I haven’t fallen off the face of the earth. It’s just that the motivation to blog (as so many bloggers know) falls off when life gets busy. I was on vacation last week and so I didn’t write anything down then. I have kept up with Chalene Extreme and am now in the second phase of the program; her ‘PUSH’ section. Overall, I’m enjoying it if only for the eye candy the instructors provide (but damn that Skippy guy is annoying as shit, constantly yelling stuff in the background) and the fact that it’s a bit easier than P90x or Insanity. I also like the fact that Chalene pushes you to pick weights where the failure should kick in at 6-8 reps; it’s nice to get the sets done fairly quickly (although not too quick as she’s always reminding you lift and lower everything SUPER SLOW). So, in terms of weights, I try to do the bulk of the work in this phase with 30-40 pound dumbbells (more so the latter than the former). I’ve also kicked up my grease-the-groove system again and have upped the dip belt from 20 to 35 pounds. Man, that is killer. I find myself totally struggling for the fifth rep on any pull up set I do then I pair these 5 reps with 20-30 push ups of different varieties. Over the course of the day the numbers built up. Also, still running home from work and enjoying it.
Hmmmm… what else. Much to my shame I also haven’t been keeping up with my SparkPeople calorie tracking. When the blogging stopped so did the tracking. I got lazy I admit it. Interestingly though, I did follow through on my weigh in on the morning of the 20th before the family reunion and I clocked in at 137. Not bad. I lost a pound since the last weigh in. I’m happy with this weight range and will fight to maintain it.
In other news, we’ve taken my son Eli to some more specialists. Since he’s been deaf in his left ear all this time he’s kinda favoured tilting his head to the left so that his right ear is the one exposed to the world. Well, this had developed a small imbalance in his neck muscle development and so we’ve taken him to a physical therapist whose shown us how to do special exercises to help him strengthen the other side (I believe the medical term she gave it was torticollis). Small steps. We’ll get this fixed and straightened out. At least this is something in our power to fix. But man does he hate it when we force him to twist his neck in different directions. It hurts because he’s not used to it. It breaks my heart to do it but it must be done.
Here’s your first hard lesson, kid. Life is sometimes about pain, how much you can take and still keep on going.
He’s also getting an MRI to get something else checked out. The pediatrician we have is very good so we’re thankful to God for that. The last doctor we had for him was an idiot (she prescribed 2 medications that weren’t meant for babies!).
As for me, I have my own appointments with the doctor / hospital. I’m not going into the details right now but suffice it to say it’s a preventative measure. It’s strange… I’ve busted my butt over the past year and a half to get my body in the best shape it’s ever been. I’m actually quite proud of the journey I’ve made in terms of weight loss / fitness and damned if I’m going to let a medical / genetic condition get in the way. Gotta fight for the gains I’ve made…. And, more importantly, protect them as best I can.
Alright folks! Sorry for being so out of the loop lately. Keep fighting the good fight and I hope everyone’s making the progress they want to make in their fitness / good living goals.
Oh geez. Today was going well up until this afternoon. I walked in the sweltering heat for about half an hour to get to the barber’s. Then another 30 minutes to get home. By the time I finally arrived at my house I was ravished. I just pigged out and had like 4 granola bars and 3 small boxes of raisins and a mix of granola and frozen yogurt. For dinner I had 2 weight watcher like “light” hamburgers (180 calories per patti). Blah, blah, blah. In total, I ingested about 2600 calories. That’s 800 more than I should have. UGH. Feel terrible about it as I am usually much more disciplined.
Well, at least I did about an hour and a half’s worth of work mowing the lawn and gardening. Then after dinner I did Burn Circuit 3. Almost copped out of it as I was so damn tired but feeling guilty about all the eats made me want to do it. Then I tacked on Ab Burner at the end. Not that the workouts nullified the poor nutrition (you can’t exercise yourself thin people!), but it’s better than me just sitting on the couch and playing Catan on the PS3.
Tomorrow is my first official day of being on vacation. Think I’ll head to the City to visit the Royal Ontario Museum with Eli and the wife. Should be interesting as the Teracota Warriors are the special exhibit this year. I’ll see if I can break a piece off to bring home as a souvenir.
Things at work and at home have been kind of a whirlwind these past few days and that’s why I haven’t been blogging as regularly. To be honest, entries will probably trail off a bit more in the coming week and a half as I finally have some summer vacation booked off! WOOOT! I plan to hang out with the family during that time and just do some local touristy stuff in Toronto (even though I’ve been living in Southern Ontario almost my whole life) so that will probably keep me away from the computer for a bit. I’m looking forward to it as I haven’t really had an extended break from work yet this year and it will be nice to take Eli to the zoo and museum and Center Island (a park in Toronto). He may not be old enough to appreciate everything he sees but the change of pace from lying on a blanket or sitting in his exersaucer in my living room must be nice for him!
As for the workouts… yep! I’m still on task and kicking them out. I’m just now in “grind” mode doing the routines day in and day out. Still focusing on form as usual. What I can’t stand (never COULD stand…no pun intended) are all these balance poses while lifting weights during CExtreme. I just find myself falling all over the place during these kinds of exercises. Also, I still struggle with Ab Burner which I’ve been doing 3 times a week. I find my core just seizes and cramps up during some of the crunches (especially when you are asked to “chop” your legs during the crunch … OW, OW, OW!).
Today was a rest day but, of course, rather than resting I’ve opted on focusing on pull ups / chin ups and various push ups throughout the day. Right now I’m at about 50 weighted reps on the bar and about 150 push ups. Hope to get to at least 70 / 300 by the end of the evening. Let’s see if my resolve holds up.
Nutrition wise, things are … ok. I messed up a few days in a row snacking on rice cakes late at night while watching The Wire box set my wife got me for Father’s Day this year (greatest TV series evar). They’re only 60 calories per cake (actually it’s more of a large flat wheel) but when you eat 4-5 of them in a sitting, that shit adds up! Ah well, nothing to do but to be more conscious of the snacking and hopefully do better today.
This stuff is like HEROIN! Sooo addictive!
As a progress marker, I plan to weigh myself on the 20th before a big family reunion on my wife’s side. Hopefully, by then I’ve trimmed down back to the mid 130s again (I had floated up to 142 a month or so ago then got back to 138.5 during the last weigh in).
Alrighty, peace out! Hope everyone is meeting their fitness and nutrition goals so far this hot, humid, sticky summer!
PS Check out some of the new blogs I’ve added to the blogroll… some more people on the same fitness journey!
Oh boy… still roasting here in Southern Ontario. Geez, when is this heat gonna let up? It’s been steady days of mid-30s (but with the humidity it feels like it’s clocking in the low 40s). I won’t lie to you. The heat makes it tough to work out at times despite being in an air conditioned environment. I find I just sweat more readily and profusely even if I’m in my cool basement pumping along to Chalene and friends.
And boy do I pump. I pump real good. Hehe.
Yes, *ahem*, I did Burn Intervals yesterday before going to work for my afternoon / evening shift. Still felt like I had something in the tank afterwards so in the evening when my workplace closed I decided to run the 8k home. I was debating whether or not to do it as even though it was 8PM, the temperature was still in the low thirties (I think… I didn’t check the thermometer at work before heading off). Needless to say, the humidity made it a tough run home. I drank several cups of water before leaving as I don’t carry a water bottle with me when I run (too cumbersome). By the time I got home (36 minutes later), I was drenched in sweat. I quickly guzzled 2 large glasses of water then jumped into the shower. I doused my legs in freezing cold water for about 2 minutes (man, that felt AWESOME) then proceeded to take a shower in fairly cold water. I just wanted to get my body temperature down as I felt like I was just radiating heat everywhere (like I could feel this weird pulsating internal warmth as well… does that make any sense?).
And then again today, I was back out again in the heat as I had to walk several blocks to meet my wife at her friend’s place after my morning / afternoon shift. I tried running for a little bit but stopped dead in my tracks because the heat just would not let me do it (and there was no way as I was going to push myself at 2 in the afternoon to run). By the time, I got to our friends place I was again drenched in sweat and drinking profusely.
Seriously, I feel for all the brick layers, roofers, road construction guys and whomever else works outside on days like today.
Once I got home, I tackled Burn Circuit 3 followed by Ab Burner. Whew! Like I said the heat takes its toll on your fortitude and I *almost* skipped today’s workout because I felt so burned down by the earlier walk in the sun. Thankfully, I was able to pull through and all I have left this week is the easier Burn it Off & Recharge routine tomorrow.
I’m actually referring to the weather in Southern Ontario where I live. It’s been brutal this past holiday weekend with temperature reaching the low mid 30s (centigrade) but with the humidex feeling like it’s in the 40s! Yikes!
Thank God we got the air conditioner fixed. It was TOTALLY worth it in hindsight.
This is gonna be a quick entry as it’s almost 10PM and I just finished Burn Circuit 2 along with Ab Burner. Ab Burner wasn’t scheduled but I figure I should try doing a minimum of 3 core routines a week. It’s just what I’m used to and I’d hate to slack on it. But man… I find Chalene’s core routine pretty brutal.
The exhaustion I’m feeling I’m sure is partly due to the heat but also because I took on an extra shift at work. In the long run it will be great as I got a Monday in exchange for a Saturday so I basically have another weekend to myself and the family rather than work.
As for yesterday, even though it was a scheduled rest day with CExtreme, I decided to tackle my grease-the-groove system with a vengeance. By the end of the day I had accomplised about 60 pull ups / chin ups with the 20 pound dip belt along with about 220 or so push ups of varying shapes and sizes. My arms / chest feel sore still so I guess that’s a good sign.
Eating today was ok. 1707 so I’m under by about 150.
There were several reason why I decided to tackle a hybrid in the first place. I genuinely had a positive experience with both of Beachbody’s products and I wanted at least one more run through of each program just to make sure I had the routines down pat. However, I didn’t think I wanted to devote another five full months to repeating both programs in their entirety so I took the shortcut and melded the two together. Second, I had nothing else in line in terms of a workout schedule and a lot of the blogs I read were also tackling hybrids of the two in one form or another (yes, I acknowledge I’m a total sheep!). Lastly, although I think both P90x and Insanity are top notch products, I also think each has weaknesses that could be compensated for by merging it with its respective counterpart. Namely, with the exception of Plyo X, P90x needs a good cardio kick in the ass while Insanity requires a bit more of the upper body / strength building focus Tony’s program has in abundance.
Like my other reviews, I’ll list the likes and dislikes of the hybrid.
The Likes.
Liked: Varied exercise composition. The ‘biggie’.
Although both P90x and Insanity tout themselves as full body programs, each package does hold a decided slant regarding the exercises they favor. P90x leans towards weight training / strength conditioning while Insanity focuses on intense cardio / aerobic routines. And with regards to each program’s ‘bias’, both seem to do their respective focuses justice. As a result, when combining the two in such a way that they shed their “weaker” components (I’m looking at you Kenpo X and Total Upper Body Conditioning), the remaining amalgamated package is all the better for it.
In my own hybrid experience, I found that Insanity profited a great deal from being paired with P90x. I got manageable bursts of cardio intensity from Shaun T. without the monotony of doing crazy aerobic routines every day for two months. What’s more, you only do each of Insanity’s routines once a month (a different Max and Regular routine paired per week). Thus, if there is a program you absolutely dread (*cough* Max Plyo *cough*), you thankfully only have to do it once every thirty days.
This isn’t to say P90x isn’t improved by Shan T.’s presence in its schedule. It is. Namely, you get a much more strenuous workout regimen by ridding yourself of Plyo X, Cardio X and Kenpo X and subbing in *any* Insanity DVD in their place.
(As an aside, I don’t really know what Kenpo X is supposed to develop. Is it cardiovascular capacity? Strength? Flexibility? It comes up short in all three categories when compared to any other routine in Tony’s arsenal).
Where P90x could decidedly use more variety is in its lower body routine. I found doing Legs & Back almost every week kinda lackluster as numerous moves in that particular DVD were easy. For this reason, I swapped a modified version of Crossfit’s “Angie” routine (10 circuits of 40 reps divided between pull-ups, crunches, push ups and squats / lunges). I thought this gave a much better return for the time spent doing it. As an added bonus, cutting Legs & Back prevents Katie from re-entering your living room.
Interestingly, though, if I were to re-do this hybrid I probably would re-introduce Legs & Back (sans sound) OR (more likely) get another routine that focuses on lower body work so I could interchange that with the Angie. *Any* routine repeated ad nauseum every week for the duration of 90 days will get stale. Having at least one other lower body workout would go a long way to alleviating this problem.
Liked: Cutting out the warm up and cool downs was a great way to speed up the workouts. I wouldn’t advise doing this if you workout early in the morning as your muscles are especially cold and tense just getting out of bed. However, if you’re like me and you exercise late afternoons or evenings and your body has already been loosened up by the course of the day’s grind, I’d say go for it.
Liked: Having already gone through P90x once, I was familiar with Tony’s instructions and, armed with the tracking sheets, I was often able to forego DVDs altogether. This sped up my completion time on days when I was really motivated / energetic as I could move faster than Tony and company and take fewer breaks. Of course, going on my own worked against me on days when I felt sluggish or distracted as I took longer pauses between sets than Tony would have allowed. With regards to Insnaity, they’re not the kind of routine I could memorize and perform without the timer and Shaun’s cues so I never attempted them without his guidance.
The Dislikes.
Disliked: I think the impetus to do a P90x / Insanity hybrid usually comes once you’ve done both programs in their entirety. At least, that was the notion I got from reading bloggers attempting the hybrid; it was something they committed only after completing an initial run of each program. So, despite its inherent variety, the hybrid *still* gets repetitive as you are revisiting the same DVDs over and over again. The foibles of the instructors will continue to drive you nuts (that is, if you keep the sound on) AND you’ll find new things to be annoyed with (Shaun T.’s constant repetition of phrases like “Dig deeper!”, his miscounting of moves and the fact that everything seems to be reversed in his directions [i.e. when he says stretch to the right, it’s actually to his left he’s going to… or is just me and my imagination that this is happening?]).
Disliked: I didn’t know if I should write this down as it’s not really a fault in the hybrid per se but rather in the way certain routines were designed. Namely, there are a lot of isolated exercises in several of the P90x routines (i.e. curls / kickbacks) which only work one muscle group. For the time spent, compound moves would have been a more efficient use of time and effort when building muscle and / or strength. Likewise, Shaun’s routines recycle the same moves over and over again. Even his favorite upper body move (the push-up) could have used mixing up as he mainly seems to use the same 4-5 types of push-ups throughout the entire program (and there are TONs of variations on push ups).
Final Thoughts
I really liked doing the hybrid as I felt like I was getting the best of both worlds from Beachbody’s top selling products – Tony’s weight / bar work and Shaun T.’s killer aerobic routines. I would be more apt to repeat this hybrid than either Tony or Shaun’s stand alone products as I think it shores up some of the weaknesses to be found in either. Having said that, I *probably* won’t be revisiting either for some time as I just need a bit more variety after 8 full months of these guys.
If I had the resources and a gym nearby that offered it, I think I would dive headlong into a CrossFit program. As killer as both P90x and Insanity are (I think it’s fair to say they are the most “hardcore” programs offered by Beachbody), from what I read of Crossfit on the internet, it takes the word ‘intensity’ to a whole other level.
Of course, they are making an official sequel to P90x… so there’s always that to look forward to. Hehehehe….
So yesterday was my first rest day in Chalene. Honestly, I didn’t feel like I needed the rest as I wasn’t too sore from the week’s workouts. But, being lazy, I decided to take it anyways. What’s worse… I was doing really well with my nutrition right until after dinner. I came home from work and because I hate cooking I decided to just have a bowl of granola cereal, quarter cup of milk and half cup of strawberries for dinner. Sounds good… but it wasn’t really that filling. So by the time 8 PM rolled around I decided to have a snack… and one snack led to another and another…. by the time the tally for the day was done I had racked up something like 2300 calories. That’s 500 over my alloted intake. UGH! Just goes to show you… don’t compromise your key meals of the day as it will just come back to bite you in the ass.
Today’s been a bit better. With dinner left to go I’m sitting at 880. I’ve finished Burn Phase 1 again but to mix things up I also added Extreme Abs. Oh jebus! That is a hard core workout. Maybe it’s because I haven’t been doing high rep crunch sets for the past couple of months but I find the stuff Chalene puts you through incredibly tough. I dunno… it’s strange becaue I know ARX is a hard routine but I can get through that just fine (all things being relative ‘fine’ = curled up in a fetal position afterwards). Extreme Abs, on the other hand, I find it hard just *completing* full sets of the moves. Like the crunches where you touch opposing arms to toes and the side chop crunches that work the obliques. Tough, tough, tough. Hopefully in time I get used to it and can perform the whole 15 minutes without cramping up.
In other news, the wife and kids are back! My beautiful boy has returned and so has all his clutter and poopy diapers. It was nice having a clean house for a few days but I’m glad they’re both back safe.
Gotta get that review for the P90x / Hybrid done. I’ve been slacking on it and it’s in bits and pieces on my hard drive here. Hmmm… maybe today.
This isn’t going to be a long entry as I have stuff to do… just wanted to say that yup, I finished my first week of Chalene Extreme. Overall, I think it’s ok. Definitely easier on the body than Tony or Shaun’s stuff which means starting Saturday I have to really start on grease-the-groove again plus push-ups.
As for today’s routine… I got a good sweat on for the first part (Burn It Off!) but wasn’t really feeling the second part (Recharge). Felt like Chalene’s stretch routine is… somewhat half hearted. I love the fact that it’s only 20 minutes but it pales in comparison to Yoga X or Stretch X with regards to ‘intensity’. I dunno… I will probably swap it out for ARX or Cardio Abs instead because as it stands right now there is only 1 core routine per week for CExtreme and I honestly don’t think that’s enough. Maybe it’s because P90x got me used to doing ARX 3 times a week… but yeah, I feel like I need a little more.
Tomorrow is the second offiicial rest day of the week and I think I will take the liberty of actually resting.
Almost didn’t do the workout today. Didn’t sleep too well last night for whatever reason (tummy was doing barrel rolls) so today felt like I was walking through mud the entire time. When I got home, I spent about an hour looking after the baby as my wife packed for their trip to the lake. It’s Canada Day tomorrow so that means a day off (what’s weird is this year Canada Day falls on a Thursday but Friday is still a regular work day) and my wife decided to head off along with her sister to their trailer in cottage country. So… I GET 2 WHOLE DAYS OFF TO MYSELF?
Ah… what to do with all this freedom?!?!?!
I know… I need to clean the frikkin’ house. Seriously. I can finally get some needed chores done out of the way. Man, being a grown-up really sucks sometimes.
Where was I? Oh yeah… well, I felt so drained I decided to take an hour nap. Once that was done, onto more snuggling with the baby before he leaves. 7 o’clock rolled around and they took off. I puttered and cleaned up some minor messes around the home then decided to clamp down and get Burn Circuit 3 outta the way.
It was ONLY 32 MIN.!!! Man, I love these short workouts. Although, I have to admit I think Chalene has an imbalanced obsession with shoulders. Seemed like the entire routine today was shoulders. Lotta flies and presses in that half hour. Got a decent sweat on as I put my dumbells back up to 30s for a number of the exercises. 12 reps be damned. I’m happy with 8 super hard reps… try to push to 10 when I can. What drives me nuts is when there is a balance component to any of the exercises as I’m not the most co-ordinated lifter (despite having months of Yoga X under myb belt you’d think my sense of equililbrium would be better… IT’S NOT!) and I find myself toppling over now and again and having to re-do the rep.
On a side note, I wish she had named the dvds akin to the P90x titling system so you know exactly what parts of the body the routine is supposed to target. I’ll just have to pay attention and write it down next time.
On another side note, I’m seriously considering starting my grease the groove program again while doing Chalene as I do not want to lax on pull up work. However, I think that in addition to the weighted pull ups (gotta move that dip belt up into the 25 pound zone [up from 20]) I will pair every 5 reps on the bar with 10 push ups of some sort or another. Gotta make a chart so I can track all this.
Calories for today: 1810… could have been a lot lower but I decided to treat myself to half a cup of delicious frozen yogurt (mocca flavour) and 1/3 a cup of granola. MMMMMMM… that shit is the bomb.
This is a new song I’ve added to my running list. Peace!
You know… to be totally honest with you, I went into Chalean Extreme thinking this would be a cake walk as I’ve done both P90x and Insanity (the programs Beachbody seems to push as ‘hardcore’). I thought “This is the girls’ routine… piece of cake”. Yet, I find my ass being kicked by Chalene Johnson with light weights no less. Those high rep – low weight sets really set the burn in your arms!
Mind you, I still contend that CE does not break me down as badly as Insanity or P90x usually does.
Today, I did the Burn Intervals and Ab Burner routines. Burn Intervals is an interesting program as it’s the first cardio centric video I’ve seen from Beachbody that makes you use weights as a form of recovery period from the aerobic portion of the dvd (neither Plyo X nor any of the Insanity routines use weights). It’s actually a very thoughtful move on Chalene’s part (if she was the one who planned it that way) as it means you are ALWAYS doing something throughout the video. There is no 30 second breaks to recover.
In many ways, this routine reminds me of my favourite P90x dvd, Core Synergistics as it has a nice blend of both cardio and light weight work… and it feels like you work every part of the body.
Ab Burner is nice in that compared to Cardio Abs and ARX, it’s ONLY 10 MINUTES LONG!! WOOT! Having said that it is still a pretty trying 10 minutes. I like the fact that Chalene has you doing honest-to-God crunches. I haven’t seen those in either ARX or Cardio Abs… and yet they give you a pretty good burn. Almost seemed like crunches were skipped over by Shaun T. and Tony for ‘fancier’ moves or variations thereof. Add in a twist and a chop to the crunches to work the obliques and it felt like my core was on fire.
On top of both routines, I decided to run home tonight. The weather was good. Nice and cool and there was a decent headwind going against me for a little bit of added resistance. Got home in about 40 minutes which is par for the course. Still working on my Chi-Running form to make the pacing of my runs easier.
As for nutrition… eating overall today was good. I did cave into some cravings and had 2 chocolate chip cookies at work that someone baked. Calories for today: 1670 (that’s not including what I burned off via all the exercise).
