Workout Antipathy (P90x)

(And week 5 preview)

Well, back in week 1 #shyyunachan and #scrawnytofit both started tumblr blogs as a sort of diary to their p90x journey. At the conclusion of week 1 I decided that I might as well join them in their blogging adventures. However, depressingly, both of them immediately stopped updating their tumblr the day I started my log. (Well save for a lone post by #scrawnytofit showing the wonderfully disgustingly meal we had in week 2)

(mind you, that middle plate contained a full order of poutine which we ate before the rest of our meal came out)

So, having no motivation to continue writing I decided to switch to a weekly recap (and preview)

Week 4, our first recovery week didn't cause too much trouble. I find arms, shoulders, legs, and back to be the most mundane workouts so I guess I actually preferred this week's schedule. We also did a couple workouts at a new location this week. Due to the 4th of July and a few other nice weather day, we were at #shyyunachan's mom's house a couple of times. The living room was a bit cramped for two but we managed.

Week 5 is coming up (well I just did core synergistics today) A new thing I've done is ripping the audio to some of the workouts that we've already done multiple times and loaded them on to my phone. This way I've been able to do the workouts by listening to the audio through some earbuds. Also originally planned for this week was Connecticon this weekend. We were planning on busting out Yoga X (our usual Saturday workout) at the convention center. We were wondering if people would join in. Alas, our hotel overbooked and we were left without a hotel room. So we are now skipping Connecticon and spending a day at Block Island and visiting some friends for the rest of the weekend. :-)

Scores

Weekly update format: 10/10

Connecticon Room Issue: 0/10

Ugh, starting a Yoga X session at 1:40 in the morning is never a good idea. Week 4, this is our first recovery week. #shyyunachan push her workout to tomorrow as she needs to get up at 6am (scheduled finish time for Yoga X was after 3am) I skipped the last 20-25min as I'm quite tired too my 8 am wake time gives me 5 hrs of sleep at this point. Anyway, good night. I'll finish the update tomorrow

Scores

Another busy day... I went and played some grass doubles directly after work before heading home for Kenpo X. At least grass doubles doesn't cover you in sand :-)

The workout itself was fine, however my roommate had guests over and so it was a little awkward to be doing p90x in the living room.

Scores

Workout quality: 8/10

Cleanliness of shorts: 0/10 (damp, chlorine, dirt, grass stains, sweat)

I spent the weekend with a bunch and friends in a nearby residence inn swimming, playing games, and generally celebrating birthdays. Even so, #shyyunachan and I still manged to fit in both days' workouts.

We started Saturday's Yoga workouts in the hotel workout room. Another guest was on the eliptical at the time and #shyyunachan's laptop's speakers were not loud enough for us to hear the video or Tony's instructions to switch poses. Thus, we ended up going back in the hotel room with the laptop connected to the TV. The resulting situation was #shyyunachan, our friend Lindsay, and me doing yoga for 90 minutes while our other 3 friends sat at a table behind us and played Munchkin. Aside from the less fickle carpet and occasional commentary from the peanut gallary, Yoga went without a hitch.

Sunday's Legs and back workout was pushed fairly late into the night. This time it was just #shyyunachan and I doing p90x. Luckily, the workout room was during the whole duration of our workout. Another issue we had was the gym's lack of a pullup bar. So instead of pullups, we did some reps on the pull-down workout machine.

With today's workout we'll be completing week 3! (Besides Stretch X/Rest tomorrow)

Scores

Pooltime: 10/10

Dance Central: 21 Diamonds, 7 Emeralds

I decided to take a day off of p90x today for a few reasons:

1. Well the main reason is because I was out late again and my roommate was sleeping in the living room again.

2. I played some beach volleyball again today and I'm still not recovered. I can't jump and I have no explosive power so I feel like I'm much slower to react.

3. It's my Birthday.

Photos of the Cambridge Dance Party:

Unfortunately, that difference is that a serious decline in my volleyball playing ability. Hopefully that's mostly due to muscle soreness/weakness.

Last night's workout was relocated yet again to my bedroom due to our living room being unavailable. Let's do scores first:

Scores

Me: 1, Ps3: 0 (Kicked it once)

Me: 2, Computer: 0 (Kicked it twice)

Me: 0, Yoga Mat: 0 (tie, it moved around a bunch so I just threw it into a corner)

Me: 4, Various items around the room: 0 (lots of casualties falling from shelves etc.)

Me: 15, Ceiling: 0 (I killed it to death)

Miraculously I managed not to kick anything during the 3 kick routine!

So 2 weeks down out of 13. Yesterday's triple instead of a rest day made today's workout a little tough. Sore abs from Abripper and an aching knee from some hard cycling today meant that I took it easy.

I did about 2/3rds of the workout and worked on my stretches and strengthening exercises assigned by my PT during the other 1/3rd. I think it was a good plan of action. Also, with some after work volleyball planned tomorrow I want to make sure my knees and body are fairly well rested.

Scores

Intensity: 2/10

Stretchiness: 3/10 (Hey! that's an improvement!)

On the rehab front, I had my first PT appointment today. Actually my appointment is next week but I got the date wrong. Luckily, my therapist had a cancellation at my exact time slot!

Since my hamstrings are super tight (and my quads are apparently super flexible) we worked on a bunch of static and ballistic stretches. In addition, we tried a few strengthening exercises. I got some homework and I'll see how I did next Tuesday.

#shyyunachan and I did a double dose of P90x today to make up for the last two days. (actually #shyyunachan did a triple workout by also incorporating today's stretch x routine!) Thus we did a bit of Legs and Back, followed by Abripper X, Kempo X and Stretch X. Whew! We did the workout at her apartment and her roommate joined in on the fun.

Legs and Back was fairly standard. I noticed that I was able to do more pullups on an actual pullup bar as compared to last week when I did my workout on a wooden beam. My number right now is approx ~7 pullups for the first set, dropping all the way down to 2 for the second to last set. (I used a chair for the very last set of pullups).

Abripper X. Still hate it. On Friday I decided that rather than going all out and completely fading in the end, I would do 15/25 reps for each exercise. Today I attempted to do 20/25 for each exercise. I held this pace until I hit the scissors where I dropped back down to 15/25. The end result was that I did 15/25 scissors and pulse ups, all of the leg climbs and mason twists, and 20/25 of everything else.

Kempo X and Stretch X. Kempo X was good again. Nothing to report other than the burn in my legs for the last sets in horse stance. I was holding the stance with my legs close to parallel with the floor and they were burning by the end of the exercises. Finally, I didn't do much of stretch X except for a few of the hamstrings stretches.

Scores

Battle of attrition: 5/10 (it wasn't that bad)

Enjoyment of Ab ripper X: 2/10 (I'm never going to enjoy it)

Well, we got back home at 1:30 am today. Begrudgingly, I had resigned myself to another hour long late night workout. However, upon arriving at the apartment we realized that my roommates sister and her 2 young children were visiting. So as not to wake them we're postponing this workout to Day 7 of this week!

I followed up yesterday's beach volleyball + p90x with another day of volleyball and p90x. Again the biggest issues are having to shower twice within a few hours and balancing between starting the p90x workout starving or overly full from dinner. At least I don't have to work my core today!

Scores

Whew, today was a scorcher! Mid/Upper 90s and HUMID!

Fortunately, I have AC at my apartment (Sorry #shyyunachan!) Unfortunately, I still played a few hours of beach volleyball doubles. It was interesting... my back/arms are still a little sore from Leg & Back/Kempo.

The worst part about this combination? Having to shower right after getting home because of the sand dirt from Carson beach. Then doing p90x immediately after my shower. Followed by... you guessed! Another shower. (Ok, so I went for a walk and got some dinner before my second shower)

Scores

Core Synergistics redux: 4/10 (In my living room this time is a plus, after volleyball is a minus)

Hunger: 500/10 (basically running on leftover Gatorade)

Today's workout was brought to you by Cara.

We joined up today with Cara and did the Kempo X workout at her apartment. I'm sure this was quite humorous as her living room is just about the same size as mine and there were 3 of us with arms and legs everywhere.

I had high hopes for this module since our friend Lindsay stated that it was her favorite module. While I don't know if it was my favorite, Kempo X did not disappoint. As with most of the workouts, what you get out of it depends on your own personal intensity. If you ask #shyyunachan I'm sure she will tell you that I put in quite a bit of energy today.

I tried to make my moves very deliberate in each exercise and I added an explosive forward leap to various exercise (although this is probably because I was barefoot and could not "drag" my foot along the floor). I definitely worked up quite a sweat before the workout was over. All in all, a good workout.

Scores

Workout enjoyment: 7/10

Technical Workout difficulty: 3/10

Physical exertion: 6/10

Had a great day on the beach today. I was out with #shyyunachan and playd a little beach volleyball as well. I hit a great cut shot, a strong deceptive lefty, and a front left corner drop shot. :-)

Today's workout wasn't too bad, the legs sections was fairly easy and I set the bar low for my upper body workout. I understand pullups/chin-ups really work the back muscles, but at the same time wouldn't it be considered an "arms" workout too?

Not having a pull-up bar at my apartment (and no suitable doorway to mount one) I just used one of our exposed wood beams. Functionally, it was almost the same except I felt like I had a much inferior grip on the beam. Paige used the bands for the pullups.

I like how near the end, Tony asks the other guy how many pullups he managed and quickly does a set merely just to outdo him.

I started strong with a set of 7 pullups, but quickly faltered as we perpetually did more reps. I've never got past the ~7 range for pull-ups and I thought the best way to get past this point was to use weights? Well regardless, let's see how much I improve in the next 90 days.

As always, Ab Ripper X makes me want to die.

Scores

Fatigue: 2/10 (other than the back/arms, not bad)

Facilities: 7/10

We managed to fit the 90 minute Yoga x into our tight schedule today and or the most part Yoga X is enjoyable (Well except for them sneaking in a little ab workout...)

Quick shower and then we're heading out to a drive-in movie!

Scores

Today was my first time working out with #shyyunachan. Prior to the workout we went out and purchased a small weight set and a workout band. Talk about being prepared!

Arms and shoulders weren't too bad (no doubt partially due to our limited set of weights) I started off on the bands, but it was a little frustrating when we would start a new exercise and you wouldn't see what the exercise band guy was doing until rep 2 or 3.

On the other hand... Ab Ripper X...

Having limited core strength meant I started having problems pretty early on. Eventually the 16 minutes ran down and we were done. It appears that #shyyunachan and I have complementary core muscles as I had more issues with crunches like exercises and she had problems with any sit up exercises. Well luckily for her crunches were quite abundant!

Scores

Workout enjoyability: 3/10 (mostly due to Ab Ripper)

Workout level: 6/10

WFNX Seaport 6 - Concert Report

Great bands, Great show! Oh wait what? This is a p90x blog? Whoops!

So I went to Seaport 6 with #scrawnytofit. What didn't register in my mind however, was that it was going to go all the way from 6pm to 11pm. Thus, I did my p90x workout at midnight and #scrawnytofit ended up missing his completely.

Today's workout was a cardio section. Combine that with the fact that I actually did the workout in my living room this time. Piece of cake! (who by the way, also played at Seaport 6) I actually liked the combination of yoga, kempo, and plyo. However, I highly doubt my downstairs neighbor did not enjoy it as much as I did.

Oh fun, I probably won't get to sleep until 2:30am and I have to be up at 5:30am to lead a Bike Friday ride... Maybe I'll sleep in an extra hour.

Scores

Cardio enjoyment: 7/10

Level of workout: 6/10