Monday, August 29, 2011

Week One - P90X

OK I am officially one week into the P90X fitness programme. It is indeed intense. All the standard workouts are fine - I'm using bands to simulate pull ups. Even the squats and lunges, which I'm not so good at, are fine. I didn't do YogaX, simply because I needed a recovery day and wanted to do some restorative yoga that day - so I did an hour of yoga with lots of breathing. Plus it is hard for me to think of yoga as just a fitness practice - I like the spiritual aspect and it was often incorporated into my own personal devotions. I did like StretchX today - which is more like my own practice. Just missed the shavasana and praying at the end. I wasn't too fussy about Plyometrics - my heart rate spiked at 216 in that one, had to sit down! And it was the only one that got my heart rate to go too high. Even KenpoX only had me hovering around 145.

Speaking of KenpoX, that was my least favourite workout. I think I would be more comfortable doing that in a class where I can get some guidance on technique. Yoga was better after practicing in a studio for about a year. Those little adjustments start to build muscle memory so you can just feel when something is not quite right. All through KenpoX I was second guessing my moves, and not getting how they were combining all the movements through the body. I need the moves done in slow motion until I know what is going on - then put them into a practice. It isn't martial arts - I used to do Karate as a youth and loved learning kata. But this isn't kata, it is aerobics with intricate (and I bet helpful) moves.

I've lost 4 pounds this week - 4 good pounds because I'm 4 lower than the low end of my usual weight fluctuations. And the pain of the first couple sessions has subsided - I can really feel the work outs but they aren't killing me anymore. In fact my body is starting to feel good! I need to work on sleep and I also need to adjust diet this week. I was hoping to be further into this before school started back up, but better late than never.

Note: this is my before picture, I'll post another at the next fitness test.

1 comment:

One of Freedom said...

Yeah sites like that are almost as bad as MacArthur.

The thing is you can hate on everybody in Christendom, thinking you are the only one with the right truth, but it is really only a self-deception. Much as I dislike MacArthur's brand of Christianity - I'm not ready to throw him out as a brother nor am I willing to believe he is a devil in disguise.

I've been down the road that site wants to take us and it isn't a pretty place. At one point I thought pretty much every church was heretical. At which point you either become a grumpy old cynic or you grow up and accept that you are probably a heretic too (and for some strange reason that doesn't seem to make God love you any less!).