Well...sunuva... P15-22X I suppose!!!

Hey everybody!!! Been a while, I know. BUT I am happy to report that as of today, P22X (22!!! Holy Crap!!!) I'm still rocking and rolling and BRINGING IT daily!!!!

That even goes for the last 3 days when I've had a wicked head cold!!! I'll tell ya what, there's not a lot of "quality breathing" during hard workouts when you have a head cold, and I was (still am, a bit) getting winded awfully quickly. But I said "JUST PUSH PLAY" and popped the DVD in and P-n-n-X'ed it anyways!

So that means we've gotten past day 20... which mean you'reall going to be subjected to...

DAY 20 PHOTOS!!!!

This time, instead of the usual "posed" photos, I went with action shots, featuring me, and my workout buddy, my dog Sammy.

So let me first of all talk about week 2 and 3... see I think week 3 is the first week I had the opportunity to truly "BRING IT" to the fullest most effective capacity. Partially, I'll take the blame on that one... Week 1, for non-gym-rat-types... consists of a lot of "figuring out the move and the form"... I mean, I don't know what the hell a trip-six-twist-frog-underhand-cross-flip-two-hut-hut-pullup is. I had to watch a bit, figure out the form on the fly, and try to make it work... and of course, not knowing what it is means I don't know what the energy expenditure per repetition is, and if I do too many too fast it could affect the rest of the hour's workout.

Exception - Ab Ripper X. When you do the same 350ish ab exercises 3 times per week, you can get in the groove on that one pretty quick. Doesn't make it any easier... just means you can get the form right sooner.

Week 2 was really about zero-ing in on the resistance (for those days of the workouts). The cardio-based ones and stretch based ones (Plyometrics, Kenpo-X, Yoga-X and X-Stretch) I settled into nicely... but the resistance based ones were tricky... Especially with the resistance bands. It's not too easy to REALLY determine how much resistance you're pulling, or how much to add to get to the "next level" - so I opted for some adjustable dumbbells (5-25lb, in 5lb increments). Remember, I'm starting at "skinny little git" so 25 is plenty, trust me, for now. I'm sure EVENTUALLY I'll graduate to the 50+ area... Now, switching to the weights in Week 3 was an eye opener compared to the resistance bands, BUT, I was able to zero in on my target resistance levels MUCH faster, and adjust MUCH easier. So that made me pretty happy.

Now a few words on the most pressing thing on everyone's mind at this very moment:

How did "Waiting for Superman" NOT get nominated for an Oscar?????

With that out of our collective systems.... on to.... my thought of the day:

"..."

Yep. It's been that kind of day.

So - let's do photos....

So - here's action shot number one, me in the middle of a 25-lb "out" curl. Not, the bulging biceps, the shoulders of might and magic, the slight smirk on my face, knowing that soon, soon, the world will truly be my oyster, the perky, yet not so large as to confuse them with pancakes nipples, and the two vuvuzelas on the ground behind me, with which I take to the nearby soccer pub and make noises very loudly during goals.... Booyah. Booyah indeed. Next picture... or... just sit and stare at this one for a moment... wow.. those are great vuvuzelas... now, moving on...

WHAT is this??? Down there??? To the bottom right of the frame??? Fallout: New Vegas??!?! Oh yes my friends... the Mojave Wasteland calleth. Oh, and check out that awesome shot of my back muscles. They say the back directly links the head and the ass. They say that. You don't believe me? LOOK INTO MY EYES!!!!!!! (PS - Check that neck vein!!! DAAAAANNNNGGG!!!)

Moving along, here you can see that this specimen is shy and doesn't want to be identified.

So, a segue... many of you know that the focus of P90X is not only on "building mass" but also working on core strength, balance, flexibility, and pretending to be an animal. I am not making this up. Tony Horton, P90X Fitness Video Coach Extraordinaire, has us do things called "The Frog", "The Crane", "Cat Stretch", "Elephant Ballistic Stretch", "Downward Dog", "Upward Dog" (Note - these are yoga poses, not sexual positions... or....are...they.....??), and "Crunchy Frog" ... ok, maybe that last one is not pretending to be an animal so much as pretending to be an appetizer at a Chinese restaurant.

So, as I mentioned before, my workout buddy, Sammy, my dog, is very demanding, and is not tough on me if I don't do the "namesake poses" of hers correctly. For example:

Here Sammy is clearly telling me either 1) my nose smells interesting, or 2) my "Upward Dog" pose doesn't have my chest high enough, or my legs straight enough with my knees off the ground. I'm not 100% sure which one she was telling me here... or possibly both.

Here you can see that once I correct the pose... OR my nose smell is determined to be "not food"... Sammy lays down in the most intrusive "in the way" spot possible and waits for me to continue to the next exercise.

Well, I have one more picture to share with you. I'll tell you what it is up front, and leave you to it for the day. It's a picture of me performing a side-kick from the Kenpo-X workout. There are a few things to note here:

1) The picture was taken in such a manner so as to appear to be head-on to the kick, and yet NOT show my.. er... NUTS, what was I going to say?

2) The dog appears to be satisfied with my form on this kick...

Have a nice day everyone. I'll be in what P90X calls "recovery week" for a bit, but hopefully I'll find time to check in more often that I did since... well... day 14 apparently.

P90X - "Bring It!" "Just Push Play" "Do Your Best and Forget the Rest" "Don't Forget to BREATHE People!!!" (But... I was doing my best, and forgetting the rest.. including breathing... I'm so confused!!!!!!)

Ciao!