Round 3 / Day 66: One-on-One with Tony Horton - Killer Abs

I bought the entire Volume 1 set of Tony Horton's One-on-One series, but I wonder if anyone who made a standalone purchase of the Killer Abs DVD feels gypped. Including shipping and handling, it costs about one-fifth of the price of the entire P90X set, and consists of just two of Tony's previously-released ab workouts -- Ab Ripper 200 and Ab Ripper X -- back-to-back. (And he manages to forget to do one of the exercises to boot.) Don't get me wrong: It's a good, gut-churning session and all, but couldn't Tony (and BeachBody) have thrown in a few new moves just to lend this disc the illusion of being different enough to justify the $23 price tag?

Round 2 / Day 66: P90X Shoulders & Arms + Ab Ripper X

Even after upping my weights today, I found Shoulders & Arms to be a lot less challenging than it used to be. Or maybe I'm just tired of it.

One of P90X's strong points is that there's enough variety in the wokouts to keep most of  the routines fresh over a 90-day period. (Sadly, the shelf life of Tony's jokes is much, much shorter.) But I've been regularly doing P90X workouts for close to six months now, and while adding Insanity into the mix has helped stave off the tedium a bit, I'm definitely in autopilot mode now with P90X. I'm looking forward to the end of Round 2 not because I'm too exhausted to keep going, but because I can't wait to do something different.

P90X Day 66: Back & Biceps + Ab Ripper X

In Back & Biceps, Tony calls Towel Pull-Ups "one of [his] personal favorites," but that's because he's superhuman (and a show-off).  Me?  I can't stand them.

First of all, there's the whole wetting-the-towel thing.  Tony recommends that you soak your already-damp sweat rag with water from your bottle, which means: (1) your saturated towel will be rendered incapable of soaking up the perspiration that's puddling in your bodily creases and folds, (2) you're going to have to refill your now-depleted water bottle, and (3) you're probably going to spill water all over your mat or living room rug. The alternative, of course, is to keep your towel dry, but it'll be much harder to grip.

Then, there are the actual pull-ups themselves. I have difficulty even throwing the towel up and over the pull-up bar on the first try.  And when I try to do a pull-up with one hand gripping the bar and the other one gripping the dripping towel, it feels like my puny forearm muscles are going to rip apart.  I have a weak grip (unless I'm giving a handshake, in which case I squeeze extra hard so the recipient will marvel at my manliness and hand strength), so I'm sure I'd struggle with Towel Pull-Ups even if they were my first exercise of the day.  But in Back & Biceps, Tony introduces these fuckers a half-hour into the session -- AFTER we've already suffered through three sets of pull-ups (including the obscenely crazy Corn Cob Pull-ups), three sets of various back rows, and six sets of bicep-blasting curls.  Bastard.

As you can probably tell, I crashed and burned with Towel Pull-Ups today, managing to crank out only a handful before having to finish up the set with my foot on the washing machine.

On the plus side: With the exception of the aforementioned disaster, I cruised through Back & Biceps without much trouble.  It helps that I now know what to expect -- from Twenty Ones to In-Out Hammer Curls.  So without having to concentrate on how to perform the moves, I can now focus on more pressing matters, like how Bobby Stephenson needs a haircut, and how Katie the Interior Designer needs to be quiet.