p90x3 – Something Beats Nothing Every Time

R11D39 – P90X3 Accelerator and Decelerator

Tuesday I went back to my old gym for the yearly bring a friend week and it was just how I remembered it, ridiculous teens doing things that are dangerous and stupid and old men doing things that are about as beneficial as the vegan lifestyle. Two kids in particular were doing kettlebell “swings” by lifting the bell like a front raise and holding it overhead like some jungle head hunter would display the heads of it’s victims. Obvioulsy the staff either don’t care or don’t know the difference, but to be honest, it really devalues the gym and poses a danger to the other users. However, most of the other users were women cruising the treadmills and ellipticals in an oblivious cardio coma like prisoners chained to a torture device. It was pretty grim if I am honest. I did manage to get some shoulder work done, mostly because my basement ceiling is too low to do presses so I made the most of that and also used the cable machine to do pulllups since my pullup bar on the deck has 3 feet of snow underneath it. I didn’t do cable pullups… not sure what they would be, but the pullup grips are positioned in the middle of the crossover beams on the cable machine. Anyway, I got a decent workout but it’s never going to be enough to get me to go back.

Wednesday I did Accelerator and Thursday I did Decelerator and to be honest I am having a hard time remembering the difference. I think the Accelerator was the one with legs and pushups while the Decelerator was legs and pullups. Accelerator was more like the old plyo with chest thrown in but Decelerator was more like eccentric movements with pullups. Both were cardio workouts at their heart and were OK, not great, but OK. I still think that P90X should try and stay away from the cardio workouts and leave them to Shaun T. In fact, what would be really good would be if they would just put the P90X /2 /3 workouts with Insanity and be done with it.

I am not really seeing much change with my weight as of yet, I am down maybe a couple of pounds but I am feeling a whole lot better. Not only that, my strength is back and I am sure I have probably just about finished filling out my muscles to their capacity. Next week I am only working 2 days and it’s my birthday week so I will be taking it easy and getting in as many workouts as I can and I may even be able to get to my Crossfit Gym! It may be Oly lifting tonight if I have the time.

R11D24/5 – Ebb And Flow

I have been careful where I can to make sure I am doing weight, cardio and recuperation workouts with some balance and with that in mind on Wednesday I did the P90X3 Eccentric Upper and it was, in fact, exactly what I had envisioned apart from there are pullups in there. That was a surprise. Besides that, it’s basically some presses, curls and so on, basic moves, but all with the accent on the 4 count lowering of the weight and one count explosion. It’s typical eccentric exercises and despite the lack of real warmup I was not too sore the following 2 days. However, since my sleep has not been ideal I opted on Thursday to do P90X3 Yoga X. I was especially interested in this since I believe in the power of yoga once you can keep up with it and I loved Tony’s One on One Fountain of Youth Yoga. This, I have to say, was a rival for that if only because you are not subjected to endless rounds of the same vinyasa all over again. This was quick, variable and had the yoga, balance and flexibility sections I was looking for. All in all it is a great little short Yoga workout, one that is bound to get lots of use.

I stumbled up on another interesting diet log blog, and although not as entertaining as Fat Head or Morgan Spurlock’s lies it’s an amazing story of one man’s journey to prove that high fat low carb diets are really the way we were made to eat. You can find it but the navigation around the site leaves much to be desired. It’s called Smash The Fat and it can be found atÂ http://live.smashthefat.com/why-i-didnt-get-fat/Â where he explains how he managed to eat 5000 calories a day and actually improve his physique. He is doing a Vegan version now, and after 11 days has apparently already gained 8lbs. Interesting stuff.

R1D19-21 – The Shoulder Fix – Heavy Olympic Lifts.

It was a weird weekend workout wise. I know I was going to do Abs before gym but I didn’t want to give in to my lazy side and decided to do P90X3 CVX instead. CVX stands for Cardio Vascular Extreme and it was a pretty tough workout, not because of the moves that you are performing but rather for the fact that you are doing it with a weigh in your hands. I started with 12lbs, quickly moved to 10 after about 8 minutes and by the end I admit I dropped the weight a couple of times. Now I am not a proponent of this kind of workout, I think it’s very hard on the shoulders and takes a great deal of care to get it right. For most people, I think it’s best not to have a weight at the end of your arms where it can swing with a huge multiplicative factor while jumping and running. That said, the workout was pretty tiring, it was definitely a good amount of activity and although I won’t be doing it again, it was OK.

Saturday I decided to stay with my non-lazy approach and up my Oly weights to 135 on the barbell and 185 on the bench. The proposal was as follows:

5×5 Deadlift
5×10 Bench
5×5 Hang Clean
5×5 Power Clean
5×10 Shrugs
5×5 Squats

This is pretty much what I was doing last summer without the bench obviously because I was up in the garage. I was quickly reminded that I am still a way from where I wish I was as I struggled with the Hang Cleans and only managed to do 2 sets of the Power Cleans. I finished the bench and shrugs but did zero squats even though the deadlifts were not as bad as I had imagined they would be. What amazed me was that after doing some of the hang cleans I suddenly realized that the pain in my shoulder was gone. I didn’t know if I was just being optimistic, maybe saturated with adrenaline or what so I ignored it. About an hour after the workout I had a very strange pain in my left shoulder, which has not been too bad lately but also the same strange pain in my right. However, the mobility in my right shoulder was completely fixed. I can reach behind my back and scratch my shoulderblade without any pain for the first time in about 6 months. Since I spent quite a few hours in pain at the physio while he tried to fix it without success you can imagine my surprise and happiness when the next morning the mobility and pain free situation continued. I slowly started to recognize the pain that I was feeling in both shoulders, it was the same pain I had way back when I endured separations during my rugby playing days. I am guessing that somehow my shoulders have been out of alignment for a while and doing the heavy lifting with the barbell somehow relocated them. I took Sunday off in order to rest the joints, took some advil but I plan to get back to the barbell tonight and try to complete more of the program than I did on Saturday.

The description of the shoulder pain I was feeling was intense pain at the point of the shoulder, when I had my arms in dip position, in other words the same position you are in if you go to get your wallet out of your back pocket or when you go to pull up the back of your pants with both hands. I literally couldn’t put my hand flat against my lower back at the start it was so bad. Now though, there is still a little pain, but probably only 15% of what was there before, I am not sure if that is just inflammation due to the relocation or if it will go away at all but I have my fingers crossed.

R11D15-18 – Work Rate, MMA and Sick Child Obstacles

2 days off with a sick child could drive anyone crazy. Hours on hours of Timmy Time and Shaun The Sheep interspersed with bouts of a bored 3 year old trying to find something to do which in case you are wondering is a VERY dangerous proposition. I am glad to say though that I managed to work out both days after taking Sunday off with several localized sore patches. Monday I did T25 Lower Body Focus which was a very good workout, as you can imagine it’s mostly legs, squats, lunges and plenty of cardio. In fact, it’s a workout that I plan on doing again only once I have compared it with the P90X3 Lower Body workout. On Tuesday I was going to do the upper body P90X3 but instead since I knew exactly what I wanted to work I did a bench and curls workout to hit the body parts that I felt were getting a little neglected. Wednesday was a forced rest day with gymnastics coaching and daycare pick-up leaving no time for a workout. I was going to do some conditioning with the girls at the end of class but since I have been a little tired and sore all over I opted for the rest. I feel like it was a quality decision too since on Thursday I was able to crush the P90X3 MMX workout. In MMX, there is a lot of similarities to Kenpo X but with added sprawling (or burpees if you like). The advantage I have is that I have a heavy bag in the basement so the limp jabs and punches that you ordinarily associate with any martial arts workout are replaced by actual physical contact punches and kicks. Believe me when I tell you that the difference is night and day. I was drenched with sweat when I finished and my legs and shoulders really got a fantastic workout. However, since I have a copy of Tapout XT I am not so sure that this workout will ever see the light of day again. It’s OK, just not a really involved or accurate MMA workout. That said, it’s far better than George St Pierre’s Rushfit which is, in my opinion, a complete waste of time.
Today I plan to do T25 Ab Intervals and then coaching, and maybe take the workout with me and make the kids do it if it is any good.

In case you are wondering, it’s now Day 19 and I have managed to keep my percentage (days on vs days off) up above 85% until my forced rest on Wednesday. Mostly due to the 100% start but also my commitment to the high work rate required for me to have any hope of weight loss. I have dipped down to 83% (16 of 19 days) but after the weekend I should be comfortably over the mark. Remember working out 4 days a week is only 57% and 5 days a week still only 71%. If you are truly focused on weight control and long term health and fitness then 6 days a week (85%) with one day of Yoga or Pilates or Isometrics is what you should be aiming for. I know people have a problem with working out 7 days a week but if you are balanced in your approach and build low effort days into the mix you will be fine. Â Here’s what I have done so far and I am moving towards Month 2 workouts in P90X3 and Beta workouts in T25.

Monday, 01/06/2014	1	T25 Cardio	100%
Tuesday, 01/07/2014	2	P90X3 Total Synergistics	100%
Wednesday, 01/08/2014	3	P90X3 Agility X	100%
Thursday, 01/09/2014	4	T25 Speed 1.0	100%
Friday, 01/10/2014	5	Oly Lift 5×5 @ 95 DL SQ PCL	100%
Saturday, 01/11/2014	6	ice clearing 45 min	100%
Sunday, 01/12/2014	7	T25 Total Body Conditioning	100%
Monday, 01/13/2014		Off	0%
Tuesday, 01/14/2014	8	Driveway Ice 45 min	89%
Wednesday, 01/15/2014	9	T25 Core Cardio	90%
Thursday, 01/16/2014	10	p90x3Â warrrior	91%
Friday, 01/17/2014	11	P90X3 Dynamix	92%
Saturday, 01/18/2014	12	Oly lift and increase weights	92%
Sunday, 01/19/2014		off	0%
Monday, 01/20/2014	13	T25 Lower Body Focus	87%
Tuesday, 01/21/2014	14	Bench and curls improv	88%
Wednesday, 01/22/2014			88%
Thursday, 01/23/2014	15	P90X3 MMX	83%
Friday, 01/24/2014	16	T25 Ab Intervals	84%

R11D12-14 – Piriformis Pain Returns – Stretching Did It.

Friday before coaching I wanted something in the rest/recuperate department so I tried out P90X3 Dynamix. It’s a good stretching / rehabilitating workout after a hard workout week. It was actually really nice to get some stretching done in a disciplined and organized manner. However, after stretching my piriformis I once again have the weird sharp pain in my hip/back on the right side. I remember it got worse the more I stretched last year and eventually I got to the point where my hip pain was so bad I had to take time off. I wonder if there is such a thing as not stretching muscles to avoid inflammation. The issue is that I need the pigeon stretch to help my hips and ITB but whenever I do a little too much I get a debilitating pain in my back. I guess I will just have to try and avoid overstretching the area so that it’s not inhibiting my workouts but also not sretched to the point of pain. So much for getting old. Anyway, Saturday I did my 5×5 workout with Oly lifts including Deadlift, clean, squat and bench. In fact, I also increased my weights a little, got my barbell up to 115 and my bench bar up to 165. Still well within my limits, but on a steady and slow rise. Sunday I decided to rest, I have done 12 of 14 days and I think I am getting a little mentally burned out. Physically I am fine, but as we all know once you feel overtrained it’s way too late to do anything about it. I think that’s why the Dynamix workout was so good, there were some good stretches, a bit of core work with some more challenging holds and some dynamic stretching also. There is no Ab Ripper in P90X3 but the core work during Dynamix will certainly let you know if you need more abs work or not!

Today I am home with a sick child so lots of up and down on the floor to play games, do puzzles, have naps fight with the cat etc. Hoping I can squeeze in a workout during nap time, whenever that is.

R11D11 – P90X3 The Warrior

I actually talked myself into this one. I stood in front of my barbell quite prepared to do a quick 5×5 with bench as a delicious side but remembered that I had planned to do The Warrior.Â Usually I would ignore my plan and do whatever it was that I wanted however with my return to daily workouts still in it’s infancy I thought it would be better to stick to my plan. Not only that, I wanted to save the Oly lifting for the weekend so that I can actually increase the weights which, as you can probably imagine, increased the total workout time. I was pushed for time as it was, and so I crossed my fingers, hoping not to hear andy Forrest Gump and turned on Warrior. As it turns out, this is my favourite kind of workout. It’s a true bootcamp style workout based on upper, core and lower power moves. It’s simple, but incorporated the whole body and as with most of these workouts is very scaleable. However, my complaint of the day again is my legs. I’m pretty sore, and I am back in the bad habit of not getting to bed at 1030 like I am supposed to but sitting up and falling asleep watching TV. Not only that, but because I am tired I know that my posture for burpees and all the moves where you have to touch the floor isn’t the best so I now have a sore mid back on the left side. It may be time for some Yoga X since I am actually interested to find out what a 30 minute yoga session looks like.

So it’s pretty much the end of week 2 and since I don’t really update on the weekend my feelings are as follows:

Starting over sucks. Week 1 is a mixture of anticipation, overenthusiasm and pain whereas week 2 devolves into pretty much just pain. However, capability and endurance begin to shine through and you definitely start to reap some rewards, however they are usually pushed back into oblivion by your screaming thighs and calves / shoulders. However, I have started with a blast, 10 days out of 11 and so as I progress I can start to ease back to my 80% goal and hopefully work rest into my schedule. I am glad I started over, it’s good to feel capable again.

By the way, I stole this moves list from the interwebs for The Warrior.Oh, abnd one more thing, you actually get REST periods in this workout!!

The moves:

PLANK SPHINX PUSH-UPS
SPEED SKATER
DOWN DOG CRUNCHES
SIDE LUNGE JUMP SHOT
ELEVATOR PUSH-UPS
DOUBLE UPPER CUT SPRAWLS
ROLLER BOAT
ONE LEG JUMP SQUATS
THUMBS-UP PUSH-UPS
ELBOW, OVER THE TOP ELBOW, SPRAWL
FIFER SCISSOR TWIST
WARRIOR SQUAT LUNGES
SUPER BURPEE
THINK DRILLS
ABRINOME
SPIDERMAN SQUATS
BURNOUT

R11D3 – Inevitable Glitch

I forgot my DVDs at work.

That meant that rather than doing the Speed 1.0 with Shaun T I was forced into doing Agility X with Tony. I have to say, I don’t know what Speed 1.o is like but I can bet that Agility X is a full step above if not an entire league ahead. Agility X was everything I used to love about the Plyo workout from the original P90X. It’s fast, you are moving, jumping, squatting and lunging and it’s actually quite a fun workout if you are not trying to recover from pneumonia. About half way through I started coughing like an asthmatic Walrus so much so that my wife on her treadmill lodged a complaint… However, since I have not been too active lately when I woke up this morning my butt was screaming from all the lunges. Not only that, but I did coach 3 hours after doing Agility X which I am sure didn’t help matters much. Anyway, no loss, I did another workout, make that 3 in a row and I also managed to get the workouts in the order in which they appear in the schedule so I can now determine exactly what I will be doing.

Schedules in Order:

T25:

Alpha
Cardio
Speed 1.0
Total body circuit
Ab intervals
Lower body focus

Beta
Core cardio
Speed 2.0
Rip T circuit
Dynamic core
Upper focus

Gamma
Speed 3.0
Rip’T Up
Extreme circuit
The Pyramid
P90X3

Month 1

Total Synergistics
Agility X
X3 Yoga
The Challenge
Cardio Vascular Extreme (CVX)
The Warrior
Dynamix
Isometrix
Accelerator
Pilates X

Month 2

Eccentric Upper
Triometrics
Eccentric Lower
Incinerator
Mark Briggs Inspired MMA Workouts (MMX)

Month 3

Decelerator

R11D2 – Maybe I’m Crazy. P90X3 + T25. Plus Free Rant!

So I managed finally to get my hands on P90X3 and instead of thinking that I would just do the thing alone I am thinking that maybe I can do a hybrid of T25 with P90X3 until I have gone through every workout in both just to see what they are like. On Monday I did T25 Cardio, the first workout in the schedule and last night I did P90X3Â Total Synergistics which is also the first workout in the schedule. Just for information sake I will list the workouts below but before I do I want to get something off my chest.

It seems that Beachbody, like so many parents today has taken on themselves to cave in to the whining child that is their public and given them what they asked for… the public said they didn’t have time, when in fact what they were really saying is “I’m too lazy to do an hour every day and it’s too hard.” So with T25 and P90X3 what they have done is create a Insanity for Dummies and a P90X for Dummies. If you are basically too lazy and unmotivated to get through the workouts in P90X or P90X2 then P90X3 is for you. It’s really not about people who don’t have time because let’s be honest, I can go and do a P90X workout in 30 minutes no problem. I can’t do an insanity workout in 30 minutes but then again, they are not an hour either.

Colour me disappointed, not in Beachbody for creating supply for the demand but in the public who have whined and complained their way into forcing what was an extreme home fitness program to be proud of into a anaemic imitation of what used to be. I am sorry but there is no way I would wear a P90X3 tshirt and think I was making a statement. I still have my P90X shirt because it means something to me that I made it through. But, this is only the beginning, but based on what I felt like after Day 1 of P90X and Day 1 of Insanity, P90X3 and T25 are going to be nothing more than an excuse not to get too sweaty…

Anyway, to give it the chance it deserves, I am going to do the workouts and let you know how they are. I probably won’t go into a blow by blow of the moves involved but I will give you an idea of how hard (or not) they are.

T25 Cardio was pretty easy especially if you have ever done an insanity workout. Just the sight of Shaun T with hair makes it a little less threatening. There was one or two moments when my calves were burning but then again I have been sick and unable to workout for almost 3 weeks. Given how out of shape I am, this workout was easy and at no time were you off your feet so no pushups or burpees. It was a little entertaining, but then again, humour has never been Shaun T’s forte.

P90X3 Total Synergistics was kind of a hodge podge of a bit of everything, some squats and lunges, some pushups and plank work and even a couple of chinups. it did seem overly generalized but I suppose that’s to be expected at the start of the program. I am hoping that we will get a little more specialized as time goes on.

Here are the workouts that I will be doing over the next few weeks, there are 30 total and so I should be able to cover them off in 45 days or so with my Oly commitments. I will try to arrange them in some sort of order but basically I will be taking the schedule and doing whatever is next, skipping what I have done.

T25 workouts (3 sections, Alpha, Beta, Gamma)

Alpha
Cardio
Total body circuit
Lower body focus
Ab intervals
Speed

Beta
Upper focus
Core cardio
Spread
Dynamic core
Rip T circuit

Gamma
Extreme circuit
Speed 3.0
The Pyramid
Rip T

P90X3 – Separated into 4 sections, Resistance, Power, Cardio, Core / Flex and Balance)

Resistance

Total Synergistics
The Challenge
Incinerator
The Warrior
Eccentric Upper
Eccentric Lower

Power

Agility X
Triometrics
Decelerator

Cardio

Cardio Vascular Extreme (CVX)
Mark Briggs Inspired MMA Workouts (MMX)
Accelerator

Core, Flex & Balance

Pilates X
X3 Yoga
Isometric
Dynamix

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!