This is the second last time I will do Yoga. Due to my creative interpretation of the order in which I have been doing the program the last few weeks I have 2 yoga, 1 core syn and 1 stretch x left to do until the end. I hate to admit that I have lost all the momentum I had before coaching happened and my physique really shows it. It’s just that coaching 4 hours a night after a full day of work even if it is only twice a week is enough to knock you out for a while. Until your body adjusts, things are tough! However, I am not doing so little that I am losing touch with my progress or gains. My yoga session today proved that I still have 2 things: 1. that pain in my right hamstring that I believe is a strain. 2. The flexibility that I have worked so hard to gain over the past 90 days. However, there are still components of the yoga session which I haver resigned myself that I may never achieve. Due to the overwhelming volume of my thighs (thanks to 18 years of rugby for that) I may never be able to go directly from plank to runners pose. My leg just won’t fit under my body and until I make it down to the 200lb mark I don’t think it ever will. I am also disappointed in some areas of my flexibility that seem to be extremely resistant to change most notably my lower back since even though my toe reach is better, my cobbler pose has gone nowhere!
So I am looking at the last 4 days, Stretch, CoreSyn, Yoga and Stretch. After reading a review of CardioX recently I think maybe I will substitute that for my StretchX today given that I have taken enough days off already. This rest week has become a rest fortnight and that is weighing heavily on my mind. I also need a little more time to perfect the GYM90X workout that I have been working on!
I have been looking forward to Core Syn this time around, if only due to the fact that skipping days due to coaching makes me feel like I am dogging it a little bit. So a good hard workout is exactly what I required to get me back in the swing. Core Syn, as usual, didn’t disappoint. In fact, I was prompted by a video post on another blog to try the plank to chataranga run with proper form this time. Now I am a pretty muscular person and that particular move is challenging for me due to the amount of space my arms and legs occupy. Imagine if you will not being able to go from downward dog to runners pose because like Tony demonstrates in the DVD your leg gets caught up underneath you and jabs you in the chest. That is the kid of issue I have to deal with. I have come to realize that most people who do P90X either do it to get bigger, leaner or fitter. There are not many people like myself whose goal it is to get smaller in places. Like I have stated I didn’t do this for weight loss, but a reduction in sheer mass would not go unnoticed nor unwelcome.
So the core strength and the flexibility were the two things that I knew I could improve upon. Core Syn gives you the opportunity to litmus test yourself against your goals. So far, and since I am on day 84ish you would think by now I should be doing OK and I am. However, I have issues with my back and legs that are probably pretty foreign to most people. I lost about 20% of the mass in my right thigh during the days before my back surgery in 2001. That mass has never returned and as such my body has compensated with different strength in different areas. One upshot of that problem is that occasionally I get leg pain after I work out. I am not sure if it is parts of the muscle rebuilding or the nerves repairing or (hopefully not) that it is more damage being done. Either way, sometimes when I stand up the day following coaching or a hard leg workout my leg will give out. House and I have that much in common, well, that and the misanthropic nature that comes with a deep-seated hatred for pretty much everyone. Recently I have been having pain through my hip flexor area of my right leg and it feels nerve like, not muscular and indeed my leg gives out sometimes if I am not careful. Point being that although many of my goals have been met, my position on my back remains the same. My confidence may build on the strength and flexibility fronts but there are still things I am learning about my body and my previous injury which, despite the surgery, is still a concern. I’m going to be 42 in February and if I feel like this when I am 60 or 70 I will be happy. Since I wasn’t happy feeling like this at 32 but have steadily improved, I can’t help but think that things are pointed in the right direction. However, and as a side dig at myself, walking around at more than 250lbs isn’t good for you, period.
Bear that in mind all you P90X’ers, be careful what you wish for.
Day 1 of rest week 5. Supposed to be Yoga, may Plyo instead.
The thing about this coaching lark is that it has thrown my workout schedule so far out of whack I can’t keep my days straight. Thankfully I am only 7 days away from completing the program and getting my P90X stripes. That means that the next few days, or couple of weeks more likely are going to be easy to document. I am moving into day 84, day 1 of rest week 4. Today, although the number doesn’t jive, I did Yoga but since I was pulling a double having done 4 miles on the treadmill in the morning I took it easy. I knew that the coming week had two yoga sessions attached to it so I didn’t feel that guilty skipping some of the more demanding poses in order to save my aching legs. It still took over an hour, so I wasn’t dogging it that badly. Last week I also looked at the Beachbody.com website and noticed that they are offering a P90X+ program of 5 DVDs containing some new workouts and different looking moves. One thing I can say for the BeachBody team, they have good marketing because I was hooked instantly. The only question is, do I get right into it now or do what I planned and get into the gym for some workouts for a month or two?
I think it would be good for me both from a physical workout perspective and also from a training/coaching perspective to get myself back to the gym and do some new workouts. I can set a weight goal for the next 3 months and then maybe get P90X+ for Christmas and start in the new year.
On another note: Tony ought to spend less time sexually harassing Dreya Weber, the blonde fitness model/trainer in the video. I haven’t watched many workout videos before, but I’m pretty sure it’s not typical for the lead male trainer to give a sweaty hug to one of his female models after the workout is over. Or to watch her take off a sweatshirt and remark: “Uh-oh! The top is coming off!”
Tony offers a “Tip of the Day” in each of his videos, so in the spirit of P90X, here’s mine: If your name is Dreya Weber, you should consider contacting Beachbody’s Human Resources department.
So I ended up doing Kenpo instead of Yoga today. I realize that I will have to do Yoga on Wednesday between coaching nights which works out OK I guess. I added some weight to my Kenpo today, just 5lbs during some of the punching and blocking moves. It made a huge difference in the effort level and I have to agree with one other site I read yesterday in the way that although I do enjoy the Kenpo, it is probably the weakest of the workouts with the least amount of “X”-ness.
So my last entry lamenting the fact that I missed my last weights day was a little premature. Fact is that I have one day left. The day 81 workout was the Kenpo that I switched with Yoga leaving me with Legs and Back today and then Yoga on Friday (or not, as noted).
So I am now in a position where I have one resistance day left and then one cardio day and then a full week of rest week and then I am done.
I’ll let you know how the last resistance day goes. Nothing out of the norm I can’t imagine.
…
So it would figure that once I did the math and figured out I still had one day left to do that I would be feeling like garbage. I think I had a little too much coffee today because I felt shaky and weak, a sure sign of caffeine overload. For me, when that happens I get the feeling that I can’t get any blood flow to my muscles, I feel weak and surprisingly lethargic. Once I start working out however I find my heart rate goes higher than normal and I sweat like a wildebeast. Speaking of which, here’s an interesting fact for the day that I think maybe everyone except me knows… The wildebeast is the same animal as the Gnu. I had literally no idea. Besides, it sounds less dramatic to say I was sweating like a Gnu.
So the start of the workout was difficult but I pushed myself to do more knowing how I would feel after 10 minutes or so. That is an incredibly important part of fitness and weightloss. Knowing how your body will react to something is a powerful tool in your arsenal. It is obvious that some days you are going to be better in the gym than others, it’s just a fact. During those days that you feel great and want to do more, you should do whatever you can because you know that there are going to be days when you have to take it easy because you don’t feel so good. The point is to recognize the difference between your body sending you a message to take it easy and your brain telling you to relax because it is being lazy. Laziness doesn’t have an equal and opposite force, it is just a drain. Lazy people are lazy in all facets of their life including at the gym and with their diet. Strong motivated people know when to push and when to hold back and that is something that will always work to their advantage.
In other words, learn to recognize your BODY’S signals, not your brain’s.
So I started off not feeling great, but after the first round of pullups and lunges I started to come around. As usual for me, once I get going I feel fine, which is why I have a long standing agreement with myself that if I don’t feel like going to the gym I will go anyway and see how it is. If I still feel like I don’t need to be there after 10 minutes, I am allowed to leave. Of the dozens of times I have thought of this rule, I have only ever once turned around after 10 minutes and left.
So what have I learned about the leg days? This is important to me because when I first hurt my back way back in 1997 or so it was on an incline leg press doing slightly over 1000lbs. The sled came down on me and I was unable to turn the stop handles quickly enough. Due to the fact that I was not flexible, something had to give and it was my back. Now, I am not blaming my entire history of back problems on that one event, but what I do know is that morning laying on the floor of The Workout was the first time I ever remember feeling the pain of disc herniation. I continued to work on my legs for the next few years without much incident, I mostly did squats and extensions and stayed away from the sled. Once my back started to give out more regularly I gave up working out my legs because it seemed that every time I did something with my legs I put my back out. I even recall doing the original P90 workout a few years ago and after leg day the next morning I couldn’t walk because of my back. After my surgery I was left with a weak right leg having lost about 30% of the muscle mass in my thigh. I tried in vain to rebuild the leg but found it incredibly frustrating. Looking back I wish I had listened to myself when I used to tell my PT clients about the importance of stretching, not for flexibility necessarily but for warmup and warm down purposes. Had I realized that my back problems were linked directly to my leg issues and the lack of hamstring flexibility I could have saved myself a lot of grief. But, you live and learn.
So what I have learned about leg days is that your legs are a critical part of your lower back health, your overall flexibility and even your core strength. If you are smart and look after your hamstrings, keep them flexible and strong you will go a long way towards preventing unnecessary back pain. This also applies to knee pain and hip pain since the leg muscles are the connection between your hips and your knees. I can’t stress how important it is to keep the back of your legs supple and the proof is the fact that I am able to do the intense workouts for my legs in P90X without any adverse effects on my back. This alone has been both a major benefit but also a major surprise to me. My right leg has grown in strength and size over the past 90 days which I was unable to accomplish in the 8 years since my surgery. It just goes to show, you should try everything once because you just never know what might work.
Except acupuncture. Don’t bother with acupuncture it doesn’t work. I can tell you that from experience.
I can feel the curtain closing as I embark upon these weight days for the last time during this, my first stab at P90X. Today was Back and biceps, the glamour workout as Tony calls it. This is week 12, week 13 being the last rest week which means that since I have done the last weight session of the week, my P90X weight days are completely done. I have to say it’s a bit odd that I didn’t realize that this would be my last workout. I have Yoga to do on Wednesday since I traded Kenpo and Yoga again due to time constraints.
So let me just get my head around what I still have to do here with my increasingly complex schedule.
Wed Sept 23 09 – Yoga
Thu  – Coaching
Fri  – Supposed to be Rest but will do day 1 of rest week – yoga
Sat – Yoga if I decided to skip yesterday (which given my track record of Fridays the last 3 weeks I may)
Sun – Core
Mon – Kenpo
Tue – Coaching
Wed – Stretch
Thu – Coaching
Fri – Core
Sat – Yoga
Sun Oct 4 09 – Stretch
If I decide to skip the middle stretch day and go straight to Core I may finish a day ahead but for now that will be the plan. It will mean that my last day, Day 90 will be Sunday October 4th. That will mean I will have finished the P90X program in 105 days. Not bad given that I will have also been coaching at the same time.
However, it is not time to reflect just yet. My arms felt like they were going to explode tonight, I tried to push a little harder but smarter, doing a little lighter weight on some things to get a better contraction. The top of my forearms where my french curls make me cry like a little girl are especially sore. Yes, even on day 83 you will still get some soreness. I kind of wish I had realized that today was my last weights day. I could have taken some pictures at full pump, I wonder if you can tell a difference at full and not full?
So sayonara to the pull up bar, although I am sure we will remain close. It’s time for me to get back to the gym and create my hybrid system. After that, I hope to return to do either the Lean version or maybe a second round of Classic.
For the record, here is a response I sent to a friend regarding the difference in the 3 versions of P90X.
So here is the deal.
Classic means you do one workout per day for the 90 days. Just follow the program with the 7th day an optional stretch or day off. With Doubles, you do 2 workouts a day 3 days a week during phase 2 and phase 3. This means doing a cardio workout on your weights days in addition to the weights workout. Of course, this means you are doing a morning and evening session.
Lean is more suited to women who want to get leanand are nto interested in using weights so much. it substitutes a cardio / core workout for one of the weight days.
Ihave to say I would highly recommend it for anyone who is physically fit and is looking for a 3 month challenge or even just for a program to break the monotony of going to the gym for a while. The only issue I found was that you must have a chinup bar and some weights but since we have a gym in the house basement that was not a problem.
Doing the chinups was a problem at first however!!!
So here is the deal.
Classic means you do one workout per day for the 90 days. Just follow the program with the 7th day an optional stretch or day off.
Doubles, you do 2 workouts a day 3 days a week during phase 2 and phase 3. This means doing a cardio workout on your weights days in addition to the weights workout. Of course, this means you are doing a morning and evening session.
Lean is more suited to women who want to get lean and are not interested in using weights so much. It substitutes a cardio / core workout for one of the weight days.
I have to say I would highly recommend it for anyone who is physically fit and is looking for a 3 month challenge or even just for a program to break the monotony of going to the gym for a while. The only issue I found was that you must have a chinup bar and some weights but since we have a gym in the house basement that was not a problem.
Doing the chinups was a problem at first however!!!
Since I am now on day 83 I think I am qualified at the very least to give my opinion of the 3 versions. The Classic version which is the default one that I would recommend to everyone except the most paranoid women who are somehow convinced that they have such gifted genetic potential that if they do weights for a few weeks they will look like a bodybuilder. If only it were that easy ladies… Believe me, lift as heavy and as intense as you can and you will see some nice tone… It takes YEARS of dedication to build significant amounts of muscle mass. However, I digress…
The doubles version I think would be extremely difficult to do especially if you have a full time job or kids. Finding 2 hours to workout in a single day 3 times a week while not impossible would be beyond the reach or desire of the vast majority of fitness enthusiasts. I have been there and done that and unless you are training for something specific or have a very lofty goal in mind I would have to assume that this would be overkill in a massive way. Then again, if you are a fitness nut and have a boat load of time on your hands, go for it!!!
Lean is a program aimed at women who are not interested in doing as much weight work. Not just that they may be afraid of getting big but maybe they have joint issues, maybe they don’t like doing weights or are not interested in that aspect of the workouts. It is also aimed at men who have the same thoughts, maybe for someone who wants the opportunity to do some weight work but not so much that it dominates their experience. I personally would consider doing Lean if I wanted to work more on my core and weightloss than my overall “fitness” and strength.
I am now into my last week of weight work, next week will be my final rest week and then I am done. The question is what to do next? I know I have talked a good game about retooling the workouts for the gym and that is still the plan however I have no time to do anything these days and even a couple of hours of work on that may be too much to ask. Still I have a week and a half to decide.
I had the gymnastics kids doing some of the core work the other day, of course they are kids so it was easy for them. Makes me crazy knowing how much I struggle with Ab Ripper and how easily they went through it.
Had to… two often misused and overused words. However, I had to take Friday off. It was inevitable and unavoidable that after the first week of coaching that I would be very sore, very cranky and very tired. Although this should not have prevented me from going down to the basement with Tony I am afraid under my new P90X t-shirt I am human after all…
However, an interesting aside, I am more sore now than I have been through this whole process and I am not sure if it is because of coaching and so on or if in fact it is due to the fact that I am not doing something every day as I was previously. Either way, I am going to have to be careful since I can’t afford to take a day off or to have my back go out at any point now with such a full calendar.
It was great to do Kenpo, I have to say. Having so many days between each of the workouts is making progress almost impossible but also there is an “absence makes the heart grow fonder” aspect to it. I did pullups the other day, was happy to in fact, but the followign day I was incredibly sore. Kenpo was a great time but I have to admit that I feel like I pulled something in my back doing it.
Maybe P90X is not really meant to be done at such a leisurely pace as 5 days a week.
I was ready for the pain, even though I did very little at coaching I remember from the last 3 years that the first couple of weeks are very painful. Mostly due to the fact that we leave the house at around 6-630 in the morning and don’t get home until after 9pm so it is a very long day. Mix that with having to be on my feet from 330 to 9pm and you have a recipe for a very sore back. Needless to say I was a little concerned about my ability to continue my P90X journey once coaching started however after today I am brimming with confidence that even though it is going to take some real will power, that I can do it!
Yoga today was fine, although I did quit a little early, it was only a few minutes, and missing the last few minutes of laying on the floor and then doing OHMs is not going to ruin the experience. I am sure there are people who would argue that, however I did catch up on my laying down with my eyes closed once I got to bed so I think I will be OK.
I hate to admit it, I really do, but I think I have become somewhat of a Yoga convert. I can’t imagine going to classes anywhere but I do have to admit that much of the benefit of the whole P90X experience has been the stretching and the static strength of the Yoga poses. I can’t remember the last time I felt like I was even “normally” flexible. For so many years I have been restricted by bulging muscles and shortened tendons and my range of motion through my hips, hamstrings and lower back has been terrible. I now find that even though my range of motion is not great, I can grab both feet with both hands while sitting with straight legs on the floor, something that hasn’t been possible for me since back in my rugby days in the early 90’s. It is amazing how much of a difference having flexible hamstrings makes especially if you have back issues. I am finding (this has been over the last year or so) that many times my back issues have come from tightness in my hamstrings or in my ITB (the band of ligament that runs from your spine to your knee, basically). Doing Yoga has at the very least given me some much needed flexibility in my lower body and has enabled me to do things like the floor that would otherwise have put me out of commission for a day or two.
I’ll never be a contortionist, but if I am lucky I may never be a cripple either…
So P90X took a back seat to the flooring. I knew it would have to so I was prepared. Besides, the flooring installation was the kind of thing that is the reason that I was doing P90X in the first place. The ability to work like a normal person, to work through days of back breaking floorboard installation and the constant stand-up-kneel-down that is required to get that particular job done.
The bottom line is that I made it through. I said before I started that Yoga was going to do my floors and I was right. I was amazed at how many times Yoga sprang into mind as I worked the floors. All those lunges, the savasanas, the balance and strength poses all came into play. Most of all though, the constant level changes was what helped me out. My ability to get up from the floor quickly and to get down into position quickly saved me countless hours during the install. Towards the end of the first day I came to a pretty amazing revelation, that I would not have been able to do this floor at the pace I did if I had been working out my old way. Sure I would have been fit, but not anywhere near as flexible as I needed to be. In fact, I can almost guarantee that if I had tried to do the floor before P90X came along that I would have been in bed on day 2 unable to move due to my tight hamstring and ITB pulling my back out. That in itself is a huge deal. The fact that I was able to do 5 days of install and come back to work without feeling much soreness or pain is virtually unbelievable. I guess it is true what these P90X grads say, that you do get in the best shape of your life and that you are able to do things you wouldn’t have been able to do 10 or even 20 years ago. Honestly, the last time I would have been able to do something like that would have been when I put the floor in the basement and even then I remember my back went out, it took me weeks to finish and I was a mess for ages afterwards. Previous to that I would have to go back to the late 90s before I started having back problems and that was 10 years ago.
Today I did day 73, I was a little off my numbers from the last time I did that particular workout but I felt great. I made it through Ab Ripper with very little problems and I was amazed at how little strength I had lost. Then again, I did spend a huge amount of time on my triceps and arms and shoulders during the flooring. I don’t think my pullups will be the same, in fact I think that is the one thing that will have suffered the most through all this. No matter, it doesn’t take long to get back into the swing.
There are 2 things I now have to work on, sorry, make that 3.
1. Adjust the P90X program to get me back into the gym
2. Borrow some of the P90X moves to adapt for Gym coaching which starts tomorrow!!!
3. Finish the Nutritionist course and send in my exam.
Photos of the floor to come, just so you can see how I did 😉
Lucky it is late Labour Day this year otherwise we would be coaching today!
Today is Fake Friday for me. I have the rest of the week off to do the floors so this is my last day woohoo!!! There is nothing better than a fake Friday, especially if it is followed by a Holiday Monday, even if it has a horrible name like Labour Day. I think for the first time in many many years I am finally over the back to school feelings. I used to be very excited when it got to this time of year because it reminded me of going back to University and the feeling of freedom, excitement and the anticipation of a new year filled with new people and new challenges. Nowadays, I am filled with similar feelings but they are related to gym coaching so things are a little different. I think for years I didn’t have anything to look forward to in September and that is why I missed school so much. Now I am back into the “September Significance” things seem to be somewhat back to ‘normal’.
Someone (you know who you are) sent me this today, maybe as motivation, maybe as something I could snack on before my workout since I have been feeling lethargic…
Plyo was good today, I was in a great mood what with being off work all week and that made a huge difference.
I am concerned over what is going to happen the next few days with the floor install. From a P90X perspective I am not sure what I will be able to do, if anything. Time will tell, but for now I have to assume that it will have a detrimental effect on my finish date. Even so, I should be able to finish the 90 days before the end of September.
