P90X Day 1: Chest & Back

P90X DAY 1: CHEST & BACK

Last night’s workout was really very intense. I’d done a lot of research into just what I was getting myself into, and the overall thoughts on Day 1 from the internet community was “It. Is. Tough.”

And they were right. It was tough. Chest & Back is code for Pushing & Pulling. It was primarily different versions of pullups and pushups with some other pulling motions thrown in for poops and giggles.

After an hour of pushing and pulling I found that my suspicions were correct — this was a workout that pushes you to actual failure. It wasn’t that I was trying to eek out the last few. No, it was that after that certain breaking point, my body just wasn’t going to do another rep. My triceps, they were just done for a while. It was a wild feeling hitting failure with pushups. And with pullups, failure is easy because pullups get tough no matter your strength level.

One thing I discovered during this workout was this: from this point on I’m wearing shoes. I got into a habit of working out barefoot as it works a different set of muscles in the legs when keeping balance. But here, that’s no good. It was difficult to use the resistance bands with barefeet. It was hard to control and painful to have rubber stretching against my skin with that kind of tension.

And once we finished with the Chest & Back workout, we moved on to Ab Ripper X — 15 minutes of continuous ab work from all sides – upper, lower, oblique and lower back.

Pandia fared better than I did with the lower ab movements. Her being a dancer makes her better in that by default. Overall, it was trying and rewarding. I was introduced to a few new movements I’d not done before. They are compound ab movements, many of them, so it’s a really great ab workout all on it’s own.

One thing that I’ve decided is genius about P90X is how it’s time-based in its routines. On most DVDs you follow a time or you are following a host who is following a time and you’re typically following their rhythm. With P90X, you’re following the time and you’re following the host, BUT you are required to set your own rhythm. There were 4 people working out on the DVD and each one verbally set a goal for themselves for each workout. Each one typically end up doing a different weight and/or a different number of reps, (done in the spirit of competition between one another) but it was done with the idea that each person needed to push himself. It needed to be tough for the individual. That’s the beauty of it. I actually will only get out of it what I put into it. There is no following the guy on the screen. In this, the guy on the screen is in ridiculous shape and will easily outperform your average Day 1 participant.

So, to sum up, the whole program really does allow nearly any level of fitness to make this challenging. And I think that’s beautiful.

Day 2: Plometrics is next.

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Today’s Diet:

Breakfast (6:30am):

1/3c organic oatmeal w/ 1 tsp dark choc. chips, 1/2c wild blueberries, 1tbsp ground flaxseed, and 1/4c chopped walnuts.

Morning Snack (9:30am):

Medium Red Delicious (read: Disgusting) Apple w/ 2 tbsp natural peanut butter

Lunch (12:30pm):

Pork chop w/ cabbage and a turkey patty

Afternoon Snack (3:30pm):

Medium Orange w/ string cheese

WATER COUNT: 128oz (as of 5pm)

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P90X To-Do List:

• - take before pic
• - take body measurements

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