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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.

Ok, physical therapy is getting really hard. First the usual stuff - marching bridges, leg lifts, etc. Then I had to do two sets of these horrible, torturous crab walks, wherein my ankles are connected to each other with an elastic tube and I'm supposed to walk sideways all the way across the physical therapy center. And back. Twice. I'm not sure which muscles it is that this really kills me on, but they hurt. If in fact they're still there. I'm not sure, but I may have worked them right off of my body. Ok, they're the tensor fasciæ latæ, and they hurt. A lot. And then this other thing I think my physical therapist invented on the spot to continue the torture - this crazy walking with legs bent, ankles attached with elastic, and wide, sweeping steps.

To top that off, then I had to work on the slide board. The thing that makes you make a motion like you're skiing, skating, or rollerblading. Several minutes worth. Twice. Guess what muscle this motion tends to work? That's right. Same ones as that crazy crab walk. Then these ludicrous walking lunges all the way across the physical therapy center. And back. But while down in the lunge position, hold a medicine ball out at arms' length and twist my torso 90º both ways.

And maybe some other stuff, but I'm too tired to remember it.

Then I get home, eat some dinner, check a little email, and I guess I wasn't feeling beat up enough, so I decided to do my next set of pyramids. 1-2-3-4-5-6-6-5-4-3-2-1. Total of 42 chin ups, 126 push ups, and 210 sit ups. All with really good form, except for maybe about 8-10 of the chin ups where I cheated a little.

If all of the above isn't enough, I'm thinking that if I'm still able to walk tomorrow, I'm going to do 9 sets of the jog/walk intervals from the 5K for beginners running plan, instead of the 8.

This is just insane. Someone needs to put a stop to this.

So, I was true to my word, and did some pyramids today.

I had done the 100 push ups (and 100 chin ups) thing for about 8 weeks. I made some progress, but it felt like I was stalling. So I did something different.

The routine is essentially this: 1 chin up, 3 push ups, and 5 crunches. Then multiply everything by 2: 2 chin ups, 6 push ups, and 10 crunches. Then by 3: 3, 9, and 15. And so on, until I've done 6 chin ups, 18 push ups, and 30 crunches. Then work my way back down: 5 chin ups, 15 push ups, 25 crunches. And so on. By the time I'm all finished, I've done 36 chin ups, 108 push ups, and 180 crunches.

This is the routine where I used to be able to work my way up to 10, 30, and 50, for a total of 100, 300, and 500. I'm not quite there yet.

But there are some good notes.

1) I was really concentrating on form. Powering through the 40 consecutive push ups had me cheating a bit - I wasn't going all the way down and having my chest touch the floor. Now I am. I've already mentioned how I've cheated on the chin ups - this time I bent my knees and didn't let my feet touch the floor (until near the very end).

2) This feels good. Granted, I had been doing a greater number of both chin ups and push ups with the 100 push ups program, but my form was sloppy and I was getting tired and discouraged.

3) A little more about that form. I had realized a week or two ago that it is entirely possible that I had been doing crunches and working only my rectus abdominals, and not my transverse abdominals (which seem so important to help mitigate my back pain). Now that I know how to engage my transverse abdominals, I'm concentrating on doing exactly that throughout the range of motion for the crunches.

So I figure I'll do these for a little while and work my way up.

Todays routine, for brevity in notation, looked like this: 1-2-3-4-5-6-5-4-3-2-1 (OK, maybe not so brief). Next time I'll probably repeat the 6 set (1-2-3-4-5-6-6-5-4-3-2-1) and work back down, for a total of 42 chin ups, 126 push ups, and 210 sit ups. And the next time I'll go up to 7. Or so I hope.

Will I keep at these until I hit the old mark? I'm not sure yet. I guess it depends on how I feel as I go along. This may just be a week, or a few weeks, or possibly more. I'm still kind of itching to hit some real weights again.