First, a little background on me and why I decided on P90X. I'm 31 years old and for a lack of a better term, "out of shape". As a kid playing sports in high school and college I was very fit and "in shape". Throughout my entire high school career I was under 2% body fat with a very high metabolism. Now... (insert Borat voice here) not so much!
I am currently residing in lovely Phoenix, Arizona where "healthy living" and being "in shape" are definitely trendy. I had roommates for awhile who were some very good friends from Minnesota where we all used to live. Jarod, was formerly a TE for the Minnesota Gophers and one of the finest cut blockers every to roam the sidelines of the Metrodome, and his fiance Terra is a fitness freak and was on the Duramed Future's Tour for a few years (1 step below the LPGA for all you non women's golf enthusiasts). Anyway, Jarod and Terra have always known me as being "out-of-shape". We'll call that Bjorks 1.0. Bjorks 1.0 wasn't/isn't much in to exercise, working out, eating right, etc. Bjorks 1.0 did it once to try and impress a girl and...well...that didn't work out so well, but he lost over 20 pounds in the process only to gain it all back because of his job.
(Side note: I worked in DI athletics and part of the perks was something called training table. Training table was free food at a variety of restaurants every day. It is designed to keep the student-athletes "healthy" by eating "well" instead of being in charge of their own meals and eating stuff like frozen pizza, Raman Noodles, etc. It's great for student-athletes, but not so much for middle-aged people who don't burn any calories off, aka me! But, who's going to turn down $15 of free restaurant food everyday? Not me!)
So Terra and Jarod were once again trying one of their numerous diets/workout plans/bets between the two of them to help them get fit and trim for their July wedding. Understandable. Jarod also tried to sell me on the fact he wanted to see how good of shape he could get himself into post football. Jarod's in shape, but he's no longer needing to be 255 lbs. and in shape. Of course I laughed and scoffed at him, but actually got to thinking about when the last time I was "in shape".
Well, one of my favorite websites in the world (www.cappingthegame.com) was also having a lot of chatter about something called P90X. At first, because of the usual suspects talking about it, I thought P90X was a new strain of pot, a new alcoholic beverage, a porn site, etc. Then I caught it on DirecTV and saw it's an interesting workout plan based on dieting and exercises you can pretty much do with a set of dumbbells or resistance bands. I read on and decided I had to do some pre-gaming before I attempted to commit myself to P90X.
Step 1 - Changed up diet (as much as my system could handle). No more...wait, I'm not going to lie, REDUCED frozen pizza intake (my vice) and in general no more stuffing myself at every meal. Also no skipping breakfast.
Step 2 - Start stretching and cardio routine again. I just need to get back in to the swing of things really. Also, I suffered what I thought was a Jones Fracture in my left foot this winter (the 2 bones on the outside of your foot that form you little toe start to split), but it turned out I have some pretty nasty bone spurs and had torn 2 ligaments out there so I was really out of shape.
A big part of P90X is dieting. However, I have a food problem and have a hard time dieting the way they tell you to and pretty much made up my own diet. It's not perfect, nor do I have any scientific evidence to back it up, but it is better than Totino's frozen pizza. My meals the last 2 weeks have basically been as followed...
Breakfast - Granola bar (either Nature's Valley or my new favorite Kaishi). OR, a nice little concoction of about 12 oz. of Organic vanilla yogurt with a handful of raspberry's and blueberry's mixed with Kaishi granola and then eat the granola bar around 9:30.
Lunch - I buy those rectangle boxes of Organic spinach and make 2 salads out of that. Each salad consists of...
1/2 Organic Tomato
4 oz of Organic carrot spears
A handful of seasoned croutons
Newman's Original Tuscan dressing (probably too much)
And sometimes I'll cut up about 4 oz's of turkey and chicken just to get some meet.
Dinner - Almost anything I want. Although I lean towards 2 PB&J sandwiches and a bowl of Honey Nut Cheerios OR Kaishi w/the strawberry's OR Honey Bunches of Oats w/strawberry's.
But I'll still make spaghetti with turkey meat, tator tot hotdish, eat a foot long sub, etc. whenever I want.
Most importantly I've tried to reduce the amount of fat in my diet as well as my caloric intake.
(I promise this will be the longest blog ever, because I'm trying to get you up to speed with the last month.)
So Day 1 of P90X is here. I've got about 30 days before I head back to Minnesota for the summer and really want to trim down for my return as most people in Becker are best associated with Bjorks 1.0, but they've seen a brief glimpse of Bjorks 2.0. I had lost all that weight right before I moved and got a lot of compliments, but the Vegas had set the line at me gaining those 25 lbs back with an over/under being 2.5 months back in 2005 (which completely went waaaaaaaaaaay under btw).
Day 1 of P90X is "Chest and Back". Prety much all some form of pullups and pushups, pretty much my forte...NOT! My friend Dan, who I'm borrowing the DVD's from said it sucks. Much of what I had read up to this point also said it sucks. Horror stories of being so sore you can't lift your arms above your head and stuff like that. Good times.
Naturally the first thing they tell you is to set a number in your head and try to hit it, but be realistic because you have to go through the routine twice. The jackasses on the DVD are naturally ripped and cut beyond belief and are throwing out numbers like 30 per set and saying their little slogan "Bring It!" I brought it alright, I knew I could do more, but I set me goal for the first time through at 10 per set.
(Side note: You start by doing a 2 minute warmup and let's just say I was a little winded heading into the first set.)
I did the 10 pushups no problem and was feeling pretty good about myself. Then it was on to the first round of pullups and the wheels fell off faster than Al Pacino's performance in 88 Minutes. I haven't tried to do a pullup since I was trying to get the Presidential Physical Fitness patch in like 5th grade so I had no idea how many I could do. I made it to 6 before I had to move on to the next drill (keep in mind you have to keep up with the DVD, it's about speed and confusing the muscles.) At this point, I felt like a puss as the freaks on the DVD where yelling 25's and 30's. Needless to say I was glad I was the only one in the gym working out.
Next I managed to do the following all in the set amount of time.
10 military pushups
10 reverse grip pullups
8 wide fly pushups
3 close gripped pullups
15 declined pushups (no problem)
20 heavy pants w/20 lbs dumbbells
6 diamond pushups
15 lawnmower's w/20 lbs dumbbells
2 dive bomber push ups (at this point I couldn't feel my arms nor could I even move my back like I was supposed to)
10 back fly's w/20 lbs dumbbelss (more on this later)
The second time through you can basically cut those numbers in half with the exception of the regular pushups and dumbbell work except I couldn't do 1 back fly at this point. I realized I was doing it wrong the first time and will probably have to go to a smaller weight for back fly's and increase weight for the heavy pants and lawnmowers.
At this point I think Red can sum up my performance and my future performances best (insert Morgan Freeman voice here for those who live under a rock and never have seen the Shawshank Redemption)...
"I wish I could tell you that Matty fought the good fight, and P90X let him be. I wish I could tell you that - but P90X is no fairy-tale world. He never said who did it, but we all knew. Things are going to go like that for awhile - P90X consists of routine, and then more routine. Every so often, Matty will show up with fresh bruises. P90X kept at him - sometimes he was able to fight through it, sometimes not. And that's how it will go for Matty - that is his routine. I do believe that first workout was the worst for him, and I also believe that if things go continue to go that way, P90X will get the best of him."
The horror stories are true. I had to make a phone call to my friend Derek at USC on the way home and could barely lift my arm to hold my phone up. I got home, called and cussed out Dan for giving me the DVD's and promptly fell asleep at about 8:30, or 3 hours before I normally go to bed. On top of that, I was too sore to attempt the ab ripper that I was supposed to do on Day 1 (Off to a blazing start!)
Today is Day 2, which is supposed to be plyo's, but because my foot has been hurting and I'm not sure my knees can handle the plyo's, we're modifying the workout. So I'm 2 days into it and already cutting corners. Good times!
No comments:
Post a Comment