fitclubmom’s BodyBlog

This week is our P90X Recovery Week, and I am doing the happy dance! The only downside is that there are two days of Yoga X in the recovery week… Uggghhh!  This morning was the first day, and we do it again on Thursday.  And boy did I have a hard time completing it this morning.  I somehow strained the glute/hamstring tie-in muscle and it has really been bugging me the last couple of days.  So the stretching in Yoga really tested it this morning.  Although, I’m sure that it was good for the muscle to be stretched too.  The only thing that I got pissy about was not being able to do my kicks in KenpoX on Sunday.  I LOVE the KenpoX dvd… all of the punching, kicking, and yelling is right up my alley (yep, I’m vicious! lmao).  And my heart rate stays high because I really work hard through this workout (so does the hubby!).  And it really ticked me off that I couldn’t do the kick sequences.  Hopefully, the injury will heal this week.  So next week will will start Phase 3 (month three) of P90X… yippie-kai-yay! 

This weekend I posted a blog about how important music is to my workouts… the songs that I listen to can either make my workout mediocre or ferocious.  I prefer ‘freocious’ any day.  So I always take my own ipod to the gym when I do my workouts there.  And I am very picky about the music that I play.  I have several playlists depending on what my goal for that day is.  Is it a cardio day or a weight day or both?  With cardio, I do several types of cardio… I have steady state medium intensity, steady state high intensity, and HIIT (and once in a blue moon I will throw a steady state low instensity in to switch things up).  So I have different playlists for each of those cardio types.  Most of my weight lifting is done to, "angry" music (although I prefer to think of it as motivational music… it’s just that I like heavier hardcore music for weight lifting purposes).  So I had mentioned this weekend that I would start sharing some of my songs with you.  I love reading about what people have on their playlists.  I can usually find new music that way.

I am the type of person that "feels" the music as well as "hears" it.  Music is extremely powerful to me.  I can feel the beat and it resonates inside of me.  So, not only do I have my work out music, but I listen to music ALL the time.  And I really and truly like ALL kinds of music.  So every once in a while, I will throw in a song that I might not have in my work-out music library, but that I think people might enjoy.  Today, I am going to post one such song.  I don’t really have it in my workout playlist, because it doesn’t move me in that way.  But a couple of weeks ago, I wrote a post about "Choices", and how we have power of our own destiny.  This song is a wonderful song about how you can change your life… you just have to be willing to do it.  This is what I would call a HipHop/Rap song… and for those of you who don’t like HipHop or Rap… please give it a chance and just listen to it.  Open your mind.  You might find that you actually can like HipHop and/or Rap , or at least this particular song… it is a very powerful song.  It also helps to watch the video as you listen to the song because the video does a good job of showing what the song is about.  The song is called Dead and Gone by T.I. and Justin Timberlake.  Enjoy…

After yesterday’s leg workout I was expecting to be sore today.  Heck, I was already sore yesterday.  So I knew today would be a challenge as my muscles work to build muscle and recover.  Last night I spent a good portion of the night walking off leg cramps.  Everytime I would stretch in my sleep my legs would cramp and I would have to pop out of bed and walk around.  There is a remedy for leg cramps that I have shared with a few people.  It sounds icky and crazy and kind of ‘woo-woo’ but it works!! 

The remedy is pickle juice.  I swear it works and the few people I have told who have tried it swear by it too.  If you get a leg cramp and drink pickle juice (a few swigs), the leg cramp goes away in seconds!  Seriously!  I almost ALWAYS have pickle juice on hand just for that reason.  When I start getting a lot of leg cramps I even have a jar of pickle juice on my night stand! 

If you’ve ever had a "charlie horse" that knots and tightens your calf up so bad that you can’t move or even breathe you will try pretty much anything to ease the pain.  These aren’t the kinds of cramps that you can walk out either.  You can’t even stand up when you get them.  I started getting those kinds of leg cramps when I was pregnant and have had them ever since.  The doctor is the one who told me about the pickle juice. 

Last nights leg cramps were not that kind, just your run of the mill, regular cramps that you can walk out (not that they don’t still hurt like crazy!).  I would have used the pickle juice, but I didn’t have any .  And I didn’t think the hubby would appreciate me waking him up at 2 a.m. to go to the store for pickle juice .

So today was a P90X Yoga day… and I really thought that yoga would help loosen up my legs and help the tightness go away.  Mmmmmhhhhhmmmmmm.  I obviously didn’t have my ’smart’ hat on this morning!  The P90X yoga dvd is really hard.  The first 45 minutes are Vinyasa’s, which are flowing moves.  You are constantly moving from one hold/position to another.  There are no breaks.  And I actually got through it better than I thought I would.  My wrist still gives me a lot of problems towards the end because there are so many Downward Dogs.  But that is normal for me. 

We decided to just do the first 45 minutes of yoga today and we will do the rest later.  So when the 45 minutes were up I started to walk up the stairs and that’s when I realized that the yoga strained my legs even MORE.  Uggghhhh.  So I am a walking leg cramp today.   As long as I stay moving, it’s not too bad.  But when I sit down and then try to get up… YOUCH! It’s a good thing I won’t be doing legs again until Friday… I have a feeling my legs are going to need the recovery time.  Hmmmmm… except I still have to do Plyometrics on Tuesday which will be interesting.  Hopefully the legs are recovered by then.

First and foremost… I feel like a water barrell!!  I’m so not kidding!  I can feel my organs floating around from all the liquids I have been ingesting!  There is just no way that all of that water is staying within my tiny little bladder… it has to be leaking out and filling up other areas of my body.  Have you ever seen the Bill Cosby comedy show where he talks about the different drunks and how you can always tell when they go to the bathroom because their leg gets lighter and they lift it higher after using the bathroom?  Well, that’s me folks!  Not by alcohol though .  I swear when I go to the bathroom (every three minutes) my leg feels lighter and I walk funny!

Second, we started Phase 2 of P90X last night. Oh. My. Gawd!!!  Let me back up and say that in Phase 1 there is a bicep day that I never felt really worked me because I didn’t have the right weights.  Not because the dvd wasn’t hard.  It would have been super hard if my weights were right.  So on bicep day, I would work my arms really hard at the work gym in the morning so that I felt like my muscles were really fatigued so that the lighter weights for P90X that night were good because my muscles were still fatigued.  Dummy me decided to work my arms really hard yesterday thinking that this new dvd would be the same (we hadn’t done this dvd until last night).  Again…. Oh. My. Gawd!!!  In this dvd I was doing moves I had never heard or seen of.  We were doing one armed push-ups AND clapping push-ups (and if you were Tony, the show off, you were doing plyo push-ups (he’s friggen crazy!)).  This is in addition to fast twitch/slow twitch push-ups (where you do four fast push-ups followed by three super slow push-ups, repeat to failure), walking push-ups, and more that I can’t remember off the top of my head.  On top of this were some CRAZY shoulder exercises and some killer tricep exercises.  It wasn’t even a bicep day!  My bad!  So my biceps got a killer workout earlier that day .  And I didn’t even need to do them. Grrrrrrrrrr.   On the plus side I was able to do 10 reps of bicep curls with 20 pound dumbbells… I have NEVER been able to do that!  So that was a first.  My arms are definitely feeling the workout this morning!

And lastly, my eating has been great.  I have been making all of my meals and packing meals and snacks up to take to work for the last two days.  It takes time and planning, but it is going really good.  And I am working on getting some "staple" recipes.  You know, those recipes that are easy to cycle into the meal plan each week.  My kids are my guinea pigs on what tastes good enough to become a "staple" recipe.

If you haven’t had a chance to read HermTheWorm’s bodyblogs, I highly recommend it.  He is a brilliant writer who definitely has a way with words and is never boring in his posts.  I have now commandeered two lines from him in my blog posts (it’s not plagiarizing because I’m giving him credit here! lol).  One I used in my last blog and the title of this post is courtesy of him.  It’s a brilliant way to describe P90X!  "Hatefully effective"… yep… it’s perfect!

Thursday I completed two workouts.  One in the morning with my co-worker and then P90X Thursday night with the hubby (you can read that blog for details).  So Al (if you’re reading) I think I deserve my Super Power name! Shannon is SuperWoman and Kermane is The Terminator… so now we have to come up with something for me… lol.

Friday, I did another ‘two-a-day’ workout.  I worked legs in the morning at the gym with my co-worker… and I REALLY worked them hard too!  Then Friday night I did the P90X legs and back dvd with the hubby.  And I was able to complete the entire hour of the dvd with no breaks!  I surprised myself by completing it, because last week when I did legs in the morning I had a really hard time doing the P90X dvd that night.  But this time I ‘brought it’!  Today, I am REALLY feeling it! As long as I don’t move or breathe I am fine! lmao

Next week is our "recovery" week on P90X.  Although I would use the term "recovery" loosely.  Recovery week simply means that we won’t be using weights for the week.  However, we still work out 6 days with one day off.  In looking at the schedule we will be doing two days of Yoga during the recovery week…. TWO days!!!  Ugggghhhh!  So the schedule will be: Monday - Yoga, Tuesday - Core Synergistics, Wednesday - Kenpo, Thursday - Stretch,  Friday - Core Synergisitcs, Saturday - Yoga, and Sunday - Rest or Stretch.  Yep… I’ll say it again… P90X = Hatefully Effective!!! (Thanks Herm!!)

As a lot of you know, I am doing the P90X program with the hubby.  We work out 6 days per week on this program.  I had also mentioned in one of my blogs that In addition to the P90X, I go down to the gym at work a few times a week and work out with a lady who has recently lost over 70 pounds and is learning how to lift weights.  We give each other motivation and I push her to lift heavier weights that she would if I wasn’t standing over her shoulder.  I started working out with her a couple of weeks before starting the P90X program and didn’t want to give up my workouts with her.  So far things have aligned pretty well.  I usually end up working out with her on Mon, Wed, and Fri which are P90X weight days so I incorporate different types of weight exercises during both workout sessions (so I am working the same muscles, just differently).
Today was the first time I have worked out with her on a day that is a P90X "cardio" day.  Having done the Plyometrics, Yoga, and Kenpo dvd’s and knowing how hard they are I had the brilliant thought that I would bring in the CardioX dvd to do at work.  Somehow I was under the delusional thinking that this dvd would somehow be easier than his other dvd’s.  I don’t know why I thought that… my brain wasn’t working, obviously.  I also decided that since this dvd would be easier (I hadn’t been enlightened yet) that we would do the AbRipper dvd as well.  In my little dream world this would still leave me with bounds of energy in which to tackle the dreaded Kenpo dvd with the hubby tonight.  Well, Tony slapped the silly out of me in the first five minutes of the Cardio X dvd.  I think that crazy man took ALL of the hardest, most difficult moves from each of the other dvds (Plyo, Kenpo, and Yoga) and put them all together on this dvd.  AND he added a couple of new crazy ass moves just for kicks and giggles!!

Halfway through (and this dvd is only 45 minutes long… not the usual 60 minutes, which is probably where my erroneous thinking came from) I thought I was going to die.  I was pouring sweat and asking "are we done yet?".  My friend was promising dire threats against me for forcing her into the madness that is P90X and if I had had enough energy I would have done the same.  We managed to struggle our way through the 45 minutes and she looked at me with this truly evil look and said "we are NOT going to do the abs dvd, are we?!?!"  Well, duh… of course we are!  I said we were gonna do it and we’re gonna do it (Sorry Herm… I’m stealing your line).  So I popped in the dvd while she was calling me really vile names in several languages.  We did manage to get through both dvd’s.  I just kept picturing Kermane and Shannon yelling at me to get my ass in gear and stop being such a wuss!

So tonight, I get to go home and do Kenpo with the hubby.  But I’m NOT mentioning the AbRipper dvd!! lmao

Oh my goodness… have you ever noticed how hard it is getting back into a routine when you have had a few days of rest and relaxation?  Our spa getaway was FABULOUS!!  It is so fun to spend time with a loved one reconnecting with each other!  And the spa treatments were divine!  I felt like a limp noodle when the day was done.  On the downside, I was a little loose with the drinking and didn’t particularly watch what I ate and didn’t get a workout in during the time off.  But it was still worth it! lol

This morning I realized too late that I shouldn’t have taken two fat burners after being off of them for a few days!  I was SO jittery!  Uggghhh!  And I have to admit, it was hard to do my workout this morning .  I didn’t want to get up and I didn’t have a lot of energy; BUT I completed the entire workout!  Woohoo!! lol

And the best part is that my weight stayed the same!!!  How great is that?!  I was expecting to be up a few pounds after overindulging but I was only up 1/2 a pound which happens even when I don’t over-indulge!  So I was really happy about that!

So today started Phase 1 Week 2 of P90X (the hubby insists on counting the first week as a warm-up since we missed a couple of days , and I figured I would go by his count! lol).  So it was Chest and Back today… push-ups and pull-ups!  I used push-up stands and let me tell you it is MUCH harder to do push-ups using the stands!!!  I could do half of what I normally would be able to.  So I used the stands for the first half and then did regular push-ups for the second half.  It was a great workout and I was completely wiped out when it was over.

Tomorrow is Plyometrics… Yippeeeee!!!!!!

It’s nice to be back in the groove of things!

Well, I learned a very important (PAINFUL) lesson during yesterday’s P90X program on how NOT to use the resistance band for pull ups!  Since the hubby and I are doing the program together, we take turns during the pull up sections.  Usually one of us uses the pull up bar and the other one loops one of the resistance bands over the pull up bar at one of the corners so that it doesn’t interfere with whomever is using the pull up bar.  This method works well for both of us and half way through we switch places so both of us have a chance to practice pull ups using the bar.  Well, yesterday I was the first to use the resistance band and hubby used the pull up bar.  So while I was waiting for the dvd to start I looped the resistance band over the pull up bar so that I was ready to go when we got to that section.  When the dvd starts you do a short warm up and then you do a set of push ups and then do pull ups.  I went and grabbed the resistance band and had it pulled a good distance away from the doorway to get a lot of tension in the band so that I had to work harder.  Hubby finished his pull up and let go of the pull up bar, which I found out too late was holding my band against the door, so when he let go, the band slipped out from the edge of the pull up bar and came back and hit me at a VERY high velocity across my chest and my left middle finger.  It knocked me on my ass and I couldn’t breathe.  My finger immediately swelled up to a grotesque size and turned black and blue (yucky!) and I had a nasty welt across my chest (it is a nice black and blue bruise today).  Thank goodness I was wearing a padded bra, or things would have been a lot worse!  OMG, it hurt!!!!  Hubby ran and got ice and I put it on my finger to get the swelling down a bit.  But, P90X has me in the zone, because I looked at hubby when he asked me if I was going to stop for the day and I told him "no way… I’m putting the ‘X’ in P90X today… let’s go finish the workout!"  And I did!  I "brought it" and finished that damn workout!  Woohoo! lmao!  Of course I am going to be MUCH more careful of where I loop the resistance bands from now on! lol

I am a couple of days behind on posting.  Saturday was P90X Phase 1 Day 5; Legs and Back.  Here’s another case of me being smug thinking that since I have been going to the gym and lifting weights for a few weeks that I would breeze through this dvd.  One of these days, I’m going to learn not to be smug about anything that has to do with P90X!  The ‘X’ in P90X stands for ‘Extreme’ and it is called extreme for a reason! Let me just say that one of the reasons that I was thinking I would breeze through this dvd was because I only have 8 pound weights right now and decided that I would take it easy, since my body is still so sore everywhere from this program, and just use my body weight for the exercises.  About 10 minutes into this dvd I was already asking "are we done yet… PLEASE tell me we’re almost done".  Since it is legs and back you are doing all kinds of squats and lunges (and trust me, he finds TONS of different variations of squats and lunges!) along with calf exercises AND you are doing all of the different variations of pull-ups!  The two exercises that really did me in were the "Sneaky Lunge" (OMG… these were really hard), and the "Single Leg Wall Squat" (I was praying for these to be over!). 

We actually started the program a day later than we wanted to, so instead of starting on a Monday, we didn’t start until Tuesday.  Our plans was to work out Tuesday through Sunday as week 1 and then start today as week 2 without taking the rest day.  So Sunday should have been Kenpo instead of a rest day.  Well, my legs and body were so shot that I couldn’t even lift my legs to walk up my stairs!  So I made an ‘executive’ decision to skip Kenpo for the first week and take my rest day.  Hubby got even with me though and told me this morning that since we missed the Kenpo (and he missed one other day due to him traveling) that we would say last week was a warm up and this week we would say was the start of week 1.  I’m still planning my evil revenge on him for that comment! lol 

So today was Phase 1 Week 2 (unless you are my evil hubby and are counting today as week 1).  I will blog about my mishap from this morning in another post.

All right… P90X Phase1 Day 3 (which was the day before yesterday) was arms and shoulders, which I actually really liked.

Yesterday was YOGA…. Now, anyone who has done the P90X knows that Tony is a little crazy (in a good way! lol).  He really has a knack for pushing you and motivating you to push yourself to the limit.  But I think he lost a screw when he came up with the yoga!  Now, I usually do 30 minutes of yoga several times a week.  I am the first to say that I am a beginner, but I have come a long way in the few months I have been doing yoga.  30 minutes is a decent amount of time to work up a sweat and get a good stretch.  I even have a couple of 55 minute yoga tapes that I will try to do on occasion (again, these are beginning yoga dvd’s).  And I am really wiped out afterwards.  But does Tony have a 30, or even 60, minute yoga dvd?  Hell no, that man somehow decides that 90 minutes is a good length of time.  N-I-N-E-T-Y MINUTES!!!  Again, let me repeat that… NINETY Minutes (read 1 and a half HOURS) of freakin’ yoga!  The first 45 minutes are all Vinyasa’s (so you are constantly moving from one yoga pose to another) and the second 45 minutes is more of a ‘holding’ yoga; this is where you contort your body in a position that is unattainable and makes you feel like Gumby and then you are expected to hold the pose for 30 seconds (and sometimes even longer).  And let me tell you, some of these yoga poses are INSANE… (like backbends with one foot in the air, OUCH). 

I lasted for 25 minutes of the first section and my muscles were quivering so hard that I couldn’t have walked, even if I had wanted to.  And trust me, I didn’t want to even blink… blinking took too much effort!  I made a valiant effort to do some of the holding poses and did pretty good at some of them.   But I ended up on my head during the ‘Crane’  (a pre-handstand)… even though Tony said NOT to end up on your head! lmao  No sooner had he said it, when I felt myself going over and landing on my head.  And finally, after an eternity the dvd was over.  If I had enough energy I would have cheered, but I was too busy trying to remember how to crawl so that I could go to bed!  

Of course I will continue to do the Yoga, and will try not to bore you each week with my escapades, and by the end of 90 days, I WILL be able to complete all 90 minutes of the yoga dvd!

Today will be Legs and Back.  Wooohooo lol.

Okay, I haven’t posted about the last few days of P90X so I will try to get caught up

Phase 1 Day 2 was Plyometrics and let me just say my attitude going in was that I was gonna kick some plyometric butt!!  RAWR… hear me roar!  Ummmmmm, yeah right lol.  Let’s just say that plyometrics not only kicked MY butt, it stomped all over me while I was laying there desperately gasping for air! .  I had several well-wishing, veteran P90Xers tell me to take it easy my first couple of times doing the tape, but did I listen?  Nope. I went at it full force.  Ya know, some day I really need to start listening to the advice given!

Even though it was a tough 60 minutes, I did have a lot of fun doing it.  And maybe, if I’m lucky, I’ll be able to walk upright soon! lmao