Shadows In Motion

tiime-4-change:

Any of you guys doing Insanity or P90x? How is it going for you?

I might start Insanity over or switch to P90x. What do you guys recommend?

You’ll need to buy weight sets and pull up bars. It’s expensive. I prefer P90X, but there is a lot of cash required to get started.

(via bscolaro)

Posting from android.. edited to clean this up a bit.

This evening I did Insanity - Pure Cardio.  It’s hard to believe that something so intense burns only 300-some calories, but that’s the way it is. My HRM reported 237.2 calories burned, which I’m not sure that I believe. I haven’t looked at the full report in the PC software yet. (edit: still haven’t)

At any rate, it basically killed me this evening. Not sure what happened there. Blood sugar too low maybe? Got way too light headed after the workout.

edit 2: MFP is saying that I still need to eat 720 calories today.  Seems reasonable that this is what lead to the light headedness.  I’m not sure how THAT happened.  I guess I’ll look for something else to eat.

Going to hit the shower.. this question mark to allow comments: ?

EDIT: My resting heart rate is down to 72 BPM.  Apparently it just took me awhile to chillax after tonight’s work out. ^_~

This evening I did the Insanity Pure Cardio work out.  That is one killer work out, but I’m quickly learning that they’re all going to be killer work outs.  To say that this thing busted my butt is an understatement. :)  Good stuff.

I also used my heart rate monitor for the first time this evening.  According to several different websites that I’m checking, I should have a target heart rate of between 150 to 185 BPM during exercise, with 150 BPM being the goal (and 185 is seriously hardcore).

(link: here’s one website that I’m using: http://www.exercise.com/tools/target-heart-rate-calculator)

I manually counted my resting heart rate, and my RHR is 72 BPM. (original post: seems to be high at between 86 and 89 BPM.  I did exercise this evening so perhaps there’s still some affect from that, but I’ve since showered and I’m sitting in my bedroom.  At any rate, this is what I’m counting at the moment.  I’ll check again sometime tomorrow.)

According to my Pyle Sports PHRM26, my heart rate during tonight’s Insanity work out had a minimum of 100 BPM, a max of 177 BPM, and an average of 150 BPM.

From what I’m seeing from these various interactive calculators, an average BPM of 150 is right at the sweet spot for me.  It’s also very good to know that the Pyle HRM works.  You can understand that I was a bit skeptical when I first saw these numbers reported.  177 BPM seems really high!

Here are some screen shots from the Pyle Sports HRM software that comes with the device:

If you can read the image you’ll notice that it claims 0.9 calories were burned during this evening’s exercise.  I had forgotten to enter my age, weight, height, and other vital stats into the device so it was unable to calculate anything.  I also don’t expect it to accurately count my steps during an Insanity work out. :)

Anyway, I thought that some of you may find it interesting to have some numbers to work with, plus a look at the HRM software could be interesting?

(abbreviation note: HRM = “Heart Rate Monitor”)

Yesterday, since I skipped karate class, I did another Insanity work out.  My original plan was to do Stretch X and then go to class, but I ended up doing Insanity at around midnight and then going to bed.  The work out that I did was Cardio Power & Resistance, since that’s the one that I couldn’t previously finish (re: the morning work out experiment).

My schedule for Insanity is not every day.  It’s:

Mon., Tue. Thur., Fri. Karate
Wed., Fri., Sat., Insanity (since Friday karate classes are weapons classes)

Insanity is also used on days that I miss karate class, such as yesterday, or when classes are not physically demanding.  The goal is to avoid over exercising.  Insanity is very demanding, so I’m will need some time to determine how well it fits into the schedule of my karate classes.

My HRM’s shipping status says “out for delivery”, which means that it could reach the front porch at any time between now and about 5:30 PM.  If all goes well, I’ll do Cardio Recovery today, which will be the first workout in which I use the HRM.

Anyway, there’s that.

I attempted the second Insanity work out this morning, shortly after waking up and before breakfast.  The only thing in my belly before working out was a cup of coffee and my vitamins.  It was an experiment to see how effective the approach would be.  The result is: not at all effective.

Yeah, I’m laughing at myself a bit over here.  I had read that exercise before breakfast burns more fat.  However, what I had not read about was the need to stabilize blood sugar levels (so, for example, eating yogurt is a good idea).  Not doing so resulted in a crash before I hit the half-way mark in the exercise.  Also, I probably didn’t have the calorie reserve that was necessary to do a work out at this level.

My approach to this, in order to continue the work out, was to insert extra periods of rest.  For example, I performed four of a movement and then would rest for four seconds, and repeated that process for each exercise.  I also began to add extra time to the rest between each set.  This approach allowed me to continue exercising, although I was clearly getting much less out of the work out.

The experiment finally ended with my stomach threatening to get sick.  I made it to the point in the Insanity work out where we were doing the triceps exercises, and had to call it quits.

On the bright side, I feel great now.  My shower is done, I’ve had breakfast (Irish Oats with honey for sweetener) and my whey protein and a niacin supplement.  I feel more energetic than I normally do in the morning, and I’d have to say that, at the moment at least, I have a more positive attitude toward the day.

Apparently, a solid dose of endorphins is a good start to the day.  Who knew?

side note.. I keep typing it “xercise”. O.o

edit: Am I using the #fitblr tag correctly?

…and holy shit.

Plyometric Cardio Circuit.  I don’t recall sweating that much in a very long time.  I actually finished my 32oz cup twice during the work out.

Post work out, I got into my Gatorade (low calorie) and then put some whey and milk into my shaker.  I probably needed the Gatorade after sweating that hard.

I like it, though.  This is just borrowed to see how I like it, but my immediate impression is very good and I’m definitely leaning toward buying it.  It is intense how the exercise seems to simply never stop. ;D

Did the P90X Shoulders & Arms routine today.  It’s a fine work out and I expect plenty of DOMS tomorrow.  That’s somewhat inconvenient considering that tomorrow is karate class.  Keeping up with the rest of the class should be fun.. ^_^

I’m definitely going to borrow Insanity and try that out.  Hopefully I can get that by next weekend.  P90X is great, but for now I want to focus more on fat burning and increasing stamina.

One step at a time.

Ya know, I still think that I’ll get Insanity.  I really dig the results that I’ve seen from others, and my tentative goal for this Summer is to get rid of the rest of this gut of mine.  Real life is… let’s just say stressful, so I don’t know how well my plans are going to work out.  Or any plans at all, for that matter.

That’s the goal for now, anyway.

Today I was going to do some bag work, but the room that the Wavemaster is in simply doesn’t have enough room to do much.  That’s going to go outside, probably next weekend?  One can hope.  So for today, I did the usual kata practice and then came inside to do some Cardio X from P90X.

The weather outside this evening was fantastic.  The clovers and grass in the yard was covered in dew from a light rain, and it was comfortably chilly out there.  For awhile it looked like it was going to rain again, which would have been okay with me.

The kata that I will do in the test at the end of this semester is Pinan Yondan, so naturally I focused on that the most this evening (with some Sandan practice on the side).  Much of the time was spent paying close attention to balance, cat stance, form in general, and trying to remind myself to go slower when necessary.

I’ve always had a big focus on speed - that’s my natural inclination, so I need to really focus on slowing down during certain points in the various kata.

My kata practice usually goes something like this:  Do the kata at normal speed and power, and then analyze the parts that I don’t feel comfortable with.  Then single out those movements and practice & analyze them specifically for awhile.  From there, I move back into the full kata to get a feel for any improvements.  From time to time, I’ll go through the full kata at a slow, careful pace specifically to focus on form.

Rinse and repeat for every step of the kata.  Did I lose balance?  Did I not like my stance?  Did I move too quickly?  Was my foot not in the correct location and position for the kick?  So on, and so forth.

Unfortunately I have no one to critique my stuff when I practice at home, but at this point the Pinan katas themselves are well known.  I skipped my previous rank test, so this is actually kind of old stuff for me; that’s not to say that it’s not important to still practice it regardless, of course.

Kata practice is so boring.  Some people really like kata, and that’s fine.  Me, I’m not too big on it.  For me kata is on the same level of doing the laundry.  You have to do it, it’s necessary, but I don’t exactly enjoy doing it.

“Cardio X” was a lot easier than I was expecting it to be, to be honest.  Not bragging, but I was expecting it to kick my arse.  It didn’t, but it did keep me sweating so I’m not complaining.  It was also only like 30 minutes long, which is fantastic.  As a karateka, I still find the “Kenpo” parts of the work out to be… fun (if not a little silly). ^.^

Combined with the usual kata practice, Cardio X was a good supplemental work out for the evening.  I really liked it, I’m feeling pretty good right now all relaxed after my shower & protein shake.  I may keep doing that when I do my kata practice.  If not Cardio X, then some other short supplemental work out will do just as nicely.

Anyway, g’night folks.