Today was Shoulders & Arms along with everyone’s favorite - Ab Ripper X. Shoulders and Arms went well and now that I have two sets of dumbells, I can use the heavy weights on the curls and the presses and the lighter weights on the triceps moves. My reps went down by about 5%, but the weight I was using was almost twice the weight I was using before so I felt like I was in the right reps/weight ratio for building mass. I can tell I really worked the arms today. I felt like I did the first day I completed this P90X routine, very sore in my arms and shoulders.
Completed Ab Ripper X. It’s still a challenge for me to complete all the reps of all the exercises. That’s a good thing. I’m out of shape and if it was easy, I’d be disappointed that the program wasn’t tough enough. My nine year old son did the entire Ab Ripper X workout including the bonus Mason Twists last night without much effort until he finished the last couple Mason Twists. He said he wanted to turn his four pack into a six pack. I remember those days. He has the same build and metabolism that I had when I was his age.
Wow…less than a week now and I’m at the 30 day point. I told my wife that I was going to go out clothes shopping to reward myself for doing P90X for 30 days and eating clean the whole time. I need new pants, the pairs I have now are getting too big - that’s a good thing! Over the years I’ve been buying pants with slightly larger waist every once in awhile. Then I discovered men’s maternity pants. You guys now what I’m talking about? They have the hidden waistband that expands. Instead of the waistband pinching into your gut and telling you that you’re getting chubby, it just grows right along with you. It’s time to say good bye to those khakis and donate them to charity.
Shoulders and arms today, my favorite P90X workout. I know I’ve commented about this in the past, but the workout seems rushed to me. No sooner does Tony end the lifting the routine and tell you to record your results, then he’s onto the next exercises with weights in hand. Even the editing is choppy in parts. It almost seems like they were trying to put too many exercises into too small of a time frame. What’s with the “bonus exercises”? Even that’s different than the other days that I’ve been through so far.
I’ve been under the gun at work to finish a project for a deadline and the added stress is affecting my lifting efforts. Well, things should be better next week, but this week I’ll be working 11-12 hour days and I’ll probably be at work all day Saturday as well. By the time I come home I eat a little bit and crash in bed. I have still been disciplined to drag myself out of bed at 5:00 AM each day.
Eyes on the prize, gotta keep my eyes on the prize!
Felt better on Thursday so I was ready to work on the “glamour muscles”. I’m getting the hang of this P90X workout, and was considering putting different plates on my dumbbells. Then I hit some of those triceps kickbacks and had to lighten the load again. I was debating getting another pair of dumbell bars and Thursday’s workout has me leaning toward making an investment in another set. It would be easier and faster to switch the weights during the workout. I do need to increase the weight since I’m doing 12+ reps on some of the curls and the upright rows.
Some P90X workouts have a long enough pause between exercises that I can write down my results and get back in position, I always have a hard time writing in my reps and getting back in time for this routine.
Oh yeah, I got my car back from the shop. With the tow and a new starter, I’m $400.00 poorer. At dinner I was talking to my son about his P90X workout and told him would benefit from the Plyometrics workout. He plays football (running back or defensive back) and baseball. When I left to pick up the car he started the workout and by the time I got back he was still at it with about 10 minutes left to go. He was wiped out (or bored) and stopped the video. I figured he would keep up with Tony, this kid is constantly moving. He even plays Playstation standing up or hopping around.
Here’s a Youtube video of highlights of his first year playing football
This work out has been the easiest so far this week. Much of that had to do with the fact that the free weight routine I was following for a month and a half before I started P90X had most of the same exercises as the P90X routine. The area of focus of this session is the shoulders and arms. Specifically working the biceps and triceps. There are 12 exercises plus a “bonus round” round of 3 more exercises. It was the only day so far that I performed better on the second time through than the first time. I guess I’ll need to up the weight a little on this day since many times I had to stop because the time had run out and I had already completed more than a dozen reps. The Congdon Curls were a little awkward for me. I have been used to doing this type of concentration curl one arm at a time, so that’s something I’ll have to get used to. Since I’m using dumbbells, it was hard to swing them up in the small space between my legs. Working out with the bands would be easier on this one. I can see that performing it both arms at a time means you can get more exercises in at a time. Well designed workout, really blasts both sides of the upper arms.
After Shoulders & Arms comes Ab Ripper X. Love working the abs, but still struggling with that crunchy frog.
Whipped up a protein shake with fresh strawberries to drink on the way to work.
Note: Little late getting this posted, should have been last night, but I worked late last night at work on some multimedia projects and was whipped from the workout in the morning. Had some oatmeal and went to bed.
