Well, my original plan was to get up at 6:15 this morning to kind of "practice" getting up at the regular time that I would need to get up to have the time to get my workout in before work... But since I had the day off (happy MLK Day everyone!), I slept in till 10:00. Oh well. I still got dressed and went straight downstairs to officially start my P90X journey, odyssey, self-torture, whatever you want to call it! For those who are unfamiliar with the program, there are three different ways you can do it, P90X Classic, P90X doubles (for truly sick people), and P90X Lean, which is the one I'm doing. This one focuses a little more on cardio training and a little less on building muscle strength. This is not to suggest that it's easier! The booklet even says so (I think it said something about it being "no picnic" so, yeah.)! The first workout is Core Synergistics... Kind of a big word... Kind of a big workout. And what's that first word, Core? Crap. What if I have no core strength whatsoever?? I can barely do a real sit-up! The logical, reasonable part of my brain tells me "well, that just means this is the kind of workout you need." I want to tell it to shut up, but I know it's right. So I gather my equipment, hit the play button, and pray that I make it out alive.
It starts out nicely enough, some neck rolls, some nice stretches... I soon realize Tony only does this to get on your good side before he swoops in to kill you. After a warm up that alone puts me out of breath, we start in on a bunch of push-ups. Not just regular push ups either! In these, they want you to stack one foot on top of the other, and then have one hand back further than the other, then you switch sides every 5 reps! I'm not the greatest at push ups mind you, I can do the girl ones that you do on your knees okay, but I'm watching the girls in this video do their push-ups... and they're not on their knees. So I try to do them as it shows on the video and can barely get five in. Lame. But, wait a sec, suddenly Tony shows one of the gals doing a modification! She has one knee on the ground, and is holding other leg up behind her. This looks a little more do-able! And it is!! It's still hard, still works me really good, but I can get more reps in, and so it feels like I'm accomplishing a little more than I would otherwise! Okay, I'm already feeling it, and I've got like, 45 minutes to go... oh boy... There are a grundle of different exercises that I'm learning here, some of them I wouldn't have considered core exercises, in fact, I soon learn that there's more to core strength than just abs. You're working everything from the chest down to your glutes! I also realize that when Tony says that a certain exercise is his favorite, you have reason to be scared. One of his little "favorites" (he's got a lot), is the Dreya Roll. The bane of my existence. You begin standing. Then you crouch down to almost a seated position, but instead of sitting, you roll backward all the way to your shoulders, bring your legs up over your head behind you, then roll back up to your feet, stand up do it all over again! I hate them. I can only do, like, three before collapsing in a twitching, sweaty heap. Oh well, it's a tough one, and it's the best I can do for now! "Do Your Best, Forget the Rest." After about 50 minutes of madness, Tony announces a optional bonus round. I'm exhausted. I forgo the bonus round for now, but hopefully I'll be up for giving it a shot next week. After a much welcomed cool down, I hit the showers. My Day 1 workout is done!
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