I was starting to feel a whole lot better today after a nice relaxing weekend. I had not done any kind of working out since I had a huge pain in my neck last week. It still kind of hurts but at least it moves with a more normal range of motion. All that I did over the past week was run. No P90X for me. I did not want to re-injure any pinched nerves in my neck and have to skip out on another week of doing anything. Funny thing happened on Saturday. I broke the treadmill. Now its either run outside in the cold Michigan winter or get on a treadmill at the gym. Off to the gym.

So today it was time to get back on the horse. I headed off to my gym and decided to switch things up a little bit. Doing the triathlon has been in the back of my mind and I am slowly introducing a workout routine for it. I made it up in my mind to do 5 miles on a stationary bike, 3 miles on the treadmill, and .5 mile in the pool. After the bike and treadmill I would do as many pull ups and chin ups as I could do.

It had been some time since I went upstairs at Life Time Fitness. I usually go right to the pool and leave. They do have some nice equipment and it was mid-day so there was not that much traffic. They have these cool new bikes there that have screens in the middle with 10 TV channels on it. You can keep track of how fast and how far you are going while watching Sports Center or CNN. Cool!! My five miles was over before I knew it. Only took 16 minutes to do. On to the chin up bar. It was different than doing them at home. My P90X Pull Up Bar is great but my doorway is not that high so I have to drop down to get going. The gym has a bar that is 8 feet off the ground so I had to jump up to get it. I did 12 chin ups, 6 wide grip pull ups, 7 normal pull ups and then 5 more chin ups for an even 30. On to the treadmill.

The treadmills there are way better than the one I have at home. It felt like I was on that thing forever. I was going at 6.2 mph at a 3% incline. It did not feel the same as mine at home. Right around mile 2 my legs woke up and realized they were in for a workout. I cranked it up to 7 mph for the last mile and was feeling a little gassed but still great. On to the chin up bar. This time I could only do 10 chin ups, 5 wide grip pull ups, and 5 normal pull ups for a total of 20. On to the pool.

My tiredness started to kick in after I finished my first lap. I felt very light in the pool and was warmed up but not enough energy to do my normal swim of 30 laps which is almost a mile. I did get 15 laps done for almost a .5 mile.

Feeling pretty good about myself today. I was able to do 5 miles on the bike, 3 miles on the treadmill, almost .5 mile in the pool swimming while doing a combination of 50 chin ups and pull ups. I know its different being on a treadmill or stationary bike from being outdoors in the elements but I feel like its a minor accomplishment. I don't feel sore yet and maybe I am in good enough shape to stretch out how far I go with each activity. The swimming was tricky but I just need to get everything else working fine and then work on my hardest part being swimming.

Post from: P90X Workout

5 Miles On The Bike, 3 Miles Running, .5 Mile Swimming

It has been almost 4 days since I did the P90X Legs and Back workout and my legs and butt are still sore. I have been waddling like a penguin for the last couple days and its starting to suck. I went and did some swimming the other day and once I started moving everything kind of loosened up. Since then its been a struggle. I am not feeling as sore as two days ago but by now its usually gone. My legs are probably telling me that I need to get out of the pool and start running and doing more cardio. That is when I tell my body to shut up and deal with it. With Thanksgiving being tomorrow I need to burn some calories because I know that I am going to fat out. My aunt always makes an amazing meal. To make sure I have some space for the amount of food I am going to consume I will have to burn some serious calories today. Off to the pool and after that its time to sit in the sauna and sweat out as much fluids in my body as I can.

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I Don’t Know Why My Legs Are Still Sore

Two or three times a week I head up to LifeTime Fitness to go for a swim. Swimming has been a great workout to compliment all of the exercises I do with P90X. Its good to switch it up every once in awhile and after doing P90X for 9 months now it only helps build on the muscles I have gained. I usually do 30 laps (60 lengths) when I go and this was my plan for today.

Anyways, there is always this older guy who swims around the same time of day I do. This old guy is the kind of guy who brings four different types of flippers to swim in. He even has the flippers where it is a one piece flipper. I kind of want to use them because it is going to make you use your abs the whole time because your legs can never get out of sync. Of course he has a speedo like every old guy has. I think there must be an unwritten rule that says if you are over the age of 60 you have full rights to wear a speedo in any setting including grocery shopping. Old dudes are the only guys I ever see wearing speedos.

So what you need to know is that this guy is intense. He probably could hang with Martin Strel. If you do not know who Martin Strel is, he is the guy who swam the entire length of the Amazon River. Yup, all 3,274 miles. Pretty amazing knowing that we all know there are Piranhas and other creepy fish in there.

It just so happens that every time I go swimming the only lane open is the one next time him. The first couple times I started swimming he always seemed to be just out of my reach. Its not like I started or waited for him to get to the same end of the pool I was at but it worked out that way. We were always neck and neck with each other. He did not know we were racing but we were. It was my mission to beat his ass in a race officiated by me. How could I keep on losing when I make the rules? He did have a small advantage over me. He could do the turn where you do a flip before you hit the wall. I would go all out touch the wall and push off. With the spring action he was getting from the wall he always popped up for air at least a body length ahead of me. I would chase and catch up just to lose him at the turn.

He was not going to beat me today. I was feeling fresh from taking a couple days off from P90X on a trip I was on. I let him get one length ahead of me and my goal was to catch him and pass him before I did 10 laps (20 lengths). This was going to be quite a feat because he usually beats me heads up. It looked like he had been in the pool for 15 minutes so to be fair I figured the one length was good.

I felt so good in the water today. I got onto the same length as him after 8 lengths. It was going to be close but I had 12 more lengths to go. With 6 lengths to go I was half a length behind him. I could not see him under water yet but only on the turns when I had to come out of the water to turn. Down to 3 lengths and I could start to see his wake under water through my goggles. Your within my reach old man!! With 1.5 lengths to go I was neck and neck with him. I caught him. Was I going to tire? Was he going to turn on the after burners? Did he know he was going to lose the race in which he did not know he was racing in?

Yes. Old man river got beat. I pulled ahead of him and beat him by about 4 body lengths. I was tired as hell from all of that swimming. Looking back at it I had to swim twice as hard to catch him. Of course he did not stop. Probably had another 500 laps to go. Til next time old man!!

Post from: P90X Workout

Beat Old Man Swimming

After looking at my P90X results last week I was thinking about trying to mix things up a little bit. Over the past 5 days I got out my running shoes and ran 5 miles twice. It felt great to be able to finish it. What was interesting was that I did not feel sore after doing it both times and I never stopped during both runs. It had been some time since I was able to complete a 5 mile run without stopping. Later on those nights I started getting cramps in my stomach. It could have been from dehydration or eating something bad. I knew that I needed to get my cardio back up before ski season comes around so I need to incorporate more running and swimming.

Yesterday I did the P90X Chest and Back workout. I was not able to do as many pull ups and chin ups as I usually do but was able to complete the workout. Its amazing how much muscle I felt like I ahd lost due to all the running. I remember when I was training for the marathon a couple years ago and how much muscle I lost do to all of the running. It looks like this could be the same thing. Knowing that swimming is one of the best upper body and cardio workouts out there I headed to the local gym today and did my normal 30 laps (60 lengths). My upper body is killing right now and I can tell that I am going to be sore as hell tomorrow.

Post from: P90X Workout

Getting Back To Swimming After P90X Chest And Back

I have been sticking to my plan of doing cardio. The other day I busted out the Plyometrics DVD for the second time in a week and jumped around my living room for an hour. That workout seems like it never gets easy. Its probably my fault because I had not been doing it for quite some time and with P90X putting 10 pounds of muscle on my body I am not use to trying to get all of that extra weight into the air. The next day my legs were just killing. I was able to finish the workout but I could tell that I did not have energy and strength in my legs like I did when I first started doing P90X. I am happy that did it because I felt a little quicker than usually and my legs felt fresher at my softball game the next day.

I try not to do any P90X workouts the day of my softball games because I do not want to waste any energy before the game. My team plays double headers and depending on what position I play, the weather, and how well I hit, I could be running all night. No need to burn any energy before the game so I can;t make it to the second game. Maybe doing yoga in the morning would be okay but nothing to extreme.

So yesterday were my softball games so it was an off day on doing any sort of workout. Today I went to the pool and told myself I was going to get at it. I typically do 60 lengths which takes me about 45 minutes to do. I think the pool is about 25 yards long so it comes out to about 3/4 of a mile of swimming. I switch between freestyle and the breast stroke. I do about 40 lengths of freestyle and 20 of breast stoke. The last 20 lengths were taxing on my body. I came up gasping for air every 10 lengths. I really had to dig down inside to complete those last couple lengths. It helped that there were people swimming in the lanes next to me as it pushed me to keep up with them.

I do feel really good when I get done swimming. The upper body workout you get when swimming is ridiculous. I have a bad right shoulder from washing cars as a kid and it clicks almost every time I throw something or just rotate it. Swimming is a non-impact high intensity workout so it keeps the pain levels down. I am excited about this new routine and will continue to post updates about me punishing my body with extreme cardio workouts.

Post from: P90X Workout

Swimming Really Kicked My Butt Today

A couple days ago I wrote about me having a bunch of energy to be able to do a two a day workout. I went swimming around lunch time for about an hour. I did a little less than a mile of swimming. After getting done swimming I went back to work for a couple of hours and then came home. When I got home I still felt like I had a lot of energy to burn so I decided to to the P90X legs and back dvd. It had been awhile since I had done that P90X workout so I decided to do it.

It was actually one of my better workouts. I did more pull ups and chin ups than I had ever done before and was quite proud of my improvements. I know all of the swimming I have been doing lately helped out with my back muscles which leads to more strength to do pull ups and chin ups. Let's just say that the P90X results are speaking for themselves right now. I checked my log book and can see how every week my results are getting better and I am feeling stronger.

Fast forward two days and I can barely walk. My legs are arms were feeling so tight that it hurt to move. It was some soreness that I have not felt in awhile. Probably as much soreness as when I first started doing P90X. I think I might have pushed myself a little too far two nights ago and now I am paying for it. I decided to do P90X Yoga X yesterday morning before my softball game last night to hopefully stretch out my body so I did not feel so tight. All it did was make me more sore through out the day.

I made it to my softball game and it took my a half an hour to get warmed up. My body was so sore. It wasn't tight anymore but just sore. I was really trying to hit a home run last night because the there was a 15 mile per hour wind blowing out to the left field fences but it was just not meant to be. My body was just not loose enough to get the power I needed to hit it out.

A good piece of advice for any extreme P90X people out there would be to not try to do too much at one time. I know that day of working out woke up my body but I probably could have done just half of P90X legs and back or half the amount of laps in the pool. This was I would have been able to walk.

Post from: P90X Workout

Do Not Swim And Do The P90X Legs And Back Workout On The Same Day

I had taken the last week off from doing any P90X workout. I had a couple of other things going on like being out on a friends boat over the weekend. I play softball on Wednesday nights and don't like to do any cardio on those days to keep fresh and to not wear myself out. I know on my last post I spoke about the importance of running while doing P90X. Sometimes I get bored running. I have this 5 mile route that I do a lot and I do it once or twice a week. Well, ever since the canoeing trip a couple weeks ago I told myself I wanted to get back into swimming. Some of my friends that flipped over had all of our beer supply floating down the river and I David Hasselhoffed it in to save them. I was treading some serious water and was able to save about 15 beers.

Anyways it motivated me to get back in the pool because I was winded after doing that. I'm sure the 8 beers I already had in me was not helping out either, but it did motivate me. I will say that I still have a membership to a gym called Lifetime Fitness. Its actually one of the nicer gyms around. They have 3 pools, basketball courts, aerobic studios, weights, cardio machines, sauna, huge hot tubs and most importantly they keep it clean. I kept telling myself to cancel the membership because it is about $60 and I had not used it since last November. This is when I started doing P90X. P90X was kicking my butt already so there was no need to go but I really enjoyed the pool so I kept paying and told myself I would return.

Well, last week I returned. I did 50 laps in the lap pool and man did I feel exhausted. Not too exhausted because of all the P90X'ing I have done. I was so whipped that I feel asleep about an hour earlier than usually that night. I went back to the gym two more times last week and even stepped it up to 60 laps. The poolis about 25 yards long so when I did my calculations I almost swam a mile. I switched between breast stroke and the normal stroke. I started feeling some strength build up in my back and it felt great.

So why should you do swimming after P90X? The cool thing about P90X is that it works a particular muscle in about an hour. You workout your whole body during the span of a week. Swimming works your whole body the entire time you are doing it. You use every muscle in your body when swimming. Today I decided to pull out the P90X DVD's and I did P90X Back and Biceps. I felt stronger today than before. I was able to increase my P90X results by at least 5% over the previous time. I was able to knock out 1-2 more pull ups or chin ups and increase my weight on all of the routines. I was happy about that. What I am realizing is that all of the hard work I did building up these muscles has not gone away. Now I just need to maintain them. What I am going to do now is get back into the pull 3 times a week until I feel like Flipper moving through the water while doing 1 or 2 P90X DVDs. This way I can build new muscles and maintain the ones I have already built.

Post from: P90X Workout

Swimming Is What To Do After P90X

I was thinking of more ways to add some cardio workouts into my P90X routine. I have grown to love the workout but I know I need to incorporate new exercises into my fitness. Since I have stayed on track with P90X from the get go some of the other things I enjoy to do have been pushed to the side.

I really enjoy all of the back workouts, especially the P90X Legs And Back. Just like anything though sometimes it becomes to much of a routine. What I started doing was going right into the next workout before Tony Horton and the other people were done with theirs. This has saved me about 12 minutes off of the length of the workout. I pretty much know every move and what goals I need to hit.

The other day I knew I had to start getting back to the pool. Swimming is by far the best cardio workout there is. Its the only workout where you work every single muscle in your body at one time. Your arms, shoulders, legs, chest, and core muscles get used a ton. I enjoy playing golf and softball during the summer and have noticed what a big difference a strong back makes in those sports.

So I started hitting the pool once a week again and have stopped doing P90X Kenpo all together. The Kenpo workout was one of my favorites when I started but this is the one that I can do without now. Doing 30 minutes of swimming is the same as the entire Kenpo workout. When I get done swimming I feel so much stronger all over and I know it compliments the P90X workouts that I do. I think its time to make a push for a triathalon now.

Post from: P90X Workout

Swimming And P90X