Project Exercise

Its New Years Eve so I will keep this really short.  I did Max Recovery to satisfy both my Insanity and P90X workouts today.

Anyway, have a safe and fun New Years Eve.  Don’t let this be you (see video).  Boomer’s video pick of the day…

This morning I did P90X Shoulders, Arms and Ab Ripper X.  Just for a change I used a mixture of bands and my Bowflex SelectTech Dumbbells.  I have these bands where you can attach multiple bands to the handles using clips.  So, in effect, you can vary the resistance of the bands.  I have been watching videos where Terrell Owens uses resistance bands for his workouts so I thought I would give it a try.  I kind of like the burn it gives me.  When I use the dumbbells I can really go heavy for power lifts.  The combination gave me a great workout and I came out of it with a great pump in my shoulders and arms.  Oh, just for the record, I am not a big Terrell Owens fan.  I don’t like his “I-guy” attitude, however, you can’t deny the fact that he is one of the most fit athletes in the NFL.

After shoulders and arms, I did the Ab Ripper X workout.  After ARX I hooked my bands up to the P90X pull-up bar and did cable crunches… maybe I should call them “overhead band crunches”.

I was a bit worried about doing my Insanity workout today because I feel some pain where the legs attach to the pelvis… right around the ball and socket.  In the end, though, I decided to do the workout so I started out by warming up slowly.  After the warm up, things seemed to loosen up a bit.  Today’s workout was nuts, but then again, all the Insanity workouts are nuts!  I did Max Interval Plyo today.   This workout pulls no punches.  Like the other Insanity workouts, there are some strength moves.  I had a tough time with the strength moves because the P90X strength workouts have been taking a lot of out of me.

Oh, what about that pain?  Well, I still have it.  P90X Yoga X and Insanity Max Recovery is on the schedule for tomorrow.  I will probably do some sort of hybrid of the two workouts and do the movements that don’t exacerbate the pain.  I am pretty sure the soreness is due to Tuesday workouts where I did two Plyo workouts.  I just need time to get used to the increased intensity of doing both Insanity and P90X.  In the future I won’t be doing 2 plyo workout in one day.  I will probably just substitute the Insanity workout for the P90X Plyometrics workout.

There a bunch of videos on YouTube showing Terrell Owens working out with resistance bands.  Here is one of them in Boomer’s video pick of the day.

I started out the day with P90X Plyometrics.  After doing Insanity, P90X Plyometrics seem a little light.  I kind of hate to say that because I can remember what Plyo was like the first time I did it.  It was challenging.  As Tony Horton says, “its the X in P90X… the mother of all the X exercises”.  If you have never done P90X before, I don’t want you to think that Plyometrics is some light weight kid exercise.  Quite the opposite.  I think you will find it challenging.  However, by phase 3 of P90x you will find that you will be flying through Plyometrics.   That is just a testimony to the P90x program.

Later in the day I did Insanity Max Interval Circuit.  Talk about a butt kicking.  I left a whole lot of “me” in my Man Cave after that workout.  Max Interval Circuit is HIIT on steroids.  Usually HIIT doesn’t go for an hour!  The “Max” workouts are nuts!  They are designed to just knock you silly!

While I do both Insanity and P90X I will probably just substitute an Insanity workout for Plyo and just do one plyo-centric workout for the day.  Today, however, I wanted to try out P90X Plyo to have some sort of reference to Insanity.  It has been such a long time since I did P90X Plyo that I kind of forgot its intensity level.  During round 2 of P90X I remember substituting P90X+ Interval X Plus for Plyo to increase the intensity.  Btw, P90X+ Interval X Plus is a killer workout.  Ok, I am just babbling now… too much working out.

P90X has an exercise called airborne plyo push-ups.   I came across the pull-up equivalent of the exericse.  Check out Boomer’s video pick of the day…

While I did my workouts yesterday, I did not make a post.  After my last workout I was pretty tired and I hit the sack pretty early last night.  I will post yesterday’s workout now and post today’s workout a bit later.

I decided I would start round 3 of P90X and do it along with my last 3 weeks of Insanity.  It has been about 5 months since the last time I did P90X.  So I woke up at 4:30 am and did the P90X chest and back workout.  During my previous rounds I substituted dumbbell bench presses for the push-ups (with good results), however, this time around I thought I would take the body weight approach.  I will probably substitute with the dumbbell bench press sometime during the program.  Anyway, the workout felt pretty good.  I didn’t get winded like the very first time I did P90X almost a year ago.  I am a little sore today (especially in the upper back) so that is a good sign.  During my lunch break I headed to the gym to knock out Ab Ripper X.  That went well, I did about 400 reps.  After I did ARX I headed to the cable machine to do some cable crunches.

Later in the day I did my Insanity workout.  Max Cardio Conditioning was on the menu today.  These Insanity workouts are just killer, especially these “Max” workouts introduced in the second month.   I am just wasted after these sessions.

Ok, so I was able to handle doing both Insanity and P90x, at least for today.  Why did I start P90X during my last month of Insanity.  Well, I just don’t think Insanity is a balanced workout and I felt I needed to add the strength components to my workout.   Don’t get me wrong… anyone who can handle the Insanity workouts at the pace that Shaun T sets will be extremely fit.  It has a lot of jump training and cardio.  Your heart rate will soar.   However, I like the strength component since I came from a weight lifting background.  So this is just a personal opinion.

You know, I am always interested in good core exercises.  Check out Boomer’s video pick of the day…

Today was Max Interval Circuit. Personally, I think this is the most difficult workout of the Insanity program.

Ok, I will keep this short today. We are still on our Christmas weekend and I am sure you folks have better things to do than read how I got my butt handed to me.

Early celebration? Check out Boomer’s video pick of the day…

Aloha and Merry Christmas…

I know it is Chritmas, but I need to get my workout done.  So I blasted Max Interval Plyo today.  Ouch!  Ok, not much to say about the workout.  It was the usual butt kicking.

So how was everyone’s Christmas?  We are having a great Christmas day here in Hawaii.  It is 80 degrees right now.  I know, I know, it isn’t a “white” Christmas, but that’s ok with me.  I know that a lot of folks that have moved here from the mainland that miss the seasons, but for myself, well… I like the warm weather.  Although it is 80 degrees, its not humid today so it is just an absolutely wonderful and sunny day.

I bought my son a PS3 so we were having fun with it earlier this morning.  I also bought him Rockband and Madden 10.  I really enjoyed rocking out with him.  He played the drums and I played he guitar.  Right after I finish this post I will be heading to my home office/music room/workout room and play my “real” guitar.  I think I will crank the amp up to about 10!

During my last 3 weeks of Insanity I will also be doing P90X.  So Monday I need to “bring it” and “dig deeper”.  Just to get motivated I decided to view this video I did sometime ago.

Boomer’s Video Pick of the Day – Airborne Plyo Push-ups…

Its Max Recovery day.  Max Recovery starts with some yoga style stretching then goes into some plank core exercises.  The next set of exercises work the quads, calves and core.  Next there are more plank exercises.  The last portion consists of standing abs/core exercises.

This workout is relatively easy.  You will get a burn in your quads and  your shoulders/triceps will get a burn from many of the plank exercises.  If you do the exercises correctly you should also feel you abs getting a good workout.

Ok, so not much to report.  I hope you all have a Merry Christmas tomorrow.

Are you thinking about working out tomorrow?  Well, what would Santa do?  Check out Boomer’s video pick of the day…

Today I did Max Conditioning and Cardio Abs.  As I mentioned in my previous posts, the second month is quite a bit more intense.  The warm ups for the Max workouts are incredibly crazy.  Before the warm up session is over, people are actually beginning to collapse (including myself).  The S-S Hops are brutal, especially at speed.

After the warm up, Shaun T takes everyone through a stretching session.  Once stretching is done he begins the beat down once again.  This next set goes through sports specific plyometric routines like boxing, football, basketball and kenpo kick drills.  It sort of reminds me of the last few routines in the P90X Plyometrics workout.  The next set brings a lot of jumping routines.  I was sucking big wind during this set.  The last set of routines brings more skipping, hopping, jumping and other insane movements.  At the end of all that nonsense, everyone in the video is wasted.  I took a pounding.  Again, Insanity proves itself to be a killer workout.

After Max Conditioning I did the Cardio Abs.  I was substituting more difficult abs routines during the first month, however, these Max workouts take a lot out of me so Cardio Abs is more than enough.  Am I getting old?

Did you know that home workouts can be destructive? Check out Boomer’s Video Pick of the Day…

Man, I made a big mistake yesterday and I had to pay for it today.  Can you say pain!  I was supposed to do my fit test AND Max Interval Circuit.  Well, I read the schedule wrong and I only did the fit test.  So in order to stay on schedule I did 2 Insanity workouts today.  The worst part of the whole thing is that I just started the second month of Insanity and the workouts are now more intense.  Instead of 40 minutes of gut bustin’ we now do 60 minutes.  Not only are the workouts longer, the exercises are more intense.

Max Interval Circuit is just insane!  There are basically 3 interval sets.  Each set is made up of a variety of exercises that are performed without rest and as time goes by the intensity get progressively more difficult.  Man, after the warm up I was sweating like a pig.  When I finished the first set, I was dreading the thought of the second.  Luckily the second set isn’t quite as difficult as the first.  The pain returns in the third interval set.  It starts out with big time intensity and it just doesn’t let up.

Ok, so I swore off Max Interval Plyo by the time I finished Max Interval Circuit.  However, I began to feel guilty so about half an hour later I decided to give the second workout a try.  I skipped the warm up.  Heck, I was on fire already.   Max Interval Plyo is made up of 2 sets of gut busting cardio and plyo.  There are some body weight resistance moves thrown in just to make you puke.  The first set works the legs hard.  There are a lot of the exercises that involve squatting movements and jumping.  The rest of the video involves some upper body and lower body circuit training.  I was pretty toasted half way through this workout.  I had to rest during more than a few of the exercises.

Ok, so here is my advice… don’t do 2 Insanity workouts in one day.  Well, at least take a few hours between workouts.   I am just wasted as I sit here typing this blog post.

I saw this video some time ago. I wasn’t going to post it because it looks painful, however, since I beat myself up today I decided to go ahead and share it with you folks.

So it’s fit test day.  I did alright, however, the improvements are not huge.  The fit test is crazy hard because you are just going 100% for a minute straight.  That might not seem long, but just try jumping from a full squat position and lifting your knees as high as possible on each jump for 1 minute straight.  For those of you who have done Tabata, HIIT or even Interval X Plus will have an appreciation for what I am talking about.  The fit test is no joke.  The whole fit test including warm up and cool down is 25 minutes long.  I actually made myself lightheaded during the test.  I just maxed out trying to beat my last numbers.  Honestly, I am not sure I can beat those numbers on the next test.  I was sucking big wind today!

I was thinking about starting a new round of P90X today and run it along with my last month of Insanity.  However, while I was at work my wife called me and told me that some very good friends had called to spend time with us so I opted out of the second workout.  This also made me think that this was a bad week to start P90X with Christmas and everything coming up.  I also have to see how hard these next set of Insanity workouts are going to be before starting P90X.