P90X - Almost with a straight face

Yoga Belly 7 can go die in a fire.

WiredAsylum wrote:

Wired Stuff

Awesome story and its so true. I had one session with a personal trainer and I told him I wanted to mass up since I am tall and not as muscular as i wanted to be. Right after that session he told me to go to McDonald's and get a huge milkshake and a sandwich and to continue eating as much as you can. Also to have a peanut butter jelly Sandwich every night.

I kept it up for a week but saw how much money I was spending on food and I cut it down a lot. I still do buy 10lb peanut butter jars and scoop it out though and drink milk with it.

rabbit wrote:

Yoga Belly 7 can go die in a fire.

In our typical yin-yang P90X existence, I found this to be the only portion that I felt like I was making progress in. Not good, but better. That and the weird pose where you balance your knees on your elbows.

TempestBlayze wrote:
WiredAsylum wrote:

Wired Stuff

I've never had a metabolism where the idea of TRYING to put on weight entered my brain.

I got all psyched to work out this week, and then got sick! Probably from someone at the gym on Tuesday, ironically. I came home and started feeling bad within a couple hours.

Or it could have been the exercise jolting my immune system into getting off its butt and taking care of a bug that was already there.

Anyway, tomorrow. Back to it. We need diet and exercise threads more often here. Balances out the temptation to permanently glue controllers to hands and butts to couches.

"Bob continued to sit there drinking his Natural Light, smoking a cigarette and waiting for an answer, oblivious to the fact that he'd come this close to seeing some serious walnut- crunching ass power."

This is why I love this thread. My mother, of all people, was perusing my amazon wish list, where I had put both the p90x and power 90 stuff so I could look at it later. She got so excited that I was going to work out, she was going to buy both of them for me. Until my wife told her that I was probably not really interested and it was "just a fad".

I'm calling mom tomorrow.

Sephirotic ...

One of Us. One of Us.

I'm gonna rock this until I, too, can crush walnuts with my ass cheeks!

Had to stop my Back and Leg workout due to timing, so did the Abripper-X part with my kids before bedtime. Highly recommended for comedy factor.

I hate the leg workout, mostly because my legs and I have had an agreement for almost 40 years -- I barely use them and then don't hurt me and just sort stay tight and clumsy. They are upset that I am changing the terms of the offer. Wore my shiny new heart monitor (even though this isn't technically an aerobic workout) and was somewhat unnerved that doing chinups can shoot me up to about ~180 bpm. Actually most of the leg workout had me going up to 160 or so. Like I said, my body is greatly upset that I am using these muscles this hard.

I hit pause a lot.

NotThatRob wrote:

Wore my shiny new heart monitor (even though this isn't technically an aerobic workout) and was somewhat unnerved that doing chinups can shoot me up to about ~180 bpm. Actually most of the leg workout had me going up to 160 or so.

Yup. Weight-lifting is anaerobic so you'll up tickling your MHR.

LiquidMantis wrote:
NotThatRob wrote:

Wore my shiny new heart monitor (even though this isn't technically an aerobic workout) and was somewhat unnerved that doing chinups can shoot me up to about ~180 bpm. Actually most of the leg workout had me going up to 160 or so.

Yup. Weight-lifting is anaerobic so you'll up tickling your MHR.

Chinups are nothing more than bodyweight weight lifting, so it falls under anaerobic exercise as well. The difference in heartrate here is the amount of effort he's taking. In general, most folks are in good enough shape to do well lifting in most large muscle groups except the back/shoulders which chinup/pullups focus on.

Did my first day today, it was pretty brutal and I definitely had to cheat my way through it and/or set fairly small goals. The sheer volume of reps over time is well beyond my usual routine. I think I'll do better on the abs/back/pushup stuff next week.

I thought that Plyo was pretty brutal the first time I did it. It was probably the worst part of the workout for me.

I'm planning to begin my second round of P90X in January.

Bunch of filthy Goddamned enablers. Got the discs off eBay for $39 and the seller wasn't in Korea.

I'm in decent shape from marathon training, but am not "ripped" by any stretch. I've dropped about 13 real pounds since I started training, but I have some lingering pudge on the love handles area and belly that has been getting on my nerves.

I'm going to be doing a bit of a hybrid program until March, though. I have another marathon scheduled for the 21st of March so I have to keep up my runs. I'll use the P90X workouts as my cross-training workouts 3 times a week. I might be able to get up to 5 depending on how well I can schedule exercise on my two shorter running days but I don't want to do more harm than good and that might be pushing it.

NotThatRob wrote:
rabbit wrote:

Yoga Belly 7 can go die in a fire.

In our typical yin-yang P90X existence, I found this to be the only portion that I felt like I was making progress in. Not good, but better. That and the weird pose where you balance your knees on your elbows.

Crow is not a pose you just hurl yourself into after a week and a half, much less just one or two yoga sessions. Maybe you (in the general sense) might be strong enough to put your knees on your arms and hold there (most people aren't), but you most certainly haven't had enough experience in alignment yet to do it without risking injury. So please be careful when doing advanced yoga poses. You can really mess up your back, neck, wrists and groin doing these things improperly. Maybe you should stop in at a yoga studio to see on how the poses should be done without harm?

Also, don't be afraid to modify yoga poses so you don't hurt yourself. For example, good Crow mods include: squatting on the ground like you're going to pee, with your hands pressed together by your forehead (easiest); placing hands in Crow position, with knees against inner arms, but toes on the ground (harder); against a wall; with a block or cushion. Here's a good write-up of how to do the pose properly, along with how to visualize getting into it and some good mods. Doing the pose improperly can really strain your back and wrists, especially if you already have chronic problems, so be sure you're not making things worse for yourself!

And the above advice goes for any pose, even something as simple as Down Dog. I think Child's Pose and Savasana (Corpse Pose) are probably the only two poses everyone's born knowing how to do properly, but even they can be improved upon.

After this morning, I'm definitely leaning toward doing Power 90 for a while. I don't think I'm ready for these 80 minute grinds without a LOT of cheating. At that point, I might as well get a solid 30 to 40 minutes with little to no cheating instead and be done sooner.

This means old man rabbit is kicking my ass. I'm comfortable with that

Certis wrote:

This means old man rabbit is kicking my ass. I'm comfortable with that :)

I've also heard he's hung like an Arabian stallion and his seed can burn through Pyrex.

Honestly, the first couple of days I was cheating a fair amount, but now I'm really getting into actually doing them right. I would give it 3-4 days before I give up on it completely.

Standard "you know your own limits better than I do" caveats apply, obviously.

I've heard he can impregnate women with a hard stare.

PyromanFO wrote:

Honestly, the first couple of days I was cheating a fair amount, but now I'm really getting into actually doing them right. I would give it 3-4 days before I give up on it completely.

Standard "you know your own limits better than I do" caveats apply, obviously.

I'm expecting my gear to arrive tomorrow at which point I'm expecting to cheat quite a bit on the first few days (if not the first week or so) due to limits and general pain.

But still, looking forward to giving it a good try. The only thing I'm uncertain of at this point is the diet, but I expect I'll research that with the info they give and make up my own decisions within expectations of my body's needs.

Crow is not a pose you just hurl yourself into after a week and a half, much less just one or two yoga sessions. Maybe you (in the general sense) might be strong enough to put your knees on your arms and hold there (most people aren't), but you most certainly haven't had enough experience in alignment yet to do it without risking injury. So please be careful when doing advanced yoga poses. You can really mess up your back, neck, wrists and groin doing these things improperly

I honestly appreciate the concern but this is a pose that I'm actually good at. No wrist pain. Obvious balance issues and overall strength/endurance but I can get up on my arms and, over the course of a minute, only have to tap my toe 2 or 3 times if I lose my balance. I taught myself to walk on my hands the summer after graduating high school (for no obvious reason) so that has really helped with the balance. As for the strength...underneath my foppish exterior lies the workings of a Gen-1 terminator. Which probably explains my flexibility. Or lack thereof. Checked out the link. Think I'm doing things right but I'll give it a practice run tonight to see if I'm doing something off.

NotThatRob wrote:
Crow is not a pose you just hurl yourself into after a week and a half, much less just one or two yoga sessions. Maybe you (in the general sense) might be strong enough to put your knees on your arms and hold there (most people aren't), but you most certainly haven't had enough experience in alignment yet to do it without risking injury. So please be careful when doing advanced yoga poses. You can really mess up your back, neck, wrists and groin doing these things improperly

I honestly appreciate the concern but this is a pose that I'm actually good at. No wrist pain. Obvious balance issues and overall strength/endurance but I can get up on my arms and, over the course of a minute, only have to tap my toe 2 or 3 times if I lose my balance. I taught myself to walk on my hands the summer after graduating high school (for no obvious reason) so that has really helped with the balance. As for the strength...underneath my foppish exterior lies the workings of a Gen-1 terminator. Which probably explains my flexibility. Or lack thereof. Checked out the link. Think I'm doing things right but I'll give it a practice run tonight to see if I'm doing something off.

Fair enough, but not everyone's as far along balance-wise as you are. It just worries me that the program encourages followers -- many of whom who've never taken a yoga class in their life -- to do what sounds like a full Crow in the first couple of sessions. That's not just hardcore, but possibly a recipe for injury. Gives me the agita.

KaterinLHC wrote:
NotThatRob wrote:
Crow is not a pose you just hurl yourself into after a week and a half, much less just one or two yoga sessions. Maybe you (in the general sense) might be strong enough to put your knees on your arms and hold there (most people aren't), but you most certainly haven't had enough experience in alignment yet to do it without risking injury. So please be careful when doing advanced yoga poses. You can really mess up your back, neck, wrists and groin doing these things improperly

I honestly appreciate the concern but this is a pose that I'm actually good at. No wrist pain. Obvious balance issues and overall strength/endurance but I can get up on my arms and, over the course of a minute, only have to tap my toe 2 or 3 times if I lose my balance. I taught myself to walk on my hands the summer after graduating high school (for no obvious reason) so that has really helped with the balance. As for the strength...underneath my foppish exterior lies the workings of a Gen-1 terminator. Which probably explains my flexibility. Or lack thereof. Checked out the link. Think I'm doing things right but I'll give it a practice run tonight to see if I'm doing something off.

Fair enough, but not everyone's as far along balance-wise as you are. It just worries me that the program encourages followers -- many of whom who've never taken a yoga class in their life -- to do what sounds like a full Crow in the first couple of sessions. That's not just hardcore, but possibly a recipe for injury. Gives me the agita.

Wow. Really? I eagerly await the video resulting from my attempts at this. I have decent balance from years of kung fu, but that looks pretty wicked :).

ColdForged wrote:

Wow. Really? I eagerly await the video resulting from my attempts at this. I have decent balance from years of kung fu, but that looks pretty wicked :).

I'd fall on my face, or worse. Yeah, I'll be watching for thee "Uh, no, not in my current body frame" moments..

It just worries me that the program encourages followers -- many of whom who've never taken a yoga class in their life -- to do what sounds like a full Crow in the first couple of sessions. That's not just hardcore, but possibly a recipe for injury. Gives me the agita.

He actually goes out of his way before this pose to encourage people to (a) put a pillow where their face would be if they went over forward, (b) to take their time, (c) to keep one toe down the first time or two you do this, and (d) to skip it entirely and just do child's pose if they are at all nervous about Crow.

The program is actually quite good at reminding you not to be a hero and there's no shame in just doing what you are capable of doing.

That crow pose is basically the same as a frog stand which is a basic gymnastics drill for training up to a planche. You'll probably want to put a couple of pillows in front of you. I also find it easier to do with a set of parallettes rather than palm to floor.

NotThatRob wrote:
It just worries me that the program encourages followers -- many of whom who've never taken a yoga class in their life -- to do what sounds like a full Crow in the first couple of sessions. That's not just hardcore, but possibly a recipe for injury. Gives me the agita.

He actually goes out of his way before this pose to encourage people to (a) put a pillow where their face would be if they went over forward, (b) to take their time, (c) to keep one toe down the first time or two you do this, and (d) to skip it entirely and just do child's pose if they are at all nervous about Crow.

The program is actually quite good at reminding you not to be a hero and there's no shame in just doing what you are capable of doing.

Ah, so it has a "Hey Doc, don't be a moron. You can't do this yet" notification system. Good to know.

Dr.Ghastly wrote:

Ah, so it has a "Hey Doc, don't be a moron. You can't do this yet" notification system. Good to know.

Yeah but who ever listens to that sh*t? Get up there, Doc! Point that sphincter at the sky!

Dr.Ghastly wrote:
NotThatRob wrote:
It just worries me that the program encourages followers -- many of whom who've never taken a yoga class in their life -- to do what sounds like a full Crow in the first couple of sessions. That's not just hardcore, but possibly a recipe for injury. Gives me the agita.

He actually goes out of his way before this pose to encourage people to (a) put a pillow where their face would be if they went over forward, (b) to take their time, (c) to keep one toe down the first time or two you do this, and (d) to skip it entirely and just do child's pose if they are at all nervous about Crow.

The program is actually quite good at reminding you not to be a hero and there's no shame in just doing what you are capable of doing.

Awesome. I'm glad to hear it, and even a little impressed.