Five weeks ago today is when I had crushed a few of my toes in the gym. Three weeks ago I was able to hobble back into the gym. Today I actually managed to stuff the swollen but healing toes into a real shoe. It's the little things in life that bring us joy. Sure, I've still got a pretty good hitch in my giddyup, but progress is progress. It all led to heightened levels of motivation, too, so it was a magnificent Monday...

(Go to our http://www.x-rep.com/xblog.htm for the full training and diet details.)

Note: This current program is based on the Alternate Phase 2 workout in http://www.x-workouts.com plus the 4X technique from http://www.x-workouts.com

Summary: As mentioned above, not needing to wear my "rehab" shoe today sparked all sorts of enthusiasm. Yes, getting a shoe on is a bit of a chore, it still hurts if I move the wrong way and I definitely have a different "swagger" at the moment, but moving forward is always a good thing and it's perfect timing with the new routine. My strength is already going up at a good pace on the midrange movements and I'll have to add weight to most workouts this week at this pace. Moving traps to later in the routine made a huge difference for the better, and every muscle that got hit today feels great. The workout lasted just over an hour (1 hour, 15 min), but that's still acceptable, as I don't feel overtrained at all, and this is the only workout in the split which breaks the 60-minute mark.