chest and back – Something Beats Nothing Every Time

R8D1&2 – A New Beginning

Big RKC day on Round 8 Day 1 (Monday), and I have to say I am not about to lose my love of kettlebells any time soon. What an awesome workout it is!

Day 2, Tuesday, was scheduled to be P90X Chest and Back and for a little added extra I decided once again to do the workout with my Mir Weighted Vest. So I loaded up 20lbs and set about the workout. Now 20lbs doesn’t seem like a lot, especially since I have lost 60lbs over the last year however once you strap it to your back and startÂ workingÂ you would be amazed at how much it impacts your ability.

Usually I can crank out about 50 pushups each round, but with the extra I struggled to get 30. Not only that, but I found that my performance really started to go downhill during round 2 of the workout. I am so used to it now that I hit the same numbers both times through, which is partly why I wanted to do the extra weight. This time however, I remember doing the decline pushups which is usually an easy 30/30 for me but this time I only managed to crank out about 12 on the second round. It was a little humbling, but at the same time completely awesome!

I am starting round 8 with some difficult times ahead, and it’s going to be a challenge gettingÂ everythingÂ squeezed in while protecting myself from injuries, past and future. I am probably coaching 3 days a week again, and if not, certainly coaching 2 and leading a fitness class on the 3rd. Couple that with the baby, of course, a niggling calf injury, and a desire to once again get my weight moving in a negative direction and you have a recipe that will require a great deal of attention to get right.

I’m not about to compromise though.

R7D1/2 I Felt That – It’s Up To Me.

June 8 2011.

“I felt that!” said Tony after the workout finished. “You and me both” I thought.

Maybe I’m nostalgic to the core, maybe the memory of my first round of P90X still wafts through my mind and convinces me that it was better than it was… or maybe P90X is really that good. Whatever it is, it was with great affection and excitement that I put the DVD for Chest and Back into the player last night and got ready to bring it once again. As usual, P90X did not disappoint and Tony with his inappropriate “choke pulling” jokes and campy effervescent attitude was just as annoying and amusing as ever. The workout was as hard as I needed, I killed most of my old numbers which was a bit of a surprise but a nice indicator that things are still on track. I do find nowadays though that my wrists are more sore than they used to be and my elbow hurts like hell when I do reverse chin ups even though I am a LOT lighter than I was during my first round almost 2 years ago.

That reminds me… I have finally managed to put a long and probably very boring history of my weight issues in a single page here. It’s a long story, one which I didn’t even realize sheds light on what my problems have been in the past. It also shows me that even though I am on the right path, and have been for a couple of years, sometimes you can be on the right path, but going the wrong way!

After completing that exercise I actually feel like I am finally doing everything right. Being back with Tony, training with Pavel and even the occasional hour with ShaunT feels like the right thing at the right time. Chest and Back last night made me into a believer once again, controlling my own physical destiny with a system that I have designed and I am comfortable with. Not only that, but being able to push myself harder than the people on the screen, being able to outpace them at my age is something of which I can be proud. Ending up in a puddle of sweat after screaming my way through another P90X workout plus Ab Ripper X makes me feel amazing! So what if it has taken me almost 2 years to be able to take before and after photos, the greatest thing of all is that I made it here, I made it to now and what comes next is up to me.

R4 D67/8 – Chest and Back (100%), Cardio Plyo (100%)

Santa-Workout1 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.