CL/PH2/WK3/Day1: Chest, Shoulders, Triceps; Ab Ripper X
Hi!
Okay, I woke up this morning and realized that the honeymoon is over with Tony. I NEED MY CATHE STEADY STATE CARDIO!!!! I am in full PMS power mode, and I have more energy than I can stand. I start to feel like a caged animal. And I do so miss Cathe's fun cardio. Tony has no steady state cardio, and I need that for stress release. I find his workouts are stress-inducing, which I think is what he intended. But I can't do that kind of workout for 90 days straight, without balancing it with some nice heart pumping cardio. All this rambling to say that today I prefaced Ch-Sh-Tri-ARX with the warm up and step combos of BodyMax2. OMG it felt delicious. Just loved it; had a blast. Wish I could have done the whole workout. I kept the step at 6" because I only wanted a nice sweat to loosen me up and calm me down for the weight work. I've never liked Tony's warms ups. They don't seem to actually warm me up very well. And they come off as rather haphazard, IMO. So, this was the perfect solution. I got my Cathe/SS fun cardio fix, got to skip Tony's warm up, and did my P90X scheduled workout. Ch-Sh-Tri went pretty good, too. I went up in weight in some spots, but also noticed that this fatigued me more for some of the other stuff, so my push up reps decreased in spots too. I'm not concerned about that. I worked my muscles to fatigue, focused hard on proper form, and can feel a big pump in all the right muscles, so I think it's all good.
I'm going to continue to add 30 min Cathe cardios two or three times a week. Probably before the weight workouts. I'm thinking of subbing IMAX2 for PlyoX tomorrow, because I need a break from that. And I think IMAX2 gives an overall better workout, with lots of plyo moves. I guess I'm going to take an approach similar to X: stick with the P90X weight work, because they're golden, but be less stringent on the P90X cardio, because Cathe really out-does Tony in this regard. Just MO.
Traci - Taxes?! You've started your TAXES?? Don't you know it's only JANUARY?! Who's the accountant on this check in? She's gonna LOVE you! I can't believe you're only 2 weeks from the end. You've done a super job with sticking with it. I might check out that WBWW book. I think I've seen it in the bookstore before. Thanks! And how sweetly *aggravating* was that kiss LOL!! It's not like you can get mad at him for that - as much as you may want to! I want some of that Texas Tart! By any chance is that the name of your basketball cheerleading squad? You have made phenomenal gains in your chest and back work! Those stats are very inspiring! What is your P90X goal? Where do you go from here?
Tracy - Thanks for the PMS vitamin/supplement suggestions. What do you think about subbing IMAX2 for PlyoX? Do you think I'm sacrificing anything by doing that? I'll do PlyoX tomorrow if that's the case. But if not, then I think the change would be refreshing. I love Butts & Guts, but like you, I also hate floorwork. That's a bonus of P90X in my book: no floor work! I've always wondered what its purpose is. It's physically impossible to "spot reduce", and I seem to manage to live quite a full life without needing to lie down on my side and lift my leg 50 times with extra weight on it (maybe if I was a male dog with a large territory I would appreciate this stamina...).
So here's the question to everyone: floorwork!! What is it good for?!
Laurie - How terrifying was your FIL's fall! Glad he's okay, and you all had a great trip.
Gayle - I was wondering what happened to you. Nice to see you today! That's ambivalent news about your son, isn't it? I hope it gets sorted in a way that is best for him and for you. Your weekend sounds luxurious, IMO. I used to read thick novels within a couple of days, way back when I could shut everyone out. I love a good novel. I'm always sad when I come to the end, because it means I no longer have the joy of reading that book for the first time again. About your P90X dilemma. First off, I'm curious why you are doing P90X in the first place, when it sounds like your Cathe/running combination works so well for you? If you have a specific reason for wanting to do the entire P90X rotation, then I would suggest you tweak it to suit your needs. Need more Cathe or running? Sub some of the cardio. That kind of thing. BTW, during the middle portion of ANYTHING is the toughest time to stick to something because the novelty has worn off, there's a familiarity that makes you dread certain elements, and you're far enough from the end that it seems like you're going to be doing this "forever". In P90X they continuously tell us to just "keep pushing play". I take that to mean: even when you're not feeling motivated about doing the workouts, just start them anyway. That's the only way you're going to get to the end. But of course, doing P90X is a completely voluntary program. If you're truly unhappy, and have no good reason to stay with it, then do what makes you happy......Oh, hey, I see you and Traci already had this conversation. Well, I spent time typing all this, and I'm not deleting it LOL!!! Yes, please keep checking in with us.
Lea - NICE progress on the push ups!!! And don't feel pressured to go back to all those days if you don't have time. Just pick up where we are. You might be reading and writing for days, otherwise LOL! If I wasn't already writing a tome here, I would do a quick synopsis for you. But my carpal tunnel is starting to quack. Is it a surprise to anyone that I have CTS?
If we were "live", I'd have Carpal Tongue Syndrome LOL!!
X - funny, we were both thinking along the same lines today: BM2 cardio with our upper body workouts. I find frog stretch uncomfortable, too. I have seen improvement, though. Stick with it! (I know you will). I didn't do XStretch yesterday and really missed it. I am going to try to do it tomorrow. Stretching is so effective.
Jeanette - you have a nice day planned. Enjoy!
Debra - Ooh, a bad night is a terrible thing. And you must have been rather worried about how your day would go as a result. How nice that it went so well! I chaperoned my DD's kindergarten class last spring on a trip that turned into every parent's nightmare. It was awful. The funny thing was, DD thought it all went spectacular! I mean, it was so bad the kids didn't even get to their planned destination LOL! But because Mommy was chaperoning, my DD could have cared less. She told me it was the best field trip ever :+
Well, have a good day everyone,
Sandra