Hoff's P90Xperience

Progress Pics: Day 39

Alright, time for embarrassing picture time.  This is a couple of days shy of day 44, which was my intended date, but I've got a bunch of people wondering if I've made any progress...that and they want to make Christmas cards of me 1/2 naked as gag gifts for the office...

Here's Day 0:
 
Here's Day 21:

Here's Day 39:

These are lousy pictures because of the sucky light.  What they don't show very well is the loads of muscle mass I've packed onto my core.  These pictures aren't as "transformational" as some of the ones you'll see, but trust me, my entire body is entirely different from day 0.

Yes, P90X grows beards, too!  Hey, it's my winter coat.  Leave the old man alone, willya?

12/21/08 - Phase II, Week 6, Day 2 - Plyometrics

887 calories burned.

'nuff said ;)  I love plyometrics and I'm getting better and better in this routine, adding more and more height and quieter toes.

That is all...

/Hoff

12/20/08 - Phase II, Week 6, Day 1 - Chest, Shoulders & Triceps

Well, here we are in week 6. I started this phase in a nasty ice storm and the second week brings a major snow storm with it.  When it rains, it...snows?

Some of these exercises such as the plyo/clap push-ups are killers on my elbows/wrists and in sacrificing form by doing the one-armed pushups on my toes rather than from my knees, I'm not getting high-quality form and reps. paired.

I like the tricep isolation in this routine, but the chest portion via the pushups has me challenged, especially in the fast/slow twitch pushups.

I bring my best and do what I can, trying to focus on form and lowering reps from 10 down to 8 with higher weight which is working nicely.

I'm still not thrilled with the stubborn love handles that are taking their time to go away, and my mid/lower abs are not developing as well as my uppers, but I'm hoping they'll start to show more as the fat disappears...

Onward!

12/18/08 - Phase II, Week 5, Day 6 - Kenpo X

Well after an exhausting and frustrating session of BJJ today, I came home for a bit of recovery and then Kenpo X.

I really have grown to love this routine and the variety of rangey movements.  Today was a really good session with almost 800 calories burned during the session.  This is the end of week 5.  Wow.  Almost 1/2 way through the rotation.  Can't wait to hit that back and biceps routine again...my arms are STILL hammered from the strip curls.

Be interesting to see the changes in my pictures from the last round.  I reckon I'll take them tomorrow.

/Hoff

12/17/08 - Phase II, Week 5, Day 5 - Legs & Back

Have I told you how much I cringe when I hear wall squats, single wall squats or speed squats?

Legs and Back is torture, but I can tell the difference it's made in BJJ on my takedown defense, armbars and triangles (in concert with my overall core improvement) so I can't *really* complain ;)

My right knee/calf is still really killing me, so the step lunges, skaters, etc. that put the 80/100 % pressure on one leg are painful, but I'm hammering through.

Really starting to wonder about this pullup station.  I'm going to do a test of max. rep pullups on the Gold's station with no assist versus that on the BB pullup bar across all the diff. hand positions...I'll let you know.

Tomorrow is Kenpo and the end of Week 5.  Wow.  Picture time. ;)

/Hoff

12/16/08 - Phase II, Week 5, Day 4 - Yoga X [ Missed ]

Yesterday's back-to-back back and biceps/BJJ session took it's toll.  My arms were so shot that I couldn't hold myself up in Yoga today, so I decided to stretch and do some BJJ ground work with the grappling dummy as I just couldn't do a damned thing with Yoga.

That back and biceps routine was awesome; I'm still worried about the angles on the pullup station as I don't feel as much burn in my back/lats even though they're shaping up OK and I don't know how the lack of 1:1 in orientation is affecting my workout.

I'm still using the assist to get to the 15-20 reps on the pullups, but I need to transition off it and get to good form without.  The corncob pullups from back and biceps were, um, freaking difficult ;)

My old nemesis back & legs is back today... ;)

/Hoff

12/15/08 - Phase II, Week 5, Day 3 - Back & Biceps

This was a great workout.  I think it will be even better when I *don't* do it immediately after a really intense BJJ session.  The bicep and forearm isolation is awesome in this routine.  I think the pullup station I have is beginning to annoy me given the angles of the grips which prevents some of the standard moves in the P90X routine...don't know if it's "harder" and working the muscle groups more/less or if it's impacting my max reps due to the form.  I'm still using the assist at the 15 lb level and doing decent #'s of reps, but I'm not crazy about the form...

At any rate, I nuked it tonight kids.  With BJJ, Back and Biceps and Ab Ripper X, I 'bout fell over.  That's seriously near 1500 calories!  

Ooph.

Yoga tomorrow...I need the stretch.

12/14/08 - Phase II, Week 5, Day 2 - Plyometrics

After the highs and lows of this weekend's power/heat/water failures, falling trees and making sure everyone including the dog was safe, the world beat me up a little today.

At 4pm I was toast and ready to just turn in for the day, but I wanted to workout and I knew (as did my lovely wife) that I would feel better if I worked out.  So I made up a batch of 'Fast Twitch' which had me ready to go in about 20 minutes and I hammered home an all-star performance with plyo tonight.

835 calories burned.  I done brung it, peoples... ;)

Methinks my old nemesis "legs (hell) n' back" is up tomorrow...as is what might be a monster 2.5 hour BJJ session tomorrow night, so I ought to go get some sleep since it's midnight here...

Love the fact that I can turn on a lightbulb when I want to ;)

/Hoff

12/13/08 - Phase II, Week 5, Day 1 - Chest, Shoulders & Triceps

Thanks to a ginormous ice storm in New England, the fam and I have been battling below freezing temperatures without power, heating, water, etc.  We've been shuttling between home and a hotel which unfortunately also is suffering (now) from a lack of power ;)

I went home today to take care of the dog and do some work around the house and I needed to start this week's workout as technically yesterday was my start day, after my rest day on Thursday, but it didn't quite work out that way due to the issues at hand...

It was 35 degrees in the house when I hooked up the portable generator to my Macbook Pro and a small heater and began my workout.  I wouldn't advise trying to work out like this; my warmup helped, but I wasn't able to bring it as much as I would have liked, but I did my best.

Learning a new routine is always a little rough and today was no exception.  I've got another 3 weeks to get it perfected, so I'm not particularly concerned.  The one arm pushups were a bear and I had bad form on a number of the new exercises, but it'll come as the others did.

So, I don't want to hear any excuses about being cold, tired or hungry from the rest of you ;)

/Hoff

12/10/08 - Phase I, Week 4, Day 6 - Yoga X

Well folks, that's the end of week 4.  Rest day and then on to some of the new routines that start on week 5. Onto Phase II, cool!

Tonight's yoga was great.  I can definitely go deeper and do some of the advanced moves I was unable to do even last week; the rest week works well on establishing flexibility and core tuning.

I'm wearing a reinforced brace (with articulated hinges) on my right knee because of whatever it is I did to it in BJJ...it doesn't get in the way very much which I'm happy for.

I've got BJJ tomorrow, so I'll work my spider guard less with the right leg so I don't screw up the next rotation.

/Hoff