I'm a little under the weather, but not enough to justify scuttling my workout.
After some warm-up (I did 2 double-unders!), we practiced power jerks again -- and I think I tried to go too heavy. On my last rep, I attempted to heave a barbell loaded with more weight than my own bodyweight, and ended up awkwardly throwing it to the floor. I hope I didn't tweak my lower back.
As usual, the metcon was an ass-kicker:
AMRAP in 10 minutes:
10 Hanging Toes-to-Bar
20 Dumbbell Snatches (25% of bodyweight)
10 Push-Ups
I did 4 rounds and 12 reps before time ran out.
After I got home, I threw in my Tony Horton Killer Abs DVD for good measure, which was probably a mistake. Not only was my midsection wrecked from the toes-to-bars, I haven't attempted any kind of workout that isolates the core like this in a while. I used to whip through this workout with no problems, but by the end of today's session, I was wiped out.
I finished the first 1000 meters in 4:06, and the second 1000 meters in 4:05. My short-term goal -- which I hope to achieve by the end of next week -- is to finish a 2000-meter row (without a break) in less than 8:10. Serious doubt is creeping in.
Afterwards, I popped in my Fountain of Youth yoga DVD. In my opinion, one of the drawbacks of CrossFit is that there's not much of an emphasis placed on stretching, flexibility and balance, so it was nice to squeeze in some sun salutations and warrior poses. After a hard row, I definitely needed to work the lactic acid out of my aching legs.
I woke up with sore hamstrings, so I decided to go easy on my legs this morning. After scouring my One-on-One set for a workout that requires zero lower body work, I popped in Tony Horton's "Diamond Delts" DVD.
Diamond Delts consists of three circuits of three shoulder exercises -- and each circuit is done twice:
Circuit One (2x)
Pike Presses
Military Presses
6-Direction Shoulder Flies
Circuit Two (2x)
Pike Presses (again)
Seated Shoulder Flies
Bent-Over Shoulder Flies
Circuit Three (2x)
Deep Swimmer's Presses
Upright Row / Y-Presses (sort of like a dumbbell clean and jerk, if you were to muscle up the weight instead of exploding down below it)
Lying Rotator Cuff Backhands
This was the first time I'd done this workout, but quickly concluded that depending on one's fitness goals, Diamond Delts is either a fantastic shoulder workout or a totally efficient way to kill a half-hour. In some ways, this workout is illustrative of one of the key differences between Tony Horton's Beachbody programs and CrossFit, in that P90X, P90X+ and the One-on-One series are focused primarily on getting you "ripped," while CrossFit prioritizes general fitness over physical appearance.
Yes, Tony also talks a lot about the importance of functional fitness, and a bunch of his workouts do more than just make you look good. For instance, P90X Plyo certainly helps develop power and speed, and Yoga X is awesome for building balance, flexibility and strength. But P90X and its progeny also rely heavily on isometric moves and advocate doing reps to exhaustion -- methods that are terrific for bodybuilding (i.e., developing muscle size and definition), but not necessarily optimal for building power and strength. Instead, the aim is to spend 90 days getting that "ripped" look when you take the "after" photo.
Diamond Delts fits right into this training approach. It's a thirty-minute session devoted entirely to shoulder exercises, and the reps per set that Tony recommends are all in the 8 to 12 range. When Tony flexes his back and shoulders for close-up shots (which he does repeatedly on this video), he's making his point clear: Do what he does, and you can get shredded like him.
And that's fine. Tony doesn't pretend to be ego-free, and I'm not going to, either. I'll readily admit that personal appearance plays a role in my decision to keep exercising regularly.
But keeping up appearances isn't -- and shouldn't be -- the ultimate goal. Getting "ripped" is a nice side benefit to enhancing fitness, but it's not enough to keep me motivated. For me, working to develop my general athleticism-- including skills, agility, speed, power, accuracy, endurance and strength -- is a much more sustainable and satisfying approach to exercise.
Don't get me wrong: I don't regret being introduced to the gateway drug to exercise otherwise known as Tony Horton. But these days, a workout focused exclusively on getting my delts to swell up like a bodybuilder's isn't exactly what I want to accomplish. So I found today's session to be a little disappointing -- mostly because it didn't resonate with me given my current goals. (But also because I'm kind of tired of Tony's and Mason's schtick.)
I did Tony Horton's 20-minute One-on-One Killer Abs workout this morning, but M just got Chalene Johnson's newest BeachBody home fitness program, TurboFire, and wanted to test drive the HIIT 15 DVD this evening, so I joined her.
As with Chalene's other programs, TurboFire features colorfully-dressed and ridiculously peppy fitness zombies -- almost all female -- enthusiastically doing cardio on a brightly-lit studio set. HIIT 15 consists of three circuits -- each featuring three 30-to-40 second long sequences of jumps, squats, lunges, and the like.
HIIT 15's not as intense as (and definitely shorter than) a typical Insanity workout, and it's definitely geared towards a female audience, but I certainly broke a sweat. M's about to start the full 20-week TurboFire program, and it's possible I'll join her again on a CrossFit off-day just for kicks. Especially if, say, I happened to eat four mini-cupcakes earlier in the day.
Lest you think that I've wholly abandoned Tony for CrossFit, I'll have you know that my morning workout consisted solely of Fountain of Youth yoga. Having not done any yoga for a couple of weeks, my glutes and hamstrings were burning during the Warrior poses, but by the end of the session, I was back in the flow and got nicely stretched out.
(But honestly? I kind of wish I'd thrown in a batshit-crazy CrossFit metcon session.)
Even though I feel kind of guilty for not pushing myself harder on recovery days, I know I need a break. Between work and kids and chores and everything else, I just don't have the energy to go balls-out to-the-wall seven days a week.
No Turbulence Training for me today. My legs are beat, and I felt the need to rest 'em for a while. So this morning, I decided to try the "Just Arms" workout from Tony Horton's One-on-One series.
It's just as advertised: Nothing but exercises for the arms. The session consists of 47 minutes of bicep, forearm and triceps exercises, broken up into three supersets and a bonus round.
None of the bicep or triceps moves are new to P90X grads, but for the first time in any of the workout videos I've seen from Tony Horton, he throws in a bunch of wrist and forearm exercises. (Good thing, too -- my forearms are puny.)
Without further ado, here's a list of the sleeve-busters Tony leads us through:
Three-Way Forearm Curls (rotations, standard curls and reverse curls)
Side Tri Rises
Repeat the superset.
Bonus Round:
Crazy 8's (just like Static Arm Curls from P90X Shoulders & Arms, but you do 8 bicep curls before switching to the other arm, and each arm goes twice, for a total of 32 curls while the other arm is held at a 90-degree angle)
Back Forearm Curls
Hammer Curls
Tricep Throws
Crazy 8's (again)
And that's it.
Overall, this isn't a bad workout. It's standard, straightforward isolation weight training, pumping up your arms while still allowing the rest of your body to rest and recover.
But in the end, I felt a little unsatisfied in a way that I don't when I'm doing interval training or compound bodyweight exercises. Perhaps it's because I'm not looking to be a bodybuilder; working just one series of muscles in isolation doesn't hold much appeal for me.
But it's also because I feel totally inadequate watching Tony and coming to the realization that I can't lift nearly as heavy as he can. And he's in his 50s.
Unbelievably creaky/rickety this morning, and even 45 minutes of yoga didn't loosen me up much. I guess there are limits to even Tony Horton's abilities.
The power was out when I woke up this morning in pitch darkness. No electricity = no TV or DVD player = no Tony Horton = more sleep for me.
This also meant having to squeeze in a session of yoga after dinner, when I'd rather be watching "Lost" or reading one of the many unfinished books gathering dust on my nightstand. But the silver lining is that like most people, my body's a lot more flexible at night than it is in the morning, and I ended up with an unusually satisfying and super-stretchy workout. I'm a Tin Man in the A.M., and Gumby in the P.M.
I struggled a little bit during my morning session of Upper Plus. Every time I cycle off of a Recovery Week, I come back feeling a little...off. This was most evident in my pull-up sets -- I petered out much sooner than I expected. After finishing the workout, I decided to take a raincheck on Abs / Core Plus.
But feeling guilty, I decided to knock off Abs / Core Plus tonight, after the kids had gone to bed. I felt much better this evening; not only did I find Abs / Core Plus to be less than challenging (I much prefer Killer Abs from Tony Horton's One-on-One series), I joined M as she did the "I Got Abs!" workout from Chalene Johnson's ChaLEAN Extreme program. You wouldn't know it from Chalene's exercise garb (she's clearly a Bedazzler fan) or from the cheesy name of this video, but it delivered a pretty damn decent core workout.
Sorry about not posting for the past couple of days -- I've been traveling for work and insanely busy.
In any event, I'm happy to report that my hotel room not only has a DVD player, but also ample room in which to exercise. (Thank you, W Hotels -- but free WiFi would have been nice, too.) Also? It's the end of my Recovery Week, and my low-key workouts haven't required any extra equipment. I didn't even need to venture down to the hotel gym.
Business travel is unfun, but there is a silver lining: I was able to treat myself to a deep tissue massage at the hotel spa today. The therapist told me that my back is waaaay too tight and that I need more frequent massages. I'm skeptical -- she also tried to sell me a pair of $30 acupressure balls that look no different than the little super-bouncy rubber balls you get for 25 cents each in supermarket vending machines -- but I'll use any excuse to indulge in a monthly massage.
I've read that the Power 90 Road Warrior video in the Tony Horton One-on-One series isn't super-intense, so I thought I'd check it out as part of my Recovery Week.
Now that I've completed it, I can confirm that: (1) Power 90 Road Warrior is nowhere near as challenging as many of the workouts we've seen from Tony, but (2) it's tough enough to rival Core Synergistics as a damn satisfying, full-body Recovery Week session.
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?
I'm supposed to be kicking off another Recovery Week today, but there are a few workouts that I skipped when I was out of town a couple of weeks ago, so for the sake of being totally anal about it, I decided to go back and knock 'em off.
After today's workout, I'm sort of regretting that decision.
30-15 was a kick in the balls. Even after I ramped down to 10 pull-ups per set instead of Tony's 15, attempting 12 sets of 30 push-ups and 12 sets of even 10 pull-ups was neither fun nor successful: I ended up quitting before finishing my last two sets of push-ups and pull-ups.
I feel like I'm struggling (more than usual) to finish my sets of pull-ups and chin-ups. It's probably because I haven't been diligently "greasing the groove" by cranking out short sets of pull-ups every time I pop into the garage. In other words, I've been lazy.
Forty-five minutes of yoga is perfect. It's enough to get me feeling nice and stretchy and balanced and calm -- but without feeling like I just spent ten percent of my waking hours doing vinyasa sequences.
I also love doing yoga at home. I can shake and stumble without anyone watching or judging, which means I can focus on my form rather than worrying about how I'm stacking up next to more devoted, accomplished yogis.
Maybe it's just me, but the prospect of going to yoga classes intimidates me. (I've tried taking yoga classes before at Canyon Ranch, but that's not the same thing.) I have no clue about yoga etiquette. (Where do I set up? How far apart are our mats supposed to be? Can I borrow a yoga block? Is it a problem if I fart during Downward Dog?) I suppose I could get more comfortable with more informal classes through groups like Yoga To The People, but honestly, I much prefer practicing my own brand of wobbly yoga in my garage, where the only people who point and laugh are my wife and kids.
I have a cold. But I did my recovery exercises today, and threw in some kettlebell swings nonetheless. It didn't make me feel any better, but hey -- it didn't make me feel any worse, either.
