The Fitness Ninja

Before I get to the body of the review, here are a few links which may be of interest.

*This is a review of my initial run of Classic P90x.  Learn of my love / hate relationship with Tony and company.

* This link conveys my thoughts on Insanity after having completed the 60 day program.

*Finally, here you can find the format and three month schedule of the P90x / Insanity hybrid I concocted (and finished as of June 22, 2010).

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.

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.

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).

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….

Well, today was the first “free” day I’ve had since finishing the P90x / Insanity hybrid program.  So… to celebrate I did my favourite workout: Core Synergistics.  Got a good sweat on but skipped the cool down stretches.  Took some update pictures of me at 139 after the hybrid.  To be completely honest, I’m disappointed in how little my gains were.  I think the past three months have been more about maintenance than anything else (although, I do notice it’s a bit easier to lift the 30 lb dumbells / 20 lb dip belt now more than it was a the start which means I have gotten a bit stronger).

My goals were to hopefully get a bit bigger and more defined.  I would have prefered the latter more than the former.  In reality I got very little of either one.  To make matters worse, I KNOW WHY the gains are so little: it’s because of my lack of discipline with regards to my nutrition.  You cannot exercise your way to a 6-pack.  The abs are built in the kitchen.  This probably sounds all shallow and such because there is more to exercise and nutrition than looking good.  I know this.  But the vain side of me wants that end result in addition to being fit / healthy.

Hahaha…  the character Lester Burnham from American Beauty said it best when asked what he wanted from learning how to exercise: “I just want to look good naked.”

So here they are:

C’est la vie.  The good thing about fitness is that it’s a life long journey.  Although everything I’ve done is in 3 month blocks (with the exception of classic Insanity), I don’t plan on stopping my workouts just because this hybrid program is done.  And really, that’s the next goal — figuring out where to go from here.  I’ve said it before in previous posts but I really have to think long and hard about what my options are next as I’m getting bored with P90x / Insanity.  And boredom is a big reason why some people stumble in their fitness so I have to be extra vigilant in fighting it off.

I also hope to get a quick mini review up of the hybrid I just did some time this week so keep an eye out for that.

Oh…. one more thing.  This is a picture of Eli at his baptism this past week.  That little boy is my world.

It’s 10:30 PM and I am finally finished the hybrid!! Woot! Time to take a shower and hit the sack!

So close.  Really, I think because of my energy level I feel like I’m done with this hybrid.  Just one more day…. today could have been my last day actually but I had to take a rest day on Wednesday as my legs felt pretty damn beat up from the run on Tuesday night.  It’s strange as I feel great from the run and immediately afterwards too but it’s always the day after when I feel the soreness… not neccesarily in my legs but in my feet.  The skin down there always feels tingly.  Maybe I just need to toughen it up?

Yesterday, though, I “came back with a vengeance” as Tony would say.  I knocked down Yoga X then ran to my mom’s house after work as both my wife and sister are working on the food for Eli’s baptism on Sunday.  It’s only 4.5km to her home so it was pretty easy overall and I didn’t feel any soreness.  Today, I gathered up the resolve to finally finish that one Modified Angie I missed about two weeks ago.  Seemed to take forever but it got done…. so all that’s left between me and victory (and a well deserved rest) is one last Core Cardio and Balance.  I am so looking forward to it.

Alright! Peace out!

BTW… my sister is an AWESOME baker.  The following are some of the cakes she’s made and sold.  I don’t even want to think about the calories in them as they are rich with her patented cream filling (so light and fluffy and fruity).

Just a few more days… then what? I dunno.  One thing about starting my Beachbody journey last October with P90x then following it up immediately with Insanity then a hybrid of the two… I feel like there’s nothing left for me from Beachbody.  I’ve read the reviews of Chalean Extreme and other Beachbody dvds… and the one consensus that seems to carry through is that P90x and Insanity are the most difficult videos the company has released.  Meaning, it really only goes downhill from there for them.

There’s always One-on-One with Tony Horton… but that series seems so broken up and piecemeal that I’ll have to concoct my own schedule from his different dvds (or at least the ones I can get my hands on from my friend).  What I loved about P90x and Insanity is that everything is pretty much already done for you.  All you have to do is hit play and watch what you eat (a lot easier to say than do, of course).

There must be a way to do Crossfit on  a limited budget and equipment.  If only I had a barbell with plates…

In other news, I haven’t slacked off yet this week on workouts.  Yesterday I destroyed Max Recovery and today I did the same thing to Cardio X.  Got a decent sweat on especially with Cardio X.  I’ve said it several times before but that workout is deceptively hard because it starts off so damn slow but by the end with the Plyo / Core Syn sequence… Tony really works you.

To top it all off, I ran my 8km home from work tonight so I got a double dose of cardio. Felt good except near the end where my feet were starting to hurt and I thought I might have been blistering up.  Not good.  Also, I hit a bunch of stop lights so it was kinda broken up.  That’s not necessarily a bad thing as it helped keep me fresh during the run… even near the end my breathing was very good and not fatigued.

I hit 5km at 26:50 and 7.5km at 39:51.

Got home and ate a wonderful grilled portabella mushroom sandwich and a PB granola bar for dessert.  All told, today’s calorie count (not counting what I burned from the run and Cardio X) was 1950.  So about a 100 over my allotted 1850… not bad but could’ve been better.  Gonna weigh myself at the end of this week just prior to Eli’s baptism just to see if I’ve been able to return to my fighting weight of 130-something.

Alright peace out!

PS Enjoy this awesome song.

Woohoo! This is one of the best times of any 3 month program – the final recovery week.  I can see the end in sight and it feels good.  By all accounts I should be finished Friday evening if everything goes according to plan (no rest day that day as I need to catch up on a Modified Angie).

So far everything seems good.  After work yesterday afternoon I tackled Cardio Recovery and today I did Cardio Synergistics.  I really don’t know why I didn’t arrange to do that routine more during this round of workouts as it is, hands-down, my favorite P90x routine.  It’s so well rounded and yet so basic.  Very little equipment use but it works basically everything including cardio AND provides a great sweat-on (those plank to chataranga runs are still killer… but I can do them now without stopping once during the sequence).

Where I failed today was the nutrition side of things as my wife and I decided to take in a film: The A-Team.  It was my intention to bring my own snacks to the movie as then I could control the calories but we were in a rush and all I put in my pocket was a roll of flavored Mentos (not bad at 140 calories per 14 piece roll).  However, upon arriving at the theater we were told that we could either get a free ticket or a free snack combo because we had acquired enough points on our special SCENE membership card.  The most economical choice is to always choose the combo as these cost 16 bucks (YIKES!) while the ticket is only 9.50.  That is the logical choice, not the healthy one.  Still, being suckers for a bargain we took it and got a medium popcorn and a large diet Coke to split between me and the wife.

To top it all off, we went over to my mom’s for dinner and were spoiled by her terrific home cooking.  All told I think my calorie intake for the day was 2500 or so … a whopping 700 points over my allotted 1850.  NUTS!!  Maybe I can do two runs home this week to make up for it? Hopefully, the weather is good enough for such an endeavor.

As for the movie itself, IT WAS ROCKING.  I had low expectations and was surprised when the movie turned out to be a terrific summer blockbuster with a half-decent storyline to boot (it was predictable but not altogether brainless).  It was, as my wife put it, the quintessential “guy flick” with a ton of explosions, car chases and even a bit of “bromance”.  She enjoyed it because according to her Bradley Cooper is a “dream”.

Yeah, I gotta admit … that guy got into wicked shape for the part.  In one scene he takes off his shirt and he is quite defined in the abs / upper body.

Still, my “ideal” male body type is Daniel Craig in Casino Royale.

Those shoulders are great.

Not that I’ll ever have either body… but that won’t stop me from working out and focusing on my own physique.

Alright… enough with the man-love.  Peace out and have a great evening!

What a strange day.  It was a rest day.  No workouts scheduled.  Just wanted to recuperate and take it easy.  And I did… to a point.  Work was slow all morning and I only really had “busy work” to keep me occupied for most of the day.  Nothing heavy… so all in all, a pretty decent day at work.

But once 4:30 rolled around I decided to take a walk to the local barber in a plaza near my building.  It’s about 30 minutes away.  The weather was good so I figured it would be a good way to get some exercise.

On the way to the plaza, though, as I was strolling up the long driveway leading up to the stores, there were a bunch of young kids, probably Grade 6 (12 years old), about 8 of them hanging out on their bikes.  Figured no big deal.  It’s a Friday afternoon, 5:00, so they’re just bumming around with nothing to do.  Well, as I’m coming up one kid starts running his mouth off at me, swearing and yelling racial and other slurs (“Asian F*g” was one that stuck out.  Another started making fun of Muslims… I guess thinking I was Muslim… although I don’t know where he got that idea as I had nothing to indicate that).

At first I was shocked…

I haven’t been called any racial slurs in a long time.  A long time.  Not since high school.

Then I got angry.  I was going to go right past them to the barber but they just kept going on even as I was walking down the pathway.  So I figured… no way I can avoid this, and they look young, so I just went right up to them and said “What’s up? What the hell is going on here?”  The kid started going on about how I almost hit him with a car yesterday.  Told him I don’t own a car nor do I drive.  Then all his friends started jumping in with more slurs.  One of the kids he was with shouted something about “kicking ass”.

What it basically came down to was that he was trying to show how tough he was in front of all his friends.  I just stood my ground in front of this young boy and asked him what he wanted.  Was it a fight? Was it to prove how tough he was?  Was it an incident involving the police he wanted?  I stood my ground long enough to be able to tell he was uncomfortable, that he knew I was enraged and that his friends didn’t faze me.  He started to stammer and apologize.  His friends continued to act rowdy and like idiots.  They began to drift away from him slightly on their bikes making more jeering comments.

Interestingly, a truck rolled up with older teenagers in it and started yelling at these tweens too.  I couldn’t make any of it out as they just started to yell at each other.  The truck drove off after a few moments.

I walked away and continued on to the barber.  Kids just kept making comments.

Looking back on it now… I don’t know if I did the right thing.  Should I have just ignored them? Maybe.  They looked like they were bothering basically anyone who walked by and were zipping in and out in front of the cars.

I haven’t felt that mad in a long time.  Nervous too now that I look back on it.

I’m glad that it didn’t come to blows.  Glad Eli wasn’t around.

God I hope he grows up to be a good person… that he doesn’t have my temper or temperament.  That he’s always safe and healthy.

I’m tired and I have a Saturday early morning shift tomorrow to get to.

Have a restful night.

Today started out fine.  Knocked off Pure Cardio this afternoon along with ARX, so all I have left to do this week is Cardio Abs tomorrow.  My eating was also going pretty well as I had about 800 calories left for dinner.  I was holding as much in reserve for tonight as my nephew and his mom were coming over for a small birthday gathering… just burgers and some dessert and a few presents (interestingly, he’s also getting into weight training so my wife and I supplied him with a pair of 20 lbs. dumbbells, and his other aunt got him a pull up bar [I got him push up stands for this past Christmas]).

Well, my nutritional plans all went to shit once I got to work.  There was a fairly large basket of Hershey Miniature Chocolate Bars there (a mix of regular Hershey, Dark Chocolate, Mr. Goodbars, and Krackel) – seriously who leaves this stuff lying around?  Fine I thought.  I can hold off.  I had my low calorie granola bar (90 cal.) and thought I was good.  But then I was asked to work with a family that had lice (I only learned this part way through my shift) and as soon as I learned of it, I kinda freaked out! I started getting all itchy and scratching even though I was pretty sure I didn’t contract anything.

Exactly what you think it is.

So what did I do in response? That’s right… I ate a tonne of chocolate.  Like 15 pieces… this just brings home the fact that I can be one hella emotional / stress eater when the occasion arises.  It’s like I lose all sense of scale and just go nuts because … well, it feels good.

AARGH.  CHOCOLATE DOES NOT CURE LICE!!

I was so freaked out that right after work I went to a pharmacy to get some special medicated shampoo to use ‘just in case’.  If it were just me and the wife I don’t think I would have reacted this way to a lice scare but now that we have Eli and he already has a ton of problems with his Eczema and dry skin, I just didn’t want to chance bringing another hardship into his young life.  Upon getting home, I stripped in the front foyer (wife took all our clothes into the dryer and set it on the highest heat setting and just roasted it for 40 minutes) ran upstairs and started scrubbing with the medicated shampoo.  I have to keep up with it for several days just to make sure (and BOY does it sting if it gets into your eyes).

Calculating everything on SparkPeople today, I think I ended up with a calorie count of 2400… when my max allotted value should only be 1850.  Ugh.

Gotta hold on to the fact that tomorrow is a new day and I can start fresh.

Alright, peace out!

As the title implies, I’m almost done all the weight training routines involved with this hybrid.  Today I knocked out the second to last modified Angie.  This would have been my last weight training routine had I not gotten sick earlier this month and had to skip / rearrange a bunch of days.  As it stands I’ll tack on that Angie on the rest day after the last Recovery Week.  I also have to make up two ab routines (ARX and Cardio Abs) which I skipped this week.  BLAARGH…. I find my motivation to do the core work go down the drain after finishing the main workout routine as I am already soooo tired… I can usually push through but recently the wife has been tired after a long day of taking care of the baby so… I try to take him of her hands after work and / or as soon as my workout routine is over.

Which leads me to wonder what the heck I’m going to do for my next workout project.  I’ve speculated here and there about it but haven’t really come to any conclusions yet (Chalene Extreme?).  Seriously, though, whatever it is it HAS to consume less time than P90x.  An hour and 15 minutes is just way too much time to commit.  The ideal workout duration is 45 minutes I think.  That’s why I love the run home. 40 minutes tops and it’s done… and I know it’s one hell of a cardiovascular workout.

Crossfit looks like a really cool program but I have neither the equipment nor money to enroll in classes for it so that’s out the window.  I don’t really feel like doing more P90x or Insanity.  I dunno… I’ll probably return to it just to fill in the spaces before I can figure out what to do next.  What other routines does Beachbody offer?  Heck, why stay with Beachbody? I gotta do some research.  Maybe I’ll just start doing the Men’s Health routines packaged in each of their magazines or books.  Problem with that is these routines are generally very piecemeal or require specific gym only equipment (i.e. cable machines).

Something  to think about for sure.  Alrighty, peace out! Have a great evening and keep bustin’ your butt!

PS I think the other reason I am losing my motivation to blog is because of my new diligence in tracking my calories on SparkPeople.  It takes a while to key everything in so all the time I spend on the net that should be dedicated to this blog is now going into trying to recall not only what I ate but the numbers associated with them.  Ah… the things we do to stay fit and trim!

Oooh boy.  Still going strong.  I can see the end to this hybrid program so I don’t want to stop now… and boy on some days do I want to stop, feeling stretched so thin between the baby, work and just keeping things maintained around the home.  I can see now why so many people let exercise slide by once they have a family.  It just feels like too much to stay on top of.

But enough of my belly-aching.

In any case, I was able to stay on track all throughout last week.  I finished strong with the Angie on Wednesday and Plyometric Cardio Circuit along with ARX on Thursday.  I actually split my time during the Angie and multi-tasked between working out and cleaning all three bathrooms in the house.  I’m a champ! Hahaha!  (Don’t worry, though, I made sure to disinfect the handles of all the equipment I used too).  And yesterday, I finally had a true rest day doing nothing.  It was glorious as it feels like forever since I’ve had one that wasn’t forced on me due to sickness or something else.  Felt good.  All I focused on was eating right (which I did… then dutifully recorded it on SparkPeople).

Today, I knocked Chest, Shoulders and Triceps out of the way early in the morning along with Cardio Abs.  Feels good to do it in the morning so I don’t have to worry or think about it for the rest of the day.  Wish I had the gumption and discipline to ALWAYS do it in the morning.

In Eli news… we finally got the little guy to a pediatrician.  And boy, are we glad we did.  Apparently, the eczema medications given to him by our family doctor were the wrong ones as they weren’t meant for babies.  My wife was furious when she learned this.  Needless to say we are looking for a new family doctor.  The pediatrician also prescribed a new bathing / cream regimen for the baby along with scheduling an ultrasound in order to check up on a soft spot on top of Eli’s head.  On top of this, the city hospital called and arranged his final hearing test to determine the degree of his deafness in one ear and, hopefully, what can be done about it.  What sucks is that the appointment is in Toronto during the upcoming G20 summit.  UGH!! All those agitated protesters and police… there’s no way I’m letting my wife and son go down there alone so I’ve requested the day off from work to accompany them.  Hopefully, it’s a smooth trip.

What freaks me out is this thing that the Toronto Police have acquired:

Friggin’ sound cannon.  Capable of causing hearing loss in order to deter violent protestors.

…

I got to keep a positive outlook.  Things could be so much worse (they could be better too… but I take solace in the fact that we’re doing everything we can to help him).

Alright, peace out.