kentcowgill.org/blog

So much to write, so little time.

Having trouble remembering what I did and when (again) - so I'll work backwards. Again.

So because of all of that, I decided to re-start week 11 this week and I did the Chest and Back routine on Tuesday. I think I did pretty well, 264 pushups (a personal best), 65 pull ups and 35 chin ups. I'm totally blowing off Ab Ripper. And I knocked the scab off my knuckle from Shoulders and Arms. At least I got to use my pull up bar again. Last week seems like it counted for something, because I got more pull ups and chin ups than I did last time I did this routine with a pull up bar. I'm really anxious to see how well I'd do on the old 100 pushups program.

And over the weekend I did Yoga X, again all of it, and came back to Chicago. Believe me, with a 20 pound child and a 12 pound dog, plus a 15 pound car seat, a 50 pound suitcase, and a ... well, I don't know exactly how hevy it is, but I'd have to say my shoulder bag fully loaded is about 15 pounds - toting all that around is plenty workout enough. Not really, but it wore me out anyhow.

Later on Christmas Day I did Shoulders and Arms. Kind of. I had to use the bands again. While I'm glad I had them, I didn't take the time before the trip to fully learn how to use them for the various exercises. I ended up abrading one of my knuckles on Congdon Curls (curl up, hammer down).

Thursday, I had some catch-up to do so I did Plyometrics in the morning, tucked away in about 5 square feet of spare room in the, uh ... spare room :) I couldn't quite get a lot of forward/backward distance with moves like Monster Truck Tires or Leapfrog Squats, so I did the best I could with the room I had. And Lisa was out spreading holiday cheer with Matthew, so I had a few minutes to run through it. She got back near the end though, I had a great time playing peek-a-boo with Matthew as he was on one side of his carseat and I was peeking around the sides as I did lateral leapfrog squats.

I'm pretty sure I skipped everything on Wednesday. I just couldn't find the time with all the errands, visitors, carseat shuffling, and Matthew toting that happened.

Tuesday evening I got out my trusty bands, mounted them in a doorway, and did the Chest and Back routine. On the one hand, I couldn't do too many more of the band pull ups than regular pull ups, which tells me that it's a fair approximation of the real deal pull ups and chin ups. On the other hand, it just didn't feel like an honest-to-goodness pull up and chin up routine. But I managed to pump out 235 push ups.

Tuesday morning, December 23rd, was spent traveling with Lisa, Matthew, Spike, and the luggage.

Monday the 22nd I was busy tying up loose ends and packing.

I'm pretty sure I did Kenpo around the 21st.

I probably did Legs and Back on the 20th, or thereabouts.

It's very likely that I did Yoga X on the 19th, give or take. Of special note, I think I finally did the entire Yoga X routine.

There's a good chance I did Back and Biceps on the 18th.

I very possibly did Plyometrics on or around the 17th.

I find it likely that I did Chest, Shoulders, and Triceps on or around the 15th.

Signs point to that I maybe did a catch up Legs and Back on the 14th.

I have a fair degree of confidence that I did Shoulders and Arms on the 11th.

The odds are pretty good that I did Chest and Back on the 9th.

The week of December 1st was supposed to be a recovery week, and it was. I was sick. Not terribly sick, but enough to make me not want to keep up with everything. I have recollection of doing Core Synergistics, Yoga, and possibly Kenpo, but I'm not so clear on that one.

And that takes me back to where I left off.

It's been almost a week - but don't think I've been resting on my considerable laurels. I've done several more workouts for my chest, back, shoulders and arms - I've continued my physical therapy - and I've ventured into the Kenpo X and Cardio X workouts.

I've also measured everything that's appropriate to measure, and figured out that if I'm reading (and probably more importantly using) my skinfold calipers correctly, my body composition is in the neighborhood of about 19%. I still suspect it's higher than that, but since I've measured and calculated that number on a couple of separate occasions with slight variations in the measurements of skinfolds, I feel confident that I can at least use that number as a benchmark. Whether it's high or low shouldn't matter as long as it gets lower in the coming weeks.

So the Kenpo X workout is pretty tough - and fairly rough on my knees. I had to take it a little easy on the kicks. I decided to do the kicks because by and large, my knees were feeling pretty good. Fortunately they continued to feel good the next day, confirming that I didn't do anything terribly bad to them.

And then there was the Cardio X routine. I figured that would be a good one to whet my whistle for the other workouts since it touches on the Yoga and even the scary plyometrics workout. This one was very difficult - I nearly got my heart rate up to where it was on my faster run portions of my run/walk routine. Again I avoided any pain the next day even though my quadriceps felt some delayed onset muscle soreness the next day due to some of the jumping.

So the Cardio X routine was yesterday, and I took all my measurements yesterday, and I took the dreadful "before" pictures, so that meant I was pretty much obligating myself to start the real, full, and actual P90X routine today.

But first I had physical therapy. And not just normal physical therapy (though maybe that's a good thing). Today was the first day of my "step down" program. Meaning I'm done with the normal program, I just get to use their facilities and their expertise as I do all the stuff I can do at home, except for a few machines and devices that I can't quite replicate. I skipped a few of the recommended exercises since I knew they'd overlap with what I was planning on for the evening. Or the later evening.

Got home, had a quick dinner, watched Heroes, and then got busy. I did about 87 push ups of many varieties, about 15 pull ups and 8 chin ups. Yes, that's fewer than I was doing during the 100 pushups routine, but since these were all different varieties and hit all different parts of my chest and triceps, I think this was probably pretty good for a start. I also did roughly 75 rowing type movements with dumbbells. The weight here is still fairly low, especially since I moved to 2 circuits of this routine, as suggested by the videos.

And to the letter of the law with the P90X program, I went straight to the Ab Ripper X routine afterwards. It's still very hard, I still can't do everything, but I'm still working towards increasing what I'm able to do. But at the end of it, I had performed about 174 'reps' of all the various ab/core exercises combined. Really tough ab/core exercises. So don't scoff at the fact that 174 is only half of the 349 total reps that I could be doing. Supposing I didn't throw up mid-workout from the insane exertion.

Next up tomorrow is plyometrics. I'm a little scared - I just hope I can remember to take it easy on my knees and not catch quite so much air during the routine.