The Fitness Ninja

Alright, I haven’t posted in a while as I’ve been super busy with work and the family.  To be honest, it’s enough sometimes just to get the workout done let alone sitting down and writing about it (I’ve been lacking the motivation to blog recently just because of fatigue).  The good news is despite having screwed up last week’s schedule, this week has been much better.  I was able to nail every single workout since Saturday and feel like I’m able to give it my “all” again as the cough and cold have finally left me.

In addition, on top of today’s Max Recovery, I also ran home from work as the weather was just beautiful.  Rather than focus on the completion time (27:39 at the 5km mark, 39:36 at the 7.5km mark…BLEH… but I had to stop for 3 red lights), I’m working my way through the training tips found in Danny Dreyer’s ChiRunning.  Maybe it’s a placebo effect… I dunno… but after trying to incorporate some of his key tips (ex. keeping your core engaged, body erect, leaning into the run), I already feel like I’m running smoother and with less effort.  My legs definitely don’t feel as beat up or sore today as they usually do.  Definitely a good sign!

Also, I’ve been able to stay true to the goal of 1650-1850 calories per day set out for me by the SparkPeople program. Awesome, awesome, awesome!  I hope to still meet my goal of getting back into the 130s come June 20th when Eli has his baptism.

Alrighty… just a few more days and I’ll be into my last weight training week for this 3 month hybrid program.  Amazing how fast time flies…

Phase 3 is a go.  I’ve got 5 weeks before the end of this hybrid program and I aim to make the most of it.  One of the key goals when I first started this program 2 months ago was to be in better shape come the summer season.  I feel at this point in the journey that I’ll have mixed results come mid-June.  What’s really thrown me off has been my fluctuating nutrition.  Easter at my dad’s place was really bad as well as getting through the layoffs near the end of April.  I can be a big emotional eater sometimes and  I got off of my eating plan big time and that’s why I gained a couple of pounds.

Recently, however, I’ve been able to get back on the wagon.  Still falter here and there but not to the degree that I was doing before.  I’ve been able to hold true to all the tenets of this list that I made a few weeks ago so that’s good.  I just have to tighten up a bit more and I should for all intents and purposes at least be able to hit the 130s again by mid-June.

After coming home from work yesterday I cranked out Chest and Back.  Felt really good to be getting back into it after a recovery week.  I dunno… I always feel like a slug during the last week of the month because the pace of the workouts dies down considerably.  Still, I’m thankful for them as I know they prevent me from totally burning out or over training.  That happened to me once and it was horrible.  I literally felt sick and defeated, unable to move or do much for several days because I was so tuckered out.

Ahem… to get back to my point of really giving it my all during C&B, I tried to complete 30 reps of all the push-up variations and doing 10 reps rather than 8 of the weighted moves.  I was successful with the exception of the last set of dive bomber push-ups which I only did 20 of.  Interestingly, half way through C&B I decided to do ARX then return to finishing the rest of the weight routine.  It was a good arrangement as it allowed my arms to become a bit more ‘fresh’ for my remaining sets yet it kept my heart rate up.

Today I cleaned up the house from top to bottom then around 3:15 tackled Max Interval Circuit.  Man, am I glad I’m done Insanity in its classic form.  I could not imagine doing Max workouts back to back through a whole month again.  Damn things are so ball-breaking.  Got through the circuit sweating buckets and I’m glad I only have 3 more of those left for this phase.

In other news, I finally got around to renting Rocky Balboa (effectively Rocky 6).

It was decent.  Not my favorite Rocky (that would be 3 with Mr. T as Clubber Lang) but it had its moments.  Stallone got huge for this role, purportedly taking the juice for it.  He looked good for his age.  Quite a bit of definition but you could tell he was getting a touch saggy in parts.  Also, his face is starting to get some of that trademark ‘pull-back’ look from being overly worked on.  Why can’t Hollywood stars age gracefully?  Why do they have to struggle so hard to look unnaturally young?  If I made millions and millions of dollars, I think I would be able to let it go and just be happy with the works I made and the pile of cash I was sitting on.  Incidentally, unlike Stallone  I could never use roids.  I know roids on their own don’t make you huge and that you still have to put a crap load of work in if you want to take advantage of their benefits (faster recovery during the workout program), but it still smacks of “taking the easy way out”.  Just my personal opinion.

I wonder if Tony Horton is a 100% legit in this department.  He looks like he’s had a bit of work done on his face but it would be interesting to know if he ever experimented with roids or HGH.  Might be tempting now that he’s moving into his 50s and muscle constitution gets harder to maintain but any hint at this kind of controversy could affect the successful sales of P90x.  I dunno… something in me doubts it and I believe that aside from nutritional supplements he’s probably “all natural” (which is amazing considering the awesome shape his body is in… beats the pants off of most twenty year olds).

Alright enough of my rambling.  Peace out!

Alright so as you can see there was no entry yesterday.  It was just too busy what with Easter and everything.  Even though nothing was open yesterday, my family and I decided to go see the new Clash of the Titans.  It was alright.  The story was passable and the special effects were decent (not eye popping like Avatar… I would even say that some video game cut scenes beat it).  Best fight scenes were with the Medusa (you see parts of this in the trailer so I’m not spoiling anything).  Needed more Kraken.  In any case, it was just nice to chill and catch up with my brother and sister this weekend and have my parents spend some time with Eli (thereby also freeing up some time for me and my wife).

A lot of eating also happening this weekend.  My mom usually makes a big deal of Easter (she’s a pretty devout Catholic) and she loves cooking up a storm as she sees it as a time akin to Thanksgiving — a good reason for family to get together, eat a tonne, play Scrabble (which we did quite a bit of) and just chat and reconnect.  It was great but yeah… I really strayed off the beaten path with regards to my nutrition.  On top of the turkey and stuffing, my mom also made deep fried breaded shrimp, pansit (a Filipino noodle dish), rice, lasagna, turkey soup plus a small popcorn with topping at the movies, some timbits and lots of Easter chocolate.  Terrible, terrible, terrible… but at least I’m back home now and my wife and I will have some more control over what we eat.

To make up for it, I did two workouts today as yesterday was a write off in terms of getting Max Recovery done.  I did that this morning along with ARX.  Damn, I forgot how hard Max Recovery actually was.  The title is misleading as you don’t recover at all in it.  Yeah, sure, it’s not balls out cardio like the other Max routines but man there is a lot of muscle work in the form of push ups and pulses.  Especially tough is that one sequence near the end where you go up and down on your hands one at a time while in a plank position pyramiding through sets of 4, 8, 16 then back again through 16, 8 and 4.  That is tough!

After the 5 hour drive home (traffic through the city was horrible), the wife and I gave Eli a bath and I tackled Chest & Back.  It was pretty rough as the drive home was tiring and I was already a bit spent from the earlier Max routine.  Near the end of this second workout, I could not pull out 25 reps on the push ups even with breaks.  I think the second time through I only got 10 dive bomber push ups done and with shaky form no less.  C’est la vie.  Hopefully, I’ll do much better on Max Cardio Conditioning tomorrow.

Alrighty peace!

From this….

To this…

We’ve come a long way.

So yeah… my internet is finallly fixed after several days without it. WHEW!!!!

Things like that drive me absolutely NUTS especially when I can’t troubleshoot it myself.  What really gets to me is that tech problems just spring out of the woodwork.  Everything was fine up until about Thursday afternoon then BAM no service!  I think the modem might have crapped out as all the lines seem to be fine and we still had phone and television signals throughout the house.  Terrible thing was Tech couldn’t be here till Sunday! It just goes to show … you don’t know how dependent (or in my case “addicted”) you are to a form of technology or service until it’s gone.  I try to remember what life was like before EVERYTHING was connected and easily accessible on the web and, truth be told, it’s hard to recall such times.  I do remember being younger and watching more TV and playing more stand-alone offline games in that era, that’s for sure.

In any case, on Thursday I did Pure Cardio.  Again, I find I enjoy Insanity much more now that it’s not something I have to do everyday.  The rest period between sessions does a lot to take the ache, stress and soreness out of each workout.  As well, having gone through the system completely once through and knowing what to expect, I find I can cope better with each routine (the added stamina doesn’t hurt either).  For instance, although the Max workouts still get me gassed part way through, I can do Pure Cardio now without taking any “significant” breaks (I take approx. 10 seconds or so near the last 10 minutes in order to get a 2^nd wind).  And I remember a time when that workout got me completely face-planting into the floor just 20 minutes into it.

Friday was a rest day.  I was debating whether or not to run home.  It was beautiful and sunny but the temperature killed my spirits as it dipped to -7 degrees Celsius outside (that’s with the windchill).  In retrospect I should have run home regardless of the temperature as Friday was a horrible eating day.  I don’t record what I eat on a daily basis anymore as I’ve been pretty sensible so far (and to be honest it is such a chore trying to remember everything), but I do remember actually buying a Coffee Crisp chocolate bar (260 cal.) as I haven’t bought one of those I think in a year.  On top of that, someone in the office brought 2 bite cupcakes in to share and I had like 4.  GAAAAH!! Someone is always bringing that stuff in and leaving it on the table and OF COURSE I HAVE TO EAT IT!!  JEBUS!

To make matters even worse, Friday night my best friend from high school and his wife and kids came over for dinner.  We just decided to order pizza and some wings.  He and I split a pound of wings plus like a whole large pizza to ourselves.  It was just like in high school.  We caught up with our lives, talked a lot of tech and video games then just chilled and played video games with his kids downstairs in the basement.  I really wish he lived closer as we share a lot of hobbies in common (well, ok, mainly gaming) but with work and all he’s opted to live in the city.  I’ve known the guy since grade 9 (my wife’s known him since grade 3 I think), he was the best man at my wedding and we’ve gone like a whole year at a time without any communication because of where our lives have taken us.  But… when we see each other, we pick up where we left off and chill out like it was just yesterday (some of my fondest memories growing up were when he would sleep over and me, my brother and him would just rent 1 or 2 games from Rogers video and game literally ALL night, sleep for a few hours, then game some more).  I remember a song telling me once that it’s important to stay true to a few close friends from your past along with your family as they’ll be a reminder always of where you came from.  I’m glad I’ve been able to live true to that regarding this guy and my siblings.

(On a side note, I could also see myself working out regularly with my brother and my friend if only they lived closer.  I usually hate working out with other people but I feel comfortable enough with these 2 and one other friend from work to make that exception.  Alas, schedules and geography necessitate that I plod along in my basement alone [which is also totally fine with me]).

Saturday morning both my wife and I actually worked out at the same time! That’s actually quite interesting as having a small baby usually forces us to workout at different times of the day when at least one of us can look after Eli. Well, knowing I had to do Chest & Back on Saturday, I decided to attempt to do the routine WITHOUT the dvd.  Shocking I know!  I just used my tracking sheet instead and did one set after another while Eli was content to nap in his little swing.  It took much longer than it usually does because he woke up at one point and needed to be fed but I eventually got through everything.  All told I probably spent one and half hours on P90x plus the 15 minute cardio abs routine afterwards.  What I take away from this is that I don’t necessarily need Tony’s prompting anymore if I need to multi-task with baby duty and exercise at the same time.  However, I do have to be careful not to allow myself too long a break in between sets as that would decrease the difficulty of the workout.

Saturday night had me attending my nephew’s birthday party (which is where I wrote that last entry).  Again, my detrimental eating habit reared its ugly head.  I was able to stave off munching on any chips but instead had an extra slice of chocolate cake!  And it was pretty sizeable too.  I had 2 hamburgers as well.  Didn’t feel too bad about that as I know I need more protein.  I also did not have any mayo and just loaded the burgers with vegetables.  On the side I had a small half cup serving of pasta salad (not the creamy kind).

And today, Sunday, saw me doing Max Interval Plyo.  It was a barn burner but I got through it intact. My great eating sin for today was having 2 leftover slices of pizza for lunch.  Thank God it’s all gone now and hopefully my nutrition for the rest of the week is much ‘cleaner’.

Alright! Peace out!

As the title indicates, this new round of P90x was a shock to the system.  Not having done any serious weight training until a few days ago (with Shaun T.’s Upper Body dvd), Chest and Back today was kinda a rude awakening.  I’m using the 20 pound dip belt for all the bar work and 50 pound dumbells for the lawn mowers and heavy pants.  Needless to say my rep counts are quite a ways lower than they were before.  For some of the bar work, I just could not get past 5-6 reps as my arms had hit their limit.  Oh well, something to improve upon!

In any case, I took some pictures recently of my torso after this round of Insanity.  Again they are self taken so… yeah, my horrible photography skills shine through!  Of like the 8 photos I took, only 2 or 3 were even remotely in focus.  Here they are:

Apologies that they are basically the same pose… but I tried to take shots of my back and they were even worse.  If you hit the tag ‘Pictures’ on the side you can see previous photos I had taken of myself.  I dunno, I feel like I have a slightly more definition but it’s hard to notice because of the horrible camera work. My ultimate goal aside from losing more body fat % this round is to bulk up the musculature.  Gotta concentrate on that protein intake.

Peace!

Oh yeah… I just recently typed these up.  They are basically P90x Workout Tracking Sheets I made as a Word document.  I remember trying to find such sheets on the net when starting P90x but had no luck.  All I ever turned up were either Excel spreadsheets or the original logging sheets that came with the dvd package (which, incidentally, don’t give you enough space to put comments on should you want to write down more than your reps  and load).  So here… highlight, copy and paste into a Word program and you should be set to go.  Hope these help somebody!

—————————————————————————–

Chest & Back – Weeks 1, 2, 3, 9, 11

—————————————————————————–

Shoulders & Arms – Weeks 1, 2, 3, 9, 11

—————————————————————————–

Legs & Back – Weeks 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 9, 11, 10, 12

—————————————————————————–

Chest, Shoulders & Triceps – Weeks 5, 6, 7, 10, 12

—————————————————————————–

Back & Biceps – Weeks 5, 6, 7, 10, 12

Woot!  As the title says… I won’t be seeing this routine for a while as  I plan on taking an extra rest week after week 13 of the program.  That’s the plany anyway.  Wether or not it comes to be is something else.

Because I had it in my mind that this was my “final” Chest & Back, I tried to muster everything I could to do my best round ever.  This would set up some key numbers for my second round that I will try to beat.  I don’t think I have the energy to recopy all the routine names with my numbers right now.   I might just scan all my sheets when I’m done everything (not that most people would understand them as my writing is so damn messy).

I was actually contemplating doing a mini-review of each of the routines as finished them for the last time.  I don’t know if I have the strength for that either (I’m really tired!) but I will give you some of my thoughts on Chest and Back now that I’ve done it through to completion in round 1.  If anything, Chest and Back is the “shock trooper” of the P90x army.  Being the very first workout of the 90 day program, this really brings home the message that the journey you are about to embark on is one serious mutha… something that you will have to bring your “A-game” to in order to keep up.  I think more than anything else the fact that Tony asks you to work to failure almost immediately on the standard pushups and wide front pull ups will wake you up to the fact that it’s a pretty grueling regimen.

This routine also introduces you to many of the basic elements that will be asked of you throughout all the weight work (i.e. recording your progress in the log, stretching during breaks, hydrating regularly), practices  people new to regimented weight training may not be familliar with.  I myself never recorded my numbers very diligently when working out [as I did not generally work to near failure] but do now as a result of this system.  I also liked the verbal hand holding Tony provides as it helps those unfamilliar with weight training on how to do lifts and what not and even for those who have weight training experience, it’s still good to constantly hear the emphasis on proper form (cause if you’re like me, you sometimes get a little slack when you are nearing exhaustion).

Easiest move in this routine I think is lawnmowers.  I was able to reach a personal best today with 12 reps using 50 pounds.  Hardest move I think is close grip overhand pull ups as by the time you reach them (especially in round 2), your muscles have pretty much died from all the previous exercises.  But then again, it’s gonna be that way with all the midway pull up exercises in the other routines as well.

I also used to think this was the hardest of the routines in P90x… at least until I had to do the craziness that is Back & Biceps.  But I’ll save my thoughts on that for another day.

Food for today: breakfast was oatmeal and cup of juice, snacks were granola bar, cheese string, half cup of granola and yogurt, lunch was Michelinas fried rice (390), then I had a bunch of gingerbread cookies at work (probably like 600 cal… I dunno anymore really.  I’m trying to over estimate rather than go under), a small chocolate cube (35 cal.), dinner was cup of juice, tuna sandwhich on wholewheat, bowl of Lipton chicken noodle soup, a scoop of vanilla ice cream and half cup of granola.

And now… for something totally random… the greatest handshake in the history of film.

Man, I am sore.  I always think after three weeks of regular weight training that I have a handle on things.  But then right after rest week, it’s like I’ve just started P90x all over again.  The same soreness I felt on day one returns and I wonder where all my progress went.  I guess that’s the whole beauty (and selling point) of P90x… the muscle confusion theory that prevents plateauing.  Hope I fall asleep easily tonight because my body feels pretty wrecked.

Oh and I changed my protein supplement today from a whey protein isolate mixed with chocolate milk to this…

Crazy sweet... but only 180 calories and 2g of sugars. 42g of protein.

Don’t know how to feel about it.  It’s sweet and syrup like so I diluted it in a cup of juice.  Drank half of it 40 min. prior to the workout then the other half afterwards.  The one bonus it has over the milk concoction I usually drink is that it doesn’t make me as gassy as I usually get.  My wife loves it for that reason.

Food for today: oatmeal, 3 cups of juice, granola bar (100), cheese string (60), cup of yogurt (35), tapioca pudding cup (120), mix of raisins, shreddies and almonds, 5 timbits (approx. 120 cal.), lunch was light Michelina’s frozen dinner (280), dinner was chicken fetucinne alfredo, dessert was half bag of light popcorn (130).

Chest and back again today.  I dunno… I did the routine after work and I felt tired going into the workout.  I was able to keep close to the rep limits I had set during the previous week (I was able to supersede some exercises but not others).  And on things like lawnmowers and heavy pants, I upped the weights by 5-10 pounds (I’m using 45s currently for lawnmowers.)  Still, I felt kinda “meh” during the routine.  Maybe it’s just today.  I really tried to get pumped going into it as I know this is the last ‘chest and back’ routine I’m going to be doing for a while as I head into recovery week next week then move  into phase 2.  Strangely, after the workout I pushed myself to clean all the washrooms in my house and then take out the garbage.  I am offiicially WIPED tonight as I can barely type this.  Tomorrow… plyometrics! Woohoo!

As for ab ripper x… because I was tired I really had a hard time keeping up with Tony and company.  I had to take a break several times and I must remember to really take care of my back when doing the wide stance and regular pulse ups.  It was stiff today and I felt like I was straining it.  I’m just glad I got through it!

Food for today:  oatmeal and cup of juice, two cheese mozerella string snacks, two granola bars, 2 small slices of a pumpkin spice loaf, 1 light Michelinas spaghetti meal, two pieces of toast with PB & J and cup of juice, and half a bag of light microwaveable popcorn.

Didn’t update yesterday as I went to my parents’ for Thanksgiving (in Canada we celebrate it in October!).  But… yeah, I did the chest and back before going.  Unfortunately, I kinda countered the exercise with dinner as we had a lot of AWESOME food (a mix of traditional Canadian Thanksgiving fare and Filipino food with some Chinese thrown in there plus dessert).  VERY BAD, I know… but well it’s the holidays and there was a lot of family there and we had a lot of things to be thankful for  and celebrate about (my brother just got recently engaged).  As for the chest and back exercise, overall I was able to beat the majority of numbers that I did during the first session.  I also know I need to up the weigts for the heavy pants exercise (move up to 35 or 40 as 30 is a little too light).

Today, before going over to my wife’s sister’s place for another Thanksgiving celebration (I know, I know BAD!… I’ll try to control myself a bit more today… maybe have a peanut butter toast lunch before I go so I don’t gorge on anything), I did Plyo X.  I got to the 13 min. before I had to take a break.  Man… that is one intense workout.  I am always dripping with sweat right afterwards.  I like it because I know its working me like crazy in terms of cardio.

Alright! Peace out!

Whew! Well, I was able to survive day 1!  Man, I am tired… but it’s a good kind of tired.  I guess what I really like so far about following this system is:

a) It provides a different structure to what I am used to so everything seems fresh.  I was doing exercises I had never attempted and so I am sore in places I usually don’t feel very sore in.

b) Having a video of exercises really helps in working on form.  I’ve been using manuals and magazine articles in concocting my workout routines so it was a nice change to be able to keep replaying certain moves just so I knew exactly how my body should work in order do the exercise properly.

c) The breaks are pre-figured into the routines so that the total time accounts for when you should be taking a drink.  Related to this, I like how Tony stresses to go at your own pace even if the rest of the group is tearing it up.  I know this will sound terrible, but I felt kinda down that I couldn’t keep up with them.  I know it’s to be completely expected but still.. hehe… the competitor in me wanted to keep up.  But my body was telling me otherwise.

Really the only down side I’ve found so far stems from my end and not the dvd.  Because some of the exercises are completely new to me, I had a really hard time getting the form down even after watching certain sections over and over again.  This was especially true during the Ab Ripper X component.  I usually do quite a number of ab exercises during my own routine but with a smaller range of motion.  With some of these moves, I find that my tailbone sometimes touches the floor and I sense a weird clicking sound in my lower extremities.  I’m gonna take care not to get hurt and stop or add extra cushioning to my butt next time to help compensate for this.  I couldn’t complete all the reps for Ab Ripper X and HAD to stop part way through several of the sets.

Well… that’s it for now I guess.  Looking forward to plyometrics tomorrow.

PS Below is the workout system I’ve been using for the past month or so.

Workout Routine Monthly Chart

==========================================================

Warm Up: 15 sec. each – Jumping jacks, skips, high knee run, side-to-side hops, push ups, crunches, mountain climbers, burpees.

1^st, 3^rd and 5^th day abdominal work during rest periods:

Weighted Crunch (1×20), Reverse Crunch (1×20), Elevated Plank (2 x 1 min.), Raised Leg Side Plank (2×30s each side), Bicycles (1×20), Twisting Crunches (1×20), Mountain Climbers (1×30), MB Big circles (15 in each direction), MB Woodchopper (1×20), MB Squat to press (1×20), MB 45 Degree Twist (1 min.)

MB = 12.5 Medicine Ball    **Repeat ab circuit as needed.