Shoulders – Page 2 – Something Beats Nothing Every Time

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 44 – The Return of the Mack

Tuesday August 4 2009. Chest Triceps and Shoulders.

I’m back! The weekend ended up being a bonus in a way, I feel better, more capable, and most of all a lot less sore than I did on Friday. The workout, then, was not easy, that’s not what happens with P90X. I was able to do more than usual, it was just as hard but the output was better. Of course, as I sit in my pool of sweat at the end of the workout the weekend recovery seems eons away. I once again landed on my head doing the inverted shoulder press, something I am not impressed with given that before I started I could shoulder press 275lbs. However, this time I had my feet on the bench, not the upturned bucket so I was almost completely inverted with my feet as high as my knees. My single pervasive thought through the whole workout was next week’s rest week. A whole week without pull ups or push ups. A whole week to give my shoulders and elbow a much needed break but also a week where I need to pull myself together and drop some more pounds.

I know I did this more as a challenge to myself than as a weightloss tool however I think the last month I should really try to push my nutrition boundaries to give me the best shot at getting rid of a few more pounds. I am close to my lightest weight in almost 8 years, back to the weight I was when Nicole and I met and being there again with a large degree of control over my weight would be amazing. I remember that back then the reason I was in such good shape was not because of my diet but because of the Stairmaster. I would spend 2 hours in the gym every morning before work, an hour of which would be on the PT4000 climbing the stair to nowhere. As soon as I was not able to do the work any more, the weight came up. My experience has taught me that in order to be successful at weight control it is not about the 2 hours in the gym, it is about the 22 hours out there in the world. The gym is the easy part. Ironically, I used to tell my Personal Training clients that. I guess I just wasn’t listening.

Day 36 – Week 6 Begins – The Grind.

I feel like I am in that no-man’s land between the start and the finish. It’s that part of the race where you are too far from the start to be beginning but too far from the end to be excited about finishing. This is the grind. I expect that phase 2 will be like this the whole way through although I will be excited once I finish week 7 and get to have an easy week until the final push into Phase 3. It’s a good job that I am enjoying the new workouts because that is what will keep me going into Phase 3. I am a little concerned that Phase 2 doesn’t do much tricep work in comparison and tends to concentrate on back but then again I was always a chest guy so I am probably over sensitive to the imbalance.

So today I learned that one more rep is not always a good thing. I was doing these butt raised shoulder press things where you have your feet on a bench, your butt up in the air so that there is a straight line between your hands on the floor and your butt all the way through the shoulders. As you press you are actually using your shoulders almost like a handstand pushup but with your legs resting on a bench. However, the higher you put your feet, the closer it is to an actual handstand pushup and as I struggled to do one last rep with my ass in the air my arms very slowly gave way landing the top of my head on the padded floor with a resounding “thump”. I was not amused, especially since my instinct was to stand up but because my arms weren’t working I couldnt stand up either. So I lay on the floor for a minute or two staring at the unpainted ceiling and wondering if I should try that again.

Day 29 – Phase 2. Bring the Pain!

So here I go, all soft and fuzzy after my week of rest only to be thrown to the lions. I still have to install my chinup bar in the basement but since today is Chest, Shoulders and Triceps hopefully I won’t need it yet. However, I should put it up before I am too sore to lift my arms to brush my teeth tomorrow.

The only thing more difficult than the airborne clapping pushup… and I am not THAT crazy!

Nicole decided to join me today, I am guessing she is on the P9X program where you can work out once every 9 days and still look amazing. Not that I am bitter or anything… Anyway, the workout was a real treat. It was difficult enough to have me sweating bullets again, simple enough that you didn’t have to skip back on the DVD to understand the movements and best of all there were no repeat movements. Even though it is good to have repeats so you can really push yourself, the time flies by if you do a list of completely new exercises instead. The program consisted of 24 movements, some compound shoulder/arm/chest motion, some isolation exercises. I knew it would be hard given that I had taken an easy week but even so during the workout I was amazed that I was able to push myself harder and make it through most of the workout doing max reps. I also made full 25 reps on at least 1/2 of the Ab Crippler exercises which shocked me. My hip flexors must have thought that last week was just brilliant with no AR… So much for that.

I did find that my wrists started getting sore at one point, I suppose I should really be using push up bars to protect my wrists knowing that I have carpal tunnel in both wrists as it is. The history on that is I woke one morning last year with a sore rhomboid muscle and a weird tingling in my arm. After a few hours I found that I had lost the feeling in half of my right hand (and of course I am right handed!). I was not able to feel anything in my 4th and pinkie fingers or down that side of my hand. What was far more distressing than that was the fact that I had barely any grip strength in my hand. I had trouble holding on to a 45lb plate with my hand in the coming days which really scared me. I went to see a neurologist (nerve guy ) who told me a couple of things. First, the fact that I have no feeling in my right shin and zero reflex in my right knee since my back surgery is permanent. Second, the nerve test on my hand said that PROBABLY I would get the feeling and the strength back. Enter the ridiculous medical community and their inadequate testing equipment. “Grip this” he said, giving me a handheld grip strength monitor. I crushed it. My grip strength in my right pathetic hand was still off the chart regardless of the fact that it was about 50% of my left hand. It was actually so bad that I could no longer do chinups at the gym because I couldn’t hang on to the bar with my right hand. Anyway, long story short he said that it was radial nueropathy known as Saturday Night Palsy because it usually happens when people get drunk, pass out and trap their arm underneath them, pinching the nerve. Either that or (and he was disturbingly casual about this next part) I had degenerative disc disease in my neck and my vertebrae were crushing my spinal cord. Nice! This was disturbing because I was at one time diagnosed with DDD in my spine as part of my MRI’s for my back. Taking a look at my massive head (orange on a toothpick!) you would think that he would be more inclined towards the spinal-neck-vertebrae-crushing thing, but apparently not.

So, that is the history behind my wrist/arm/hand/neck problems and it is the reason why, after his diagnosis of carpal tunnel in BOTH wrists, that I have some wrist pain when doing pushups. Nicole said it was due to me doing not only clapping pushups but AIRBORNE pushups with Tony, but I don’t think so *wink*.

Day 17 – Modification time

Shoulders and Arms.

(My home gym, pictured here, messy but plenty of room)

Since I have issues with some of the movements in the workout, namely the triceps kickbacks which are relatively ineffective in building any kind of triceps strength, I have decided to replace them with variations of laying triceps extensions. I have the bench at home and laying extensions with close grip bench press are great replacements for the kickbacks. I tried it tonight and other than having to adjust the weight a little, it Â is going to work out really well. In other news I am up to almost 20 of each of the ab exercises not including the stupid leg climbers which I just hate and can’t seem to do at all. I finished my sets of the regular workout a couple of minutes early and got a head start on the Ab Crippler Â and as such was able to accomplish much more over a slightly extended period. I didn’t rest more, I just completed more because I had more time. The other benefit was that I took a couple of minutes rest before I started which made a world of difference. However, my hip flexors are still pitiful when it comes to bicycles. It’s not that they are weak, I can do hanging leg raises no problem even with straight legs, but constant motion like the in-and-outs followed by bicycles just kill me.

At the end of this week, since it will be the end of the 3 week cycle, I will post my actual numbers for the movements to document my improvements. Next week is supposed to be a “rest” week but I see there is Yoga in there so it can’t be much of a rest! It’s interesting to see how my numbers are fluctuating, but also they are not entirely an accurate reflection of my improvement potential since I am restricted to the weights I have available. I don’t want to go out and buy more dumbbells so I think I am going to start using the barbell for some of the heavier curls and shoulder presses. As long as I don’t spend any time changing weights, it should work out OK.

Day 10 – P80X!

Shoulders and arms

10% may not sound like a lot but when I started this thing I was doubtful that I would be able to make the first week!

I haven’t been feeling very well today, my stomach is very sore for some reason, I have cramping and bloating. I am trying to think if it was something I ate over the last few days or maybe it is some kind of stomach bug. Either way, today has not been fun at all. I was having serious doubts about my ability to do shoulders and arms but as usual I thought I would start and see how I felt.

How I felt was like throwing up. My stomach was incredibly painful at times, but I managed to make it through the workout, even managed to add some weight to the reps from last week. I tried to settle my stomach with some antacids but nothing seemed to work. It feels like food poisoning however I haven’t thrown up like I do when that happens. I am wondering if this is what an ulcer feels like…

I can’t really say much more, the workout was difficult enough with the extra weight never mind battling a sore stomach. I also did not do the Ab Ripper today, it was simply not going to happen!

Day 3 – Better Late Than Never

Shoulders and Arms plus Ab Ripper

Gluten Free Living - ya it sucks but so does indigestion

We had a busy day today driving to Hastings for a family get together and after all was said and done it was 7pm when we got through the door at home. However I am still in the romance phase with P90X and nothing was going to stop me from getting day 3 out of the way and getting to bed. Having said that, I was exhausted as soon as I woke up and managed to get through the day without the use of my right hip flexor which I am fairly sure turned to stone overnight. Everything below the waist hurts. Some things above the waist felt like they hadn’t hurt enough yesterday and so were looking for a little more sympathy today. This rolling, cascading carnival of pain that runs through your body is certainly challenging and makes even the most mundane of daily tasks like getting into the bottom drawer of the refrigerator at work seem insurmountable.

In recent months I have developed a sore shoulder at the gym, so much so that I have an ultrasound appointment to get it checked out so I was understandably concerned about Shoulders and Arms. It was a sore workout. I can’t really supinate much with my left arm so the out and in curls were a challenge. I also am used to doing significantly more weight but in shorter sets so it was difficult to get accustomed to the 15-20 reps I was doing. All things considered, it was a pretty good workout. Usually at the gym I blast my shoulders with military press for almost 30 minutes by themselves so I am not entirely convinced that this workout will get me any results, X or not. However, I am open to a new approach to my physique and I will see what Â happens. If I feel like I am losing some strength in any of my workouts I can always substitute some heavy lifting once in a while if I am so inclined. However, I think that as much as this is a workout change, it is also for me a philosophical change in my approach. So for now I will submit to the process and see where it takes me.

As for the workout, the movements were predictable, most of which I have done in the gym myself at some point. I am not a fan of the tricep pushbacks, I feel that you can’t really get a good extension with a significant enough weight to really see a change but maybe that is just me. I also wish I had a dip station I could do hanging dips instead of the bench dips. I was quite proud of myself, I managed to contain my sobbing to a short period during bench dips when I really felt like I was going to come apart like a rotisserie chicken.

Ab Ripper took my by surprise again. This time I was able to do more, I counted at least a 10% improvement over the first time. But my abs feel like they are made from crushed glass that is ripping my internal organs apart as I move. I was unable to get off the floor for a few minutes after we finished. So much so I was still laying there when Nicole had headed upstairs for her recovery drink.

One more note. I am not following the diet. I know, I know, each time I come across a site where someone says that I think “you idiot, diet is the key, THE KEY DAMMIT” but in my case I have a legitimate excuse. I am studying to be a certified nutritionist and I am designing my own program. Now since the P90X program was developed by nutritionists I am going to see if I am anywhere close to the level of knowledge that it took to create the program. I have analysed my requirements and am able to determine exactly what I need given my personal situation. It is more as a lab with a controlled subject (me) doing a controlled exercise program (P90X) so that I can see exactly the effects the nutritional changes are making to my body. The other gotcha in my case is that I don’t eat wheat. So following a program that calls for wheat based products becomes problematic.