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So it seems that nearly every time I write about what I plan to do or what I'd like to do in the near future, I do just about everything in my subconscious power to not do exactly that. And if I just shut up about it, I tend to do what I intend to do.

I actually did Plyometrics Tuesday night like I intended to do, but I think I got a fairly late start on it. Now I know I have indeed been squatting deeper ad jumping higher - my quads and glutes were sore for days.

Wednesday turned into a surprise rest day. It probably had to do with the rest of my family coming into town for Thanksgiving.

Thursday morning I did back and biceps - luckily I was able to do this because we weren't cooking for Thanksgiving, so we didn't have everyone crammed in our tiny little kitchen and making me too self-conscious to work out. Instead, I snuck in my workout before everyone came over from the hotel.

And of course, we had Thanksgiving dinner Thursday evening. Because we weren't cooking, there wasn't any taste-testing the food during preparation all day, and there wasn't any real ability to eat way too much.

I did eat a lot - hey, it's Thanksgiving after all! - but I was still able to come home and later on and do the Ab Ripper X workout. And I improved a bit from the time before, instead of just 332 moves, I did 342. Still not at the top of my game, but still up there.

Friday I did 43 minutes of Yoga again - stopping just before Warrior 3 since there's no way I can do those.

Saturday morning I mixed it up a little. Since I could still feel some residual soreness from Plyometrics, I decided to completely skip the legs part of legs and back. Instead I did all the pull ups and chin ups interspersed with bits of Ab Ripper X. All tolled, I did 76 pull ups and 51 chin ups. That's no typo, that is one hundred and twenty seven chin to the bar moves in a single workout.

For Ab Ripper X I've finally got it to the point where I do every rep of every exercise as on the Ab Ripper video. Even the cross leg wide side ups - I did 50 of those, with a few rests thrown in. And when I say 50, I mean 50 the way I started counting them, which is in reality 25 the way the video counts them. And I'm also counting the V-up roll-up combos differently - I did 13 in my way of counting where the video calls that 25. So I'm finally at the magical 349 that the video counts, which in my way of counting the moves is 362. Whew.

I'm not going to talk about what I want or plan to do tonight. Because I want to do it, and I don't want another self unfulfilling prophecy.

The week is about half way over, and so far I haven't skipped a beat. Unless you count skipping physical therapy (which at this point, is just like an extra "bonus" workout twice a week).

But I did Plyometrics yesterday, Back and Biceps as well as Ab Ripper today.

I hope Plyometrics eventually gets easier. Maybe the reason it hasn't done that so far is that maybe, just maybe, I'm actually doing it a little harder, squatting a little deeper, jumping a little higher, covering more distance each time. Maybe. I'd like to think I am, anyhow.

The Back and Biceps routine is still tough - I just finished up a little bit ago and my arms are feeling like jelly. Of course my triceps are still sore from Monday, but I was almost expecting that. Again, I increased the weight on nearly everything, all except the "static curls", where I increased the reps to 16 "c'mon, everybody does 16 of these". A lot of the biceps moves are hard, and since there are so many of them I'm not increasing the weight a lot. Which is another great thing about my Bowflex SelectTech dumbbells , tiny increments! Instead of going from 25 pounds up to 30 pounds, I can increase only one side of them and get 27.5 pounds. It's a little unbalanced, but I think that's OK.

As far as the non pullup back stuff, I'm increasing the weight a little faster, since I've been starting light in order to take it easy my shoulder, and these back exercises don't hit the shoulder too hard.

Pullups are plugging along. 56 pullups, 19 chinups, up from 45 and 16, respectively. Again, I might've gotten to a higher number were it not for those blasted corn cob pullups. I got 6 of those, but just barely.

Ab Ripper X was good. I did a few extra of a few moves, with a slightly different mix than last time, for another 380 move abdominal/core workout.

I just need to keep this up.

I lied.

Friday evening I didn't do anything.

Saturday morning, though, I did legs and back and the Ab Ripper X. 60 pullups of a couple varieties and 39 chinups, for a total of 99 pullups and chinups. I used 10 pound dumbbells through the exercises Tony says "everyone uses some weight on these", no weight on the "weight optional" moves. I think I'm far enough along to add in weights on the weight optional exercises, but I'll start light. I'm also thinking I can add a little more weight to the "everyone" moves, too.

353 core moves during Ab Ripper X - a nice improvement for directly after another workout. I was hoping to do Yoga X in the afternoon or evening, but Lisa and I went out for dinner (thanks to Michelle for babysitting!) and I felt like having a nice drink with my dinner. Which usually means I won't generally feel up for exercising afterwards - even though I should've - the restaurant we went to had gelato and I just couldn't refuse.

Sunday morning I did the Yoga X up through the side balance poses, and stopped again before Warrior 3 (which, the last time I tried, I just couldn't get anywhere near what they're doing on the DVD). So that's close to 50 minutes of Yoga, and judging by the amount of sweat on my yoga mat, still a pretty strenuous workout. I'm hoping all the plank/upward facing dog/downward facing dog moves don't weaken my triceps too much for tomorrow, since it'll already be time for another chest, triceps, and shoulders routine. I also noticed a lot of extra burn in my quadriceps during all the warrior 1 and 2 moves, most likely due to hitting legs the day before.

And of course I intended to do the Kenpo X routine later on in the evening.

Just once I'd like to follow the exact schedule and not feel like I have to do a lot of catching up on the weekends.

I hate to sound like a broken record, but I passed on Kenpo X Sunday night. I noticed a little pain or annoyance in the achilles tendon of my right foot, so I figured I'd rest.

Monday, right back on schedule for Chest, Shoulders, Triceps, and Ab Ripper.

For chest - primarily pushups - and I did about 99, up from around 82 last week. I'm not really firm on these numbers, since I seem to add them up mid-workout, and my sweaty, hurried math hasn't proven to be extremely accurate. I had a big increase in numbers of the floor flys - I didn't try to slide my hands on a towel this time, which helped me do a bigger number. Everything else I increased the reps a fair amount.

For shoulders, there wasn't much of an increase in the raw number, but I increased the weight slightly for nearly every move - including one I shouldn't have (I only did 5 "fly-row presses" after having done 7 at a slightly lower weight last week. I also decreased the weight on the weighted shoulder circles, because I couldn't do all 40 last time.

For triceps, I did 116 moves, up from about 113 last week. No real surprises here. Increased the weight on most moves, increased the reps where I didn't increase weight.

And then right to Ab Ripper X. 380 moves, an all-time high - even more than when doing Ab Ripper alone! I felt like I had extra gas in the tank, so I busted out more than the minimum for the fifer scissors, hip rock 'n' raise, pulse ups, v-up/roll-up combos, and leg climbs. I'm still not up to 50 (!) cross leg wide side ups, but I'm getting there.

Now I just want to try to keep on track all week.

Sure, the date that's listed for this post is 10/28, but it's actually for 10/27. I just got a really late start. After physical therapy tonight, I came home, ate dinner, watched Heroes, and fell fast asleep. I woke up to walk the dog, and noodled around a bit, and decided to start on my Monday routine for the night.

I'm still progressing (as the chart below will show). 120 pushups, 31 pull ups, 15 chin ups, and 78 shoulder moves - whereas a week ago I did 112, 20, 10, and 77, respectively. Note the stair steps in the chart. I'll hit the shoulders more on Wednesday on "shoulders" day (Wednesday), and I'll end up doing more pull ups and chin ups on the other "back" day, Friday.

Also I'm thinking a raw rep count doesn't really tell much for the moves I'm doing with weights, since I increase weight if I'm able to do 12 or more reps. Maybe I'll just multiply the weight times the reps. And since that's likely to be off the chart, maybe I'll divide by 10 before charting.

Did I do the Ab Ripper routine tonight? Heck no. I just did it yesterday, and I really don't want to do that two days in a row. I'll just do it after work tomorrow. I hope ;-)

Not much to report - moving along with P90X.

I did that Chest and Back routine again, but started late again and had to skip the Ab Ripper X routine.

Today I did 112 pushups of several varieties - standard, military (elbows in), wide stance, decline, diamond, and dive bombers. I did 20 pull ups (10 each wide and narrow grip), 10 chin ups, and 77 rowing moves, but with heavier weights than last time.

Mental note: sushi is probably not good to have about an hour before a workout. At least not spicy tuna maki with extra wasabi. It didn't come back up, but it definitely didn't taste better the second time around.

And Matthew's surgery is scheduled for 7:30am tomorrow, which means we need to get to the hospital at 6:00am, which means we need to leave by 5:20am to be extra certain we're not late, which means we need to bathe him around 4:30am, which means we need to wake up around 4:00am. Ugh.

And then if I can at all manage it, I need to get myself to physical therapy possibly. But I'd definitely like to make it home for the Plyometrics workout, and of course the Ab Ripper routine to make up for skipping it tonight.

Did I say "Ugh" before?

Double ugh.

I had another late start tonight, so I only did an hours worth of the legs and back routine. And not a solid hour - although I was tempted to skip ahead when I did fewer reps, I instead used the time for a little ballistic stretching.

Because I haven't done this routine before, I really wanted to take it easy on my legs so I'd be able to walk tomorrow when Lisa and I take Matthew to pick out his very first halloween pumpkin!

And because it was so late when I was done with the hour of the legs and back routine, I decided to hold off on the Ab Ripper X routine until tomorrow.

Now I just need to make sure I don't find an excuse to put it off tomorrow :)

The "back" part of the legs and back routine was just several different pull ups and chin ups of varying grip widths. I did about 53 in total, the second set of which I "cheated" a little and let my feet touch the ground at the bottom of the move. But I'm still counting it as 21 chin ups (underhand) and 32 pull ups (overhand). A lot more than I did 5 days ago. And right at what I did a couple of months ago.

The legs part was pretty challenging as I alluded to before - instead of doing about 25 of every move, I did anywhere from 10 to 15 based on how my legs were feeling. I'll see how my legs are tomorrow. My only concern is that I didn't hit my hamstrings as much as my quadriceps, and I think part of the reason I was having issues with my knees a few weeks ago was an imbalance between the major opposing muscle groups of my legs.

If they're sore tomorrow, then I guess I'll know :)

August 25:

Went to the physical therapist again. They're really tearing up my shoulders and back. Which is good, because that's what they've determined I need help with. I still had a lot of back pain from my work day - the CTA, my stupid Herman Miller Aeron chair (how this thing is supposed to be comfortable I'll never know), adjusting my desk, trying to sit with good posture, and then the CTA ride home all did a number on me.

So about that chair. I used to only slouch at my desk, reclined in my chair, etc. But that's bad. Even though it feels so good. So I'm forcing myself to keep my chair upright, legs and hips at around 90 degree angles - but something's not quite right. It feels bad, even though the Aeron chair is supposedly one of the most ergonomic chairs out there. I guess. Sure doesn't seem at all comfortable to me. Then, I realize that my desk is too high. So I brought in some allen wrenches to lower my desk. Did that, and now my arms are at a more appropriate angle.

But now there's another problem. My monitor height. Which is easy enough to fix, but the issue there is that it's a giant 30" monitor - so it's hard to get it to a height that feels right for the majority of the things on my screen.

It's pretty pathetic - nice chair, decent desk, nice monitor, but it feels like hell on my body.

At any rate, after physical therapy, I thought I'd be feeling pretty beat up - especially with the work on my core muscles (including my lower back) - but it's actually a little energizing. So energizing, in fact, that I felt really ready to jump right into...

Push ups: Week 5, column 2, day 1. 35 then 28 (oh wow, these are really hard today) then 20. I collapsed about 4 times near the end of the last set. Each time I collapsed, I rested at most 2 seconds, and did another 2 before collapsing again. I have no idea why I couldn't do these today. 80 in the course of about 4 minutes. This is the worst I've failed in ... well, ever. It was my triceps that gave out. I think I'll give 5-2-2 a try on Wednesday. But I'm thinking I'll likely have to redo this week.

Chin ups: Week 1, column 3, day 1. 10 then 10 then 8 then 6 then maxed out at 7. Rested about 60 seconds between sets for a total of 41 in about 6 minutes. Fairly tough, but I did it. And hit the target, even on the max out set.

Then I went back and did another set of 20 pushups. Which amazingly enough felt OK. I didn't quite max out, but stopped a few shy of it. Then I typed up most of this entry (starting from the push ups section - not quite the whole thing :) and then did another set of 30. So now I suppose that 130 in about 30 minutes, or so. I forget when exactly I started. After another brief rest and after I chugged down a protein shake, I briefly considered doing some more. But I thought I was pushing my luck.

BTW, it occurs to me that a few (or more?) days ago I mentioned something about "Oh, I don't need to do any ab work since blah blah blah" and yet here I am complaining about the abuse my transverse abdominal muscles are taking at the hands of the physical therapist. Suffice it to say that the crunches I was doing hardly hit all of my abs. Especially not the ones that are apparently weak. I'm doing little more than tensing the muscles and doing some leg lifts, and that's enough to make me sore.

I was sore the next day, so I skipped the kettlebell.

August 15:

I almost skipped today. I went to see the doctor, taking public transportation, and the bus was really crowded. Which made me stand the whole way. Which made my back hurt a lot more. Which is a little ironic, since I was going to the doctor to help alleviate my back pain. We also had another nanny interview, which made me not be able to rest my back after I got home. Long story short, my back hurt, and I wasn't sure it would stop hurting before I had to go to bed. But it ended up feeling good enough, so I went ahead and did my...

Push ups: 27 (oh wow, my inner upper arms are kind of sore today, but) then 21 (not so bad this time around, but still not great, but) then 21 (kind of running out of gas towards the end there, and) then 18 (oh you gotta be kidding me, there's another set after this?) then maxed out at 25. The minimum, I might add. Rested about 90 seconds between sets for a total of 112 in about 8 minutes. No idea how I got the max on the last set.

Chin ups: 9 then 8 then 6 then 5 then maxed out at 7. Resting about 90 seconds between sets for a total of 35 in about 7 minutes. Lisa went to bed early, so I had to move the chin up bar to a shorter door. So these were a little easier, since I let my feet hit the ground after each chin up. I wonder if I could have done as many on the taller door upstairs...

Wee bit of bad news about going to the doctor today. They weighed me, and my weight appears to be the same. Granted, this is just after a hearty lunch, and it was a different scale, and I was wearing all my clothes (which I haven't been at home), so this may not necessarily be an accurate reflection of my real weight. But I guess I was secretly hoping I had lost maybe a pound or two in the four weeks I've been doing this. And of course it's not pounds that matter - I would happily weigh 10 pounds more if it were all muscle.

August 16:

I got out on my bike. I had to hurry back, because Lisa had somewhere to go, and I needed to watch Matthew. So instead of the circuitous route I took to get there, I took as close to a straight line as I could. Also, I had completely forgotten that this weekend is the Air and Water Show along the lake, so it was really unwise to go down the lakeshore bike path starting around Armitage. It was wall to wall people, none of whom had any idea that people might be using the bike path for - you know, biking?

I really wish I had the opportunity to go a little further, because I'd really like to keep steadily increasing the mileage of my rides. And it's also been a few years since I've been down the Lake Shore Bike Path, especially further south than McCormick Place. But I did get down to Shedd Aquarium and Adler Planetarium.

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August 13:

I stayed home from work in the morning to take Lisa back to the oral surgeon, but I found myself with a little extra time to make up for missing kettlebell last night. So I did the three circuits, hopped in the shower, and went to the oral surgeon with Lisa. She's doing fine, BTW. The swelling has gone down a lot and she only has a little bruising on her cheeks.

Later in the evening, it was time for my push ups and chin ups. I plan to do week 4 day 1 column 3 for push ups, and I figure I'll try to do week 1 column 2 again on chin ups.

Push ups: 27 then 20 then 20 then 17 then maxed out at 23. Rested about 60 seconds between sets, for a total of 107 in about 7 minutes.

Chin ups: 7 then 5 then 5 then 4 then 5. Resting about 60 seconds between sets, for a total of 26 in about 6 minutes. I could hardly do the last two of the four and the last three of the last five. But I took a rest for a beat or two, then gave it my all. So I hit all the targets today, but just barely.

And I rested August 14th, too. And I swear it's completely unrelated, but I'm finally going to go to a doctor to see about my back pain. I really just wanted to go to a physical therapist, but they seem to only accept "patients" with "prescriptions" from "doctors" for physical therapy. I just don't want my doctor giving me drugs. Ibuprofen is about all I'm willing to take, but I can't keep taking it like I have been lately.