P90X Round 2 Day 68: Legs, Back and ARX

Last night I did Legs, Back and ARX. I was out on the road all day and got home around 6pm. I had some phone calls to return and some work to finish up so I didn't start the workout until 8PM. That means I didn't eat diner until 9:30PM. I have a rule and that is do not eat for 3 hours before you go to sleep! So, I was up until about 1AM last night. I know this sounds stupid but I am a firm believer that eating before bed time leads to gaining weight. Since I started P90X I have tried to follow this rule and it has been pretty good for me!


The workout was great yesterday. This is the first time to do Legs and Back while taking the pre-workout supplement NO Xplode and I could feel the difference in my performance. I was exploding out of my lunges and squats, with more energy than is normally present on a Friday night! And I did a record 176 pullups as well. I did 32 reps on the first wide grip pullups! I am loving the NO Xplode -- I just wish it wore off a little quicker after the workouts because I am not falling asleep as easy as I am used to!


Saturday is my scheduled Kenpo X day. Annie had to work early today and then we are going to a birthday party this afternoon so she isn't going to have a chance to do Kenpo today. So, I am going to go do a 5k run today just to see if I can and to get a barometer of my conditioning. We will do Kenpo tomorrow instead and then I will start week 11 on Monday as planned!


Thanks for Reading,


Jeff

P90X Round 2 Day 54 & 55: Core Synergistics and Rest Day

Friday morning I was able to get up early and get in my Core Synergistics workout. It went very well and I wish I would workout in early am more often!

Since my friends we in on Friday and Saturday I decided to take Saturday as my rest day instead of Sunday.

My real problem this weekend has been my nutrition. I did well on Friday all day until dinner. Then we went to a Mexican restaurant that I love! I had three flour tortillas with grilled chicken and beef. I really try and stay away from all white breads because of the ridiculous amount of simple carbs. They also usually contain high fructose corn syrup and enriched flour which are two of the major contributors to the obesity epidemic in our country. But I had some on Friday and I didn't feel very good about it.

However, Friday was not the problem. It was Saturday! So, every year Houston hosts a rodeo for 3 weeks in March. It is the largest rodeo in the world. I am not a fan of country music or horse riding or bull riding or anything related to farm animals so usually the wife and I do not attend. That being said we didn't realize what we were missing out on and had a great time at the rodeo. The food was just ridiculous. I had some of the best sausage and brisket I have ever had in my life. I am guessing both were pretty high in fat. The food options wee like nothing I have ever seen before! Then I had a sausage on a stick ... which was awesome! I probably had 10 beers ... which was real awesome! Then I had probably the worst thing nutritionally that has ever gone into my body. DEEP FRIED OREO's. Yes, you read that right. They were oreos breaded with something and then deep fried. Picture a corn dog, but instead of a hotdog on the inside it is an oreo. Just to prove how crazy these things were my buddy Mike had a deep fried Twinkie! As bad as this sounds the oreos where absolutely amazing. I wanted to eat like a dozen but limited myself to two! I got on the scale this morning and was 4 lbs heavier than I was on Friday morning.

Now, that I confessed my mis-eatings it is time to move forward. I am going to go do Yoga in a couple of minutes then hit the sack and catch up on some sleep!

Tomorrow begins Week 9 and I get to go back to the Week 1 workout schedule. I enjoy the change-ups that P90X tosses at you and am looking forward to see the progress I have made since I last did this weeks workouts.

Thanks for Reading,

Jeff

P90X Round 2 Day 49: Rest Day

Today is my rest day. And since tomorrow begins Week 8, which is a Recovery Week I am going to take the day off instead of doing Stretch X.

The Recovery Week Schedule looks like this:

• Monday - Yoga X
• Tuesday - Core Synergistics
• Wednesday - Kenpo X
• Thursday - Rest/Stretch X
• Friday - Core Synergistcs
• Saturday - Yoga X
• Sunday - Rest/Stretch X

My buddy Mike and his wife are coming into visit on Friday ans staying the weekend. So, I may take Saturday as my rest day and do Yoga on Sunday. We will see how it goes.

Also, tomorrow is an exciting day because my wife is starting P90X. She was going to last week but had to have her wisdom teeth taken out. Anyone who has had that done knows the days following are not real productive so the start date got pushed back! I am spending the day doing the grocery shopping and printing out the workout guides for her. It will be fun to have a workout partner. However, we both work erratic hours so we will probably do the workouts apart more than together, but it will still be fun.

I am trying to figure out a good recovery drink for her? She doesn't want to do Cell Mass because of all the Creatine in it so I am probably going to order the P90X recovery drink again.

Anyone have any other suggestions for a recovery drink for women?

Thanks for Reading,

Jeff

P90X Round 2 Day 28: Rest Day and Other Random Thoughts

Today is my scheduled rest day. And after pulling a double workout yesterday I really need it. I am pretty sore. My arms and shoulders feel like they each weight a 100lbs!

So in lieu of a workout I'll do some Housekeeping:

• I Twittered with Charlene Johnson yesterday. She is the creator of ChaLean Extreme, the new workout program being offered by BeachBodies. I saw the infomercial and thought it looked like a solid program and I might want to try it. My only question was that the infomercial seemed to focus mostly on weight loss and I was wondering if it would be good for someone like myself coming off of P90X? Charlene responded that the infomercial primarily focuses on weight loss because that is why most people begin any new workout (which makes perfect sense to me ... gotta go after your target audience!) but that ChaLean Extreme is geared towards reducing Body Fat % and Building Muscle. So, if you are a P90X warrior like myself looking for some variety then ChaLean Extreme might be the next logical choice for you! I am pretty sure when I am done with this round of the X that ChaLean Extreme will be my next program. Thanks to Charlene for taking the time to answer my question it is much appreciated!

• I grew up in Western Pennsylvania and have always been a HUGE fan of the Pittsburgh Pirates and Major League Baseball. Some of my fondest memories are of the early 90's Pirates teams - Andy Van Slyke, Bobby Bonilla, Doug Drabek, and Barry Bonds. Despite 16 years of consecutive losing seasons and living 1500 miles away I am still a big Bucco fan and probably even a bigger MLB fan. So, last week when Alex Rodriguez admitted to using steroids I had a pretty strong opinion and thought my fitness blog would be a good place for me to share. Well, I woke up this morning with all intentions to post about steroids when I saw an article by Jason Whitlock, of foxsports.com, about Steroids and PEDs. Now I will preface this by saying I read a ton of sports articles every week and usually avoid writers I do not enjoy. Jason Whitlock sits in the #1 position of writers I avoid. My reasoning is that he is a one-trick pony - every article this fat bastard has ever written is about race and race relations in sports. That is all he has, seriously - that's it - he thrives on the controversy of race not caring about who he offends only trying to advance his own career. Now that being said, the article I found was titled "Steroids and PEDs" -- no way this could be another article about race? Not with steroids, hell Arod is Hispanic, Bonds is black, Clemens is white. Whitlock may have actually put together an article that was about facts and insider knowledge... Could it be? So I clicked on it. And Mr. Whitlock, sure not to disappoint, had yet another article about race, claiming white kids do steroids to keep up with black athletes. Anyways, I was planning on blogging about steroids today but after reading the Whitlock article it completely sucked the life out of me and I decided to write about what a piece of garbage Jason Whitlock is ... I feel much better now. And the lesson learned is NEVER read anything by him again. If you want to read his article Click Here ... but I do not recommend you do.

• Tomorrow is the beginning of week 5 for me and Tuesday is Day 30 which means picture day!

• Here is the schedule for the next 3 weeks: Mondays - Chest, Shoulders, Triceps and ARX; Tuesdays - Plyometrics; Wednesdays - Back, Biceps and ARX; Thursdays - Yoga; Fridays - Legs, Back, and ARX; Saturdays - Kenpo X; Sundays - Rest.

I hope everyone enjoys their Sunday. The weather is beautiful here and Annie and I are going to see comedian Joel Mchale (sp? dude from "The Soup") tonight!

Thanks for Reading,

Jeff

P90X Round 2 Day 25: Interval X & Kenpo X

For some reason I had a ton of energy today. I started out the morning on the road around 6:30am and had a Whey Protein drink and a whole wheat bagel in the car on my way to my first appointment. My morning snack was a Pure Protein Bar. I had a Turkey sandwich on whole wheat for lunch with a few apple slices. I had another Pure Protein bar in the middle of the day and just finished of some grilled chicken breast over salad with carrots. I also took my nine Nitrix tablets throughout the day my Cell Mass around lunch and then again after my workouts.

So today I decided to do the P90X PLUS DVD Interval X in place of Kenpo. As I mentioned a few days ago Interval X is just a hard core cardio workout that just kicks my butt. It is one of my favorite P90X workouts and by far the best of the P90X PLUS series. Well, I was soaking wet with sweat after I finished Interval X but I still had a TON of energy. So, I put in the Kenpo X DVD and did that workout too! I made it a doubles day - mostly because I was feeling great but I think I also felt bad about missing yesterday and I wanted to make up for it. After the Kenpo workout I was pretty beat and as I sit here now watching South Park I am feeling very tired. I should sleep good tonight!

Tomorrow is the always awesome Core Synergistics workout!

Thanks for Reading,

Jeff

P90X Round 2 Day 23: Core Synergistics

One of the best things about the recovery weeks is that you get to do Core Synergistics, twice! In my opinion this is one of the best, most complete P90X workouts.

I had another solid nutrition day today. I did up my carbs more than I should have with the extra 1/2 cup of long grain wild rice for dinner. It put my ratios at about 50 Carbs/30 Protein/20 Fat today but I was craving the carbs and have been working hard so I cannot say I feel bad about it!

As for the workout today it was great. My lovely wife Annie (pictured above) decided to join me for Core Synergistics and it was fun to have a workout partner. She burned about 300 calories and I ripped off 495. My average heart rate was 135 and my max was 175. I can't find her HRM to tell you hers, sorry. If was fun to watch someone else grunt their way through Superman - Banana. It was also very fun to not be the only one struggling on the lung-kickback-curl-press move. She did very well on the workout but I bet she is going to be sore tomorrow from it!!

Right now I am feeling very strong and am looking forward to my workouts everyday. Some of this has to be credited to the supplements I am taking each day: Nitrix and Cell Mass. So far these have been just an awesome stack and I can feel the difference they are making. My energy, strength, stamina, intensity, and focus all seem to have improved since I started using these products. It may be too early to tell if the effects will last the full 90 days but as of day 23 I have to grade both products an "A".

Tomorrow is Interval X again instead of Kenpo X. and I am going to have another "Mailbag" or questions column. I am thinking about doing this weekly since I have been receiving so many questions lately.

Thanks for Reading,

Jeff