Day 82

1 1/2 hours of yoga is a great way to end off 2009, I am going to have a beer now:)

Out with the old and in with the new

This has been a good year for me as far as my personal well being is concerned. I started off 2009 in a crappy job that was driving me nuts working for a couple of immature and unethical asses and I was out of shape and getting worse but I made a change from that situation by the end of January and am now working someplace much better that is giving me time with my family and time to take care of myself. I have changed my eating habits over the course of the year and been working out heavily. I am about 30 pounds lighter today than I was at the start of the year and I have quit smoking as well. It would have been nice to have finished up round one of P90X by the end of the year but that did not work out and that's OK. I am looking forward to what the new year brings. Sarah and I are planning to continue the new healthier lifestyle with proper diet and exercise, not exactly sure what comes after P90X yet but I am working on it. We are getting ready to sell our house and move to something a little bigger so we have a little more room so that should be exciting. We will be visiting my parents in Florida and I will be meeting with some old friends in Virgina very soon. Sean will be starting Kindergarten and Sofia will begin preschool. All in all this has been a great year and next year is looking to be at least as exciting. I hope everyone else has a safe and happy new year as well.

Day 81, Back and Biceps

Last time for this one and I pushed so hard I really couldn't lift my arms. At one point my wife asked if I needed her to write down my weight and rep count on my workout sheet because I was having some real trouble writing. Tore up the ab ripper X today too but I will be glad when we do that for the last time on Friday. I like it but you do it too much and it is getting old. My wife mentioned today during ab ripper that we need to find a different ab workout because this one is getting old. I am so glad to be working out again this week, I was feeling like a fat slob already having the few days off last week. Looking forward to Yoga tomorrow.

Day 80 again

I was real happy to get a second chance to do the plyo workout for the last time after my half ass effort last week due to a sore back. Last night my back was feeling good and I took advantage of the second opportunity to bring it for this workout. My legs were a little sore due to some running I did on Sunday but after warming up they felt good and the workout went well. My legs felt like jello by the end of this thing but that is what I was looking for.That was a much better result for my last plyo workout of the 90 days.

Day 79, second time

It felt real good to get back to it after almost a week of sloth and gluttony. Both Sarah and I noticed how quickly you can regress back into some old habits but also how quickly we began to feel like fat slobs and wanted to get back at it which is good. My back is feeling much better today and I made it through the workouts without any issues while maintaining the weights and reps I did last week so I am happy with that. Today was Chest, Shoulders, and Triceps which is a good workout as I mentioned before. Sarah and I were laughing at this one tonight because Phil is just hilarious with some of the comments he makes to Tony in this video. We also did ab ripper tonight again and I had no problems there with my back either which I would have expected if I was still having back issues today. We finished about an hour ago and still no issues with the back so I think this episode is behind me, knock on wood. I am looking forward to getting to do plyo again tomorrow since I had to sort of half ass it last week because of my back, at least I have a second chance on that one.

Rewind

Well I have done it again. Looks like we will be restarting from the beginning of last week on Monday night this week. This will mean we will finish up 2 weeks later than originally planned because, if you recall, we had a reset during the phase 2 recovery week as well due to illness. This time it was my back. I mentioned that I thought it was from hockey before but after some thinking I realized that I probably did it shoveling the foot and a half of snow from the driveway. After completing the plyo workout on Tuesday it just got more sore and we have not worked out at all this week since then. I have been taking my medication for my back and doing stretches to try to loosen things up and it is finally feeling better now. I have learned another good lesson though from this, even though my back is in much better shape an I can do things I have not done in a long time there are some activities that you just really need to pay attention to form on and not overdo it with, shoveling snow is one of them. This setback early in the program may have caused me some stress and disappointment but I have come to buy into Tony's philosophy of "do your best and forget the rest" and I am fine with doing what I have to do to take care of an injury first. I also have come to the realization that all of the work I have done over the last year to get into shape is really a life long lifestyle change and not something short term which means that a week long setback really does not mean much in the grand scheme of things. The other thing is my lower back muscles were sore but this is a far cry from the pain associated with the herniated disks so I know things could be a lot worse, and they are not. As an added bonus I am pretty excited that I get to do Plyo again and that last half ass effort was not the final plyo workout for the 90 days.

Day 80, Last Plyo Workout :(

Well I would like to say that I worked harder today on my last day doing Plyo than I have the whole time but I can't. My lower back is still pretty tight today and I had to take it a little easy on a few of the twisting exercises in the workout today. I am more than a little upset about that and will have to do this workout again shortly after day 90 so I can really push it hard. I did some extra stretching after this workout today trying to get my back loosened up a little bit so hopefully that will help. I have another hockey game tonight and plan on getting there early to do some serious stretching before going out there. I also think I am going to make sure to enter and exit the ice through the door rather than hopping the boards as usual. I suspect that may actually help somewhat based on a conversation I had with another player who has some back issues.

I had a typo in yesterdays post where I said I skipped 32 exercises, that should be 2 exercises. I don't think we even do 32 different exercises during that workout.

Days 78 & 79

Sunday was a rest day but I played hockey Sunday night and that went well. No X Stretch but got a good sweat going at least with the game.

Today we did the Chest, Shoulders, and Triceps routine and I pushed it real hard up front and made gains on pretty much everything but by the time we got to the last 3 exercises I was done and lost a little ground on all of them. I am pretty sure if I try to do another push up right now I will fall flat on my face. I did ab ripper on my own since Sarah was up most of last night with the sick kids and just was ready to get to bed. I had to skip 2 exercises because my lower back is a little tight. I have been noticing lately that the day after a hockey game my lower back is pretty tight. I am going to try to start doing some different stretches both before and after games to make sure I take care of this right away. It is interesting because when my back was in bad shape hockey never seemed to bother it but now it seems to get a little sore. I just need a little time to figure out what it is and address it.

Day 77

We had a huge snowstorm here so not only did we do our Kenpo but I had to shovel the 16" of snow from the driveway for a little added bonus. I also just had some sort of malfunction trying to post this and inadvertently posted like 4 empty blog posts so I am sure those of you that subscribe got a pile of emails, sorry. I have a football game Monday night this week and a hockey game Tuesday so look for some modifications to the schedule for this week, not sure what yet but something needs to move.

Day 76

Legs and back might be my least favorite of the workouts in this program but I am making gains on the pull ups now so that is good. I felt strong last night even during the ab ripper x exercises. Those V-up Roll-up's are a killer! I just noticed last night that they did in fact do some editing to add in stuff to the videos at some point, I had not noticed that before. If you look at the part where Tony comments on the chicklettes in the one girls mouth her arms are in front of her body but they are doing a stretch with arms behind. This really blows my impression of Tony out of the water. I sort of assumed he was just a goofy guy with these comments and they were sort of off the cuff but this was clearly something they added later, not funny enough for that dude... It is snowing like crazy here right now so we are stuck in the house and will try to get Kenpo done tonight if my hockey game is canceled.

Day 75

We didn't start Yoga last night until pretty late because we had to go out and get some Christmas shopping done. We then took a break in the middle due to visitors coming over. All in all though it went well and I made it basically through the whole warrior 3 sequence. My leg was not straight but I made it through. That sequence is a killer on that leg. Since we did not finish until very late we did not get up this morning and will do Legs and Back tonight instead. I can't believe we only have 15 days of this left.

Day 74

I, much like Tony, think this is a good workout with the three exercise setup. You do a shoulder exercise followed by bicep followed by triceps and then repeat them. This is done for like 5 sets of 3 exercises. I increased my weight on a bunch of these today and am still feeling stronger on each workout which is good. I struggled a little again today with ab ripper though for whatever reason. That is a frustrating part of this program and it seems I fluctuate wildly on my ability to keep up with it. Maybe it is just that we do that routine so much more often, three days a week. Perhaps I fluctuate just as much on the others but it is not as obvious because they are spread out more over time. Looking forward to doing some yoga tomorrow.

Day 73

Plyometrics, I am a little sad that we only do this one more time before the 90 days is up. Pushed hard this morning and felt good. My chest and back are sore this morning like they were when we first started. I guess that is a good sign that I worked hard yesterday. A second day in a row with no interruption from the kids too, wow!!!

Day 71, and 72

Sunday was a rest day and I took it. We did not do the stretching Sunday, we just took the day off. My sister and her kids came over and I made pasta and sauce and we all had a good time. I did have some candy yesterday as well,for some reason I was craving candy and we happened to have some in the house. Hopefully that was a one time thing and I don't get cravings like that again.

This morning was the last time we do Chest and Back for this 90 days and I tried to push it as hard as possible. I felt good with it and made some good gains on everything as opposed to the last time when I felt like I had slipped back. I did feel a little weak on the abs stuff this morning for whatever reason but I struggled through and finished it up. Neither kid woke up before we finished this morning either which was a nice change from having them trying to climb all over you or whatever when doing exercises or stretches. Don't get me wrong I love my kids, it is just nice to get the workout in without an interruption every once in a while.

Day 70, Kenpo

Another grueling workout looking at Wesley's jiggly ass. My wife and I were talking during the warm up this morning about how we really don't care for the warm up to this one. We were wondering if Wesley developed that as well, even if he didn't I am going to blame him, and I blame Dreya for everything else I don't like about the program which isn't much. My legs were pretty tight this morning and I was having a tough time with the kicks because of it. I have started to increase the speed on the blocks, elbows, and vertical punches starting from the beginning because they don't speed up fast enough. When we first started it was fine but I need to get moving faster now. I don't have the same problem with the regular punch sequences like jab/cross/hook/upper cut where it seems that they are doing them faster than I can unless my form breaks down. I just do it a little slower than they do and make sure I am getting my core involved as much as possible. My shoulders were screaming during some parts today as well for whatever reason. Felt good though and the heart rate was up where I like it so that is all that matters.

Weighed in again this morning and tipped the scales at a whopping 150.8. This is the same weight I was when I was sick and thought I looked too thin. This time though I don't really think I am looking too thin and neither does Sarah. It is funny how different you can look at the same weight depending on where it is placed and in what tissue form. Feeling real good and looking forward to the last 3 weeks of the program. Should be fun and we are going to finish strong.

Day 68 and 69

We did Yoga last night and I am absolutely amazed at all those of you out there that can make it through tat half moon sequence. My leg will just not stand up for that length of time, especially when still sore from Plyo and Hickey in the same day. It was a good workout though and I was nice and relaxed after. I would like to know though who the genius at beachbody is that decided it was a good idea to put people yelling at you 2 seconds after finishing up the relaxation part of the video. For those of you that don't know you finish this workout with a relaxation section and ohms (not sure on spelling), as Tony puts i "this is the Yin part of the Yong energy... you don't just finish up and leave, not with Yoga anyway..." Well the end of the videos have infomercials trying to get you to buy other beachbody crap like the recovery drink and protein bars. I wouldn't suggest them based on the price and what is in them, there are much more economical ways to get the same benefits and I will post something about what I take at some point but I digress. On this video it jumps directly to what I think are beachbody coaches yelling at you "DO YOU WANT TO GET ON SHAPE..." Shut up already I am trying to relax here, that is why we do this one at night after the kids are asleep instead of in the morning when they wake up and there is no relaxing. Well I guess I just blew my chances at ever becoming a "beachbody coach" with this paragraph but oh well. Not that they are all bad but just not for me.

This morning we did legs and back and it went well. I didn't increase on any of the pull ups, big surprise, but I did keep up with where I was before. I did increase on the leg work though and it felt good. Struggled a bit on abs this morning as usual for Friday but made it through and I feel good.

Day 67, Back and Biceps

I was pretty ragged in the legs all day yesterday after the Plyometrics and Hockey the day before. We did the Back and Bicep workout last night and it went well. My arms were shot after, I could barely lift my protein drink by the time we were finished. This workout is, I think, the fasted paced one of all we have done. I am constantly having to pause the DVD because I can't get the exercises done in the allot ed amount of time. My wife seems to finish in time though so maybe I am just slow. I do like this one though and it really gets your biceps burning. I can't believe how heavy 15 pounds feels by the time I finish the strip set of curls at the end of this workout, I can barely lift it.

Day 66, Plyometrics

Holy crap this is a fun work out, have I mentioned that before. I am still feeling a little behind where I was on plyo before I got sick but I pushed it hard today and it felt good. I have a hockey game tonight so it should be interesting to see how sore I am in the morning tomorrow. I don't think I will have much trouble during the game but after... I am also not looking forward to the fact that it is at 10 pm and we were doing plyo at 5:30 this morning. I actually woke up at 4:30 for some reason and thought it was 5:30. I woke my wife up and told her we needed to get up to work out, she was not thrilled about that since she was unable to go back to sleep. Good thing we were not doing kenpo she might have kicked me in the back of the head or something. To be honest with you she is getting pretty ripped, I am a little scared of her now;)

Days 63, 64, and 65

Saturday should have been kenpo day but I had an old friend stop by around dinner and then we went out for a bit. I actually had a couple of beers with him which is the first beer I have had since starting the program. Tasted a little funny at first but I was able to fight past that and enjoyed the 2 I had. because of this excursion we did not do any workout on Saturday.

Sunday we went to the football game and then did kenpo at night after getting home. My core was tore up by the end o this thing again. I am so amazed that people think this is a weak workout. My wife says I look like some sort of psychopath while I am doing it. I explained I am beating the hell out of the guy who cut me off on the road or any number of other dickheads I cam across during the course of the week. Better to do it there than in person I suppose.

We then woke up this morning to do Chest, Shoulders, and Triceps. This was a pretty good workout but I need to increase a bunch on some of the weights. It did not feel like I was pushing it hard enough so I noted that and will bump everything up next time. That is one thing I don't like about this workout, you don't have a second set to correct on. Most of the workouts you do two of everything so you can change it up on the second set but not this one.

I have been a little more lax on the diet since starting phase 3. I am still eating the same basically but not measuring things out so much and like I said I had beer on Saturday. I weighed in this morning too and was at 150.4 so I have actually dropped a few pounds again. Interestingly I don't look thin and sickly like I did last time I dropped to this level. I would not have even guessed I had dropped weight, I actually may have guessed I had gained some. I also have doubled my creatine dosage to the level the manufacturer recommends for phase 3. My wife seems to think I have gotten bigger over the last week but I don't know about that. I feel good though and am looking forward to doing the plyo workout tomorrow. I also have started thinking about what comes after this. I think we are going to do a 10-12 week muscle building phase based on talking to my wife about her goals. We will probably drop down to 3 days a week of weights with a short (15 minute) HIIT cardio session after the weight training. I would also like to keep doing the Yoga at least once a week and maybe try some pilates too or something. I am going to try to find some other good yoga routines though so there is a little variety. Following this we will probably do another round of P90X.

Day 62, Legs and Back

Good workout tonight and I felt really strong again. I at least kept up on the pull ups with what I was doing before so that was good, I actually increased on some of the pull ups. The leg exercises I really felt strong on and I increased weights on some things and reps on others. Ab Ripper was mostly good but I struggled with heals to the heavens for some reason today. I started this week thinking I had taken a step back but now I am not so sure that was the case. I felt stronger and stronger as the week went by and I actually think I will see some good gains next week. I am putting my day 60 pics below. I don't like them much and don't think they actually do a very good job of showing the changes that I have undergone since starting this. Sarah noticed when taking the pictures that the flash was making it so the muscle definition did not show like she was seeing it when just looking at me. I also had a sore back when these were taken and you can see I am not standing straight which happens sometimes to me. They are what they are though but I am much happier with what I see in person than what I see in these pictures. You can definitely see the difference though if you go back to the day one pictures and compare. I included an extra here too that is a closeup of my leg and again I don't think it really reflects what you see in person but here it is anyway. I am very happy with the progress I have made to date and am now actually expecting to see some changes during phase 3 based on this week. I think I had mentioned before that I was not expecting any phase 3 changes but now I think there might be some.

Day 61, Yoga X

We did Yoga X last nigh and I felt really good. Initially my back and legs were pretty tight but after a few minutes everything was good and I made it through the routine strong. I still can't get that half moon sequence all the way through but I did pretty well last night. I also am still only able to do about 20-25 seconds of crane but just because it is tough on my wrists so I am not going to push for longer on that. We were going to get up and workout this morning but the kids have both been sick and they were up last night so we will do it tonight.

Day 60, Shoulders and Arms

Interesting workout today. I have been saying for the last 2 days that I feel like I lost ground but this morning I made some gains pretty much across the board. I added weight to many of the exercises and I felt very strong. It seems that I lost most of my ground on the pull ups and the rest of the strength exercises seem to at least have remained the same. Today was the 2/3 mark as well and I did take some pictures this morning, I will try to get them up tonight. I also measured my waist again and am down to 32" from a starting point of 35.5" 60 days ago and 40" at the start of the year. I forgot to weigh myself before downing a ton of water and my whey drink so I will try to get that done tomorrow but I think I am at about 153.? which is right about where I think I should be.

Day 59, Plyometrics

It is official, I have lost some ground for whatever reason. I still love this workout but man did it kick my ass beyond belief this morning. I did not slide back to where I was at the start but I certainly did not do as well as I did in the last week of phase 2. I was huffing and puffing and sweating like a whore in church throughout this thing. My lower back muscles were still pretty tight as well which was obvious when trying to do the hot foot with my right foot, left was fine just the right caused some low back tension so I took it a little easy with that foot. My legs were fried by the end of this thing and I was barely able to get my feet off the ground by the time we reached the end and were doing the running back football drill but I powered through and finished as strong as I could. Like Tony says just do your best. We did get the ab ripper workout in last night too and I tore that thing up. I suspect it was because we were not doing it right after another workout that we were able to really bring it for this one. I did about 20 reps on mostly all the exercises and a full 40 on the mason twist without any stopping which is pretty damn good compared to what I had done the last time we did it.

My wife talked to a couple of people yesterday who are considering trying out the program which is pretty exciting. I am not sure if it has anything to do with us doing it but I am excited to see others try it out and interested to hear what they think as they go through. Looking forward to taking pictures and measurements for day 60 tomorrow.