The I don't have time to work out excuse

We live in a world of instant gratification. People wants what they want, now, without ever having to do much work to get it. This may work for some things (if you are lucky) but does not work for exercise. There is no pill, shake, gadget, powder or other supplement that is going to make you look like a fitness model. Even if you were stupid enough to do steroids, you still have to work out to get results. Just sticking the needle in your ass does not magically transform you. One of the biggest excuses people use for not working out is they do not have time. We all have the same 24 hours each day to do what we need. If you are one of those who get 7-8 hours of sleep every night that still leaves you 16-17 hours a day. which amounts to somewhere around 112-116 hours a week. Have you sat and watched the P90x or Insanity infomercial in its entirety? Well in that time you would have been able to do about half of a P90x workout, finished many of the Chalean Extreme workouts, got about 3/4 of the way through an Insanity workout, or done three 10 minute trainer workouts. Even if you don't have any of those programs you can do pushups, situps and jumping jacks for a half hour and you will have done a workout. You have to make working out a priority. Schedule it into your day like you would a meeting, phone call, grocery shopping, or whatever else. I work full time and go to school part time. And the classes I take for school are some of the hardest you can take at the undergraduate level so I have to put in a significant amount of study time. If I did not schedule my workouts and set aside time for them I would never get them done. I get up early so I have enough time to get my workout in, and then do what I need to do to get ready for school. Other times, I would work out between class and going to work, but I knew what time I was going to work out and what workout I was going to do. Last semester I stopped working out using the excuse that I did not have the time. I was in multivariable calculus which I had 5 days a week and Principles of Nutrition at 8:00am Saturday morning. Add this to the fact that I work from 4:00pm to midnight, it made for a brutal schedule. Looking back though I did have time where I could have scheduled workouts. I just stopped doing them with the intent that it would just be a couple days. That turned into a couple weeks then a couple months. And then, I was starting to get out of shape and decided I had to get back to it at which point I started my current round of P90x. I a perfect world we would all get an hour of exercise each day. We don't live in a perfect world however so you sometimes have to do the best you can with the time you have. Whether it is 30 min on a treadmill, a workout program that has a shorter duration, or just taking a 10 min walk on a break. Anything is better than doing nothing at all. If you have any questions either leave a comment on the blog or click my Team Beachbody page and click the contact me button. Stay fit and have a good weekend!

The Importance of Yoga

If you open a book on fitness, kinesiology (which is the study of human movement), personal training etc, most of them will stress the importance of flexibility to health and fitness. Many describe it as a puzzle where strength, cardiovascular health and flexibility all fit together. Most people think of yoga as just increasing your flexibility, where in reality it will help with all three. Anyone who has done the P90x yoga DVD knows that it is a big time strength workout because you are holding your body in the various positions for anywhere from 30 seconds to a minute. You are doing a lot of push ups in the beginning and as Tony Horton puts it you are "in a tiny little space and sweating like hell." When you first start the program you will probably be huffing and puffing through the first 50 min or so as well. My first exposure to yoga was about 8 years ago in a yoga studio. A couple of my coworkers wanted to try out a class at the new yoga place that opened up in town and we all took the beginner class. I immediately loved it. Some of the poses I found to be easy, and others were very hard for me, but it is about doing as much as you can, and improving over time. Then I started getting some other yoga DVDs that I would use on my own as opposed to spending $80 for a 6 week class. When I started P90x I found its yoga workout to be very challenging. As I said yesterday (and really the main complaint you will hear about it) is that it is very long. If you do the entire thing it clocks in at a little over an hour and a half. I think your first time through the program it is good to do the workout in its entirety. As you get into a second and third time around though you can cheat a little bit with it. There are times I swap yoga out with x-stretch or the recharge workout from Chalean Extreme (which is about 25 min or so of yoga) or one of my shorter yoga DVDs. Other times I will do P90X's yoga workout but I will only do the first part of it. It just depends on how I am feeling that day. The bottom line. Work it into the program. Don't skip it, but make it work for you. Namaste!

Which Beachbody Program is the best?

It is obviously a question with no real answer...at least an answer that is not totally subjective. The best program is always the one you can stick with. I have not tried every program Beachbody has put out, but I have tried most of the big ones. My dirty little secret? I don't like P90x the most. While P90x is arguably the most popular program, and certainly the infomercial for it is on (at least in my area) way more than all the others, it is probably my least favorite of the ones that I have tried. I actually like Chalean Extreme and Insanity more than P90x. This is mainly due to the fact that I hate pull ups. Also, I am not a fan of P90x yoga. I love the first 50 min or so of it, but after that it gets to be too much. I do mix P90x into my workout rotation every so often because of the fact I am not good at pull ups. I make it a goal to get better at them and push through despite my dislike for them. For yoga I will often times only do part of it or swap it with the x-stretch DVD, which has many of the same moves but a lot shorter.

 The Chalean Extreme workouts are much shorter than the P90x workouts. It emphasizes lifting heavy and combines upper and lower body into all the lifting routines. Insanity is a cardio/conditioning based program that uses just your body weight and does not require any equipment aside from a good pair of cross trainers. Most people will not put on a lot of muscle during Insanity, but you are doing lots and lots of push ups in every Insanity workout so it is not unheard of for people to gain inches in their arms and chest. The good thing about Chalean Extreme is that it is a program that can be modified for beginners.

 Insanity is not a program that most people who are just beginning to work out will want to tackle. It is very very hard, and I think most people who are not in pretty good shape already have a higher probability of quitting the program, and/or hurting themselves if they just jump in. Personally I think it is best to work up to a program like Insanity as opposed to jumping in to the deep end. Currently I am finishing a shortened version of P90x. Then I am going to go through P90x2, and work through the entire program. Over the summer I plan to do Insanity, but will incorporate some upper body lifting workouts a couple days a week as a modified doubles program. After that I will probably try the sequel to Insanity called Asylum. I plan to post regular updates, depending on my school schedule. I definitely will post regularly over the summer. As always if you have any questions you can e-mail me through my Team Beachbody page (the link is over on the left) or leave me a comment.

More on Nutrition

One question that seems to get asked a lot when people start a fitness program like P90X is do I have to follow the nutrition plan? I think it is more important to follow A plan, whatever plan it is, that gives you a balance of protein, carbohydrates and healthy fat, than it is to follow any one specific plan. Beachbody puts together nutrition plans based on sound scientific principles, but they keep most of the science behind the scenes. All you have to do is a few simple calculations that they walk you through to figure out how much you should be eating, then you just eat the right portions. The one beef I have with the P90x plan is that the first phase has you eating a lot of protein. If you google how much protein should I eat you will find a lot of articles out there, may of which conflict with each other, on how much you should consume. One thing I learned from the nutrition class I took last semester is that if you eat too much protein your body cannot use it and you essentially just pee it out. While people who are working out need more protein than a sedentary person, it is possible to overdo it. I do however love the second and third phases of the P90x food plan. I am most likely going to cycle those phases the rest of the way out. Personally I believe it is important to keep track of what you are eating. How detailed you get with it is up to you. It can be anything from just keeping a food journal to actually logging your meals into a program that tells you how much you ate and will actually give you a numerical breakdown each day. Personally I like the Diet Power software program. I have a link to it over on the left side. It is not the only one out there, but I find it the easiest to use. If you keep track of what you eat, you keep yourself accountable. You can see if you are really eating what you should be, of if you have cheated too much. You can also see how your body is responding to the food you eat. If you use one of the logging programs or internet sites you can also see if you are eating too much of hidden things like sodium which we get way too much of in our food that can derail your progress. Ultimately the more you know about how your body reacts to the foods you are putting into it, the better results you are going to get. So, do you need to follow the plan you will get with any workout program. No. Our bodies are all different and they way mine reacts to food is going to be different than how yours does, or how another person's does. You do however have to follow whatever plan works the best for you. Sometimes that requires eating less "starchy" carbs like bread and pasta, some can handle eating more of those kinds of foods. The key is to keep it balanced, with protein, carbohydrates, vegetables and healthy fat. No amount of exercise can make up for eating too much junk. If you want to get the ripped abs and look like the people in the infomercials you need to eat well. You will always see in the small print that the people followed a nutrition plan to get the results that they did. If you have any questions you can click the link for my Beachbody page and send me an e-mail, or post a comment on this page. I do moderate the comments to keep the spam out, so it may be a while before I see it. Stay fit everyone!

The Anatomy of A Cheat Day

One thing that is usually brought up in conversation is whether or not to have a cheat day when doing a program like P90x, Insanity or any of the others that are out there. There are a couple different schools of thought around them. Some think never cheat while you are doing a program. Others say have a cheat day, and others say do a cheat meal or two throughout the week.

 Like many my exposure to exercise and nutrition came in the late 1990s early 2000s with the Body for Life program. That works a cheat day into the program where on your rest day you eat whatever you want. Like many, I took full advantage of that and would eat like crap all day long. Early on I probably did undo some of my progress for the week by eating thousands of calories of junk in a single day. But what it did was get me to stick to the program. Reality is, even if you are not morbidly obese, chances are if you are overweight you have at least some psychological issues surrounding food. You probably did not get to where you are  just just because of  how your body breaks down food and stores fat. It is because you eat to provide yourself some measure of happiness. And let's face it junk food tastes good.

The reason why I hate the word diet (one of them anyway) is because it implies restriction. How many people have you heard start a diet with the intention of never eating anything bad for X amount of weeks, months, or even never again. The intention supposes they will either never again be tempted to eat anything bad or will have an iron will to resist that temptation. But to be blunt, if you are overweight you do not have an iron will when it comes to food. So when the person is tempted, and does eat the thing that he or she swore to not eat what happens? Many think "well I had it yesterday so it wont hurt to have it again today." That in turn switches to "I don't have to be as strict with my diet." And then after the person gains some weight back it goes to "I can't do it and will always be fat." Some people just jump to that last step right after cheating on the diet. That is how people get into the yo-yo dieting where they lose, then gain all the weight back, plus some. When the truth is if the person would have gone back to the diet (presuming it was healthy in the first place) the cheat would have been a blip and would have not done any damage in the long run.

That is why I personally feel that some kind of cheat is necessary to stay on a good nutrition plan. You will be tempted to eat badly at some time over the course of 90 days. Whether it is a party, a holiday, or just the smell of the bakery isle at the grocery store. If a cheat day where you eat a bunch of junk is what keeps you doing the program go for it. Will you get the best results possible doing that? Probably not. Obviously if you can get through the entire program eating cleanly the entire time the better results you will get. But the best program is the one that you stick to. It can work for millions of people but if you cannot stick to it then it is not right for you. Personally my cheat days these days look a lot different than they did back then. I still do eat junk food, but a lot less than before. Many times I will eat healthier versions of the junk food I like. For example I will make a homemade cheeseburger on one of those indoor grills so it is lower fat, put it on a whole grain bun, and control what goes on it. Or I will have a single serving size thing of frozen yogurt, or a small bag of chips. Things that are gone after I eat them so I do not have leftovers around to tempt me the rest of the week. Even back when I was doing the "day of junk" cheat days was that after about a month of exercising and eating well the rest of the week, I could not eat as much junk on my cheat days, and did not crave it as much anyway.

These days I may do a cheat day or just a couple cheat meals per week. It just depends. The good thing about the cheat day is it is an isolated thing that you can compartmentalize, but it does not give a lot of flexibility. On the other hand if you do the cheat meal approach you can have it whenever, but you have to have the will power to say I am only going to do two or three a week and that is it. So if you get invited out to dinner you can count it as a meal, but then get back to the eating on your nutrition plan with the next meal. The popular thing when it comes to nutrition is the 90/10 rule. If you eat clean 90% of the time, you can eat whatever you want the other 10% of the time. Yes, you will get the best results from any plan if you can eat cleanly 100% of the time, but that is not realistic. Especially when you are starting out. The great thing about cheat days or meals is that you do not have to use them, but they can be there if you need to. If you would like me to coach you through a P90x or any of the other Beachbody programs, just click the link for my Beachbody page over on the left. Good luck and stay fit my friends.

P90X and nutrition. How important is it?

It seems that people often ask do they really need to follow the nutrition guide to get results on P90x. The quick answer it depends. It depends on two things, what kind of results you want and your body. P90x or any other workout program is going to come with a nutrition guide that will give you a plan to follow. The nutrition plans that come with the various beach body programs are tailored to whatever program you purchased. At their core they all use a balanced approach to eating enough carbohydrates to give you energy, protein to build muscle, and fat (yes fat) to keep your tissue (skin, hair, and organs) healthy. The P90x program runs through three eating cycles that start out with higher protein and lower starchy carbs (like bread pasta and rice) and then transitions to lower protein and higher starchy carbs.

I actually took a nutrition class last semester so I may do a post later on with some tidbits about just what overall healthy eating is, but in the context of working out, the closer you follow a balanced plan, that incorporates protein carbohydrates and healthy fat (and yes vegetables) into the meals and snacks the better results you are going to get. It is often said that a good nutrition plan is going to be at least 75% of your results. Depending on your metabolism and how your body reacts to food that number may be closer to 85%. But I think everyone has enough common sense to know that it does not matter how much you work out, if you are eating like crap every day you are not going to have ripped abs.

Which takes me back to my original point. What are your goals? So people just want to take off 10-15 pounds and are not interested in having 6 pack abs. In that case you probably do not have to follow any one specific nutrition plan. If you already eat reasonably healthy then just working out might do it for you. It may be that all you have to do is change a few things about how you eat. In that case maybe ditching dessert once a week is all you need. If however you want six pack abs, chances are you will need to follow a fairly strict nutrition plan and will have to pay attention to how much of what kind of food you are eating.

Even that depends however. If you are one of those people who can stay fairly lean no matter how you eat (insert obligatory I hate you comment here) then you probably will not have to track what you eat as stringently. For those of us whose bodies store fat more easily we will.

Personally I am following the P90X2 nutrition plan, but using one day as a cheat day where I don't pay attention to portions, and if I want will eat junk food. Once I start P90X2 I will knock that down to a couple cheat meals per week. Even with the cheat day I am getting stronger, becoming more toned and am starting to see definition in my abs. Look for a post tomorrow on the anatomy of a cheat day where I will talk more about my philosophy on them and how it has changed over the years.

Stay fit my friends!

Countdown to P90X2!

It has been a long time since I updated this. Alas, life gets in the way sometimes. I have been continuing on in school and now that I am in upper level calculus classes and working full time, this had to be put on the back burner. But I am back and will try to keep this fairly up to date.

I will be starting P90X2 in exactly two weeks. I actually ordered it back in December when it was initially released, but at that time I felt too out of shape to jump right into it. My school schedule in the fall did not allow for consistent working out, so I decided to do an abbreviated version of P90X classic (basically going through the program but skipping the recovery weeks) just to get my body ready to tackle the more intense workout. I am going to finish that then start in on X2.

I plan on doing the entire P90x2 program, recovery week included, and doing consistent blog posts to update my progress. I also plan on taking a picture and weighing myself every day, mainly to prove a point. I am fairly certain that my weight will not change much, but my body composition should. The hope is to show the scale obsessed people that it is just a number, and does not always correlate to how fit you are.

I also plan to start a group on the Team Beachbody message boards, where I will put the daily pic and weight measurements in. I will post a link to that page after I get it set up. I will also put in some of my food logs and things to show how I am eating. I plan to follow the P90X2 nutrition plan, although I do plan to work in a couple cheat meals throughout the week. I will be more detailed about that once I start. Keep checking back and feel free to make comments.

P90x Hybrid week one in the books!

I just finished doing X-Stretch a little while ago, thus finishing week 1 of my P90x doubles (for now) hybrid. I'm basically doing P90x classic then adding in cardio from the Insanity and Chalean Extreme programs. A couple of things that I have noticed over the past couple of weeks are (this one really surprised me) that yoga-x is almost easy in terms of the stamina needed to get through it, and my general flexibility increased during Insanity.

Anyone who has done yoga-x, especially those who have not done a lot of yoga in the past, knows that the first 45 min of that is killer. It takes a lot of stamina and can really wear you out. I found, however, that while some of the poses were still challenging, I never got winded during the workout at all, and poses like half moon and twisting half moon where I had previously taken water breaks I could do. Granted, they were not perfect, and I had to come out of them to regain my balance, but I could stick them out.

Similarly, just how far into stretches I could get both in yoga-x and x-stretch are vastly improved. One of my goals for this round of P90x is to really focus on my flexibility. When I was young, I had almost gumby-like flexibility, and it has deteriorated over time. While I probably will not get back to the level I had as a child, I really do want to get to the point where I can get all the way down on the various hamstring stretches. My glutes, hamstrings, and lower back are all very tight and inflexible. My hips, on the other hand, are still very flexible.

The other goal I have for this round is to finally be able to do pull-ups unassisted. I have never been able to do more than one or two on my own and then have to use a chair or the counterweights on the pull-up machines at the gym. My legs have always been appreciably stronger than my upper body. I think that comes from doing a lot of taekwondo when I was younger with all the kicking. So I really want to try and even that out, or at least get it closer to being even.

Update

It has been a while since I updated, so I thought now is a good time for a new post. My last post was right as I was starting month 2 of my first round of Insanity. Right after that is when the semester was winding down in school and things got pretty hectic for me.

As some know I am going back to school to take math and science classes so I can practice patent law. I already have the law degree so I am essentially doing it in reverse. For those who don't know patent law is a fairly specialized form of law that you need a science or technical background in order to practice it. I initially got a history degree for my BA, and did everything I could to avoid math. Little did I know that is the best background to have when going to law school. The upside is that after law school even the undergrad classes I considered hard are incredibly easy.

On the workout front, during the spring semester I took a jogging class, which was the bulk of my workouts for those three months. After school ended I started a second round of Insanity which I just finished. Here are my initial and final fit test numbers for this round of Insanity:


Switch Kicks - 92 118 (+26)
Power Jacks - 54 70 (+16)
Power Knees - 103 125 (+22)
Power Jumps - 45 70 (+25)
Globe Jumps - 7 11 (+4)
Suicide Jumps- 10 13 (+3)
Push Up Jacks- 16 30 (+14)
Low Plank Obl- 40 53 (+13)

I am now going to do a round of P90x, with at least for a time, a lot of added cardio. I am taking most of the month of July off from work so I am going to take the first month and do a hybrid doubles program of P90x. Basically, I will follow the P90x classic program, but add a second cardio workout later in the day, which will be piecemeal from Insanity, Chalean Extreme and the Cardio-x routine. I do not want to lose all the cardio conditioning gained from Insanity, and this plan should keep things from getting too repetitive.

My last month of P90x will overlap with my first month of the fall semester in school. I am going to finish it out, even though I will be really pressed for time going to school part time and working full time. At that point I will not be doing doubles any longer. Once I finish that out I will probably use the workout facilities at school, but I will figure all that out when the time comes.

Insanity recovery week done!

I just finished my last session of Core Cardio and Balance. In the recovery week you do that workout exclusively all 5 days. It actually does not get all that boring (at least in my opinion). The key to the workout is pacing yourself, and going slower than you are capable of on some of the exercises so you do not pound your body. That said, there were still a few points in it where I had to take breaks.

Tomorrow is a rest day, then Wed I have the Fit Test and Max Interval Circuit. The plan is to do the fit test in the morning, and MIC in the evening. That way I do not kill myself doing them back to back.

Core Cadio and Balance

Today was my first core cardio and balance workout. It is the only workout done during the recovery week, then again a couple times during month 2. I really like the workout. I would describe it as a more intense version of the cardio recovery workout. It has more jumping and less plank work than the other, but the pace is similar. The key is to not go all out on the moves so you do not wear yourself out. I found myself doing most of the moves about 3/4 speed, and that seemed to work for me. I was sweating and tired at the end, but not collapsed on the floor.

Month 1 of Insanity is Done!

I just finished Plyo Cardio Circuit. Wed will start recovery week, and then into the max workouts. I am going to do pics and measurements at the end of the recovery week so I can have a good comparison. I will post both in my message board thread on the teambeachbody website, which you can link to from my beachbody page (the link is on the left).

While I have yet to get all the way through any of the workouts without taking unscheduled breaks, I have for the most part cut them down to a few seconds to catch my breath, then I can get back into it. Also, just in everyday life I can take stairs two at a time, and hardly get winded. I am excited to see what month 2 brings.

Month one nearing completion

Insanity goes by very quickly. That is my general overall impression. This is the beginning of my 4th week. Then I have the recovery week which is just one workout (Core Cardio and Balance), then I start the max workouts. The only "new" workout I have done since my last post is cardio abs. It is Insanity's ab routine that in month 1 gets paired up with Pure Cardio in week 3 and 4.

I do cardio abs in the morning, then do pure cardio later in the afternoon before I go to work. For those who do not have that kind of schedule, I would say do cardio abs first, almost as a warm up to pure cardio, then do the other. There is only a couple minutes of high impact jumping in the ab routine, then the rest of the workout is pretty low impact. If however you try to do cardio abs after pure cardio, unless you are in phenomenal shape it will be damn near impossible. At the very least a lot harder than it has to be.

Halfway through week 2

I probably will not update this as much until I get to different workouts. I am on day four of week 2, so today will be cardio recovery again. As far as the "regular" workouts go, I can tell my strength and stamina are getting better. I can do a lot more at the beginning of the workouts, and push a lot harder. The end result is that I am just, if not more, wiped out by the end than in week 1.

I have seen people ask if you can every get "used to" the Insanity workouts, and my answer to that is yes and no. Yes, you become familiar with the movements, and your cardio will improve. However, as you can do more, if you keep pushing yourself as hard as you can the workouts are never going to get easy. I think the best example of that are the people in the DVDs, who are all very fit, and many of them were in the test group and knew what they were in for, were all collapsed on the floor by the end of the workouts. At times, Shaun T. is the only one still doing anything, and even he is stopping for water breaks.

I cannot stress enough that this is not a program you do having never worked out before or after a long lay off from working out. At the very least you have to be used to hard workouts like bootcamp type group classes or something like P90x. The moves are not as easily adapted to less intense variations like in P90x or Chalean extreme. If you have that base level though, it is a great workout.

Week One in the Books.

Week 1 is done! The second go around of Plyo Cardio Circuit was today. It was still tough, and I was just as worn out at the end of it. I did notice however that I was able to go harder at the beginning through it than I was the first time. The level 1 drills into ski abs and in and outs still nearly kill me. Those are where most of my breaks were coming. I did have to pause for a couple seconds during the power squats in the first circuit too, but aside from that I can get though that one without stopping.

Pure Cardio....Bananas

This workout is one of the reasons the program is called Insanity. It is crazy. The warm is the same as the others. Three back to back rounds, without stopping, then stretching. Then there is 14 minutes of non stop drills. Each exercise is a minute long. By the end of it even Shaun T is laying on the floor out of breath. His closing line is "this shit is bananas yo." That is certainly true. Anyone who can get through this without stopping and resting has my admiration. I think Rachel from the infomercial manages to do it, and a couple of the other ladies. The one who really impresses me is the blond lady who is 40. Some of the people in the video are damn near half her age and she does better than a lot of them. Tomorrow is back to plyo cardio circuit. Then I will have made it through the first week, which I think for any new workout is the hardest.

Recovery?!

Today was the cardio recovery workout. While you are recovering from cardio, it certainly is not a light or easy workout. There is no jumping or running like in the others, and my heart rate never got much above 130. So in that way it was a break. It is about half stretching and half squats, lunges and plank work. The most difficult part are the squats and lunges. They are very slow and controlled, and you hold them for about 30 seconds at a time. Tomorrow it is back to plyo cardio circuit. It will be interesting to see if it is any easier the second time around.

Cardio Power and Resistance

Last night was day three. Cardio power is a similar overall format to plyo cardio circuit. Warm up, stretch, 2 three round circuits with "bonus" exercises at the end of third round in each circuit, then a cool down. The entire thing lasts just under 40 min. I burned about 450 calories in this one. One thing I noticed is that I did not have as much energy throughout this one, and I think it was because I had consumed too few calories before I did it. Because of the nature of these workouts you have to eat enough calories, but because you are likely to be eating more than you normally would, you have to eat very clean. Keeping a food journal or using one of the programs that tracks what you eat is almost essential.

Yes, Insanity is aptly named!

Day 2 of insanity is done. That was Plyo Cardio Circuit. It consists of three circuits, each with three rounds. The warm up circuit goes straight through 4 or 5 different exercises. You start out slow the first round, then a little faster the second, then all out the last. That takes about 9 minutes then you get a 30 second break, then stretch for about 5 minutes.

After the stretch you do 2 more circuits, each with three rounds, and you go as hard as you can in each one. There is a 30 second break between each round. Needless to say, your heart rate skyrockets, and you burn a lot of calories. The entire workout is right around 40 min, and I burned about 500 calories, and that was with taking quite a few "unscheduled" breaks.

For me, the hardest part of the workout are the level 1 drills. You basically do a burpee, but instead of coming right back up, you do 4 push up, then run while in a plank position (usually called floor runs) then jump up. Personally, I hate push ups. It is one of the reasons why I like Chalean Extreme more than P90x. There are a lot of push ups in insanity, so I will just have to work through them.

I personally do not pay a ton of attention to the people on the DVDs unless I am really trying to get the form down. But the insanity workouts can be downright entertaining. All of the people on the DVDs are very very fit. However, nearly everyone has to take breaks aside from the 30 second scheduled ones, and by the end a good percentage of them are lying on the floor gasping for breath. You can also tell the people that were in the test group, vs. the people they hired to participate in the shoots. The test group people can get through the workouts keeping their form and taking a minimum number of breaks. Some of the others tend to start dogging it big time when they get tired.

Beginning Stats for Insanity

Here is a quick update on my beginning stats for Insanity:

Weight 188.4
Waist 40"
Body Fat 24% approx
Chest 44"
Hips 41"

I will post a little later after my workout. Ploymetric Cardio Circuit is today. It is day 1 of the "real" workouts.

My insane journey

I have decided to re-name the blog from my P90x blog to something more "program neutral." I have a feeling I will make it back to P90x at some point, but right now, I am going to tackle one of beachbody's newer programs, Insanity.

Insanity is pretty much purely a cardio based program. It is a lot of football and track drills, with plyometric drills mixed in. It is NOT for someone just starting out. If you do not have a baseline level of fitness you will at best quit the program prematurely, and at worst hurt yourself. I have watched through the DVDs and by the end of nearly every workout the participants in the videos, including the trainer Shaun T, are lying on the floor gasping for breath. If you want to start with a beachbody program but have never picked up a weight there are alternatives out there. Feel free to ask and I will give you my thoughts.

That said, the first workout for insanity is the fit test. If you have done P90x and are wondering how the fit test can be the first workout...trust me, you will feel it by the end. The program is 60 days long, and you re-do the fit test every two weeks to track your progress. Here are my week one numbers:
Switch Kicks 80
Power Jacks 60
Power Knees 95
Power Jumps 50
Globe Jumps 7
Suicide Jumps 10 (think burpees with a jump every time you come up)
Push Up Jacks 15
Low Plank Obliques 35

I will try to update this every day, or most every day after my workouts and keep you posted on my progress. Have a safe and happy Thanksgiving!

Burn phase complete

Today I officially finished the Burn Phase of Chalean Extreme, doing the Burn it off and Recharge workouts. These workouts, of all of them are why I would personally recommend that someone relatively new to working out start with Chalean, then transition to P90x. One of the biggest gripes about P90x is that the workouts are too long (especially Yoga-X). Burn it off is like a "lite" version of Plyometrics. Not that it is less intense because the moves you are doing, if you go all out, are as intense as anything in Plyo-X. However, the workout is only 28 minutes long. A lot of people find Plyo-X difficult to get all the way through at first, and this will definitely get you ready for that workout much more than Cardio-X does. The Recharge workout is a 20 minute stretching routine that incorporates some yoga, but is not as long or as intense as Yoga-X. Again a better place to start for beginners.

I also did my measurements today, and compared them against Day 1. My weight actually stayed the same for the most part. I started at 184.4 and got to 183. However, a perfect example of why one should not live and die by the scale alone, my bodyfat went from approximately 22.1% to 20.7%. My waist went from 42" to 40.8", and my hips from 42" to 41". I also lost 1.5 inches in my chest going from 44.5" to 43".

Overall I am making good progress. From what I have read, in the test group for Chalean Extreme many people made the most progress in the Push phase, which is up next. Instead of failing at 10-12 reps for each exercise, you fail between 6 and 8 reps. The goal of course to put on as much muscle as possible. Tomorrow is my rest day, so I will be doing X-Stretch, then Push Circuit 1 on Tuesday.

Burn Phase done...almost

Today I did my last Burn Circuit workout for this round of Chalean Extreme. I still have the Burn it Off and Recharge routines tomorrow, then the first 30 days on CE is officially done. I decided to get the Bowflex Selecttech 552 weights when I started the workouts, and personally I love them. There are several adjustable dumbbell options out there, all with their pros and cons. The main con with the Bowflex weights is that you have to be extremely careful with them, because if you drop them at all, the locking mechanism that holds the weight plates on the handle can break. But from my experience however, if you are careful with them, they seem to hold up well. I did make sure to send in my warranty registration however, because I have heard stories about issues with the older model (I have the 2009 model).

I like the fact that until you get to 25 pounds you can adjust the weight in 2.5 pound increments. Then it goes from 25-50 in 5 lbs increments, then to 52.5. And for most people doing the CE or P90x workout, that will likely be plenty for nearly all the exercises. Plus I figure if I need more than that, I can get a couple 55 and 60 pound dumbbells in the future.

Throughout the Burn Phase I was able to increase the amount of weight I used on many of the exercises. Here is the Breakdown.

Burn 1 Start End

Sumo Squat with Hip Lift. 20lb 20lb
Lunge w/ posterior fly 7.5lb 10lb
Push Up w/ leg lift 11 12 (all on toes)
Dead lift w/ posterior fly 10lb 12.5lb
Lunge w/core rotation 17.5lb 20lb
Bench Press w/ leg lower 17.5lb 17.5lb
Squat w/ Side bend 17.5 lb 30lb
Forward lunge w/ post fly 10lb 10lb
Chest fly w/ Hip Lift 15lb 17.5lb

Burn 2

Sumo Squat w/ Bicep Curl 17.5lb 20lb
Lunge w/ tricep extension 10lb 12.5
Dead Lift Row 20lb 30lb
Sumo Squat w/ overhead
tricep extension 25lb 25lb
Dead lift w/ double row 25lb 25lb
Bowler's Lunge w/ row 20lb 20lb
Bicep Curl w/ abductor
balance 12.5lb 17.5lb
Forward lunge w/ double
row 20lb 25lb
Triple Threat Push Up 10 12 (6 on toes 6 on knees)

Burn 3

Sumo Squat w/ overhead
press 12.5lb 15lb
Lunge w/ calf raise 20lb 22.5lb
Squat w/ lateral raise 7.5lb 12.5lb
Lunge w/ frontal press 12.5lb 15lb
Squat w/ calf raise 20lb 30lb
Sumo Squat w/ Delt Raise 7.5lb 12.5lb
Squat w/ double overhead
press 15lb 15lb
Lunge w/ lateral raise 10lb 12.5lb
Sumo Squat w/ calf raise 20lb 30lb

While many of those weights are lighter than what you see a lot of people doing in the gym, when you do the reps as slowly as the program calls for...especially when you do not have anyone to spot you, you do not need massive amounts of weight to make progress. Had the Burn Circuit continued another week, I would have been able to increase the amount of weight on nearly every exercise. I can tell I made huge strength gains even just between the third and fourth weeks. I am excited for what the Push phase will bring.

Chalean Extreme End of Week 3

I finished the third week of Chalean extreme. I have one more week in the Burn phase, which is the first of the three phases. Today was officially my second rest day, although I have been doing the stretching routine from P90x, just to work on flexibility. My Schedule has been (and will be going forward) like this:

Tuesday: Burn/Push/Lean Circuit 1
Wednesday: Rest Day 1 (Alternating Yoga or Pilates in the morning and taekwondo class in the evening)
Thursday: Burn/Push/Lean Circuit 2
Friday: Burn Intervals and Burn Abs
Saturday: Burn/Push/Lean Circuit 3
Sunday: Burn it off and Recharge
Monday: Rest Day 2 (Usually doing X-Stretch from P90x)

Aside from the differences from P90x I mentioned in the earlier post, as you can see Chalean Extreme has two built in rest days. It sounds like those who have done P90x previously are working in extra cardio on one of the days, then taking the second one as an actual rest day. I am using taekwondo as my extra cardio for the week on Wednesday evenings.

Another difference I see from P90x is that I think Chalean Extreme is a little easier for beginners to start off on. There are more modified moves in the cardio programs to take the impact out, and the cardio programs are shorter than both plyometrics and kenpo-x. While some of the moves in Plyometrics are modified, it is still very hard to get through the entire hour, and is nearly impossible for a beginner. P90x does allow for swapping out Plyo with the Cardio-x DVD which is pretty low impact and less intense however. Either way you go, you are going to be getting a hell of a workout.

Detour from P90x

It has been a while since I posted anything. Life got a little crazy for me last summer, and I could not keep up with the blogging. Luckily, I had not developed a large following, so chances are noone missed me too much.

I did end up buying my townhouse, and did continue on P90x. I ended up having to modify the program somewhat because I had to deal with tendinitis in my knee. Therefore, I was able to pretty much maintain my level of fitness, but did not make the kind of gains I wanted to. Plus, I did not follow a great nutrition program as strictly, which did not help my cause.

A few weeks ago I decided to purchase the new Chalean Extreme program from Beachbody. While my knee issues were resolved, I was getting somewhat bored with the P90x workouts, and wanted to change things up. I am just about done with the third week, and I am loving it so far. I will do a more detailed review of the program in later posts, but for those who are, or have done P90x, it is a great alternative, and in spite of what you may think, is not just for women.

Like P90x, it is a circuit training program where you are going from one exercise to the other with very little rest in between the moves. The one issue I have with it, is there are a few points where you can tell it was edited to make the breaks shorter and they are already onto the next move before you can get your weights ready. The routines are shorter than the P90x routines where the shortest one in P90x is about 45min, most Chalean routines are anywhere from just over 30 min, to about 50 minutes on the days where you do a couple different workouts. I am sure the reason for this is because on the lifting days you are expected to go to failure on every exercise whereas P90x, wants you to struggle, but not fail when you get to 8-10 or 12-15 reps.

I will go in depth on the routines and my experience with them more in later posts. I will try to keep more up-to-date. I may not post every day, but will every couple days or so.