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.

P90X round 3: Day 26 - Golf

Time to bear down and demolish my golf game. That was the thought process for today. I had a 7-3 shift at work today, and right after I zipped over to Morgan Hills with my dad to start off at about 4:00 with the intention to play 9 holes. However, by the time we zipped through the first nine, we still had enough time to zip through an additional nine. So we ended up playing 18 holes in under just 2 hours and 54 minutes. Now, normally my pace with another player is around 3.5 - 4 hours. But today, it was cold and there really wasn't that many people in front of us. We did end up skipping a six-some as they were simply oblivious to us and couldn't let us play through I guess. So we played hole 8 at the end with 2 balls each. My foot did not bother me so much, but now I also have a very slight tweak in my thumb (nagging golf injury), but I can't imagine it slowing me down in anyway. When I came home, I was pooped and fell asleep rather early. Actually early enough to nearly miss an event I was invited to. But luckily, I awoke and drove over quick before it was over. I certainly don't have a lot of free time on my hands it would appear.

P90X round 3: Day 25 - Golf Practice + Weigh-in

Considering that for the last few days, I pretty much had a rest day, I decided that it was okay to do a little practice for my golf tournament. With the tourney a few days away, I may just decide to bag it here and not worry about the remaining 2 workouts during this recovery week. I know that I have to be smart, and at the same time I want to be 100% for the tourney. If anything, I will continue to hit golf balls at the range / in my net in the backyard, and possibly cycle here and there to keep the level of activity going properly.

As for the weigh-in, today I clocked in at 174.9 pounds. As we can see the fluctuation continues to show unreliable measurements of progress with regards to weight. I think this Saturday, I will redo my measurements to see if I am made any strides with regards to muscle building during the first 4 weeks. I believe that since my strength is still there, I have to be gaining at least a little muscle. The diet hasn't been 100% clean (probably more around the level of 80-85% clean), so there is still room to improve upon this during the remaining weeks.

P90X round 3: Day 24 - Cycling

I didn't do Kenpo because I didn't want to be doing all those kicks and set-ups to cause more issues with my foot. As a result, I cycled for the duration of how long Kenpo would've taken to completed. To me, this is an effective swap out, cause I feel like cycling is one of the best types of cardio one can have. I even worked out to the point where I had a nice sweat break out there.

P90X round 3: Day 23 - Rest?

Today, there was some real tough burning sensations, and I knew that core syngeristics would be out of the picture for today. Again, luckily for me it is the recovery week, and I won't feel uber guilty to make myself re-do this week entirely over again (after all, I have to stay on pace with Laura, who is doing well). Rest the feet, and I will come back stronger.

P90X round 3: Day 22 - Rest?

The first day of recovery week and what did I notice? A nagging left athlete's foot. It did start itching a little bit yesterday, but today the rash is very visible. I am disappointed that I didn't do Yoga today, but at least this did happen during the recovery week, which I am grateful for. I'm going to try to take it easy on my feet this week. I got a prescription strength cream for the athlete's foot problem, and I'm going to avoid things like running and jumping that will aggravate the injury further. I will probably try to work around this injury as much as I can this week, as I have a big better ball golf tournament at Mount Airy Golf Club this upcoming Sunday. And, as the captain of the team, I don't want to be limping around the entire time and hating my life. I will keep updates constant on this developing situation.

P90X round 3: Day 21 - Rest

Round 3 weekly self rating scale:

THE BIG 10

Durability: 9

Diet: 7

Intensity Level: 7

Mental: 8

Strength: 10

Flexibility: 6

Cardiovascular Endurance: 8

Sleep: 7

Core: 8

Completed all workouts for week? 5/6

___________

Overall self score: 78

Previous self score: 81

My thoughts of the score: Okay, so I obviously keep going down overall in my score. This is alarming to me. It says that perhaps I am wearing my body down a bit more than I would like. The Durability was decent, however, the abdominal pain for half a day was extremely weird. Sleep wasn't great this week, but it was better than last week. Strength (which is a big deal to me during this phase), however, was much better. I keep seeing huge leaps of gains every week. What's not to like about this? Flexibility will probably stay locked at a 6 or 7 all round long because I am making my gains there very slowly. Overall, I have much to prove. But I am confident in my abilities to succeed.

P90X round 3: Day 20 - Cardio

I did not do Kenpo X today. However, Laura and I did do a good amount of cardio in terms of walking around and staying active around Boston. To me, it's not a huge bend or break scenario when I end up missing a cardio workout as long as there is some type of cardio to replace it. Maybe in the future, I will end up making up this Kenpo workout, who knows?

P90X round 3: Day 19 - Legs and Back + Ab Ripper X

So I may have rushed through this workout a little bit. First of all, I wanted to get this workout completed because I knew that I would be heading to Boston today to see my lovely Laura. Also, throw in the fact that I work from 10-7, and then I have to complete it first thing in the morning as well. I noticed that when I do workouts after work, the quality of the workout itself is always questionable. I feel like I am more drained after the end of a long shift doing physical labor. It's just the way it is. And the relief of getting the workout done before work, knowing that I'm done for the rest of the day, is awesome.

I was a little sluggish today. I felt it was hard to focus, as my mind wanted to keep racing to the end of the workout. In terms of strength, I am continually beating my numbers every single week with regards to pull-ups and even the number of reps I am doing in the leg exercises. So there has been improvement. I am now easily cranking out 20+ reps of weighted pull-ups, so in the next round, I'll probably dig deeper and crank up the total amount of weight a little bit.

With regards to ab ripper, I goofed up. I was on the last leg climber on my left side, and then all of a sudden, I noticed a sharp stabbing pain in my lower left abdominal region. I stopped immediately and scaled back the Mason Twist. I thought it might be bad at first, possibly an abdominal strain, but after a while the initial tightness went away. I did however, have a lot of strain on it during work. Just when I thought that my durability so far would be in trouble, during the drive up to Boston I felt the pain go away. Gee, who would guess that a drive could solve the problem? Anyway, I really have to be careful with trying to rush and squeeze workouts in on these tight schedule situations. I will continue to monitor my abs. In terms of diet, I was treated to a fabulous dinner when I got to Laura's. I had pasta with chicken and apple roses (no, not actual flowers- apple rose food). Very much please. Such wow.

P90X round 3: Day 18 - Yoga X

Weigh-in:

So I tipped the scales today at 170.0 pounds. Do you really think I went from 169.1 to 173.0 back down to 170.0 again in a stretch of 3 weeks? It is possible I suppose, but the more realistic assumption is that my body weight was just fluculated a little more than normal last week. This goes to prove that you can't live and die by weight alone for judging your appearance.

Set an alarm for 5:30AM today, and I said "let's go do some yoga". The goal with starting early today is that:

1) I want to get yoga over extremely quick as possible

2) I may be doubling up legs and back today because I'll be heading to Boston tomorrow night to visit Laura

3) Just because bro

Now, I didn't actually do half bad today. I really look forward to those balance postures and the entire last half of Yoga X. On the flip side, I'm not the biggest fan of the Warrior One / Warrior Two movements. I would just completely rather get rid of them altogether. But I do them because I have a guilty conscience and must. Life goes on. We'll see if I end up doubling today.

P90X round 3: Day 17 - Shoulders and Arms + Ab Ripper X

I completed Shoulders and Arms with Ab Ripper x, and let me say that at first, I wanted to get this workout over as quick as humanly possible. I just wasn't feeling it to begin with. Felt like I was stuck in mud all day. And then, I started the pumpin' away and immediately was sprung. I was like "BRO!". Then I just started to smash it the rest of the way. If it wasn't before, it clearly is obvious now that my strength has gone through the roof. I'm using 40 lb weight Dumbbells on in-and-out bicep curls now, when I started off with only 30, for example. I should continue to grow even stronger and I know that I can get fricking jacked out of my mind.

Ab Ripper quality was much better today compared to yesterday's. I felt a lot more fluid and it's such a nice feeling when you're able to crank out those 50 Mason Twists to finish.

P90X round 3: Day 16b - Golf and Chest and Back

Part 2 of 2: Right after Ab Ripper, I went to Arnold's with Kyle to golf again. I had a very miserable front 9 with a dreaded score of 59, but I took the back nine by storm for a score of 47 for a total of 106. Last week, I hit a 99 here with Chris, so needless to say, I was a little disappointed. But at least I finished strong and didn't quit which I am proud of. I always do awesome on the back 9 and sucky on the front. This leads me to believe that maybe I need a warmup routine.

Chest and back I didn't start until 12:41 (great job Kurt), but in my defense I was mostly busy today at all points of the day. I need to be careful here with my durability. I had absolutely 0 issues so far this month with P90X, but I can't keep overloading these days like this and expect to not burn myself out. As for the results of the workout, I was skeptical that I would match previous weeks' totals. However, I absolutely smashed this week. Needless to say, and it's obvious by my numbers, hat my strength has been going through the roof. And you know the old saying? If you got stronger, then you also got bigger. I think this might be true, because I'm smashing it lately with regards to strength. I did learn something though, be extremely careful with doubling up in the future.

P90X round 3: Day 16a - Plyometrics and Ab Ripper X

Part 1 of 2: I knew that I would be putting myself in a bad start for this day as Plyo generally is pretty tough to begin with. But throw in Ab Ripper X with Chest and Back? And oh, there was another 18 holes of golf played today. So as you can tell, I was an active freak today. Today was probably my worst performance in plyo to date. I felt very lethargic and slow to start off. And it didn't get much better. I skipped the bonus round in order to simply reduce the shear amount of volume of work I'd be doing this day. 

Ab Ripper X was another struggle to begin, but eventually I regained my "mojo" and got back into working out properly I felt like. All in all, ab ripper wasn't as bad as I thought it would end up being today

P90X round 3: Day 15 - Golf?

Okay, so I didn't want to fully ruin my chances at a great score in golf with a sore chest and back, so I opted to push Chest and Back with Plyo on Day 16 instead. However, it didn't make any difference anyway, I ended up shooting a 111 at Stonehedge golf course. I also played another bonus nine and by the time I came home I just completely crashed. Oh well. I don't plan to skip many days and I'll always try to make it up later in the week when this happens. However, I know I'm setting myself up for that much more difficult of a next day with plyo, abs, chest and back all on the same day. 

P90X round 3: Day 14 - Rest

Round 3 weekly self rating scale:

THE BIG 10

Durability: 10

Diet: 6

Intensity Level: 8

Mental: 7

Strength: 10

Flexibility: 6

Cardiovascular Endurance: 9

Sleep: 6

Core: 9

Completed all workouts for week?: Yes

___________

Overall self score: 81

Previous self score: 84

My thoughts of the score: I think this score is a little skewed this week. Here's why- sleeping we can admit was horrible, as at least on 3 occurrences I had less than 6 hours of sleep. I will try to address this issue but I'm not 100% certain it will be an easy fix. Durability is no issue at all, as I feel absolutely great and like a tank, so that is a positive. Although, I know that less and less sleep will eventually cause some problems for me (ex. Weakened immune system, lack of mental intensity, risk of injury etc). Flexibility will still be the weak point here, but I can say I did add some gains as yoga was much better this time around. Strength is absolutely insane right now. I never thought that at week two I would be cranking out 20 pull-ups with 45 lbs added resistance, but here I am. Watch out Guinness book of world records, here I come! I did not fare as well as I would have liked with regards to diet. It probably wasn't a true fail, as I did at the very least maintain calories. I did fall off the wagon a bit here though. The candy at the fair didn't help. Mental level is okay and my intensity level was tagged on. Completing more movements in all exercises, sticking with Ab Ripper X the entire way, these were all positives this week. Can't wait to beat this score next week and be in the high 80s for the first time.

P90X round 3: Day 13 - Kenpo

I'm going to keep my post a little short today, since it is currently 3:30AM and I'm prepping for a gigantic fantasy hockey draft tomorrow. Kenpo is excellent. First off, this is one of those rare videos where I actually like stretching for. The stretches really challenge my flexibility, and I like that.

Today, I stuck with every exercise and completed in full. This gives me a great sense of achievement in these cardio workouts. I know that if I can finish to full completion, obviously I'm making some gains there with my cardiovascular condition and endurance. 

Eating was pretty good today. I'll be careful tomorrow on my rest day.

Cheers,

K-Dawg

P90X round 3: Day 12 - Legs and Back + Ab Ripper X

Mark up another day with an issue of sleeping. I'm not sure if this is related to my rotating schedule at work (it probably is). I was just coming off a long closing stretch last week in which most days I didn't start until 1 or 2 PM. But now my schedule has been mostly opens so I think my body had a tweak adjusting to this. 

Anyway, Legs and Back went pretty well. Pullups I am beating previous numbers by 2-5 reps sometimes, which isn't bad considering I am using a dip belt with 45 pounds attached. Obviously, near the end you start to bugger out a bit. However, that didn't stop me from really digging deep and finishing off with 20 switch grip pull-ups with the 45 pounds. My back strength feels simply amazing, and I really can't wait to see if I can start pulling 30 pull-ups with the 45 pounds. 

Ab Ripper X. I must say, something weird happened during it. I got into "the zone". I stuck with Tony Horton for every single exercise! Even the Fifer Scissors. I did all 349 core moves. Boom.

P90X round 3: Day 11 - Yoga X

Weigh-in:

So I got my body back up to 173.0 pounds. I weighed myself in the morning again like I did last week. When I weighed myself last week, I was 169.1 pounds. Do we think this is a solid 3.9 pounds of muscle gain? Well, obviously not. First off, that probably would only be possible if I was juicing. But more importantly, I am also aware that weight is a measurement you can't really trust cause it keeps fluculating daily. Don't believe me? Seriously, try it then. Weigh yourself first thing in the morning, and then once right after lunch, and then weight yourself just before you hit your bed for the night. I've fluculated up to 7 pounds in one day before. That's why we'll need to go by our exact measurements for more accurate reading of results through this round of P90X. The important numbers will be in the inches my biceps gained or lost, or the inches I took off my waist, etc. These are accurate readings that cannot be disputed. Every recovery week I think I will measure myself, and I'll continue to weigh myself every Thursday morning.

As for Yoga, I started yoga today after getting a tooth filled AND golfing 18 holes with Chris. I had bit into a popcorn kernel accidentally the other day and I saw stars. Turns out that part of an old filling came loose and I needed it to get re-filled. If there's one workout that seems easy but is clearly not, it's yoga. I swear yoga will be the death of me. If it helps with my rock-like flexibility though, then in the end, it will be all worth it.

Phase 1 Yoga thoughts:

Wow what an improvement! I went from being completely frustrated and even skipping a few of the warrior moves here and there, to being able to stick with about 90% of the first 45 minutes. 

Phase 2 Yoga thoughts:

Relatively little issues and complaints here. The Yoga Belly keeps things interesting and the balance movements in the beginning are actually pretty enjoyable to me.