P43X - Day 1 of Week 7... HO-LY-CRAP!!!!!

Can you believe that 6 weeks of 2011 are already gone-baby-gone???

What do we have to show for it? Well for starters... quite possibly one of the most historic events I've been around to see - EGYPT!!!! HOLY CRAP!!!!

This is no joke - the revolution toppled a 30-year dictatorship via SHOUTING. That is AMAZING!!!! This wasn't a military overthrow, this wasn't an inside political intrigue... this was the youth (by and large) of a nation deciding to no longer be oppressed and stand up and do something about it!

That's so awesome! Here's to the future of Egypt! Here's hoping things get better for the people. I remember several years ago I was in Cairo, only for a couple days, and I remember a few things that struck me. First... the general poverty literally next door to the luxury. There's a scene in the movie "The Constant Gardner" where Pharmaceutical Executives (I think) play in an exclusive golf course that's fenced in, and right beyond the fence is a huge sprawling tin-shack-slum. Cairo reminded me of that scene, where money and poverty was side-by-side in a way to make it just feel perverse.

Anyways, the Muslim Brotherhood appears to be forming a Political Party out there and the Egyptian Military seems to be working with the "opposition" (is that term correct now that they've dissolved parliament? What's left to oppose?) to allow the gov't to reform via free and fair elections. Unbelievable.

What else has happened? Well, in Wisconsin, there's essentially a war of the union versus the governor. I'm surprised at how little the national media has picked up on this... it's huge news here in the Cheese State. Ironically, Wisconsin made national headlines when the Packers won the Super Bowl, but it took an iReporter to get the story on CNN.com's front page for this bit of

news. Someone's priorities are messed up apparently!!! (Nothing new I guess...)

What else is there... what do YOU have to show for your first six weeks of 2011? What do *I* have to show for it???? Well, I'M GLAD YOU ASKED!!!!!!

Let's do this in a "Day 0, Day 43" Format... I'll let you guess which is which... (No peeking at old blog posts!!!)

BAM!

WOAH!!! Check that out!!!! A diagonal picture!!!! My private photographer is an ar-teest!!!

All I can say is...... check out that vein on my right forearm!!! is that awesome or WHAT???!

So, now you've seen roughly where I am at for the halfway point. Not too shabby I would say!!!

Week 7.... BRING IT!!!

Yayaya... P36X

Ok, I know.. you've been waiting on those P30X Pictures... but I'm too busy making time to work out that I don't make time to blog about it. I think I'm making the proper choice.

So there...

More pictures and snarky comments to come!!!!

Just not today... BWAH HA HAAAAAAAAA.....

ps - Yep, still going strong!!! Today is P36X!!!!

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!

P14X... and a little interwebs catchup!

Hey peeps!!! Fear not, I have not fallen off the proverbial wagon or anything silly like that. No no, instead, I have been focused on a couple specific things:

1) Doing my P90X and BRINGING IT!!!! every day...

and 2) (aka, the reason I haven't been updating the Musings as much....)

Fallout: New Vegas.

Yep. What can I say? After a li'l workout and shower and food and whatnot, especially after working all day... I don't mind zoning out in front of my PS3 and a little Fallout: New Vegas action to spoil myself.

So, we're on Day 14, and this is the 1st time I am doing a P90X workout from a hotel!

That's right... x-Stretch in a hotel room. There's enough space in here, and I have the DVD's and my trusty laptop to play them... the only concern is of course, going to inevitably occur... Housekeeping WILL pop in just as I'm getting all bendy and balancy and I'm nearly 100% positive I'll fall on my melon.

I know it will happen, so I can pre-laugh it off. Hahaha!

There.

Ok, well, as promised, you get a day 10 picture. I was going to post all the poses from Day 10 like I did for Day 0, but I figure, nah, the internet has way too many pictures of me missing clothing already, we'll shorten the peep show down to 1 photo.

I resized it appropriately to fit onto most standard paper sizes should you decide to print it out and tape it to the ceiling of your bedroom.

ENJOY!!!!

P9X - 10% completion!!!!

Plyo X - take two - represents the P9X in my efforts. That's 10% OF THE WAY THROUGH P90X!!!

Awesome!!!!

I'm eating better, feeling better, sleeping better - all good things!

So Plyo X is still all the bouncing and jumping and squatting and a HINT of fart-suppression for an hour. VERY COOL

Tomorrow is Day 10, Picture Day, and Arms + Shoulders plus Ab Ripper X

And my doggie really likes Plyo X by the way... she chases my legs during the leg swings over the chair. VERY fun to watch. She also seems to really like the "bonus" basketball exercise at the end when you catch the ball on one side, and shoot the jump-shot on the other... she chases the direction I "shoot" the ball and tries to block the "pass" - very funny!!! I like my doggy!!!

PICTURES TOMORROW!!!! P10X... BUH-RING-ING-IT!!!!

P8X - Week 2 Begins....

P8X, the beginning of week 2...

And a MUCH better way of attacking chest and back then the week one debacle!!!!

For starters I already knew the form of the exercise (not that they're terribly difficult), but that allowed me to basically use the audio of the DVD 90% and the video 10% - allowing me to concentrate on what I was doing, not the demonstration on the TV.

Spot-checking for proper form is one thing, but dividing my attention is another. Kinda made me wish I watched the DVD, just sat and watched, on week 1 just before actually DOING the exercises (or at least watching the set, then rewinding and re-starting).

Either way, I was mostly happy at the end. By the last push-up, I literally went to failure, pushing myself to the furthest I could go. I'm not 100% convinced I did that on the pulling-based exercises (chin-ups, etc), thought I know I pushed hard, I think there might have been 1-2 reps on left on the table... DRAT... mental note, don't do that again. EVUH!

The return of Ab Ripper X afterwards, and that one is now pretty fun.. I'm in the mindset that this pain in the abs (see what I did there?) is coming for me 3 days a week... and I can get through 25 reps off the first 10, and 25-30 Mason Twists - thought I admit, the "Scissors" form could greatly improve with more stretching and flexibility in straightening my legs. Will come with work... and time...

Now I KNOW you're all looking for the snarky funny comments in here, but I honestly got nuthin' today. Day 10 pictures will be posted after day 10, and you'll be able to see me to my Ah-nold impersonation, so that'll be fun...

Other than that, keep it real, and keep BRINGIN' IT!!!!

B

P7X - X Stretch

So I finished week 1 of "bringing it" P90X style.

And what a great way to wrap up. X Stretch made me more bendy then I've bent in more directions (at the same time on occasion) in a long time...

I finished feeling a bit gumby-like.

Some of the stretches were common or familiar a bit. Some we've done before on other days, and some were brand new ways of experimenting with the laws of physics. I kind of enjoyed those the best, to be honest.

So after a week, I've done a bit of food-changing... focusing on protein and balancing carbs while trying to cut the vast majority of the fat out of the regular intake.

Granted, I know carbs can be killer for those using P90X or another exercise and diet plan to lose weight, but as that's not the intention from my perspective, I'm working toward a balance instead.

So, 1 week done out of 12 for the program, and a new fit feeling abides... like the dude...

Interesting to note... toward the end of the 12 weeks, I'll need to hit the "13 week training plan" for the 1/2 marathon later this year...

It's gonna be one of those years!!!!

CIAO!