This workout seriously fucked me up today. I expected the start of Phase 3 to be tough, but I also thought I'd mastered Chest & Back by the end of Phase 1. Clearly, I was delusional. Before this morning, I'd started to miss Scott Fifer and Maren S. (of "German potato soup!" fame), but after today's excruciating Chest & Back session, I'm relieved that I'll only see them one more time before my 90 days are done.
The good news? On just about every exercise (standard push-ups, wide-grip pull-ups, military push-ups, reverse-grip chin-ups, etc.), I increased my reps. And although I was terrible at Diamond Push-Ups during Phase 1 (I did a lot of them from my knees), I cranked out both sets today with good, clean form.
But sadly, there's more bad news than good. First of all, early in the workout, my shoulders started stiffening and locking up. Soon, every time I attempted a pull-up, I felt like I couldn't get my arms over my head. The intensity of the various push-up moves depleted me; then, when I turned to do my pull-ups and chin-ups, I had to exert myself more than usual, and ended up thrashing around just to get up for my last few reps. I had to pause the DVD and stop for a couple of breaks -- something I haven't had to do with Chest & Back since Day 1. Plus, I didn't increase the weights I used for Heavy Pants, Lawnmowers or Back Flys. Worst of all, I completely ran out of gas as I dove into my last set of Dive Bomber Push-Ups. My arms turned to jelly, and I collapsed. I tried to complete the set by modifying the move and starting from my knees instead. No go. I did another belly flop. Thankfully, it was the final exercise in Chest & Back, so I moved on to Ab Ripper X (which also proved to be a greater challenge for me than usual), but this marks the first time I didn't fully complete a P90X workout.
M thinks I'm just feeling off today because we stayed out late last night, and didn't hit the sack until close to 2 a.m. (This morning, we didn't roll out of bed until 9 a.m. -- almost four hours later than usual.) I have a different theory, though: I suspect that this shock to the system was intentional, and that Tony wanted to make clear that Phase 3 or not, we're still his bitches.
I can't believe I'm saying this, but I'm actually relieved that I have Plyo tomorrow.
