Shadows In Motion

I earned 873 points for my workout on Fitocracy!

• General P90X +873 pts

  • 0:51:00 || Intense! (+464 pts)
  • 0:45:00 || Intense! (+409 pts)
  • P90X: Back & Biceps + Les Mills Combat: Combat 45 “Power Kata”. This would have been yesterday’s workout, which I skipped due to back pain.

Thoughts & Comments:

My lower back is still sore, but I chose to not skip my workout today.  I went in knowing that I could easily decrease the intensity where I needed to do so, and I did so at a few places in Combat 45: Power Kata.

The over all workout was still pretty intense and even included the jumping side kicks that I had assumed I would need to skip this evening.  Hopefully my back doesn’t take issues with this evening’s exercise.  It’s fine at the moment, but we’ll see by tomorrow morning.

The good news from this evening’s P90X workout is that I was able to begin my pre-pull-up exercises again.  The problem in my pect muscle appears to have healed and I experienced no pain.  I also noticed that I have more arm strength and I was able to lift myself a bit easier than before.  I still can’t do a proper pull-up, but I’m getting there.

I also increased the amount of weight in a couple of dumbbell exercises. I don’t know if that’s permanent or if tonight’s lift simply went better than usual.

During the day I could swear that nothing’s changing as a result of all of this exercise.  I need to keep reminding myself that this is only the first round, and that I don’t actually expect a significant change by the end of this 90 days.  Mid-December is my true goal to take my “After” photos.

Noticing these small improvements, increasing my weight by five pounds, noticing that I need to drink significantly less water during a workout, reminding myself that I am doing the Les Mills routines at a MUCH higher intensity level than I was in the beginning, etc.  These are all important observations to remind myself that I am making progress.

I’m also getting bored of doing the same workouts.  If I can manage to actually do this “Beginner’s 5K” training program from RunKeeper then that should add some much needed variance to my daily workouts.  I’m actually getting a little excited to try.  I need to remind myself to be realistic about it; I do have mild asthma, I have experienced shin pain when jogging in the past, I may not actually be able to do it.  Summer is coming up, too, which will mean 90+ degrees (32 Celsius) when it hits.

Crossing fingers.  Hopefully I can.

See you all tomorrow.

Fitocracy is the social fitness community that has helped hundreds of thousands level up their fitness. Start your fitness transformation today!

I earned 288 points for my workout on Fitocracy!

• General P90X +288 pts

  • 0:30:00 || The Gods Hate Me! (+288 pts)
  • We’re supposed to have some significant storms roll through tonight, so I did Les Mills Combat: Combat 30 at double my normal intensity rather than the longer Plyometrics that I had planned for this evening. I dislike being in the shower when there’s lots of lightening happening out there.

Thoughts & Comments:

The Fitocracy description explains it well.  I don’t entirely trust that our landlord has this house properly grounded.  I have very good reasons for this, but I don’t think that I should get into those reasons on a public forum.

For tonight’s workout I pushed the physical intensity of the exercise as high as I could and I kept it that way as much as I could.  There was no pacing myself except during the “low” periods of the interval training.  You know what?  Sweat stings when it flows into the eyes.

My usual schedule has me lifting weights prior to the interval routine.  My body’s already been pushed quite a bit at that point.  Some workouts, such as Combat 45, I can push hard.  Other I can’t.  Combat 30 is one that I’m still working on pushing as hard as I can after 50-or-so minutes of weight lifting, so tonight allowed me to go all out and was kind of fun.

The weather is supposed to go bad tonight and stay that way for a day or three.  It’s mid April and we could get freezing rain tonight.  We’re scheduled to get severe storms tomorrow in addition to the potentially severe storms this evening.  Ergo my schedule for this week may get changed quite a bit more than I had previously intended.

Fitocracy is the social fitness community that has helped hundreds of thousands level up their fitness. Start your fitness transformation today!

This is my exercise schedule for week 2.  On the follow days, I’ll be doing these workouts:

1. Chest & Back, Combat 30
2. Kenpo X (replaces HIIT: Power)
3. Shoulders & Arms, Combat 45
4. Back & Biceps, Combat 60
5. Plyometrics (replaces HIIT: Plyo)
6. Core Synergistics, Combat 60
7. Rest or X Stretch

Core Synergistics (“CS”) is slotted since my Legs & Back DVD is long gone.  I may just go download it, since I’ve actually bought these two workout programs and I’m sure that the workout is in a torrent somewhere.

Anyway, I may or may not slot something in to replace CS.  Core strength is always helpful, so that’s what I’m planning on at the moment.  I guess we’ll see.

As previously mentioned (in case you’re just getting here), I skip the two HIIT routines in Les Mills Combat because they cause me considerable back pain.  However, all of the Les Mills workouts are Interval Training so you will still see me refer to those workouts as such.

See ya’ll next post.