Tip of the Day

Yesterday we did the P90X Cardio routine and I missed it. Now that we switched to Plyo, we only get to do Core during Recovery week. And it seemed so easy and SHORT. The whole video is 40 something minutes, which compared to the hour + seems like a walk in the park. I like it because it's short. My husband likes it because of Tony's Tip of the Day. Yesterday's tip was "Make sure you are eating enough." That was like music to Karlo's ears. Any excuse to eat MORE. So last night when Karlo returned from the kitchen, where he grabbed a handful of homemade Hungarian treats, and got a glare from me he said, "What?? Tony said to make sure I eat enough." Thanks Tony! Now there are no more precious homemade treats for me.

Fridays are Rest Days

And I love them! Yesterday was Kenpo, but in addition, we did a bicep blast during our lunch break. I guess I’m missing biceps since we moved into Phase 2, and no longer do that video. Which leads me to the fact that we are going to modify our routine a bit . . . We are currently doing the Lean version of P90X. The basic difference is the amount of weight lifting days. Classic requires 3 days of lifting, where Lean only requires 2 days. However, we have been supplementing by doing extra lifting in the afternoons. This means we are still getting at least 3 days of lifting per week. We concentrate on whatever muscle group is not getting hit with P90X. In addition, next week we are going to ditch Cardio and add Plyometrics (jump training). Cardio just isn’t challenging, and I’m eager to see if we can do Plyo. This one scares me, and my bad knee, but I want to give it a shot. I don’t think I can hurt my knee any more than the last time I did squats with my crazy husband/trainer. He doesn’t seem to understand the fact that my muscles can withstand a lot more weight than my knee can. I no longer trust him with my leg workouts. He’s fired as my trainer when it comes to legs!

I haven’t posted any real photos in the last few weeks. I guess this is because I have come to the realization that I’m not really going to change all that much. After looking at all the before and after photos on beachbody.com, it’s apparent that the girls don’t really transform much. Most of the girls posted in the success stories where in good shape to begin with, and realistically how ripped can a girl get? So instead of photos of my same old (hey, wait a minute . . . not literally “old”) arms, I’m going to start to post videos of me doing the P90X moves.

Here’s my first video of pull-ups. I can only do 1 or 2 pull-ups more than I could when I started, only now I can pull up from standing – without jumping up. (Please note, this is not shown in the video thanks to my husband’s slow shutter finger.) You will see that I only come down until my elbows are at 90 degrees, but my goal is to increase the angle, in addition to increasing the reps. I ultimately want to do 10 reps, with more travel. When I realized that the video didn’t start soon enough, my husband said, “Just do it again.” And I would . . . only Friday is rest day – sorry.

One More Day of Recovery

Today was the Cardio day of my first P90X recovery week. And I have to say, it seemed really easy. At only 43 minutes total time, the whole session seemed so short. All the other days are just at, if not over, an hour. This was like cheating. I noticed that I can do everything in the video in perfect form, as fast as the folks on the video, and for as many reps. This pleases me greatly. I just wish I can one day say the same about Ab Ripper X.

Earlier today I went to BeachBody.com to visit the user forums and check out some sucess stories. It was a bit discouraging that all the before and after photos of the men are all amazing. They all look ripped and the makeovers were inspiring to look at. But the girls, however, did not have the same amazing results. The first thing I noticed was that most of the girls already looked good before they started the program. I guess that tends to end in less amazing results. I know I fall in this same category. I never really expected my looks to change much. Too bad P90X can't make my face prettier or my hair nicer ;-) I will have to resolve to the fact that, in the end, I will look the same. But I'll feel much better - that's for sure. I already feel great.

Day Two of P90X

Just as I suspected . . . I'm sore. I woke up in the middle of the night and when I tried to roll over I got the first shooting pain. It was a quick reminder of our first work out. Uh oh, I haven't even gotten out of bed yet and already I'm hurting. Not a good sign.

But it wasn't as bad as I expected. Our first workout was called "Core" and strangely, none of my core muscles hurt. I was expecting my abs and obliques to hurt, but instead all my soreness was in my rear end. My entire butt and upper back of my legs felt like they have been torn apart. This made me very happy, as this is the one part of my body that I feel really needs help. I don't think I'm alone within the female population with this one.

We got right up out of bed and slowly shuffled to our work-out room. I had no idea what today's target zone would be and I was pleased to find out that it would be cardio. At least cardio doesn't rip muscles. So we started it up and the first 10 minutes were the warm up. Most of the is warm up entailed yoga and I both me and my husband were pleased because we feel at home with yoga. Only this was hard yoga. Good grief, I barely got through it and the whole while I'm thinking . . . "this is the WARM UP?" We had to go through several positions of plank, down to push-up pose, to upward dog, back to plank, another push up, up to downward dog, one leg in the air . . . Over and over. I'm lucky I didn't break my nose trying to do all those push-ups. They threw in a few warrior poses, which despite the fact that they were deep and difficult, they still felt like a relief. By the time the warm up was done, I was exhausted.

Or at least I thought I was. The minute the rest of the real cardio kicked in, I came back to life. The video is so much fun and always changing. It's exciting right now because we have no idea what to expect. I assumed it would be 30 minutes of non-stop jumping around, but all the exercises were greatly varied. There was lots of kickboxing and that thrilled me. I used to do kickboxing for years and loved every minute of it. I felt right at home with all the old moves. I really had a ball and was very proud of myself with my performance. I thought, of all the videos, cardio would be the most challenging. Now this is not to say that tomorrow I won't be twice as sore. I'm already feeling more muscles tightening and rebelling. But I'm not complaining. I do love that feeling and I'm very accustomed to it .