My P90X Progress Journal

1/27 – Day 7

Well, here we are at Day 7. Yesterday (1/26), I did Legs and Back. In my first attempt at this routine on 1/19, I could only get through 50% of the routine. I was wiped out. Moreover, I didn’t have the proper fuel in my body to energize me throughout the routine. I didn’t help that I was trying to cram this routine in prior to a meeting I had on that day. At any rate, I was pretty much wiped out for the day, feeling terribly tired. However, yesterday was a different story. I got through nearly 75% of the routine without too much trouble. I omitted a few of the pull-up and chin-up sets. I did all of the leg exercises save one; I just couldn’t remember how to do it exactly. When I get into the gym, I try to have the exercise movements already memorized. I like to do the majority of P90X in the gym because of the people element. Working out in an environment where others are working hard is motivating for me.

My schedule of exercises is off. Today is supposed to be a day of rest. However, I’ve yet to do Kenpo X and I’m due for another set of Ab Ripper X. Given the frequency of Kenpo X and Yoga X throughout the entire program, I’m not too worried about missing them this past week. I am plenty beat up. As I now enter into week 2, I expect to get through every routine. For the ones that I’ve done thus far, I expect to get through 100% of the exercises.

Week 1 Summary Breakdown

• Chest and Back (1/21)
• Plyometrics, Ab Ripper X (1/22)
• Shoulders and Arms (1/23)
• Cardio [elliptical, treadmill, and bike] (1/24) – This was a rest day of sorts!
• Ab Ripper X (1/25) – I just didn’t have it in me to do anything else.
• Legs and Back (1/26)

1/23 – Day 3

Monday (1/21) represented my official start of P90X. By “official”, I mean I will get through all of the workouts this week. Yes, that includes Yoga X and Kenpo X. I just got my yoga blocks the other day, and I’m sure that the yoga exercises will be “interesting”.

So, Monday I did Chest and Back. I almost got through the entire workout this go-round. I left out one exercise: dive bombers. Because I was doing this at a gym and the gym was quite full at the time, I felt a little self-conscious doing that particular exercise. Otherwise, I completed everything. Still, I was wiped out. I am doing my best to pay attention to the eating plan. I feel I need more energy. I didn’t do abs on Monday; I saved those for Tuesday.

Tuesday’s (1/22) work consisted of Ab Ripper X and Plyometrics. Again, because of my timing at the gym (it was pretty crowded when I got there), I did abs only and left. I came back later in the evening to do plyo. This was my first time doing Ab Ripper X. As such, I cut down on the number of reps per exercise (I did a max of 15 per exercise). Trust me when I say that the number of reps done was more than sufficient. I got through the majority of the exercises, but omitted two: hip rock-n-raise and the leg climb. My abs were thoroughly torched without those two. I will get those in next week.

Plyo was good. When I first tried out these exercises last week, I was left spent and lightheaded. I got through about 50% of the routine at that time. This time around, my energy was good and I felt like my cardio conditioning was better. I was able to get through 80% of the routine. I think I could have made a stab at the final four exercises, but my legs were telling me, “Enough already!” Additionally, it was near 11 PM at the time and I was getting sleepy.

I have some variations on some of the exercises that I’ll have to pass along to you all. These variations add a little “twist”, but in no way lessen the intensity.

I think splitting up abs from my other exercise set was a good idea. I will use this going forward in the future. Unless I feel like I have the energy to do both, I will probably do Ab Ripper X in a separate exercise session. In other words, I’ll do two workouts on abs day. One workout will be Ab Ripper X only (this will probably be an AM workout). The second workout (a PM workout) will be whatever routine is called for that day. However, on the days where I have to do yoga and Kenpo, I will probably do abs in the evening while doing the other routines in the AM.

So today is Shoulders and Arms. I’m looking forward to that. I got through it, in its entirety, last week, but not without my shoulders feeling like they were on fire! P90X is intense!

As an aside, it seems like I’ve dropped a few more pounds already. When I weighed in this morning, I hit the scale at 225. Wow. I’ve not seen that number in about three or four years.

1/20 – Zero Week: A Review

Last week (1/14 – 1/19), after finally getting the P90X package, I started the workouts. I labeled that period “zero week” because I wasn’t officially counting my efforts towards my time with P90X. My attempt was to get a flavor for the intensity of the workouts, and to understand the various moves required. Needless to say that P90X “cleaned my clock!” Understand that you are talking to someone who has been working out for quite some time on a consistent basis. After doing a representative portion of all of the routines except for Kenpo X and Yoga X, I can say that my workouts prior to P90X were pedestrian in comparison. With the little that I did, I found myself sore and aching! That’s a good thing. It means I’m going to have to take this to another level. I’m going to have to “bring it.”