Yoga.  I know the importance.  I can’t stand the length of it.  The kids were all having a rough night and we ended up cutting the workout short at about 50 minutes.  I have not spend a lot of time digging into what other peoples complaints are about Yoga X.  From just reading other P90X blogs it seems like there are quite a few mentions of this.  My biggest complaint is just the length. 90 minutes is tough no matter the time but at night it is almost excruciating.

Gah!  Resistance exercise can really humble you.  I’ve made that extra effort to write down my reps and weights to better track progress.  Besides losing fat, one of my goals is to begin to gain muscle.  I’ve always been on the leaner side, which suited me fine in swimming and track while in High School.  Now I’d like to be a little stronger.  I’m a guy with an ego so a little more mass would fluff up that self image.  When you can’t increase your reps or weight and even fall short of previous reps; it can really bruise that same ego your try to please.  I still felt like I got a great workout and I was pushing it hard. Some how I just wasn’t able to improve and in some cases I fell short.  This is where it’s time to remember that I did my best and I should forget the rest.

What were we talking about? Oh yeah, Ab Ripper X.  Talk about getting things right.  In & Outs, seated bicycles, crunchy frogs and wide leg sit-ups all got the full 25 rep treatment.  First time I nailed the start of Ab Ripper X.  Wow that felt good.  I was feelin it after that but who cares right?  Fifer Scissor remains a real bastard.  After starting off so strong I couldn’t even do the first 6 without resting.  Hip Rock ‘n Raise continues to be a good one for me and Pulse-Up is getting easier each time.   Roll-Up/V-Ups continue to improve and can almost do the full 25.  Oblique V-ups I’m still stuck on 12-15.  Leg Climbs I don’t really count or care.  It just get’s me from Obliques to the finale, Mason Twists.  This time I stuck with Tony and the gang for all 49. Ab. Ripper. X. I hate it but I love it.

Plyometrics hates us all!  What a great workout. What a terrible workout.  At the same time I was able to do more of the initial stuff with great form and intensity, I also suffered down the road.  That wall is pretty hard when you hit it.  What I tried to do was at least hit the initial exercise from each set of 4 with good intensity and effort while letting my heart rate come down during the next 1 or 2.  This worked fairly well.  I kept my heart rate above 135 for most of the workout.  I burned nearly 800 calories according to my monitor.  Believe you me, I felt it. It felt both good and bad.

Yes sir, it’s push-up time again.  Started this one off strong.  That always seems to get me into some trouble down the line.  No exception here.  By the 5th or 6th exercise I was not so much feeling the burn as feeling nothing in my arms.  I wasn’t killing it after that but I did surprise myself by being able to at least hit all my goals and keep going.  Resistance type exercises are tough mentally. You really need to at least push or pull out that last rep or 2 to get some gains but it’s easy to let yourself stop before you should.  I’m also in a weird place with the weights.  I only have 5 lb increments and for many exercises I can do 15-20 at one but the next 5 lb increment I can’t even do 6.  I need some 2 lb wrist weights or something like it.

Felt good to get back on that horse…stance.  Didn’t let the weekend bring down all the progress I’ve made and got right back at it.  We even had yet another cookout with neighbors.  We went 3-3 for the long 3 day weekend and didn’t have to cook dinner once.

Sunday night was the end of a long day.  Not a bad day, just long.  We had another cookout with neighbors.  Avoided any drink this time but by the end of the night I was exhausted from the previous nights merriment.  Up until I crashed on my bed I really thought I’d do the workout.  This is where I’ve lost it before, as have many other people.  You miss several workouts and then things snowball and the next thing you know its been a week, a month, a year and your back to where you started. Fortunately that was not me this time.