Week One: Recap!

Who just finished their first week of P90X?

This guy, right here.

Thank you. Thanks. What an honor, alright. Okay. Please, no applause.

Week One ended yesterday, with a day of rest and stretching. I should probably recap the rest of the week for my faithful readers (like my grandmother) (Hi Gram!) who are clamoring for updates, thus stoking my ego when it comes to writing, and keeping me motivated when it comes to exercise. However, I really like my Gorilla Brony story below, so I'll do a little catch-up here.

Day 4: Yoga

When you think yoga, you probably think this:

Or this:

Namaste.

Basically, you're thinking of a good looking lady in a pastoral setting, who is at peace with her surroundings and communing with the eternal spirit of oneness.

You're probably not thinking about this.

Because I can't do that with my legs.

Which is about how I felt while trying to keep up with Tony and crew - at first. The soothing background music helped (really) and as the routine went on, I managed to stretch a little farther in each direction. Between each pose, Tony likes you to run a plank / upward dog (or cobra) / plank (with optional push up) / downward dog routine, which usually ends in kicking your leg skyward, bringing it forward, and going into one of the warrior poses. Anyone who's starting this program from scratch: you will want to become VERY FAMILIAR with this little routine, as you'll be performing it every few minutes for the entire 90 minute workout.

Everything they say is true about the first 45 minutes. You may want to give up. You may recall your mother saying "If it is truly yoga, it should not cause great pain." (Your mom does this three times a week.) You quantify what you're feeling as "strain," not "pain." You watch the clock, you sweat, and as soon as it hits 45:00 you breathe a big sigh of relief. And then Tony's all

and you're all

 

because you have to do Yoga Belly 7 and you're still not recovered from Ab Ripper the day before.

Moral of the story: hang in there and stretch it out. And don't worry if they're doing this half moon

and you feel like this Half Moon.

Day 5: Legs and Back, Ab Ripper
PROTIP: Do not do Legs and Back plus Ab Ripper for the first time and then go help your friend move. Even if you're happy she's back in the neighborhood, and you've skipped the first half of the move, and it's really not that strenuous compared to your move which was a PITA because you have too many thing, and she helped with that move so you have to help with hers, plus all your friends are helping too, and then you throw a housewarming party that night, because your legs will be very tired.

Seriously, Woodhouse. Tired.

Because HOW HARD IS IT to do 30 deadlift squats, Woodhouse?

Day 6: Kenpo

Kenpo starts out fun, and then hurts you, and then gets fun again once you get into it. My main problem was coordination. I've been in two fights in my life, and only thrown one decent punch (note: it was not in either of those two fights. I decked my friend Morgan with what I believe may have been a right hook to the jaw. Whoops! We were drunk at a house party) so moving the hips and the arms in the same direction was more of a challenge than the physical swinging, lunging, and blocking. Also, make sure you have a nice, clear area for this, not a living room that has recently been partied in, unless you like spending your precious few rest breaks cleaning up spills.

When cooldown time came, and I realized that I'd made it through the most intense six days of P90X, I couldn't help giggling to myself and feeling like a badass.

 

I'd actually made it. I hadn't overdone it, but I also hadn't pushed myself too far. I know where my limits are, more or less, and I know how to push them, more or less. And on my rest day, I actually missed doing more than stretches, which is nigh unprecedented.

Week Two starts today, and I feel a little less goofy about the constant invitations to "Bring It." In fact, I'm gonna bring a little more next week.

I'm catching up, Horton. Watch yourself.

Days 4 & 5: Yoga, Back & Legs

Days 4 and 5 are complete, but this weekend is shaping up into a pretty busy one, so this is just placeholder. No skimping, though. Strength and honor! (Maybe more honor than strength at this point.)

For now, here's a pair of gorilla bros who have just finished a P90x workout. And one gorilla bro has admitted to being a gorilla Brony. And the other gorilla is all "Hey man, I'm not gonna judge you for who you are, I'm just gonna POWERSLAM DERPY HOOVES UP YOUR ASS." And after a few chest bumps and punches they went out to have a gorilla beer and were best buds. Fin.

Day 2 & 3: Double Header, or Why Plyometrics Is A Dirty Word

As astute readers (my grandmother) (Hi Gram!) have noticed and already pointed out, there was no blog update last night following Plyometrics. This is because jumping exercises, apparently, have an impact on the typing muscles and - more importantly - the brain muscle that thinks up the witticisms and  fun pictures.

This fun picture was NOT POSSIBLE last night.
Yes, it's from the Venture Brothers.

So, plyometrics.

(I keep wanting to type "pylometrics.")

Plyometrics is "a type of exercise designed to produce fast and powerful movements." Thank you, Wikipedia. That may have been the design, but we're not quite there yet. We started off pretty quick and powerful, but devolved pretty quickly into the modified exercises. Which is fine. They make a big deal about not letting your ego get in the way, because if you try to keep up, you will fail and hurt yourself. "It's day 2 of 90!" I said to myself. "Rome wasn't built in a day, and neither was your body!" Tony shouted while doing some insanely fit maneuver. I tried to high-five the computer mid-jumping jack, lost my balance, and kicked over my water bottle.

I AM A CREATURE OF GRACE AND BEAUTY.

Just to make things a little more interesting, it was revealed early on in the routine that one of the "kids" had only one leg. His name is Erik Stolhanske. Anyone who has done P90X past day 2 will recognize him as that dude with one leg who is destroying your ass at jumping and twisting and other activities that normally require two legs. 

He's on the left, killing it in warm ups.

Anyone who hasn't will recognize him from this:

They get all antsy in their pantsy.

Yep. Officer Rabbit, the Rook from Super Troopers, going to be making you feel just a liiiiitle bit inferior. Although it does come across as a good challenge. Stolhanske's put a lot of effort into his fitness, and if he can do it on one leg, what's my excuse?
I won't get into detail about the various plyometrics exercises this time, but there's one thing that did stand out - this was the routine that made me realize just how out of shape I am. "How the hell did this happen?" I wondered for a split second before remembering that, oh yes, spend ten years treating "exercise" like a dirty word and you're going to have some side effects.

Pictured: self-image following plyometrics.

So: from now on, no more exercise as a dirty word. We have a new word, and that word is "plyometrics."

Having finished plyometrics, I had my energy drink, a piece of tilapia and some veggies, took a shower, and fell asleep on the couch.

My alarm went off earlier than usual this morning. I'm going to go see Agalloch tonight, and figured that the last thing I would want to do after a metal show was work out my shoulders and arms.

Superior to lifting weights.

Not wanting to miss a day so early in the routine, I thought I would wake up early and do the routine before work. And for those who are reading and know me, that alone should demonstrate considerable commitment.

After an hour of curls, squats, and another 15 minute Ab Ripper, I managed to stagger into the shower. I've realized I need some better weights or resistance bands, or possibly learn to use the bands I have more effectively because, while I felt some burn and my arms feel a bit leaden here at work, I think I missed out a bit on that routine by not using proper weights or missing the mark with the bands. Time will tell. Ab Ripper destroyed me once again, but not a badly as before - knowing a bit about what was coming helped with effectiveness and I managed to do a few more reps of each with minimal discomfort until the very end.

Progress? Progress. Tomorrow is Yoga (which I am to understand is murderous), but I have a little break between now and then, which I should probably spend doing my editing.

Day 1: Chest Back Ab Ripper, or; Mr. Horton, We Are Not Yet Friends

Tony Horton, you seem like a nice guy. You do. Sort of a macho-femme Nathan Fillion who spends more time on his pull up bar than singing songs about himself or smuggling various things away from various authorities.

I'm pretending Captain Hammer is in charge.

And you sound pleasant, as well. I was expecting more the R. Lee Ermey approach to motivation - the finger-waving, in-your-face, you-have-got-to-be-KIDDING-me-Pyle ethic. Instead, what I got was some California-sounding guy, a little on the pompous side, but with the attitude that makes you want to listen. Except for a few creepy times when you channel T-Bag from Prison Break.

Oh honey, I put the X in the P90, delicious.

So all in all, you seem like a nice guy. We could hang out over a beer - sorry, recovery shake - and you could tell me stories about how your assistants first started the program. But we will not be friends. Not yet. Because my arms hurt and my abs hurt and you maybe made me throw up a little in the back of my mouth. It's not you, really. It's the things you made me do. Or maybe it's the things I made myself do while trying to do the things that you were asking me to do. Whatever.

You might have gathered by now that Day One was not a shining example in the annals of fitness. I warmed up. I stretched out. I got down. I brought it, to the best of my ability. I wondered why I was attempting this in an apartment that already reaches the upper eighties in the summer with all the fans on. My cats, again, thought I had lost my mind. For a fleeting second (the second right after the gastrointestinal dismay), I thought I had too.

"When you die from this, we'll eat the soft tissue first."

But you know what? I made it through Day 1. I couldn't even come close to keeping up, but I could do at least a few of the chest and back exercises, as well as the AB RIPPER X. That's about an hour and twenty minutes of sweating, which is an hour more than I usually do each day (unless it's in the nineties outside, in which case I just drown anyway.)

So Mr. Horton, we may yet be pals. Buds, even. For now, though, my favorite Horton remains this fella:

Before the scandalous sequel Horton Hires a Ho

and not this fella:

Intro: Day 0

Today, after work, I did something different.

Instead of heading straight back to my apartment in Brooklyn, I took a little detour. I got off the R train at Atlantic Avenue, bypassed the yelling evangelicals arguing with a Muslim woman, went upstairs to the mall, and into the two-story Target. I paused only briefly to snap a picture of a display and text it to a coworker - we wrote for the campaign and the mandated headline gave us both a laughing fit before giving us heartburn - and headed back to the far corner. There, by the bikes and the action figures and the camping gear, was one small aisle containing home fitness products.

I went down my mental list. Yoga mat? Yes. Chin up bar? Also yes, with beefy guy on the box (doubtless thanks to the product within). Resistance bands? Yes. Scale? Ugh. Over to home goods. Who knew that there were so many kinds of Taylor bathroom scale? I debated over styles for a good five minutes, reminding myself that whatever Man Points I was losing over bathroom décor were surely being compensated for by the contents of my shopping basket. Then, downstairs where I grabbed a box of Clif bars, some whey protein, made a glib joke to the cashier, and walked out of the store (completely forgetting until RIGHT NOW that I wanted to get some eye hooks for my bedroom ceiling. Dammit.)

In 30 minutes, I had spent the equivalent of 4 months membership at the Flatbush YMCA (which I have and don't use) on a selection of products that will hopefully keep me out of that building.

My name's Geoff, I'm doing P90x, and I'm hoping that keeping a track record of my experience will make me get through the full twelve weeks. Even though the one thing I'm worse at than going to the gym is updating a non-history blog with any regularity. Or writing letters. Just ask my grandmother.


I'm deciding that today is Day 0 of my P90x experience. Does this justify procrastinating a little bit by starting a blog? Sorta. This weekend I went through my kitchen and cleaned it out, ready to eat healthily. I've never been terribly overweight for my size (5'11", about 200 pounds) but that mass has never been apportioned in the best way. I have the thin, gangly arms of a teenager, the legs of a former runner (who now hates running) and the abdominals of someone who likes to have a beer or two after working his desk job (which is to say None Abs, or possibly The Six Pack is In The Fridge, Behind The Takeout And That Other Six Pack, Which Is Definitely Beer). My friends have been trying P90X for about a month now, and are actually quite enjoying it.

"The first week is the worst," they said. "You might throw up and you'll definitely want to die at some point. If you can make it through there you should be OK, but you're in for an asskicking."

Let's see what happens. First off: the Fit Test to see if I'm actually capable of doing this.

***

Forty five minutes later. I'm having a protein shake, which is actually quite tasty. I'm sitting in front of the fan. The cats, finally accepting that the circus is over, have gone off to the other room.

That was an eye-opener, that test. It wasn't all bad - I do meet the minimum (well, 90%) requirements to be able to do this program.

Here's how it went.

The Preliminaries
Step One: Cut a hole in that box. Step Two: Pull scale out of that box. Step Three: Step on that box. Or scale. What do we see? Scary numbers! I now have 205 reasons to remind me why I've never owned a scale before. Hopefully, we can knock some of those off.

Rating: A bit overweight for my height, but not obese.

Heart rate, seated (after recovering from scale shock): 88bpm, like "Wonderwall" by Oasis.

Rating: Average, like "Wonderwall" by Oasis.

Test 1: Pull ups
Unpack and install shiny new pull up bar. Test weight. Prepare to punish. Realize you can do 2.5 pull ups. Hang head in shame because your spazwit 12 year old self used to be able to crank those out. Recall that you still have his arms whilst weighing twice what he did. Write note to go back in time and threaten to kill him if he ever stops doing pull ups.

Rating: Below average. Manual says minimum of 3 pull ups for men, 1 for women. (Maybe it's 2.5 for recovering Vassar theater majors?) The manual goes on to say that many people starting P90x won't be able to do even one, so I'm a bit mollified by that. These 12-year-old T-Rex arms are going to be hurting, though.

Test 2: Vertical Reach
=Reach arm up holding pen. Make mark on wall. Leap up holding pen. Draw big swooping arc on wall due to lack of coordination. Average it out at 7 inches. Cats beginning to grow interested in all the activity.=

Rating: Victory! Minimum required is 5 inches. White boy got some ups.

Test 3: Push Ups
Break out brand new yoga mat, place on rug. Perform push ups while cats sniff new yoga mat. Get covered in hair and bits of grit.

Rating: Managed the 15 required. Might have had another two or three in the tank, but didn't want to push it too hard. Also, cat wandering beneath torso while doing pushups kind of breaks your stride. I don't think they are going to be good workout partners.

Test 4: Toe Touch
A scary event. As mentioned, I enjoy my beer after work. Sometimes I enjoy two or three. Sometimes the party just don't stop. This has an adverse effect on, well, everything except social life (and I hang out with the same people all the time, so that's not really on the table here), but primarily in the gut region. I also wasn't very flexible as a youth, but it's too late to go back now, so down I go.

Rating: A surprise success! Not only can I touch my toes, but I can even reach an inch past from sitting (without straining). It's not the best ever, but I have a score of +1 versus the minimum of -6 - you add one for going over and subtract one for falling short.

Test 5: Wall Sit
Find a section of wall in my house that's not covered by shelves, guitars, bookcases, or reclining felines. It's not easy, but I manage. You're supposed to assume a sitting position like in a chair, except there's no bottom to the chair, it's all legs and back.

Rating: I dropped my timer in the middle of this one, and also one of the cats started clawing on the new yoga mat, so I had to break concentration to yell at them. Managed to last a little over 2 minutes; minimum is 1 minute.

Test 6: 20 Pound Curl
I had to improvise on this one. I have a set of dumbbells that a roommate left behind, but the weights for them only go up to 25 pounds total. So instead of doing 20 pounds with each arm simultaneously, I did ten with each arm. I went out and got some resistance bands, so hopefully future workouts will involve those more than I-pick-things-up-und-put-zem-down.

Rating: Minimum was 10, I did 10, even steven. Room for improvement.

Test 7: In & Out
Sit on your butt and move your legs back and forth like the world's worst breakdancer.

Rating: 20 out of a possible 25. The surprise victory of Toe Touch was undone by the In & Out. Those ones I could feel immediately; I can still feel them, feels kind of good in an owwie way.

Test 8: Jumping Jacks
Okay, I admit it: by 30 seconds in, I was counting cadence out loud to keep focused (One! Two! Three! Four! United! States! Marine! Corps!) The cats were convinced I had lost my mind completely; the older one, being used to the weird things I do, just went to sleep while the younger one tried to figure out ways to exit the room without being accidentally kicked or dripped on. I made it to a minute thirty before my legs rebelled; a ten second pause punctuated by a blue streak redoubled the efforts, and I hit the 2 minute mark in a haze of sweat.

Result: Pretty close. The manual says if you can finish the Jacks upright and able to breathe, you're ready. I was upright, breathing, with a minor weakness of the flesh in the middle, so I call that one breaking even.

Cooldown
Heart rate 1 minute after Jacks: 162 BPM, like It's Hard Out Here For A Pimp
2 minutes after Jacks: 140 BPM, like Metallica's Unforgiven (the good one)
3 minutes after Jacks: 120 BPM, like the Presidents singing about Peaches
4 minutes after Jacks: 100BPM, like Over The Hills & Far Away


***
So there it is. Uphill struggle, yes. Manageable? I think so. Let's see how I'm feeling after the first real workout.