Trying to limber up

Well here is another iPad post so who knows what will come out. Today was stretch x with some abs, and today I did the Bob Harper yoga abs before starting my next week. I was trying so hard to stretch out my muscles and going out of my comfort zone so much that I was sweating pretty good by the time I was done and before I even started the ab workout. One thing I am noticing about the Bob ab workout is that unlike ab ripper x it does not seem to be getting any easier, I am still even to start to try any of the advanced moves since I am still hardly keeping up with the normal moves. I bet that if I went ahead and only did the Bob abs video I would get better at it faster but that is not what I want. If it continues to be hard then I know I an getting better work then letting it get easier. Today was the last time I will be doing that video for a couple of weeks I think since I don't do it again this week and next week I will be going back to ab ripper x. Tomorrow is going to be an early morning for me because I want to get my workout in before everyone is awake so I don't have to worry about getting it done later in the day. I also will need to find time to plan for the workout I have been waiting three weeks for and will be doing on Wednesday, chest and back. I can't wait to see how that goes with the push up bars and the added resistance oneverything else. I totally see myself getting one intense workout that day and I totally do not want to disappoint. Tomorrow morning is back and biceps followed by yoga x Monday and then a rest day and finally on to week four. Keep an eye out especially on Wednesday to see how chest and back went. Until next time.

You know you went after it when....

At the end of your workout you are fighting back dry heaves because of the intensity of what you just did. Yep that is what happened to me today, it was quite the workout today but it was a really good one and I don't think I could be too much happier with it than I was today. I continued to use the weights that I just last time for some of the exercises, namely the toe iso rolls (which I have never liked), and the alternating side lunges. I also added weight to the wall squats and single leg wall squats, when I was done with both those exercises I was pretty much wiped out for the workout and really had to push to get through it but I did. I know I didn't post anything from yesterday but know that it was a great workout as well. It was such a great workout that when my wife went into the office after the fact and saw where I was working out, her question to me was did I spill some water on the mat that morning. If that does not tell you how hard I worked out I don't know what else would.When I was done with today's workout I felt just as good as yesterdays and I was shaking in my legs a little bit when I was done so needless to day there was not running after it. When I finished working out I went through my normal drink a protein shake and shower before having breakfast. I was all done showing, and was dressed preparing breakfast and I found myself still catching my breath. I have been putting forth as much effort as I can on each of these workouts lately and there has been both a good side and a bad side. The good side is just about all my reps went up on each of the workouts again, the bad side is that I am using so much energy during the workouts that by the time I get home from work I am beat so much so that I almost fell asleep on the couch and I don't want that to happen because I like spending a little time with the family when I get home from work not laying on the couch feeling like I am going to pass out. The next couple of workouts are going to be a challenge since I am going to have to find a time to get them done since we have a pretty busy next few days but I will do everything that I can to make sure I get them in and do the with the same intensity I have been bringing to the rest for the workouts. Keep an eye out to see just how I pull it off.

Great final workout!

No I am not done with this round of P90X or calling it quits early or anything like that. Today was my final Chest, Shoulders and Triceps workout for five weeks. I went into today's workout knowing that I was going to give it all that I had and try and bring the numbers up again. I was able to do just that again, a few of the exercises stayed the same and near the end I had to go to my knees on the push ups sooner than I wanted to but there was no way I was going to get another rep out if I didn't. I was not too upset since the reason for the lower number was the higher numbers on the rest of the push ups leading up to that exercise and my total number of pushups for the workout was much higher than last week. I am going to call that a good three week set of workouts for that group. I hope I start to see the results here soon. In the normal P90X routine I would be finishing this week and going into a recovery week but not with this plan. I will finish this week with a cardio x/abs tomorrow, legs and back Friday, Stretch X and abs Saturday, Back and Biceps Sunday, and Yoga on Monday. Once all that is done I go into three new weeks of resistance workouts starting with chest and back. I am very much looking forward to that as I want to see what kind of hurt I can put on with my new push up bars on that workout. I have not weighed myself in a while so I don't know where I am on the scale but I can tell you that my size 32 pants are starting to get a little baggy and I can see results in my arms and shoulders so I would have to think I am gaining the muscle mass that I want. Just need to continue to work hard to get to where I want to be. I have a picture of what I want to look like in my mind by the time we go on vacation and I am going to do everything I can to make it. Tomorrow I plan on doing a serious cardio day if the weather will let me but according to my app it may not happen but I can hope because I am pretty pumped up to bring it cardio style tomorrow.

Yoga Monday!!

Well today is the last day of working out for week two so tomorrow is a rest day and I will only have 11 weeks to go. It is funny that I forget just how quickly the 13 weeks go by when you enjoy the program and look forward to the workouts each day. I am sure that my wife would disagree about the going by quickly but I think it is true. Today was you (if you couldn't tell) It was Bob's turn to give me my Yoga workout, I figured since his workout only has a very small abs section when compared to the yoga belly X section on Yoga X I would go ahead and use the few extra minutes that I had to do his yoga ab workout as well. Just like the last time I his ab workout I decided to focus less on going for the advanced moves and more on getting the form correct and keeping up with the video, it seems that right now that gives me the better workout an as I get stronger  I will work on moving to the advanced moves. When I was doing the yoga part of the workout I was doing pretty good but there were some issues with the balance on some of the poses, it seems that I am still not quite used to the extra give the exercise mat we put in the office is giving and it is making the balancing a bit more difficult. I was thinking about getting up about 20 minutes early tomorrow and going on a short little two mile run but I don't think that is going to happen. Right now I am leaning toward taking full advantage of my rest day since while I was doing my workout I felt a little drained so I am guessing that the 2.5 hours of yard work I did yesterday still wore me out a little bit. Who knows I might change my mind as the day goes on but we will just have to wait and see. On a side note I am excited that my new vitamins that I ordered should be showing up today, I know it is silly to be excited about vitamins but I used the last of the GNC vitamins I have been taking today and Sam's stopped carrying them. These OptiMan vitamins are designed for people trying to gain muscle and are formulated to support muscle mass building and recovery, a few guys at work have been taking them and they seem happy with them. The best part is they are a little bit cheaper than what I have been taking, I get a two month supply for about $18 dollars so that should save me a little money. Well I guess we will see how tomorrow goes down and if I get out for an early run, I have been wanting to run again lately but it seems like there is always something that changes that.

Yard work X done

Ok so let me start by saying this is another one of my on the iPad posts so there may be some really silly typos and if so then you can blame the auto correct. Today was back and biceps day which I am pretty sure I have said is starting to become one of my favorite workouts because it is the muscle groups that I want to see the most change in. I pushed myself pretty hard today and did a few of the exercises with more resistance than I did the last time through. Some of my numbers were up most of them stayed the same and a few of them went down in the number of reps. I didn't let the lower and equal numbers bother me all that much since I did up resistance on the other exercises and I didn't get to do the workout until I had already done a little over two hours of yard work including pulling weeds, mowing, weed eating, and mulching. Needless to say that took a bit out of me so I was already pretty tired before I even started the workout. I am calling today a good day, I didn't get my after workout run in because of all the yard work and missing all the time with the family the yard work made me miss. Tomorrow is yoga and I will be switching to the Bob Harper workout rather than yoga x and since the Bob workout does not have all that long an ab section leg yoga belly x in yoga x I am going to go ahead and do the yoga workout and the ab workout on the DVD so I expect to really have a good start to my week tomorrow. Well, I am going to wrap this one up, take a look tomorrow to see how yoga went.

Almost made some changes today

Last night my wife and I went out child free and spent some time at work at the yearly casino night that takes place after tax season ends. We both had a great time and it was nice to have some conversation with other adults that didn't have to do with work. This morning we didn't have our daughter with us since she spent the night at her grandparent's house so we both were able to "sleep in". I woke up at 7:30 grabbed a glass of water and headed to the office for a little Stretch X followed by Ab Ripper X. I was about 20 minutes through and was listening to Whitney in the kitchen and decided that I didn't want to miss time with her so I made the decision to forgo the rest of the video and move Ab Ripper X to the next day. Well things changed, I didn't have to go pick up Haley so I finished the stretching and even got Ab Ripper X in while Whitney was in the shower. I decided that I was going to move the intensity up as much as I could, I didn't hold weights because I am not 100% convinced that it does all that much for me but I did keep my arms up for all the moves that I could, I did the cross leg rather than the wide leg sit ups, and I did most of the leg climbers without grabbing my leg at all. The cross leg sit ups didn't look all the pretty and I only able to get to 19 rather than 25 but it did at a good burn and I did get to 25 leg climbers but three of them I needed to grab my leg to get up. This time through I was able to get all 50 mason twists so that was a win. I am really considering buying some ankle weights to make the ab workouts even more intense but that is something that is going to wait until some more important things get purchased first. The day after Legs and Back I am a little sore but nothing like last week, I can actually walk and get in and out of my car with little effort which was not the case last week. I chalk it up to not having ran when I was done with my workout like I did last week. Tomorrow is Back and Biceps and I am going to really work to get the number of reps up and get more pull ups done, weather permitting I also plan on running two miles after the workout to really get a good Sunday workout in but that might change depending on the weather and how the day goes out. I really need to weed an re-mulch the front and mow the lawn if it dries out enough for me to do so. I guess we will just have to wait and see.

Cardio and hello old friend

Week 2 day two in the books, today was another Cardio X day followed by abs. This week I am doing ab ripper X rather than the Bob Harper yoga Abs to get a little mix up going. I remembered the last time I did Ab ripper X I was thinking to myself that it was getting easy and I needed to find ways to up the intensity. I did not feel that way today. I did do every rep except the last few bonus twists because I lost my balance so I know I still need to go ahead and move the intensity up but it was nice to remember just how good a workout Ab ripper X is. When I do it again on Saturday I am going to go back to crossing the legs on one of the exercises, and doing the leg climbs without grabbing my legs at all. I am also going to add the weights back in my hands during the first four sets of moves. I figure that will really put some pain on the ole stomach the next time. Tomorrow is Legs and back again and I need to sit down for a minute tonight and look at my numbers and resistance so that I can plan for the resistance I am going to be using. One thing I can say is that I will most likely not be going for a short run after I am done with the workout like I did last week. I was sore for four days after that workout last week so I know I said I was going to up the intensity and run a little further in my last post about the workout but I really don't think that is going to happen but I guess we will see tomorrow. Don't have a lot happening today so don't have too much, I am a little surprised that I am not more sore than I am, I expected to be sore today after the great workout yesterday but that is not the case, I am a little tender by nothing like the first time so I guess I am getting stronger. Here is hoping the same thing happens with the legs and back tomorrow.

Could not have asked for a better day

Today was the first day of week two on this round so I got to go after Chest, Shoulders, and Triceps again today. After the last round of this workout I was sore for a few days and really felt like I brought it as hard as I could while establishing a good baseline for improvement. Today when I woke up I told myself I was going to push just as hard and not worry about what the numbers said, as a matter of fact I made sure I did look at the rep count from the week before until I finished the exercise I was on and was writing it down. There was a few times that I would finish the set and feel down on myself because it didn't feel like I was doing a good job or getting the most out of the set but each time I felt that way I would go to the worksheet to record the reps and the number would be higher, worst case it was the same. When I was done with the workout I stepped outside for a run around the neighborhood so I got a 1.7 mile run in in about 15 minutes. One thing I can say is that there are not too many better ways to start a Wednesday. I also packed up a good little lunchbox with my lunch and dinner for today and entered all the information into myfitnesspal.com and I am right on track with my nutrition plan for today and really thing I am going to get the results I am wanting from this round. It is just one week in and I am already looking forward to taking the 30 day pictures to see the results up to that point. It is funny how much has changed over the last 15 months, back then I wouldn't even of dreamed of waking up and exercising before work let alone going for an almost 2 mile run when I was done. By the way I have gotten a few spam comments on the blogs and I can assure you none of them will stay up so you can pretty much stop posting them you are just wasting your time.

Starting the week in a good place

Today was the last day of my first week of this second round of P90X and it ended with Yoga X, by now you should know how I feel about Yoga and the days that I get to do it. Today was also the first day I did yoga on my new exercise mat that I got and put in the office Friday. The mat made all the moves that I have to lay down on the ground to do much more comfy but it seems to have affected my balance postures in yoga a little bit. The the mat and the carpet both having a little bit of give one over compensation when adjusting and I end up falling out of the pose. I think it only happened twice but I pride myself on having good yoga form and balance since starting yoga x and that just felt like a small step back. I guess I will just have to push a little harder to keep the form when I do it again. (Two weeks from today) Tomorrow is my rest day and then I get to start all over again. This time I will be mixing it up and doing Ab Ripper X rather than the Bob Harper Abs on Thursday and Saturday and will do the Bob Harper Yoga on Monday of next week, this way I am mixing it up a little bit and not letting it get stale. Yesterday I did my back and biceps workout and decided not to go on a run since I was totally spent by the end of the workout and I didn't want to miss any more time with the family. One thing I was pretty happy about was that I added weight to all the exercises and was in the 8 to 10 range on most of the moves with the rep count. I am even going to be adding some more resistance to some of the back moves since they did give me a good burn but not quite what I was looking for. The only thing that might happen tomorrow is I may do a quick one mile run right when I wake up to get the blood pumping and the metabolism up to start the day but other than that I totally plan on taking it easy and let the muscles rebuild before going after chest, shoulders, and triceps again on Wednesday. So far it seems that every one of my workouts are leaving me sore for 3 to 4 days so and yesterday's does not seem to be much different but at least the biceps are smaller :-( (not that I want them to be)

More of the same

Seems like I was right about what to expect when I woke up this morning. By the time I went to bed I was already feeling sore in the glutes and my hamstrings were not too far behind. When I woke up this morning the rest of my legs were pretty darn sure so I would say mission accomplished with yesterday's workout. I was excited for the alarm to go off this morning and get started on Stretch X and some Bob Harper Yoga abs. The stretching helped out a bit when it came to the soreness but there were some stretches that I could not go as far on because of the stiffness in my legs but they did begin to loosen up by the time I was done with DVD. Once I finished I moved right on to yoga abs, I am still a little sloppy with some of the moves and I totally start sweating pretty hard by the end of the 15 minutes but I am getting better at them. I only have two more workouts left before I am done with the first week of the new program and as long as I keep pushing like I have been I should be in good shape. Tomorrow is back and biceps followed by a planned run to get the blood flowing. Tonight after church I will take a few minutes to sit down and plan out my resistances for each of the moves before I get started then I will bang out the workout as best I can tomorrow morning and get my next baseline for moving forward. Right now I am on the fence as to if I want to wake up early and get the workout done or do it while Haley is napping. I guess I will just have to see how I feel at the end of the night. Anyways, keep an eye on the blog tomorrow to see how the last resistance workout of the week goes.

Another hard day

I tell you what, it feels like I am doing P90X for the first time all over again. I woke up for my Legs and Back workout and run and I was still sore from the workout on Wednesday. Like I said last night I hope for that to go away after a round of Stretch X tomorrow and another round of Bob Harper Abs. I want to be able to get the workouts (all 80 minutes worth) in before the family starts to wake up so that I can have breakfast with them then make a quick run to Lowes for some mulch and stain for the deck. I am trying to get the deck done before class so I only have to workout tomorrow then I can do whatever I want for the rest of the day on Sunday. Well, back to today, although I am sore from Wednesday still it is not as bad as it was yesterday so I am just going to keep pumping protein in me and drink my recoup so the repairs of my muscle tissue finish and I gain the more mass. I prepared for this mornings workout by looking at my workout sheet from the last round but I made a little mistake. You do the legs and back so often you actually have more than one sheet filled out when you finish P90X and I looked at the wrong one. This isn't all that big of a deal because most of the exercises in this workout are body weight workouts anyways. There are a few sets that I will be adding resistance to next week and a few moves will I will be holding light weights to increase the intensity on them as well. I was going to do that this morning but I forgot to grab the weights out of the bedroom and I didn't want to go back in and wake Whitney so I went without them. There were two times in the workout (both after pull ups) that I was feeling a little sick from the intensity I was bringing but I was lucky enough to have the feeling pass quickly. When I went on the message boards for Beachbody I saw that someone else did the same workout today and even added up the number of pull ups the did so I figured I would do the same. As it turns out I did a little over 80 total pull ups in an hour. Don't take it the wrong way most of them were done with the assistance of a chair but I did do the most without a chair as I have ever done in the past so I am excited about that. I am sure that will come at the price of a sore back tomorrow. When I finished the workout I took a minute to catch my breath and left the house for my run. I figured it was going to be a hard one when I was having trouble just waking down the couple of steps out the front door, but hey I went ahead and went for it. I decided to only go for one lap because my legs were screaming at me when I started. This gave me a new goal for next weeks workout, finish the workout then do the planned two laps no matter how long it takes. Sounds easy enough but since I will be adding weight and resistance to about a third of the exercises I am thinkingit is going to be a challenge but I will do it. What's funny is that as I sit here now my legs are starting to get sore so by the time bed time rolls around I bet I will walking like an old man. Keep an eye on the blog to see how my first "intense" back and biceps goes on Sunday, how my legs feel tomorrow, and if I got the two laps done next Friday.

Got what I asked for

This morning was a fun day, I woke up and got to do Cardio X along with an Ab workout, as you know I chose the Bob Harper yoga ab workout. Here is how the morning went, I went to bed around 11:30 last night and was already feeling a little sore, then I woke up the morning and the little sore turned into a lot of sore. As the day continued I remained sore and I am pretty sure that it got worse as the day progressed, but hey I survived. Once cardio X started I got warmed up then we went into the Yoga, and trust me when I tell you that when your chest is on fire sun salutations become much more difficult. I had a pretty darn good sweat going by the time I was done with the yoga. Kenpo was next and the hooks and upper cuts were not doing anything to help me with my sore shoulders but I survived that as well. The plyo second went by just fine and I didn't really have much trouble there. I then finished up and moved on to yoga abs. I decided to take a little bit different of an approach this time around, rather than try to do all the advanced moves the entire way through I did the normal moves on some of the sections so that I could keep my abs contracted longer without having to take a break. Trust me when I say that even though I did less intense moves the entire workout intensity was greater so now I have a good feel for what I need to do and where I need to get with that workout. I am looking forward to the next time I do ab ripper X since I have a feeling that it is going to seems easier after letting Bob kick my butt for a little while. Tomorrow is legs and back followed by a short run (can't wait to see how that goes) I have already planned out my resistance and weights so that I begin to create a baseline for that workout and I totally expect to be just a sore in my lower body Saturday as I am in my upper body today. It makes me happy that the fourth day of the week in this cycle in stretch x I hope it will help with the soreness and speed recovery but I guess I won't know the answer to that until Sunday, which just happens to be back and biceps day. Well if I have time look for my post tomorrow to see how bringing the same intensity from Wednesday treats me. One last quick thing, my mother-in-law just bought Thai Chieng (newest BeachBody program) and is very excited about it coming in so I wanted to take a minute to support her and wish her luck on the 90 day program....who know maybe P90X will be next for her.

Well, I have a good base line

So today started my second round of P90X and I only have 89 days left so they should just fly right on by. Like I said the other day I planned out the resistance I was going to use over the weekend and just filled the numbers in as I did the workouts, and today was my first go around with my new push up bars. A guy that has been doing P90X here at the office told me to expect my push up numbers to go down once I started using the bars. He was right, I figured the numbers would go down but I really didn't thing they would add the level of intensity that they did to the workout. By the time the first break was coming up I was was crying for it. Most of my resistance band reps were in the 7 to 10 rep range which is what everything I read says you should get to before failure if you want to gain muscle mass so I think I did a good thing today. My plan is to keep the resistance where it is now until I am able to get to that 13th rep on an exercise, once that happens (with good form) I will up the resistance and work to getting to 13 reps again. Now I say this with the assumption that I will get to the 13th rep before the end of the 90 days but I am remaining hopeful and will do everything I can to get there. When I was done with the workout I did what I said I was going to do and went for a short little 15 minute run. I ended up going three laps around my block for a total of about 1.7 miles, I would have liked to do  four laps but time was not permitting. My next post workout run will be on Friday, which will be after the legs and back routine so I won't be surprised if I only to a lap or two. Like I said yesterday I am not doing on the runs for the additional calorie burn but for the health and fat burning benefits that I heard you get from going on a short run after resistance training. One thing that does excite me is that I have the same passion I had for the next workout as I did the first time through the program and I am already looking forward to tomorrow morning's Cardio X and Bob Harper (sub for Ab Ripper) yoga abs. I am shooting for the same intensity level I brought to the workout today on those workouts. I can tell you I should be stupid sore tomorrow since it has only been a few hours since the morning workout and I am already getting a little tender. Man I hope I end up pretty darn close to my goal after this round. For the first time in a while I even added my exercise to myfitnesspal.com and after seeing that I am worried that I am going to have to take in even more calories to get the muscle gain that I want but we will have to see. If I put on a little fat while building muscle (which is normal) I will just make my third round of P90X the lean program to get the fat off. :-) I am soooo sure my wife is just thrilled that I am one day through my second cycle and am already planning my third.

So begins round 2

Tomorrow I will be starting my second round of P90X only this time I am doing it a little differently. On Beach Body's website I found a modification of the program that is geared for gaining mass rather than a full fitness program so that is what I will be doing this time around. The modification is a little lighter on the cardio and more focused resistance training. The new program starts with the devil workout and tells you to focus on 8 to 10 reps on each of the exercises. I have already gone ahead and pulled my workout sheets from the first time around and upped the resistance and wrote it down on the new sheets so I have a starting point. I also have some push up bars getting delivered to me today to add an extra six inches of motion to each of the push ups and presses. I have a feeling that I am going to really give myself a workout tomorrow. Another good thing about the new plan is that you don't do the Ab Ripper workouts the same day as the resistance workouts, the new program has the Ab workouts happening on cardio days so I can spend the 20 minutes I would have spent doing the Ab ripper program going on a lap around the neighborhood to really get the blood flowing blood flowing and the calories burning. Talking with a friend of mine, like I have said before, he told me that going on a short run after the workouts helps to kick start the fat burning process, I am hoping that between that and the additional intensity I get some huge results on this round. Take a look at the blog tomorrow to see how the first workout on the new cycle goes.

Blast from the past

As you can see today's post includes something that I have not included in a post in a very long time, a picture of the run I went on this morning. I had been itching to run for a little while and told myself when I went to bed yesterday that I would do just that today. When my alarm went off I did hit the snooze button once but finally got up and went on my run. This was the first run that I have been on since running the Tom King classic a few weeks ago. Now that I am finished I have to say I remember why I enjoy running so much after about the first mile or so everything went away and I just enjoyed the exercise. I did have to keep an eye on my time as I didn't want to lose track of how long I was out there and end up late for work. In the end I finished running three laps around the neighborhood for a total of a little over 5.5 miles and a good amount of calories burned. I figured after not running in so long that it would have been harder for me to do than it was but the run was pretty easy and I finished wishing that I had time to do one more lap or at least a half lap around the block but I did not. About mid afternoon yesterday I was just feeling flabby and gross from some reason and that feeling pretty much lasted throughout the night so had I not run in the morning I am sure it would have only gotten worse and I would have been pretty upset with myself. That feeling is gone now that I have gone on the run. One thing I did notice this time around that I had not noticed in my previous runs is just how much you use your core muscles to keep good form, I am pretty darn sure that my abs were engaged the entire run, which I isn't a bad thing. Tomorrow I will be spending the morning getting my Warrior on, and taking another run at the Bob Harper Yoga DVD (and the Ab workout, time permitting) before going on another run on Friday morning. Then I will be taking the weekend off, doing another Yoga on Monday, taking Tuesday off, and getting right back into another cycle of P90X. As you can tell I have my fitness planned out to past the middle part of the year. I am still working on getting the build that I want and I am confident I should be pretty close to it when I finish this second cycle of P90X. While I was running I even made a plan on how I am going to mix things up on this cycle to add even more muscle confusion, The first week I will be doing the Bob Harper Yoga Abs rather than Ab Ripper X and will do the Yoga X when yoga day comes. The next week I will do Ab Ripper X and the Bob Harper yoga, I plan on continuing to switch it up each week until the end of the next cycle. I figure that will keep things fresh and make sure I don't get tired of the same workouts week after week. On Friday's run I am going to make sure not to hit the snooze button so I can at least get another half lap in distance which will give me a six mile run to finish the week. Since we are going to be short staffed on Friday I think getting in my post run head space is going to be a good idea. Keep an eye out tomorrow to see if my second run at being a warrior goes any better than the first.

Starting the week resting

So my alarm went off this morning and I had full intentions of getting up and going for a run but that did not happen. As I laid in bed getting ready to get up I decided that since I did a double workout yesterday and I have not had Monday where I didn't get up to workout out since Christmas I would go ahead and take today off. Tomorrow I won't be getting up to workout since it is bible study day and I have decided the 3:50 AM alarms are not going to happen anymore even when I start my next cycle. Perhaps tomorrow night I will go on a run or do a little yoga before bed but nothing will be happening in the morning I can tell you that right now. Wednesday I will get back on it and spend a little bit of time outside running if the weather allows for it, I have not checked yet but I don't think there is any rain this week. It feels good to be out of the cycle this week so I can let myself slack a little bit, I don't plan on entering my food into myfitnesspal.com or worrying about making sure I snack when I am supposed to etc. I will continue to eat the way I have been eating just won't be tracking so religiously over the next few days. I don't expect to have too much to say tomorrow so keep an eye out for Wednesday's post to see how the run or the yoga went.

Not a warrior...yet

My first day after the end of P90X has been a good one, later today I am going to get a massage to help release the tension I have in my shoulders and back and I am considering it as a reward for getting through the program. I am at the house on my own as my wife and child are down south with family. I was thinking that I was going to go on a run but decided against in because of the amount of food I had for breakfast and it was getting a little warm today, I like running in the mornings better anyways. I decided that I could get an extra workout between this cycle of P90X and my next one which I have scheduled to start on April 11th so I put in my Bob Harper Yoga for the Warrior in the player and gave it a go. It is funny to me that a lot of the moves are the same moves that you find in Yoga X but the transitions between each of the moves are faster and he does go into a few poses that I didn't know. I know I didn't do the best of jobs getting through it and I got a few poses wrong but it is hard the first time you see a yoga DVD since you are not looking at the screen much to make sure you are doing the poses correctly. I also decided to say the heck with it and do the Ab workout on the DVD right after the yoga part and trust me when I say it didn't get any easier from the first time but I am starting to get familiar with it so just like the Ab Ripper X it will come. When I start my next P90X I will be using the Bob Harper ab DVD in place of the Ab Ripper X every now and again as well. If you can't tell I am trying to add even more intensity to this next cycle of P90X. I was very happy with the results I got from the program the first time around and even though I have not taken my after pictures yet I know they are going to be good, now I am planning on getting some more mass and lean out a little bit more. I know because of how large I got that I won't get the final build that I want because of extra skin I have from being a size 46 inch waist but I am going to keep trying to get there. All the things I have been reading online say that it can take up to a year a more for the extra skin to tighten up around the body, I have seen it start to tighten on my legs and arms and a bit on my chest and stomach so I am expecting to the tightening to stop near the end of the year. The way I see it, it does not hurt to go ahead and help the process along as much as I can by just continuing to work hard and build more muscle. I have not done the final fit test for the after part of this cycle but I don't think that I will, I am going to wait until the end of the second cycle and see how it goes. Here is what I can tell you from the first cycle, I lost 3 lbs, and an inch and a half around my waist line. (by my count that means I gained 7 lbs of muscle as I was once told it takes 10 lbs of weight loss to change your waist an inch) My biceps are .5 inch bigger than they were when I started, and my chest has gotten one inch smaller. I also lost another 1% body fat (again not an accurate number I think but seeing a lower number makes me happy). All and all great results but for this next run I want to see numbers go up and I plan on taking a look at my last workout sheets to see what resistance I was using on each of the workouts and bumping it up before I start so I have an even harder starting point. Like I said I am going for intensity this time around. Keep an eye on the blog the next few days to see how my running and Bob Harpoer warrioring is going. I want to have a pretty good handle on the workouts before the next P90X cycle.