“Operation Bring it!” – Day 1

Yesterday marked the first day of what I’d like to think of as my journey back to optimum wellness or as it shall henceforth be known, “Operation Bring it!” I intend to chronicle my workouts and bring you along on the ride! (Thank-you for the support you have shown thus far! It really means the world to me friends!)

A core part of my journey back to wellness will be a full 90 day cycle of P90X! But before I tell you about Day 1, I thought I would give you a bit of background on the program.

If you’ve ever been awake way too late at night, walked through a Costco around New Year’s, or watched early morning television – chances are you’ve come across P90X. Their infomercials feature people that have undergone remarkable transformations. I suppose the same is true of pretty well of all infomercials. But with P90X there seems to be something different – the people they show seem to be genuinely hardcore. And the snippets of the workout look challenging to no end. Not to mention YouTube is full of people documenting their transformations using the program.

Colour me intrigued. Needless to say I bought the tapes. If I were to explain P90X to someone who is not familiar with the program I’d say it’s like a 90 day boot camp. There are a variety of workout DVDs incorporating everything from weight lifting, to plyometrics, kempo, and even yoga. You are supposed to follow an exact order with the goal of achieving what P90X calls “Muscle Confusion.” Which I think is just code for make it hurt as much as possible so you’ll see as big results as possible.

I think I have to insert a caveat in here – this program isn’t for everyone. In fact before you begin you do a fitness test which is a grueling workout in itself (it hurt to walk the next day!). To do this program you have to have a certain fitness level and some experience with weight lifting. In fact, I would argue that to do this program without some training background could lead to disastrous results. Sure the fitness guide tells you how to do the different weight lifting exercises but I think that’s not enough. I’d suggest that a few sessions with a trainer would be appropriate before doing this workout. You could seriously injure yourself if you tried to push yourself to lift heavy but had terrible form.

Having successfully completed the fitness test and acquired all the necessary equipment (post on this to come soon!) I was ready to bring it!

 

“Operation Bring it!” - Day 1 – March 19th, 2010

The first day of the Classic P90X cycle calls for two workouts – Chest and Back, and AbRipperX. I have had the DVDs for a while and done most of the workouts but never on a 90 day cycle. Chest & Back is one of the DVDs I’m most familiar with which means that I wasn’t as brutalized by it as I was the first time around! I’ve no shame in telling you that after the first time I did this DVD I was in serious pain! In fact my arms were trembling and it hurt to lift things the day after!!

The Chest and Back routine uses 12 different exercises (repeated twice) to make it burn. Half of those exercises are push ups – I don’t know about you but I had on idea there were so many varieties! I’ve even discovered a personal favourite (dive bomber push ups) amongst the bunch. In total, yours truly did a grand total of 162 push ups (all but 14 of them done on my toes)!!!! GO ME!!!

In addition to push ups this workout utilizes some weight lifting and a lot of pull ups. The average person can’t do a pull up. And if you’re a renter like me, you can’t install a pull up bar either. No worries – the exercises can be modified using specially designed bands that replicate the motion and will one day get you to a real pull up.

The whole Chest & Back DVD lasts an hour. And just when you feel like you can’t go on you have to complete the 15 minute AbRipperX DVD. No word of a lie bloggies – this workout is brutal! In fact, I’m pretty convinced you have to be hard core to be able to do it all without stopping!! There are no rests in this DVD, no warm up, no cool down. Just insanity! Now the first time I did this DVD I dissolved into a fit of giggles on the floor. I desperately wanted to move the way Tony Horton was asking me to but my body was so beat it couldn’t do it at all! I just lay there cracking up. Thankfully I’ve now figured out how to do that one particular exercise (all the exercises in this DVD are repeated 25 times) but I still can’t do this workout non-stop. I’m looking forward to being hardcore by the end of the 90 days!

So how do I feel at the end of Day 1? Awesome! I’m proud of myself for taking this step in the right direction. The picture at the top of this post is from the end of the 10K I told you about yesterday. It’s one of my favourites because of the way I felt in that moment. And so it’s my inspiration picture!

What’s up today? A short run with Daisy (this time I’ll bring water so she won’t go and lay down on me again) followed by Plyometrics X!

Catch you later bloggies!!!