Previous Yoga X workouts: Day 22 | Day 18 | Day 11 | Day 4

Previous Kenpo X workouts: Day 20 |  Day 13 | Day 6

image: myexercisestory.com

No scratches in my Kenpo X DVD today. So weird to have had issues with it before and not for the last two workouts. I can feel the fact that I haven’t been working out on a routine basis. This is ordinarily not too tough a workout and yet I feel tired after completing it today.

But I also feel good. Gotta get this beach weight off. Today’s scale weigh-in WASN’T PRETTY.

This is my first day trying this workout.

Source

Here’s where I netted:

• Stacked Foot/Staggered Hands Push-up. 10 “boy” and 10 “girl”.
• Banana Roll. A bit awkward in the space I had available. 2 full rolls RX.
• Leaning Crescent Lunges. Did 24 RX with 5 lb. 
• Squat Run. Did 1 min with 3 lb. He says to go light on weight, with him using 12lb weights…it seemed kind of easy to me, arms-wise, so I’m not sure whether the exercise is really supposed to engage the arms so much as it is with the legs (which I did feel).
• Sphinx Push-up. Seems a little like the pushups M was always trying to get me to do to prep me for “boy” pushups. Did 15.
• Bow to Boat. Not too challenging for me since I’m used to these poses in yoga and because I’m flexible. The boat pose is obviously challenging to get a straight back, which is where I need to practice. 
• Low Lateral Skaters. Did mine with the leg lift. I tended to perch one arm on the bent leg when lifting…not sure if that’s cheating or not.
• Lunge & Reach. Another where he says to not use a weight heavier than 12lb, so I went with 3 lb. While I was challenged, I think it’s not heavy enough. Not sure why he recommends lighter weights unless so it’s so you don’t throw out your back.
• Prison Cell Push-up. This is basically a burpee/pushup/mountain climber mashup. I modified a bit: I stepped back rather than jumping back, I did 5 boy/5 girl, and I did one mountain climber set per each pushup, rather than doing 2 pushup/2 mountain climbers. I did 8 total.
• Side Hip Raise. I did 10 on each side. NOTE: better to have shoes on for this. Ouch on the bare feet!
• Squat X-Press. 30 Rx, using 5 lb.
• Plank to Chatarunga Run. Plank runs = mountain climbers. Catarunga runs = crazy talk. You’re supposed to do 60 sec. I probably did more like 45 seconds total, with breaks in between. I only did the normal mountain climbers and needed a towel because my hands were very slippery on the mat.
• Walking Push-up. This is just being in a pushup stance and walking forward and backward on your hands. Sometimes when I do pushups or downward dog in yoga, I get a crazy strain on my hands (usually my right). I got it in this pose and had to stop. Even as I type this later, my hand, at the right knuckle, is tender. Not sure what to do about this. I also tried doing this on my fists - um, OUCH. Hurts the same area, just from a different angle. I only did about 20 seconds of this, rather than the 60 seconds.
• Superman Banana. Same as the previous banana move, except you’re never on your sides. Tony speeds the exercise up at the end, presumably to make it more fun?, but I found that I just ended up losing form. Did it for the full time.
• Lunge Kickback Curl Press. A lot going on here, but I liked the exercise since it works a lot of stuff. I started with 4 reps using the 3 lb, then moved to 5 lb.
• Towel Hopping. 60 sec of jumping from one side of a rolled-up towel to the other. The towel part was gimmicky, because you don’t really need it to do this. My right knee was in misery on this one. I tried the modified version, but that didn’t help matters. Only did 45 sec.
• Reach High & Under Push-ups. This is pushups and side planking together. I did about 3 each side.
• Steam Engine. I did however many you can do in 90 seconds. They did 50, so I’m guessing I was right around there. I’m generally good about staying up with them on this one.
• Dreya Roll. Managed to get 12 done in the time allotted. Hand assistance only on the last 2. 
• Plank to Chatarunga Run. Holding the plank for 10, then holding the lowered plank for 10. I couldn’t do the lower parts, so I did the superman pose instead.
• Halfback. This is that same football move that’s in the Plyometrics DVD. Knees were crunchy!
• Table Dip Leg Raise. Table pose with one leg raised, then tricep dips. I did 15 per side. 

Previous Yoga X workouts: Day 18 | Day 11 | Day 4

Source

This morning, I woke up early to do the Yoga workout. It’s been a while since doing P90X, and I fully understand that doing it as sporadically as I am will not yield fantastic results, but it can’t hurt.

I am pretty sore from the Warrior Dash on Saturday. I’m bruised all over from hauling myself over all sorts of things, and random muscles hurt, such as my right shin and my left quad. That made some of the postures a bit difficult, but I managed! No dizziness from Chair Pose, which was good!

Previous Yoga X workouts: Day 13 | Day 6

image: myexercisestory.com

So I still haven’t called Beachbody about my messed up Kenpo X DVD. Because I’m lazy. But not lazy enough not to do Day 20 workout today!

I decided to buy the Kenpo X iPhone app component, to see if I liked doing one of the cardio workouts as much as I did for the Shoulders & Arms strength training.

I figured that I would run the DVD and the iPhone app concurrently so that I had the DVD for as long as it held out, then switch to the iPhone when needed.

Would you believe that the f*cking DVD didn’t skip once? NOT ONCE.

So - I didn’t have a whole lot of need for the iPhone program that I just purchased for $6.99. 

However, one good thing I can say is that there are some exercises I wasn’t sure I was doing all that accurately, and again, I found that the iPhone demonstrations were more helpful than the DVD. The cameramen just move around too much for you to really observe in the DVD. So in that regard, I suppose I’m glad I paid for it.

I also did another round of Ab Ripper X, for Day 19, so I’m all caught up again!

Previous Legs & Back workouts: Day 12 Day 5

Image: imadisabledfitnessmom.wordpress.com

Let the knee crunching exercises begin!

Lunges & Squats

• Balance Lunges. 25 reps each leg. Knee crunch.
• Calf Raise Squats.  25 reps using 5lb. Knee crunch.
• Super Skaters. 25 reps each leg. Knee crunch.
• Wall Squats. 90 seconds. No hands.
• Step Back Lunges. 15 reps each leg with 5lb. Knee crunch.
• Alternating Side Lunges. 12 reps each leg. Minimal knee crunch.
• Single Leg Wall Squat. 30 seconds each leg. No hands!
• Dead Lift Squats. 20 reps each side. Used wall for balance. Major knee crunch.
• 3 Way Lunges. Unlike last week, knees were in better shape today so I completed this! 15 squats/kicks each leg. 
• Sneaky Lunges. Did these this week. Yay knees! 10 lunges each leg.
• Chair Salutations. 2 sets of 30 seconds.
• Toe Roll Iso Lunges. 20 reps on each side. Used wall for balance.
• Groucho Walk. 45 seconds.
• Calf Raises. 75 calf raises, in 3 different positions, using 5lb.
• 80-20 Speed Squats. 25 reps each side. No jumps.

Pullups (two sets)

• Reverse Grip Pull Ups. 17 reps on two bands (10/7).
• Wide Grip Pull Ups. 13 total reps on two bands (7/6).
• Close Grip Pull Ups. 14 total reps on two bands (8/6).
• Switch Grip Pull Ups. 8 total reps of reverse grips (4/4) and 5 total reps of wide grips (3/2), all on two bands. I touched down to switch. 

Ab Ripper

I didn’t do my last Ab Ripper workout on Day 17, so this counts as that ab workout, and I’ll do another tomorrow or Friday when I do Kenpo again. Notes on my two nemeses:

• Roll-Up/V-up Combo. Not the prettiest form, but I did these without modification.
• Oblique V-Ups. I watched this video to see what I could do to improve mine. It actually helped me out a lot. The guy in the video actually performs the crunches with pressure placed on his forearm, rather than lying down. Doing that, I was able to keep up easily with the video. Either I was always doing it wrong before or this is a modification to make it easier. Either way, I plan to do them like this moving forward.

Previous Yoga X workouts: Day 11 | Day 4

image: fitbomb.com

I wanted to do this workout on Sunday, but didn’t get around to it, so today it is!

A few notes:

• Chaturangas: Tony likes to throw in an extra pushup in his chaturangas. I don’t. I’ve never done that in a yoga class, so I see no reason to start doing it here.
• Chair pose: I got dizzy again after completing this move. I suppose it’s because it activates the quads in a major way. 
• Warrior 3 / Standing Splits: I did the Warrior 3 movement, but had to go to Child’s Pose for the Standing Splits - for some reason I always pull my hip flexors when doing these splits and I’d frankly just rather not. I got dizzy after coming out of this move.

Previous Shoulders & Arms workouts: Day 10 | Day 3

image: fitbomb.com

As I mentioned in my previous blogpost, I was thinking to myself today that I would like the Shoulders & Arms workout a lot more if I could do it with dumbbells instead of the bands. And after a bit of recon, I discovered the P90X iPhone app. Score!

After downloading the app, then the Shoulders & Arms workout, I headed over to the gym where I train with L, and tried out the workout with dumbbells instead of annoying bands.

Well! All I have to say is: it’s a heck of a lot harder with free weights!  Holy hell! I had to drop to a lower weight than what I thought I was doing on almost every single exercise! And on top of that, I felt like I was getting such a better workout. Don’t get me wrong, I’m sure those bands are good for some stuff, but the Shoulders & Arms workout really needs to be done with dumbbells.

Period.

Here’s how I netted tonight. But first, here’s a legend on how to read it:

• 10/15 = 10 reps of 15lb
• I list sets separately if the reps/weight differs
• (what i did the prior week is in parentheses)

***

Round 1 (two sets):

• Alternating Shoulder Press - 10/15; 12/10 - (15/15)
• In & Out Bicep Curls - 20/10 - (16/15)
• Two-arm Tricep Kickbacks - 15/5 - (15/5)

Round 2 (two sets):

• Deep Swimmer’s Press - 15/10 - (15/10)
• Full Supination Concentration Curls - 15/10 - (15/15)
• Chair Dips - 15 - (15 with bent knees)

Round 3 (two sets):

• Upright Row - 15/10 - (did 15/15)
• Static Arm Curls - 16/10; 10/10; 10/5 - (16/15)
• Flip-Grip Twist Tricep Kickbacks - 16/5 - (12[24?]/3)

Round 4 (two sets):

• Two-angle Shoulder Flys - 16/5; 18/5 - (16/3)
• Crouching Cohen Curls - 15/5 - (15/10)
• Lying-down Tricep Extensions - 15/5; 13/10 - (15/15)

Round 5 (two sets):

• In & Out Straight-arm Shoulder Flys - 16/5; 20/5 - (16/5)
• Congdon Curls- 13/10; 6/10; 10/5 - (16/10)
• and Side Tri-Rises- 15/15 - (15/15)

So I was thinking to myself today that I think I would like the Shoulders & Arms workout a heck of a lot more if I could do it with dumbbells instead of the bands. The bands irritate me. I have to pause the video before each exercise to get them just right. Then I have to wait until the camera man ever-so-briefly strays from Tony Horton to show the person using the bands.

Pain in the ass.

Then it occurred to me - I wonder if there’s an app for P90X. And there is! It costs $4.99 to download, and that gets you a tool in which you can track your exercise schedule, track your exercise reps/weight, and earn badges for various and sundry things that have no interest for me.

However, if you want to actually have access to exercise demonstration, you have to buy each “DVD” for an additional $6.99 or you can get all of them for $59.99. I figured I’d go ahead and download and try it.

It’s actually pretty nice - you can watch little videos of Tony doing each exercise that basically just repeat for the duration of the allotted exercise time.  If you want to see more specifics on the exercise, you can go to a slideshow view that shows the exercise in steps, sometimes with additional text that explains what you should or shouldn’t do:

One of the tougher things about P90X, besides the laborious and lengthy workouts themselves, is having to endure Tony’s blathering on like a d-bag in the videos. In fact, I think I might actually prefer the iPhone app because you can observe in silence and can easily access instruction. I don’t plan to buy the rest of the “DVDs” because I already have the actual DVDs and can just watch them without the sound. But if you need access to a particular workout that isn’t in the comfort of your own home, this is a fantastic resource.

My next fitness blogpost will talk about my experience with using the app. Stay tuned…