lb) +10 sec rest x8
20s of pull ups +10 sec rest x8
20s of bicep curls (25lb) +10 sec rest x8
The whole thing only took about 20 minutes thanks to my iPhone  and my amazing WODTimer App which at $2 has been one hell of a buy. It does have a preset Tabata interval timer so I didn’t have to think about it too much. However, the timer is the easy part. The work, not the intensity but the sheer volume was the challenge especially when it came  to pull ups. I feel like I got a great bicep workout but since I am not totally proficient at pull ups yet I felt like I hadn’t quite got the workout I could have. We shall see how sore I am tomorrow.
Despite the fact that Nicole and I were both up all night, her with the cold sweats and me with what I thought was food poisoning I think I did a good job doing anything at all. I am now going to melt into the couch for a few hours.
Day 59 – Shoulders and Arms P90X Style. Due to my lingering injury I was unable to do anything close to my regular weights but there is something kid of liberating about doing hundreds of reps with a light weight. For each round where Tony encourages you to do 6-8 reps for size I opted to do 30 if I had time. It made for a nonstop hectic workout but the time flew and my shoulder actually felt OK even with the upright rows. I did some body weight dips which I was surprised at since i thought they would be too painful to perform. I think my shoulder is getting better fast, the pain is certainly less than half what it was 2 days ago which is a great sign.
My weight seems to have stagnated a little. However, this loss is totally different than any other weight loss I can remember. Usually when I am able to lose weight, I seem to shrink all over and end up as a smaller, lighter version of me. In other words, I don’t think my body composition changes much, I lost muscle and fat and end up being a mini me. This time however I find that my body fat is disappearing and I am really starting to see a change in the basic shape of my body. For once my waistline seems to have been the first thing to change and my pants are all falling off. It’s a bit weird, this has not happened before other than when I was at Western and got down to 11% fat but then again I was only 190lbs. I am hoping that this week is just a readjustment week which often happens after a certain amount of loss. Your body seems to take a breather before scaling down once again. It’s certainly no time to get discouraged since the Paleo lifestyle seems extremely easy to follow and is providing some amazing results. We will have to see what my official weight is on Sunday but as of now I am the same as I was last Sunday, albeit a slightly different shape!
It seems like forever since I did an actual DVD instead of messing about and mixing bits and pieces. Why not do a Max workout to get back into it then? Actually, the workout was surprisingly easy and enjoyable. I think I remember being pleasantly surprised when I started doing Insanity back in the day as to how much I enjoyed the workout, partly because at the time I wasn’t able to give 100% for the whole workouts so I was better off giving 75% for a longer time. At least that way I felt like I got a better workout. This one was only difficult due to the pain in my shoulder but aside from that it was quite a lot of fun.
I am getting concerned as to what I should be doing after I am done round 4. I don’t think that I can even really call them rounds any more other than it gives me a nice 3 month structure into which I can put my test workouts and see how they work. It’s hard to believe that my first round started in June of 2009, 18 months ago, and since this is round 4 obviously I suck at math. There was a failed attempt at taking P90X into the gym for a while there but the rest must just be poor adherence to the plan. In fact, when I check, this should really be round 5. See here:
Round 1 – P90X Classic Started June 19 2009
Round 2 – G90X Trying to take P90X into the gym Started Oct 19 2009
Round 2 Remix – Forget the gym, mix P90X and Insanity) Started Jan 30 2010 (Apparently I was in horrible shape)
Round 3 – P90x Insanity Hybrid. Started June 9 2010 after the baby was born. This was my decision to really start taking it seriously)
Round 4 – P90X, Insanity and Crossfit. Started Sept 29 2010. Also started eating Paleo Oct 11 2010. Big difference… huge!
I really took the first round seriously but I found that when I got to the end I had no continuance plan in place so I fizzled out with rest week and fell into the most common problem of all, post P90X laziness. My attempt to take P90X into the gym started in October 2009 and I claim to have been around 255lbs. My own records indicate that in fact I had been 252 during my wedding in August of 2007 and then ballooned to 291 almost exactly a year after that in September of 2008. So the fact that I thought I was around 255 in October 2009 was only because I had managed to lose some weight doing P90X. I remember I didn’t follow the diet plan at all and of course I had an excuse for that however I do recall that I lost a little weight during that 90 days. I started around 270 and dropped to about 255 by the end of the program.
Round 2 in both forms saw me get off track and although I was working out, I was apparently eating for two. My documented weight at the start of Round 2 after G90X failed was 272lbs. I had managed to gain an extra 2 lbs over and above my pre-90X weight. My weight didn’t move much and about half way through the round I hurt my back quite badly and was out for a while. I recall that the weeks seemed to slip by very quickly as I struggled with my next move and although my records have gone awol I can tell you from the frequency of my posting here that the time wasted as quickly as my motivation. I did have an injury, I did have a viral infection and I did still have to coach twice a week but add into that waiting for the baby to be born and the stress alone would have been enough to stall me out.
Round 3 and the baby may have saved my life. I went almost 2 months with sporadic and half-hearted workouts but then as the baby suddenly appeared along with her came my renewed sense of adventure and commitment. I built the decks, started my hybrid schedule and started to turn things around. Still no diet plan though. So I was back working out, looking after the wife and the baby, doing construction and enjoying being off work for 3 weeks. That short time really shot me out of the cannon when it came to my fitness. I quit the gym and committed to having all the equipment and motivation I needed at home. Since then it has been tough but consistent. Once my parents left after their visit in September I realized that in fact being fit at 282lbs may be OK for an NFL lineman, but not for a sedentary Network Engineer. So I jumped on the Paleo bandwagon and rode off into the sunset. 20+lbs later and I am still committed to the process and the diet and feeling amazing.
As you can tell, my “concern” about what to do for R5 is causing my mind to race. R4 has been very enjoyable and for the most part I get the biggest kick out of doing the Crossfit type workouts. So I may scale back the cardio to 2 days and let  Crossfit take the other weight days and the responsibility for bench on board for the remaining 4 days. I am only about 10lbs off being my lowest weight ever while involved with P90X and I have to be honest, it is not the workout that is doing it, it is the diet.
For all of you out there who are doing P90X or who are thinking about whether it will get the weight off you or not hear this… A typical P90X workout is 1 hour. You sleep 8 hours. What you put into your face during the other 15 hours is by far the biggest part of your success. Anyone can work out. Anyone! But it takes a smart individual to realize that stuffing themselves with fruits and veg and good cuts of meat will get them where they need to be. Put away the packaged food, eat only things with 5 ingredients or less and OH GOD I AM ON MY SOAP BOX AGAIN!!!
Just don’t try to kid yourself that you can do the workouts without the diet, you can’t possibly be that stubborn / stupid / weak.
By the way… that picture (the one of me at the top), everyone has one, should be on your wall along with your best picture to make sure you understand that the limits on your life are up to you. Only you can determine how far you can fall and how high you can climb.
If you have a big enough WHY, you can endure almost any HOW.
The great thing about life is you can plan all you like, you just never know what will happen next. The plan was to do P90X chest and back, but since I know better I thought I would make my own WOD and do that instead. So I did this:
My results were less than stellar: 4:50, 4:05, 4:30, 5:20, fail
My shoulders and forearms were on fire afterwards and since I still have an issue with my left forearm and elbow I was in quite a mess. Also, I was slated to coach for 3 hours later and so I was not impressed with what I had done. Coaching didn’t help things and after I was done I had a lingering pain in my shoulder, I think I may have strained something, hopefully not my rotator cuff but I am certain something isn’t right. I have done a similar thing before while trying to get to my 400lb bench a couple of years ago. I developed a very painful shoulder and had to give up doing bench all together for about 8 months while it healed. It seems OK now, although I don’t strictly bench much any more. I find that as I get older these things seem to bother me more and last longer than before. All I can do now is protect it and hope it heals soon. Of course, that throws a wrench into the plan for a big finish to my round 4 especially since I was supposed to do Max Cardio today and then shoulders and arms tomorrow. I think I am going to call that workout Sally since it seems like you should be able to do it without a problem and if you can’t, Sally, then maybe you should go back to your stretch class and grab a Kleenex…
Getting back into your schedule is often harder than you think. The best way, then, is just to shut up and do as you are told. So I stuck with Tony and the gang and did the whole workout without skipping. It was a relief, gave me a great workout and got my focus back. It was a little odd doing the long slow weights thing again but made a nice change from the HIIT stuff I was doing before. I did find it challenging going at a slower pace though. I got a little restless about half way through, but instead of rushing ahead and skipping the time on the DVD I chose to rest, push out a few more reps and keep pace. I was so inspired that the next day I did the same with Shaun T and did Plyo Cardio but included all 3 rounds of the warmup and did every exercise as Rx’d. It was actually easy to keep pace and not think about it instead of planning which bits to skip and how to modify the workout. Since this is a reintroduction of sorts after a few days off, it has made the transition much easier.
I decided that I would modify my work yet again and this time develop a short workout that I could measure for rounds and time. That means you take certain movements and repeat them to failure which will give you both a repetition goal and a time goal. For me, because it was chest, shoulders and triceps I did bench with 135 lbs (due to my still sore shoulder), kettlebell swings or snatches with 25lbs and bar dips.
I literally dragged myself through this workout. Maybe I am overtraining, that did come into my mind again. Maybe I should be sticking to 3 on 1 off or 4 on 1 off. I don’t know but what I do know is that it is harder than ever to keep going through the workouts. Maybe my carbs are too low, maybe my GI intake is too low, I am not certain. When I look at my fitday though, it seems like I should be feeling better than I am. That is why I think maybe it is overtraining not out of whack eating. I am scheduled to do a major workout today, P90X chest shoulders and tri and it may not be prudent given that it will be my 5th workout in a row with a preceding set of several 4 and 5 workout stretches behind me. Trouble is, I don’t feel better when I don’t work out for a day and that scares me. I do realize now I think about it that my sleep isn’t where it should be. Maybe that is the issue, an extra 2 hours a night might fix me up completely. For now, I will soldier on with the CS&T today and see what tomorrow (rest day) feels like. I did shovel for about 25 minutes this morning too, at 530am which was an unexpected surprise.
My weight seems to have stagnated a little. However, this loss is totally different than any other weight loss I can remember. Usually when I am able to lose weight, I seem to shrink all over and end up as a smaller, lighter version of me. In other words, I don’t think my body composition changes much, I lost muscle and fat and end up being a mini me. This time however I find that my body fat is disappearing and I am really starting to see a change in the basic shape of my body. For once my waistline seems to have been the first thing to change and my pants are all falling off. It’s a bit weird, this has not happened before other than when I was at Western and got down to 11% fat but then again I was only 190lbs. I am hoping that this week is just a readjustment week which often happens after a certain amount of loss. Your body seems to take a breather before scaling down once again. It’s certainly no time to get discouraged since the Paleo lifestyle seems extremely easy to follow and is providing some amazing results. We will have to see what my official weight is on Sunday but as of now I am the same as I was last Sunday, albeit a slightly different shape!
