P90X Round 3: Day 31 - Chest and Back + Ab Ripper X

Today I dominated chest and back. Weighted pull-ups, my friends. That's the killer way to fully take advantage of strength gains for your back and biceps. This workout is like my bread and butter. It probably is my favorite so far (it's been awhile since I've done all the workouts, I'll have to refresh my memory). I demolished the hammer curls, and my god, those strip down sets are ridiculous. But I like it. Obviously, I had no issues with my foot today since I wasn't constantly moving on them. I'm interested to see how they will be during the legs and back workout. Hopefully I have no issues.

Ab Ripper X went pretty well today, although near the end I was just too gassed out. I went round for round, sticking with Tony until the V-up roll ups and then struggled to get any of the oblique movements in. We'll see. Tomorrow I'm going golfing as I'm off work, and I really am hopeful that my foot won't give me any problems.

P90X round 3: Day 30 - Plyometrics

Plyometrics. My foot felt fine enough to give it a whirl although I did slightly regress a bit from Sunday's golf tournament and walking on it all day. I went into working out right away in the morning. My logic is that it's better to get the workout over with before I can work. And since I'm working on closing shifts pretty much all week, it is virtually impossible to come home from a long day at work, crank into an hour workout with lower energy and then manage to sleep well after that. I've already learned from this a few times earlier this round where I attempted to do that.

With regards to the workout, I was doing fantastic. Started the workout and I felt like it would be my best performance of the round so far for plyo. Then reality hit me, and my left foot started acting up again. I caught myself using my right leg a bit more than my left (almost limping on the left) and that's when I realized that I should probably stop plyo. This happened after the 2nd break (right after circle runs). My foot began burning and rather than tear the shit out of my foot and complete a half-assed workout, I finished the duration of it cycling on my stationary bike. Surprisingly, there is little strain on the foot on a bike. So I was able to do this comfortably. 

I hope that my foot can heal quickly, but as of now it is causing nagging pains on the cardio workouts so far. Really, this isn't a game changer I believe because my primary goal is to gain mass and limit fat gain as much as possible. I am still dominating the strength workouts very much. Plus, I actually believe in the P90X mass version, they swap out plyo for cardio. After I finish this round, I am debating giving the P90X mass version a whirl as my brother discussed doing P90X near November. 

P90X round 3: Day 29 - Chest, Shoulders and Triceps + Ab Ripper X

Today was a good day. Chest, Shoulders and Triceps to begin the new phase of P90X. Now, all in all- this workout isn't a personal favorite of mine. It seems a little over the top and unnecessary. Take the plyo and one arm push-ups, for example. Furthermore, I do not feel like this workout will have potential to add a lot of mass to muscle count. Therefore, I will be looking to modify this workout when possible. I may sub in skull-crushers for some of the tricep movements. But I'm undecided on that for now. I think maybe I will continue to try the workout using the same exercises and reps that they use in the workout. I have a goal this week to eat extremely clean, ball-out to the max and complete every workout to the fullest. I am shooting for a self evaluation score in the low 90's if possible. But we shall see. Ab Ripper was decent today, but probably not the most intense I ever gone with regards to that. I wanted to be careful, considering last time I went really hard on that workout, I had some serious abdominal pain. Luckily, it only lasted a day and went away oddly. I'm not sure if that's a good thing. We'll keep at it this week, and keep going strong.

P90X round 3: Day 28 - Golf Tournament

Round 4 weekly self rating scale:

THE BIG 10

Durability: 6

Diet: 6

Intensity Level: 7

Mental: 9

Strength: 10

Flexibility: 6

Cardiovascular Endurance: 9

Sleep: 9

Core: 9

Completed all workouts for week? 0/6 

___________

Overall self score: 71

Previous self score: 78

So yeah, obviously it was kind of hard to rate this week. I ran into two nagging injuries this week (athlete's foot and sore thumb). And with a golf tournament upcoming and me having to focus on that event, I knew it would be tough to follow to a T. If this weren't a recovery week, I probably would make myself repeat the week altogether. However, being that I had these issues, and it was just a recovery week, I will pick up where I'll be on Monday. 

My thoughts on the score is that sleep and rest went very well this week. Honestly, the diet wasn't very great this week either. But I was at least somewhat motivated to do well with regards to golf. 

As for the actual tournament (which was 4 person better ball), we shot an 84 at Mount Airy. There was a frost delay for about an hour or so, which held things up a little bit. We all played pretty well, I thought and most of the time I kept the order Zack, Kyle, my dad and then me for teeing off. The weather was extremely uncomfortable (34 to be exact) and 11 mph winds doesn't help anything. Some teams came in with scores of 62, 66, and in that range, and I really find it unlikely that they actually hit that in that weather. The pros would've shot like 3 under par. Judging by the characters and the overall rudeness of the players up there (and believe me there were a lot of instances of players being dickheads and we even saw the team in front of us move their ball out of the rough like 15 feet), I would be very surprised if those scores were actually legit to be honest. But hey, whatever, what can I do? Overall, we had a very good time and it was very enjoyable to be captain of my team at the end of the day. What a great experience.   

P90X round 3: Day 27 - Rest

I woke up feeling a little sore (I guess continually beating your body up with work, exercise and golf everyday can cause that). But honestly, I've been feeling good. I definitely know that the strength I have has been building up. Also, with regards to flexibility, I'm getting better too. I decided to give myself a rest day, mainly because I want to be at 100% for the tournament tomorrow. I will be pretty active tomorrow, and as captain of the team, I want adequate sleep and rest for the day.