Day 85: Plyometrics

"Scotty Fifer on the bands, he's the one man band-man." -Tony Horton- Chest&Back

Worked out over the weekend using my Backpack. I kept the weight at 20lbs. A couple of conclusions can be made:

1. Jumping Jacks DO NOT HAPPEN with a backpack on - the books bounce around way too much and it throws off your timing.

2. Wear a shirt. It would seem that the shoulder straps really dig into your bare-sweaty skin and hurts quite a bit.

3. When I do pull ups with the backpack, I do about the same as I was able to do in earlier weeks. Which makes me wonder how much "stronger" I really am.

4. Kenpo is difficult to "Hit with your hip and your body" when you're sloshing around a few extra pounds behind you. I think for it to be effective I'd have to really balance out the weight front/back.

5. I'm going to continue the backpack through Plyometrics this afternoon, I hope it goes okay.

6. Still haven't figured out what I'm going to do to increase the difficulty of Ab-ripperX. I couldn't put a book on my chest. Too many moves require your hands, and some of the moves are with your back on the mat anyway. I'll need to be creative.

My arms REALLY feel the extra weight when I do any pull-ups. I highly suggest adding extra weight to anyone who has lost more than about 10lbs. And with the warmer and more humid afternoons, I am sweating more and more during each exercise. It's getting pretty gross.

Day 80: PlyoX + Back and Bicep

"Give me the double-double... doot-doot" -Tony Horton- PlyoX

Two stories today, both kinda short, but both kinda funny.

1. On my drive to work, I was eating my powerbar breakfast (keep in mind at 78degF/24degC powerbars tend to have a consistency of playdough). I got to a stoplight and needed to unwrap the packaging a bit more to gain access to the bottom half. Well in my haste, the powerbar slipped out of the wrapper and landed on the car floor. I picked it up a little saddened by the event. I looked at my now fuzzy powerbar and continued eating.

2. Yesterday I had a PlyoX workout buddy! It was fun doing it with somebody else, because NOBODY wants to volunteer to do Plyo. About 25 minutes into the workout, he started to struggle and then said "It's a lot easier reading about P90X on your blog, than actually doing it!" It was funny, but I was dying too. It was dry and I hadn't done Plyo in a while. We paused a couple times, but he made it through! Well done Dr. P

Day 44: PlyoX

"Listen to me breathe...Vrrrrrp...Vurp...VVURRRPPPP" -Tony Horton- PlyoX

So I have some time this morning before work... and with my new computer, I was able to boot up in less than 11 seconds! Which is great, I can post and eat breakfast at the same time and still be early for work.

Why I don't trust scales:
Yesterday (and the day before) I weighed 153lbs, today I weigh 156lbs. 3lbs in one day? Hard to believe... but oh well. I'm sure tomorrow's reading will be just as random as today's.

1 day away from the half-way-point! CHECKPOINT! So far so good.

Day 36+37: Chest/Tri/Shoulders + PlyoX

"Hamburger bad, fries bad, coca-cola bad. There you go, I said it, drink your water people!" -Tony Horton- PlyoX

Two solid workouts, back to back. I didn't find Chest/Tri/Shoulders any easier the 2nd time around, still as challenging as I remember it was the first time through. PlyoX, however, is starting to get pretty easy. I still get sweaty and gross, but I'm not nearly as tired when I finish.

This morning, I feel a bit crummy about my breakfast (a power-bar purchased back from 2005). I think power-bars and Twinkies have the same longevity properties... after a nuclear explosion there will be 3 things left at ground zero; Twinkies, power bars, and cockroaches. It's not that power-bars are necessarily bad for me, it's just hyped up junk food. Still has saturated fat, has 14% carbohydrates, and for whatever reason, chewing on them makes my jaw go numb. It's like gnawing on leather.

This weekend I opened up the diet a bit. I still do not believe I cheated... but some of my meals included Sushi, Kabobs, and buckets of fruit. The portions were probably more than necessary, which is probably why I just feel genuinely bad about the weekend... more so than the food itself.

I received my bedroom furniture from Ashley Furniture over the weekend. So hopefully I'll have some good night sleeps in the near future.

Day 29: Plyo Rabbit, PLYO!

Day #29. It's feeling good to get back to PLYOMETRICS. I didn't think I'd ever say that after day #2, but Plyo is a nice workout. I feel the burn when I push myself, and I get my heart-rate up and burn plenty of calories. I'm also glad to be doing plyo because I discovered something a few weeks back (I hadn't posted about it because, well I wanted to post it on a Plyo day and I haven't had one in a while).

So the one-legged man, referred to as Erik in the video... During the first time running the exercise I thought to myself "Hmm... this guy looks familiar." I shrugged it off because I don't know any one legged men. The 2nd Plyo workout, I thought, "There's no way, he must be an actor or something..." So I decided to look at some photos online of actors I thought he might look like.

After a couple minutes (really, it didn't take that long to find a match), I found a photo of a gentleman named Erik Stolhanske. Boy they look identical! And to really narrow down the probability, they have the same first name!

Recognize this PLYO MAN?


That's because he's THIS MAN:


You got it... Rabbit from Super Troopers has a prosthetic leg. And he trains with Tony Horton, perhaps P90X, perhaps personal training. I don't know for sure. But all the pieces come together! And you know what, I think it's pretty damn cool!

Also funny, Rabbit does "Jump Training" coincidence? Perhaps...

Day 16: Plyometrics + Tuna Bags

Plyometrics seems to get easier and easier everytime I do it. Don't get the wrong idea though, when I say it gets easier, it's all relative to the starting difficulty (which is very challenging). I still struggle with the rock-star hops and the high intensity knee jumps, but with due time, I should have those down.

I figured since there isn't much to talk about today, I'll discuss another food item I've swapped into my daily diet. Starkist fresh white albacore pouches. Now, I'm not 100% what albacore is... but it tastes a lot better than the chunk-light tuna that I used to get. For anyone who doesn't know what I am talking about the package looks like this:



I really like this product, I eat them once a day for lunch. My only problem with these bags of joy are their flavor'd counterparts. If you're shopping in the store and you pick up a pouch of fresh-white albacore (or chunk light tuna) you'll notice the nutritional facts outlined on the right. 60 calories, 12% protein, etc. If you pick up a bag of zesty-lemon tuna or any of the other starkist brand seasoned tuna's you'll see the exact same nutritonal label. But read closer! On the seasoned bag, the serving size is 2.5! Where as the serving size for the plain kind is just 1. So although the information is identical, the quantities are completely different. Don't be duped like I almost was! I still haven't tried the flavored ones, but I'm sure they are delicious, just watch yourself! They are NOT the same!

Oh and by the way, a Tuna pouch runs anywhere from $1.00/bag to about $1.69/bag, depending on which store you get it at. So far the cheapest place I've seen them is at walmart (fancy that). This week I am trying the slightly more expensive cousin of the tuna pouch, the salmon pouch... I'll let you know how it goes.

Day 9: BirthdayX

3/22/2010 is my 27th birthday! Hooray, I'm old.

Now that we have that under our belt, let's talk about this morning's Plyometrics! I feel great. I survived and actually thrived in some cases! Not once did I assist myself by putting my hands on my knees during lunges/squats! That's a personal improvement I really wanted (and needed) to make. I dug really deep today and was dripping in sweat.

This week is also going to be a challenging week at work. I had a morning conference with Spain at 8:00am, but each day following today, I'll be working 10+hours to get my remote testing done. Hopefully that won't put a hamper on my workouts.

And if only to make things even more challenging, I've already had to pass up cake twice! And likely a 3rd time tonight. Man-oh-man, and I thought the workouts were tough, try saying no to cake and icecream. I'd put it right up there with finding $100.00 on the ground and reporting it missing instead of pocketing it.

Day 2: Full Steam Ahead.

So, no bumps in the road yet. Things seem to be going pretty good. Sunday afternoon I did the Chest&Back workouts with AbripperX tacked onto the end. I actually found the 15minute AbripperX to be more challenging than the 1hr workout before it. I made it through, most of the pushup exercises I accomplished 20reps (both times), with the exception of the diamond pushups (only did 10). And Chin/Pullups I did around 10 per set (both rounds).

This morning, I woke up early @5:45 to get the Plyometrics workout in. Boy, they weren't kidding. I found myself slacking multiple times, not necessarily to catch my breath, but I often found myself half-squatting or half-lunging, when I should be digging deep! It's a sacrifice I had to make in order to stay with them. I assume by the 3rd + 4th week I'll be able to "BRING IT" as they like to say in the DVDs.

My breakfast consisted of eggwhites and mushrooms. It was pretty tasteless. And I actually burned the roof of my mouth eating it. I was running low on time (approaching 7:30am) and I needed to head out the door for work, so I at them while they were piping hot. Big mistake. I've been peeling the skin off the roof of my mouth all morning. Lesson learned; wake up at least 10mins earlier for the next exercise.

How do I feel? I feel pretty good. Waking up early and getting the exercise out of the way is definitely a wise decision on our part. Let's just hope I can get to bed ontime so that I can keep up the pace!