I have finished up Week 3 of my P90X experience, and I have to say, it’s going pretty damn well. I’m quite proud of myself for what I’ve accomplished. I’ve completed three weeks of P90X, and two of them without missing ANY days.
In Week 3, I paid more attention to my diet, tracking calories via the Lose It! iPhone app and trying to stick to a 50/50 balance of protein and carbs. This definitely had an impact on my waistline.
Results so far
Weight-wise, I am down two pounds from the week prior, but only 0.3 pounds down from the start.I have lost about an inch from my waist. According to my scale, I’m also down 2.1% BF from the week prior, and 0.1% BF from the start, but as I explained last week, I am putting less stock in the BF number from my scale after reading about how wildly inaccurate they can be.
P90X Stats
Chest & Back
No major change in Chest & Back this week. I increased reps in most of the exercises, and I did bump up the weight by 5 pounds in the few exercises that use weights. Still can’t do pull-ups unassisted, but one thing I made sure to focus on was taking my weight off of the chair on the descent and using as much of my back as possible.
Ab Ripper X was an improvement on this day – I increased my total number of reps from a previous high of 155 to 166. Fifer Scissors are still my nemesis.
Plyometrics
Another week of complete Plyo workout! Still can’t completely hang through each exercise, but I feel like each time I get a little closer. One thing that I am noticing in Plyo is that my balance is improving – there are a lot of lunge-type exercises in Plyo, and I find myself stumbling a lot less.
Shoulders & Arms
Ah, Shoulders & Arms…my favorite P90X day. I pushed myself hard on this day to boost up the weight on almost all exercises. I was able to rock the 25 pound dumbbells on the Alternating Shoulder Press as well as the Crouching Cohen Curls and the Congdon Curls. I tried the 25’s on the In-and-Out Bicep Curls, but for the second round had to go back to 20’s, as the 25’s were just too heavy for the 16 reps.
Another banner day for Ab Ripper X, as I increased total reps to 188. That’s more than twice the number of reps I did on 3/7. ARX sucks, but it makes me feel damn GOOD when it is completed.
Yoga X
Got further into Yoga X than ever before. Made it into the beginning of the balance postures, but ran out of time again. I am slowly getting more flexible, which makes this a better workout and definitely more enjoyable each time. I am not sure that I have a good yoga mat (mine seems to slide around a lot on the rug), but it’s a poor craftsman that blames his tools, so I just keep adjusting.
Legs & Back
HUGE workout on this day. Total calorie burn was 1,008! And man, did I earn that. I pushed harder on the pull-ups, increasing by one rep each time. But my biggest win was pulling off a full 90 seconds on the Wall Squat and 60 seconds on the Single Leg Wall Squat. For an example of how proud I was of myself, check out what I wrote in my tracking spreadsheet when it was done:
To add to my awesome success with Legs & Back, I set a goal when starting ARX to break 200 reps. And I succeeded! Not only did I complete 215 reps, I did TEN Fifer Scissors (my max had always been 5). Now I’m setting my sights on knocking out more than 12 Mason Twists (it’s a tough move AND the last one in the workout. After 15 minutes of ab work, just about anything is killer).
Kenpo X
My goal for this week in Kenpo X was to do all the moves, but also to take less time during the breaks. There are several breaks in the workout for drinking water, etc, and during this time, you are encouraged to keep jogging in place, etc, and then they do a set of jumping jacks and some type of jumping up “X” move. My goal for this week was to do all of the jacks…which I did. Next week I will add the X jumps.
The week ahead
Coming up is the “recovery” week, which doesn’t mean rest time! It started this morning with Yoga X (spoiler alert – I made it through to the end), and includes two days of a new workout I’ve not done before, called “Core Synergistics”. From what I can see, it looks killer. I’m also going to work harder on getting in my protein as I need it in my diet, and cut sweets even more than I have so far.