Something Beats Nothing Every Time – Page 79 – Extreme Home Fitness From P90X to Crossfit to Russian Kettlebells – Proof that at any age you can still give it the beans and be your own hero!

Day 59 – 2 Out Of 3 Ain’t Bad

Shoulders and Arms

It’s official, I am 2/3 done P90X!!! I am staggered by my tenacity and perseverance. Well, they are the same thing which makes me amazed at my complete disregard for my Literature Degree! Redundancy in all forms should be eliminated. You will notice I didn’t say completely eliminated, but I digress…

I feel like I am back at the first week again. I am sore all over but I love it! It is amazing to me that the week off does you so much good while feeling like it is doing so much damage to your progress. I guess you have to take a step back to take 3 steps forward in this case. I never subscribed to the notion of rest weeks since I worked ona 4 days off 1 day off schedule. It always seemed the case that 2 or 3 times a year I would be forced to take time off anyway due to vacations etc so it never really bothered me. I certainly never thought of taking a week off out of every 4. Once I have revamped the workout a bit for the long term I think I will stick with the week off schedule although maybe stretch it out to 1 week off in every 6 or 8. I just realized how sore my traps are. OW!!! The shrugs in the shoulders and arms workout are the ONLY trap exercises in the whole system. That is something I will need to address going forward. I think that every time you do shoulders you should address the traps also. I will have to look closer at the exercises but I don’t recall ever doing shrugs or upright rows other than during the S&A workout. At the very least they could incorporate some upright row into shoulder press…. Oh wait… Maybe I do remember now… I will have to check and get back to you.

I also found last night that I had modified the workout quite heavily to accommodate some higher weight tricep exercises. I found that the kickbacks, something I despise as a workout move, were insufficient and that my triceps were simply not getting an adequate workout. I also had a lot of joint pain between my sore shoulder and sore elbows I needed to change things quite a bit to get the right workout. For example, I substituted any of the tricep movements with laying close grip bench press. I can do 135lbs with ease and after about 30 reps or so I am on fire. That is how it should be, but if I stuck with what Tony was doing (we are getting along much better this time!) I was nowhere near where I needed to be fatigue-wise. Since I get a lot of pain form my elbows doing fully supinated curls, I had to modify to give me a decent burn while sharing amongst straight, hammer and french curls. For some reason I had done the Congdon curls on one knee which I replicated last night. The stress on my spine doing it like they do in the video is reckless in my position.

The sun was out, I was doing weights with the sun beating down on me, I was a happy camper.

DAY 58 – Put Down The Pork

Plyometrics

The workouts are the easy part, the real challenge is writing about it every day!

Actually, looking at the scale this morning, the diet is obviously the challenge for me. Rest week obviously made my body think we were on vacation and didn’t have to bother losing any weight.

No-pork Plyo is one of my favourite workouts but for some reason tonight my legs were heavy and even with some recovery drink in my water I was struggling to finish the 30 second sections. I realized afterwards that I had not had a single vegetable all day and in fact the only living thing I ate was a banana early in the day. That explained it all, my body was short on hydration due to the low water content and high calorie density food I had been eating. It is amazing to feel the differences that small changes in your diet make, and it is frustrating to realize that you are having to torture yourself because you were too lazy and/or inattentive to eat some greens and fruit. I have always been a high protein type of eater, I knew from an early age that starch didn’t agree with me and that pasta made me fat. I love meat so I tended to stick with that and it worked OK for me when I would diet, cutting out the complex carbs was fairly easy. Nowadays I have found a more healthy approach and that is to replace the majority of the protein with fruits and vegetables which gives me much more energy and still enough protein to synthesize the tissue my body requires. For years I overloaded my body with too much protein, something that is very hard to quit doing but the more I learn about too much protein, the more afraid I get…

Hard to believe but there are less than 3 weeks left until coaching starts. One of my primary motivations for doing P90X was to get in better shape so that I could test the conditioning for the girls at gym. I don’t expect them to do anything I wouldn’t do as far as conditioning goes and so far over the years that has been the case. It is definitely getting harder to keep up but this year I think there will not be an issue…

Edit (Feb 15, 2011): Notice the lack of evidence given regarding the “too much protein” comment. It’s interesting to note how much information has come to light since this entry. In actual fact, I was always of the belief that too much protein was simply rejected as waste (although I am not sure how I would have explained this biologically). 2 1/2 years later, I am eating the same as I was here, but the protein outweighs the carbs by quite some distance. However, I still get the heavy feeling if I don’t get enough water. Hydration is a key element of any Paleo diet, and I still struggle with it. And by “it” I mean peeing like I am a in my third trimester.

Day 57 – The Adonis Complex and My Elusive 400lb Bench

Still looking sick from the mono I got at Western in 1990. I was 174lbs here and look like I could use a hot meal... — Sick after Mono. 174lbs (and hungry)

Chest and Back

It was like a trip down memory lane. The Chest and Back workout was the workout that I did on the first day of P90X 57 days ago. I haven’t done that particular workout since Phase 1 and it was really weird being reminded of where I started. Luckily, my numbers were way up from what I did back then but I was still exhausted after. In fact, for the first time in 58 days I finished doing Ab Ripper and as I rested I fell asleep on the floor! It was really encouraging to see that my reps were up, I managed 30 pushups in 60 seconds the first month, this time I was up to 50! My chinups were also better, and I measure by percentage here noting that I was up as much as 50% on some of the pullups. Having come so far it was refreshing to see the changes but also to have a different pairing on the workout as far as body parts goes. That is the one thing I really enjoy about the program, the mix of bodyparts that they put together. For years in the gym I did chest and triceps on the same day. Last year I decided that I would mix it up (after working out that way since I was 16!!!) and try doing chest and traps, back and triceps, shoulders and biceps with abs every other day. It had never really occurred to me that maybe I should change the pairing more than once a year. I had toyed with the idea on many occasions but never gone ahead with it. I guess success leads to complacency, what I was doing was working and working well so why change? This P90X journey has been so much more than a workout video. It has opened my eyes again to the infinite possibilities for my own workouts just like I coach the gymnastics kids. After all, I design specific conditioning programs for them every week to keep them on their toes, why wouldn’t I do that for myself? What I am going to do, and I have mentioned this before, is to create my own 2 or 3 month program that will bring what I have learned from Tony and the gang into the gym and the basement to give myself a whole new way of working out.

Maybe I will never bench 375lbs again, maybe I will never reach the magical 400lb mark that I have chased for so long but at this point that max weight mentality has taken a back seat to the max health mentality and the amazing feeling I get from being in control of a body that feels like I can do things with it other than lay down and push metal. In the end I can say that my max weight records are somewhat impressive and something I can be happy about but what about my health? I measured my bodyfat at university and was 11.5% but I was teaching aerobics step class and working out 3 hours a day. I have been as low as 174lbs (pictured above) after I had mono at Western but that wasn’t a conscious decision. What I cannot say is that at any point in my adult life I have been “super fit” and in control of my weight. I think it is about time that I did that so I can look back on things and say that I achieved that too. My whole life I have managed my weight through exercise and it has been a constant battle balancing my strength with my weight. Maybe if I take the weight requirement out of the equation it will open up a whole new way of doing things… I guess we will see. It is going to be immensely difficult not being proud of my max weight just as it is difficult for some people not to be proud of their bodyweight.

There is a disease called Anorexia whereby women (generally speaking) become fixated on their weight and go to terrible extremes to control that number. In the same vein there is a disease called Bigorexia (Muscle Dismorphia or The Adonis Complex) whereby men (generally speaking) have the idea that no matter what they are never big enough (or, by association, strong enough). It is a socially accepted stereotype that men should be large and muscular, just look at how the superman action figures have changed over the years. I am smart enough to realize that I am a part of this issue, that my size, the Big Guy Complex as I always though of it, is something that is a mental crutch. It defines me as much or more as my job, my marriage and my heritage. I am also painfully aware that a departure from being known as “that big fella” is something I will have to deal with if I expect this new approach to work. Trading in a 400lb bench press for 12% body fat may be more difficult mentally than physically for me but at this time in my life, the 12% bodyfat will give me an extra 10 – 15 years on my life over a 400lb bench press or a 300lb shoulder press at 25% body fat.

In the end isn’t that why we work out in the first place, so that we can live longer, healthier lives?

Day 56 – Weekend that was. Phase 3 that will be…

melissa

Rest Week comes to a close.

My last few days of rest week were definitely restful. My diet has not been stellar the last couple of weeks and I can feel myself lacking the energy and the drive I had at the start. I need to concentrate more on my intake and balancing my live food. This weekend we went to Penetang to see the family, but I was able to do 35 mins on the treadmill on Saturday and then Yoga Sunday. However, my diet foibles have cause me to feel like I am going backwards. I am sure that with the final 4 weeks ahead of me I will get the motivation mojo back but right now I just feel flabby and lazy. Amazing what just a couple of days will do to you. As a side note, we saw Melissa O’Neil live in “Legends of Country Music” in Penetang. The show was good, she was amazing and I found it really hard to believe that it was 4 years since the Canadian Idol win.

I really should have done more this weekend but it was so damn hot. Almost 40 outside with the humidex so impossible to do anything really. I even got a sunburn on my arm from driving to the highway, at least when we got there the sun was behind us. Stupid untinted windows.

Anyway, not much to report at this point, the end of rest week which in itself is largely uneventful. The main thing is that I get my diet back on track for the next week when Phase 3 kicks in. I need my energy for the pullups and the cardio since it is really time to step up the effort for the final push.

Day 54 – A Long Way From England

Yoga X.

I do have some body shots from day 1 or thereabouts, but for now this will have to do. Last summer we went to England and I can’t believe in a country of 65 million people nobody mentioned that I looked this bad!

My weight went up and down during gymnastics season and I know that when I started P90X I was not that out of shape but let’s be honest, this was only about 12 months ago and if my math is right, about 40lbs ago. The problem is being able to avoid going there again. I had been there before, lost a ton of weight and ended up back there again. I know why, lack of attention and lack of motivation. I am older now, and even if I am not wiser I am certainly closer to death if I continue to eat like I am 25. I am happy that I have found P90X because it has taught me some really valuable lessons, things that have made me look at fitness in a new way. The thing that occurred to me this morning was the big difference between what I was doing in the gym and what I am doing now. That thing is very simply leaving the ground. With all the training that I was doing my feet never really left the ground. Everything was weights, static isolated weights. With the P90X program and with any circuit training program the key is getting off your feet. Whether it is getting down onto the floor to do bodyweight movements or getting airbourne doing jump training or Kenpo the philosophy is the same, get your body used to the impact of jumping and moving up and down and you will discover a whole new plane of exertion.

Look at that guy, you think he was jumping any fences on that holiday?

The “thing” that makes you feel like you are “fit” or “in shape” doesn’t seem to be size or strength for me, it seems to be mobility and feeling light on my feet.

Who ate all the pies, who ate all the pies…

Day 53 – Gumby would be proud

Flexible and green. At least 50% of what I need.

One of the best things about rest week is the requirement to do X Stretch. For those who choose to take Sunday (or day 7 whenever that is) off instead of doing X Stretch this will open your eyes to a new kind of workout. It is kind of like Yoga would be if it was really easy! Personally I choose to do X Stretch when I can but having it as part of the regular schedule in the middle of the week is a real refresher. I have to admit that although I am not the most flexible guy in the world I do enjoy X Stretch now. Working on my tendons, ligaments and fascia goes a long way towards my overall comfort and health on a daily basis. In fact, I noticed the other day that my back hasn’t cracked since I started P90X, a certain sign that the compression of my spine is far less than it was previously and that is always a good thing.

Day 52 – The Hamster Dance

Kenpo, my favourite.

Not only is rest week a great break from the hardcore workouts but it allows you to really enjoy the workouts rather than forcing yourself through them doing as much as you can. This extra enjoyment makes Kenpo an amazing workout. I got my recovery drink in the mail the other day and so I put some in my workout drink today since it was pretty hot in the basement. First let me just say that it really is not just hype about the drink, it has a good balance of nutrients but more importantly it really does taste great. Not since the first time I tried Met-Rx have I been impressed with the taste of a fitness product but I was truly floored by the taste of the recovery drink. I ordered mine direct from BeachBody and although it took longer than expected to arrive (by about 5 days) it was well worth it. Each packet makes 12 ounces which is about 350ml but I found that when I mixed it in my drink bottle (PureHydration bottle) which is 500ml it tasted just as good, not watery at all. By the way, I have a ton of reusable bottles, both composite plastics and stainless steel and I have never found one that keeps hot things hot or cold things cold like the PureHydration bottle does. It is literally mind blowing how good this bottle is. I had cold water from my cooler at home in the bottle which is black sitting in my Jeep. The bottle was in direct sunlight for over an hour and was hot to touch when I got to it. I opened the bottle and the water inside was just as cold as if it had come directly out of the cooler. Nothing much impresses me to be frank, but this really was amazing.

So I am into rest week 2, feeling fine, but starting to get a little apprehensive about what to do after the 90 days are up. I have a gym membership that I want to maintain because I love to bench and the equipment allows me to do lots of variations that I can’t do at home. However, I don’t think that I want to go back to my old weights routine. I have come too far to slip back into that static strength stuff. So now I have to develop a training method that works both weights and the P90X methodology into a single package. Ideally I would like a system where I could do the workout at home or at the gym so if I feel like throwing in a DVD instead of going to the gym one day it would fit with my program. Then I will market the system as a whole revolutionary fitness breakthrough and make millions of dollars. That is one plan anyway. You see, the problem is that people who love the gym almost always love it for the social aspect as much as the workout. I don’t necessarily mean social interaction but rather social exposure. I enjoy the gym for social exposure, seeing people, listening to them, doing that man-nod thing to acknowledge them but I definitely don’t want to interact with them. Ewww. So if you can take the precise approach of the P90X and mix it with the ability to be in the gym with the other gym rats and cardio queens you would surely have a winning combination. Especially since in order to get that type of workout you have to be with a personal trainer. If I can provide a personal trainer quality workout regime that can be done at home or at the gym or even in a hotel room but more importantly can be done in ALL locations I am sure some people would go for it…

I’m gonna let the hamster in my head run the wheel on that one for a while…

Area 51 – Bodyparts (Abs, who knew?)

I will put up before pictures but at the moment I can’t stomach them so these will have to do. Just goes to prove that anyone can find some abs, even if it is only one or two! I am having a hard time imagining that I will be significantly different than this at the end but I hope that at the very least my final pictures will be even a slight improvement over today.

Core Synergistics – The wannabe workout.

Core is a weird workout, it’s not difficult enough to be a real challenge which is good for rest week but at the same time you get the feeling that the moves you are doing are just the cast offs that didn’t make the show. They are the red headed stepchild of the other 3 weeks, they are the returning houseguests that didn’t make it in to the house again this season. Although the quality is there and the workout is still a good one, you can’t help but feel a little sorry for the exercises that didn’t quite make it on to the first team.

My weightloss has stalled, I have weighed about the same for 2 weeks running now and although I feel like my body is still changing I would like to see a better reflection on the scale. People say that numbers don’t matter but in fact that only really applies to people who are already at their desired bodyfat level or who are working out with weights for the first time. NOT the first time in a while either, but the first time. Even then, the ability to put on weight as muscle is so incredibly difficult that saying that you are “losing fat and gaining muscle” is completely bogus. In actuality, and any bodybuilder will attest to this, you are always either gaining muscle OR losing fat but to do both at the same time is insanely challenging once you are past the first few months. For this reason I know that my stagnant weight is nothing to do with muscle gain, but is more a reflection of my “alternate” food choices over the last couple of weeks. It may not seem like much to say that I had one bowl of low fat ice cream and fell short on my vegetable intake for 3 or more days but at this level when you are trying to balance your diet carefully those things have a huge impact.

So this is how Rest Week 2 looks on the Classic Program:

YogaX Done
Core Synergistics Done
KenpoX
X Stretch
Core Synergistics
YogaX
Rest or X Stretch

Day 50 – REST WEEK 2 BEGINS!!!

Yoga – Rest Week 2

I made it to rest week 2. I learned from rest week 1 not to expect much of a break but rather to understand that the rest is only to give you a break from pullups and free weights. I thoroughly enjoyed it last time and felt a great deal of recuperative effect from it. This time around I am in a position where my body is sore, I am feeling tired and a little battered but since I know how good the week off will feel I am filled with confidence for the last 30 days of the program.

I am also deep into my nutrition course and learning about the kinds of lipids, proteins etc. and coming to realize just how delicate of a balance good nutrition really is. The human body is an incredibly resilient thing, forgiving even the most ridiculous dietary mistakes however I now understand why when people finally get their diet right they say that they have more energy than they know what to do with. It is largely because it is virtually impossible to accidentally get your diet right. I don’t want to sound negative towards the honest attempt to eat right but in reality even the “more fruits and vegetables” approach leaves gaping holes in the dietary requirements. I would estimate that without specific nutritional knowledge and counselling that a person “eating well” would be able to get around a 75% on the “right diet” scale. The balance of vitamins and minerals, the combinations of nutrients and hydration is so specific that in order to get towards that 100% right diet you really have to examine every single piece of food that your diet contains and combine it specifically with the dietary components in the right amount at the right time. It is something that is extremely complex and worse of all, it is something that like exercise is constantly changing as new discoveries are made. Now, let me just explain that in order to be a healthy person that 75% diet is more than enough. To push past that 75% takes a little more work and a little more time but the benefits are definitely noticeable. To get to the point where you are bursting with energy and feel like a million bucks you are going to have to push past that 75% and up into the 80’s. It is not simple, it is however easy once you know how to build the right diet for yourself. There are several tools included in the course that help you to figure out exactly what you need to hit those high numbers and I will share those as time goes along. I have a new found respect for nutritionists and dietitians though, I can tell you that.

It’s funny, I consider myself someone who knows a lot about working out and nutrition. Reading the Personal Trainer manual for the CanFitPro program I realized that I really do know my stuff in the gym. Reading the nutrition book I realize that I really have a lot to learn about food.

So I kicked off rest week with a yoga workout in an air conditioned basement. It was over 40 degrees today with the humidity so we had the air on in the house. It didn’t stop me from sweating bullets but it did make me uncomfortably cool. Hopefully the humidity will break tomorrow so I can get the basement door open and enjoy the warmth of the afternoon as I do Core Synergistics (I think, I had better check on that!).

I have to admit that when I do Yoga I can see myself in the mirrors on the wall and I am amazed that during this process I have dropped a few pounds and a few inches but I have really maintained my size. I thought when I started that I would shrink as I usually do when I increase my cardio workouts but this time I am happy to say that I appear to be the same size. In fact, I may not be, I may appear so because of my lower bodyfat levels but the most important thing is that I don’t feel smaller. I know, it is an ego thing but when you have spent your life being proud of your muscular size it becomes a defining characteristic of who you are. I am glad that I have not lost that feeling.

Day 47-49 Weekends are fun! Program mixups are not!

I don’t want to fall into a pattern of losing touch with the proper schedule during weekends but for some reason last week’s mess with the wrong workout on the wrong day and then an extra day off really messed things up. It sent ripples of disturbance through this weekend causing me to perform a shortened Yoga workout on Sunday in order to set up for the real Yoga of rest week on Monday.

Friday was Day 47, I was already a day off schedule due to last week so it was supposed to be Yoga but actually I did Plyo since I switched them again, something that would come back to bite me. I do love the Plyo workout so it was easy to complete, enjoyable and easy to push myself. I did find that my legs were sore afterwards, something I was surprised at but I put down to the fact that I had pushed very hard during the lunges at the start. Saturday I did legs and back and found that my hamstrings were very tight after doing 30 minutes on the treadmill in the morning. Maybe it was the very hot weather recently but I find myself a little sluggish and with a very heavy feeling in my legs. I mentioned this last week but I thought for sure it would pass quickly enough. Not yet. I am thinking that on the days when I do double workouts that I am not replacing the glycogen well enough and that is causing me to hit the wall prematurely. It also would explain the lack of fullness in my legs and the sluggishness (I think). Saturday we went to the market early and I don’t recall feeling heavy and slow at that point so maybe it is the extra cardio after all. Sunday was supposed to be rest day on a normal week, this week it was supposed to be Yoga since I had skipped Monday and switched the Plyo and Yoga days. I checked the schedule for next week (REST WEEK 2 WOOHOO !!!!) and found that day 1 is supposed to be Yoga. I had really screwed myself. I knew I couldn’t do 2 days of Yoga back to back so I ended up doing about half the Yoga workout and some extra stretching to make sure I was not Yoga’d out by Monday. That workout was fine, the flexibility piece is getting easier, but the moving savasanas at the start are still a challenge, especially the last one with the half moon and twisting half moon.

I guess it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to realize that if you start to change stuff around you are going to run into problems with the schedule. The fact that it was an accident was little comfort when I realized what the changes had done. Anyway, I am going to be on rest week next week so I will have plenty of time to recover from the mix ups.

So there you have it, end of week 7 going on to rest week 2 and with only the last 1/3 of the program left to do. So far so good and I think this rest week I will try to post some measurements and some body part shots.

Don’t hold your breath.