Tag: Gymnastics Conditioning

A Word About P90X3 and Summer WOD Pictures (of the workout!)

As you all know very well I am a very big P90X fan, so much so I am actually a Canadian Beachbody Coach. However, the rumours surrounding the release of P90X3 have me a little worried. For a start, the big THING is that it’s only 30 minutes. Now, I have done a LOT of P90X and P90X2 workouts and for the most part after round 1 they are usually only about 40 minutes. I tend to shorten the warmup a little but I don’t listen to Tony ramble on, I skip to the next movement or even better skip ahead and then catch up while he and his pals rest and hang out looking cool and making pseudo sexual jokes about chokes and oil. My hope is that this next iteration is exactly that, as I always say to my kids at gym, More Work Less Talk! There should be some changes, I am guessing that they saw the Tapout XT video series and decided that was exactly what P90X needed, a little butt kicking MMA conditioning. So I am cautiously optimistic and I will happily ignore the 30 minute spiel and hope that it doesn’t include the warmup or cool down so they will be basically the same amount of work with less “50 years old” chirping from good old Tony.

For myself I am WAY behind where I wanted to be a few weeks ago but I am feeling OK. I wanted to have been to the Crossfit box at least a handful of times by now which I haven’t. I had hoped to be doing the gym conditioning with the kids which I haven’t either mostly because of my very sore shoulder which I have half a mind to go to the clinic to get referred for xrays or an ultrasound because it’s still hurting like hell from 2 weeks ago when I did dips at the gym with the kids.

Speaking of the kids, here are a few pics of the workouts they are typically doing at the moment. So for those of you following along at home (ex-gymnasts) keep up if you can!

R8D60 – Two Thirds. Time Is About To Fly.

I’m still trying to get back into the swing after my sickness. It’s not that I feel sick, just that I can’t seem to generate the same kind of crushing momentum I had before. Maybe it’s the weather, this time of year is a real pain to keep motivated, grey days, rain, cold, all of which are energy sapping and mood altering. But I am keeping on. Today will mark the 2/3 mark of this round, day 60, and I am hoping not to make it to 90 days because I will have started P90X2 once it arrives. I am hoping that will be during the first week of December and although I will have holidays to negotiate, I think I will be fine to continue through while on vacation. If not, I will just take the time off, do my regular bootcamp bodyweight workouts and wait until I get home to continue.

It’s times like these that I need as much extra motivation as I can get. For that, today is a good day. Knowing I have made it 2/3 of the way through, including dealing with a bootcamp I think is pretty good. I will have to really get my stuff together though because soon (2 weeks I think) we are going to move to 2 bootcamp classes a week. That will put a lot of pressure on my scheduling, both for the gymnasts and their workouts but also for me with my personal workouts too. It’s a lot to juggle but I think if I get it right, it will be a great class to participate in.

Time is about to really take off. I need to get the bootcamp program done, fashion a way to do my own fitness regimen and also start floor routines. With the end of the year looming very close, things are about to start getting crazy busy.

For day 60 I decided to go with Insanity and do the Plyo Cardio. I had done weights yesterday and plan to do more tomorrow with some O-Lift practice so today was ideal. I have to say I love Insanity workouts, they are short, brutal and totally scalable to how you are feeling. I felt pretty good actually so the workout went really well.

Here’s the plan I have for the girls at gym, not for today specifically but in general for athletes with injured ankles which we do seem to see a lot.
BIG SHEET No Legs

15 Full Turn Floor
10 Pushups
25 Double Twist Situp
10 Chinups
10 Burpees
25 High Bar Leg Lifts
25 Double Twist Situp
10 Chinups
10 Burpees
25 High Bar Leg Lifts
25 High Bar Toe touch
10 Chinups
20 Dips
25 High Bar Toe touch
10 Belly Pushups
10 Chinups
10 Pancake Burpee
25 High Bar Toe touch
10 Belly Pushups
10 Chinups
20 Dips
50 Crunches
10 Clap Pushup
25 Bum Lifts
25 Dog Raise Each Leg
10 Clap Pushup
25 Bum Lifts
25 Dog Raise Each Leg
15 Full Turn Floor
50 Half Turn Beam (1/2 1/2 or Full =2)

BIG SHEET Abs and Upper
50 Crunches
15 Handstand full turn
10 Pushups
25 Double Twist Situp
10 Chinups
25 Flat bicycles
25 High Bar Leg Lifts
25 Double Twist Situp
10 Chinups
25 ARX bicycles arms up
25 High Bar Leg Lifts
25 High Bar Toe touch
10 Chinups
10 Handstand Shoulder touch each side
25 High Bar Toe touch
20 Dips
10 Chinups
20 Spider with pushups
25 High Bar Toe touch
10 Belly Pushups with hand release
10 Chinups
50 Plank run
50 Crunches
10 Clap Pushup
25 Bum Lifts
25 Dog Raise Each Leg
10 Clap Pushup
25 Dips
25 Dog Raise Each Leg
15 Full Turn Floor
50 Half Turn Beam (1/2 1/2 or Full =2)

Forced Rest – My Aching Body and What The Kids Do

I had a busy day, not only was work a bear with a bizarre domain expiry causing havoc for our domain name but also I was asked to sub for 2 people meaning after a long day at work I rushed home, got changed in the foyer of the house and rushed to the gym with seconds to spare. I then coached until 9pm and although I got a lot accomplished (my kids did really well) I was completely exhausted when I got home. As I lay in bed trying to get to sleep I realized I was having a hard time because of how sore I was. I am not sure if it was just because I was relaxed and pain seems more severe at that point or if I was actually incredibly sore. I thought for a while about it after I got up today and realized that I need to pay more attention to this. I think it may be a function of not getting enough sleep, even though I now sleep in 2 days a week getting an extra 2 hours kip. Not only that, but pushing towards 240lbs has meant I am slightly down on calories and being a former fat guy, I never really noticed before how not having quite enough calories can affect your performance and well being. Anyway, I am sounding like a broken record so let’s review what the kids did last time out. Last night I introduced them to the Skills Ladder, it is a spreadsheet of common gymnastics skills that they should have and it occurred to me that I should have the same thing for myself, give me something to aim for, not only in number but also in the development of new skills.

I also think what I am discovering is something that a few great teachers have discovered, that variety in not only movement but intensity is important. I think my body does it naturally, only because I have been training hard for so many years I am used to what it tells me but I think that I need to make a bigger effort to recognize that each week or two cycle needs heavy and light days just as I used to have during my gym rat days. There is no reason why I shouldn’t take this Crossfit inspired / RKC mashup any less seriously and maybe it is time I actively worked in not only rest days but also light and heavy days. The RKC kind of makes me do this with 5 minutes of TGU being the only work of the day, but I have been bastardizing it with extra work in order to satisfy my own feeling of accomplishment. More work to do… it never ends.

I also put together a version of Filthy Fifty for them, in name only, it really bears no resemblance to the famed Crossfit workout. However, it does consist of a nothing-short-of-epic 655 movements. I am not talking about crunches here either, it’s a mix of everything from chin ups to pancake burpees to inversions on the rings. By the way, Pancake Burpees are simply burpees where instead of a leg extension to front support at the bottom, the athlete is required to lay flat on the ground (not to be confused with the push up burpee or the hands off burpee where the hands are lifted off the ground while laying or the clapping pushup burpee). I also want to state for the record that I do not give the kids anything that I haven’t tried in full for myself. I may be slower at getting up, and I may need db’s to allow me to burpee properly but I test all these routines myself. The kids, in an amazing turn of events are getting fitter, more capable and more enthusiastic. Now if I could only get the lazy ones to show up more than once a month…

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-porkPlyo 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 38 – 1 Week To The Top

Back, Biceps

I always imagine the half way point of any venture as the top of the mountain, once you are past half way, things always seem to go more quickly towards the finish line. One week from today I will be half way through the P90X program and although my “transformation” is not significant, that was not my goal. In fact, as I stated at the outset my goal for doing this was only for the challenge and the variety. The fact that I have lost a few pounds and made some significant fitness gains is a bonus.

It has been really weird not going to the gym every day and still getting the quality of workout that I have been. I have always been of the opinion that you need to be in the gym to get the quality of workout that you need to succeed in fitness. This stems from the arrogance of my initial certification as an ACE Personal Trainer. When I got certified, the culture was that the gym was the law not the guideline and the notion of working out without weights was almost non existent. Since then a lot has changed, the improvisation of the fitness industry and their desire for money has generated a whole industry around working out at home. From the very early days of at home aerobics to Billy Blanks and his Tae Bo all the way up to P90X and beyond, the fitness industry now accepts the notion that you can get a great workout anywhere you want to. Ask any Personal Trainer worth their salt and they will now be able to give you a dozen alternatives to replace your gym exercises no matter if you are at home, at a hotel or even at the beach. My experience with P90X has taught me that not only is it possible to get a top class workout at home, but also that the workout that I impose on my kids at gym every year is a reflection of my own insight into that area. Without even knowing it I had developed a workout regime that could very easily have served as an at home workout for anyone willing to put in the time and effort.

Speaking of gym, I am going to start (hopefully) to develop the conditioning for the year before we start, that way I will have lists defined, workout schedules made and a well balanced approach to their fitness ready to go. Much as I enjoy making stuff up as we go, it does make me stressed and can occasionally lead to unbalanced workouts. So this year I hope to incorporate some of the Plyo and other P90X stuff into the conditioning and to have a set of workouts of various lengths I can pick from.