“One week down..” LesMills Combat: Day 6 of 90

Finished up the week with Combat 30 and Pump Challenge last night.  I haven’t felt good the last couple of days.  Lots of flu and cold are going around and my body has been aching.  I have been hitting the Vitamin C and taking on excess calories to fight the symptoms.  As I write this on the train, coughing is going on all around me.  It’s like I’m riding in a human petri dish.  Also, the first week of a new program, my body always responds strangely as it accommodates itself to the new stuff.  There is also the diet adjustment.  I was actually going to skip last night and, at the last minute, thought that if I push through and do it, I will accomplish two things.

First, every workout program requires discipline.  As you start out each new program, whatever your program might be, you cannot come off the blocks with excuses.  It’s important to be rigorous when you start in the expectations you have for yourself.  It sets a bar.  Excuses are real easy.  Ask anybody.  They’ll think one up for you because 95% of the population has them to spare.  The first thing I knew I was doing, by pushing through, was setting my personal bar.  It’s important.

The second thing I wanted to do was keep my body in a rhythm.  When you are “setting the bar”, the rhythm is critical.  If you don’t put the pattern in place, life will set one for you.  At that point, you are no longer in control.  Then you can go right back to looking for excuses…because they will grow.  Next thing you know, you are a “resolutionary.”  What is that?  That’s the person that every gym, workout program and diet system is looking for.  The person who has a great intention, seals it with a financial commitment (which is what the big three are really looking for) and then fails to follow through. 

The gyms are the biggest culprits.  There are commercials every two minutes in January.  What were you expecting?  Someone had to buy up all that excess ad time now that the elections are over!!  They KNOW that 90% of the well-intentioned will be crowding annoyances in the gym for about three weeks.  Then, they will disappear, leaving monthly commitments of $10 to $35 in their wake and lots of unused time on the new equipment that was bought.  Perfect.  Collect the money and the equipment doesn’t get used!  It’s just like when YOU bought the exercise machine and then had it become a giant dusty clothes rack.  Except, with the gym membership, you now have more room in your house!

So, I wanted my body to know that I am serious.  I am not a resolutionary.  It isn’t easy.  It’s not supposed to be.

The first week of Combat was pretty good.  I am enjoying it.  What am I feeling?  First, I am sore in some new places.  My thighs and hip flexors are especially tender.  The workout is heavier on the legs than most.  They do not really stretch before the programs, which is something I may have to integrate.  It’s hard to get the most out of the kicking routines without a good warmup…especially if you are stiff from the last one.

The oblique muscles around my ribcage are also sore.  There is a lot of punching that, if you are doing the forms right, involve a good deal of body rotation as you are doing your uppercuts and hooks.  Those two types of punches, compared to the jabs, use a ton of your oblique muscles, and I am feeling it.

The HIIT routines are tough.  Good workouts with plenty of pushup and weight add-ins.  The Power and Plyo were tough but doable.  I did not finish every set of each one, but I was very close.  I will be there this week.

I am also doing the Pump Weight Workouts as well.  I am not doing the side routines…just the Pump Challenge, Burn, Shred, etc.  I am using them to augment Combat.

Then, of course, there is Ab Ripper X, which needs a lot of improvement.  I will say this, though.  Doing them on sore obliques is a challenge.  I will get there.

 
So, week one is in the books.  Feels great to be back.  I like Dan and Rach (short for Rachel) better than I liked Shaun T.  I also like all the supporting castmates.  Different body types and no shleppers.  Week two is coming up starting tomorrow and today is my off-day.  That means a 17 minute ARX and then I am done.  17 minutes?  God.  You can do anything in 17 minutes…right?  Over and out!

"Somedays, life gets in the way" LesMills Combat: Day 5 of 90

Sometimes life gets in the way.  The other night when I was doing my workout, I moved a ceiling tile so that I could do the weight work.  When I did, a speck of the tile...a speck...dropped into my eye.  I thought it would find its way out of my eye.  Nope.  A day and half later, this evening, there I was in the ER having the eye flushed and looked at.  The doc said he couldn't see anything but that I had an abrasion on the cornea.  I know there was an abrasion...it was from the thing he couldn't find that was scratching the crap out of my eye.  Well, when I got home, I managed to swab the eye and get the speck out.  While all this was going on, it felt like my guts were falling out.  It felt like the flu was coming on.

So I got home tonight and had some chicken soup and had a cup full of trail mix.  You know what?  I felt better.  So I decided to push through.  HIIT: Plyo.  Went up and changed.

I got through the entire thing.  Needed a few breaks but not unusual for week one of a new workout.  I sweat like crazy and finished it.  It felt good.  It felt really good to get through the workout despite the nausea that had started and the eye thing.

HIIT: Plyo is a rough routine on the legs.  Luckily, my legs and plyo have always been my strength.  So it was a good night to push through.  The one thing I don't like to allow is for a program to be derailed.  In P90X and Insanity, I would just push the routine through a rest day, so I could finish on time.

That's the lesson of the day.  Don't stop.  Unless you absolutely have to, you stay with it.  Sometimes life gets in the way.  If you let it, it will stop your progress.  So don't let it. 

"WT..H..What do you MEAN I can't do ARX??" LesMills Combat: Day 4 of 90

It's only been a couple of months!!  I can't have lost it that fast.  I was killing on AbRipper X.  I was doing more than every person on the DVD.  All of them.  Better.  Stronger.  Faster.

I just did the program.  I couldn't finish.  COULDN'T FINISH.

Okay, I know a body over forty years old...a little over forty...loses its fitness really fast.  But it hasn't been that long.  You know what lesson I learned today?  Consistency.  You can't take long breaks.  You have to keep going.  Not like a maniac, but enough that your body still exercises and remembers (twitch muscles here) how to exert.

 I have a long way to go here but, in 30 days, I will be back to my Ab Ripping self.  That's a promise.  To me.  Because the only promises that count in Beachbody are the ones you make, and keep, to yourself.

By the way, today was rest day.  ARX only takes 17 minutes...so I did it.  Just what I needed, a seventeen minute wake up call.  See you tomorrow.  HIIT: Plyo.  All new.

“Ughhhhh, now THAT’s Beachbody" Les Mills Combat: Day 3of 90

Okay.  Sore.  Yep, sore to the core.  Arms.  Lower back is a little sore.  Hamstrings too.  Neck and shoulders?  That one is a bit new.  Must have been the core weight work in the HIIT training.  There was a lot of dumbbell work and I was using the 15's.  Welcome to week one of a tough Beachbody routine.  I have blogged this before but I will blog it again…sore is good.  Sore is your body telling you that you are doing something better and harder that will result in better conditioning.  Pain is not good, but sore is your friend.  When you get sore, that is the first time you consider quitting.  Don’t.  This is my third time being sore at the start of a program.  You will get through it. 

Today is Combat 45 and Pump Challenge.  I am actually looking forward to Combat 45 to just activate the stiff areas.  I also have to remember to hydrate.  It’s winter.  My body gets really dehydrated in winter and I have to remember to hydrate heavily and reduce the coffee intake.  Fifty year old muscles have to stay limber.

Okay, I will let you know later how the Day Three workout goes!

Later:

Not bad.  I thought it would be worse.  I was sore when the workout started but I made sure to hydrate well.  So when the workout started, I was sore in many different places and had to shake out the cobwebs.  It took about 10 minutes and I was good.  I am still sore, but it is getting a lot better.  My body is responding.  The whole workout, including Pump, took about an hour and 5 minutes with the break I took in between.

I'm fifty years old.  If I can do it, you can too.  Stick with it.  Let your body absorb the changes.  It won't come without soreness or stiffness.  If you have pain, take a rest, but otherwise, you push through.  Keep going!

Tomorrow is rest day which means Ab Ripper X.  20 minutes of working the abs back into shape.  Stay with it!

"Damn, I'm Sore" Les Mills Combat: Day 2 of 90

No Soreness?

It’s weird but, usually, in the first week of a new Beachbody program, I am sore.  After P90X and Insanity, I kind of plan for it.  After almost two months off, I was REALLY planning on it.  Nothing.  That’s weird.  I’m fifty years old.  I should feel like crap.  Today is HIIT: Power.

Later:  Wow.  That workout was brutal.  Thirty minutes but the HIIT training uses weights and a lot of pushups and squats.  I am sore right now.  And tired.  What was this?  A day two surprise?  Thank god there is no Pump today.  I was sweating.  A lot.  Toward the end, when I couldn’t do anymore burpies (this combination of pushup and squat, over and over and over again), I just was on my knees, breathing heavy, and watching this little puddle of salt water form under my nose.  I was laughing a little…this is what I expected.

Dan, of Combat, was working out like an animal.  I used my 15 lb dumbbells for this set.  The DVD said to use 15-20 for advanced.  I opted for 15 because I don’t have 20’s.  I do have 25’s and considered them.  Mid-way through the routine, I was very happy that I pitched that idea.  Yep, overshot the runway again.  15’s it is.  Wednesday or Thursday (I have to check my schedule) is HIIT: Plyo.  Based on the experience I just had, that should be interesting.

Now THIS is how I was expecting to feel yesterday.  Burned out.

My diet is back on track as well.  The only difference is that with my rebuilt molars and the temporary caps that are on them, I can’t have my nut mix.  I was told not to chomp.  So, I will be dealing with softened granola.  I also put down some creatine and protein.  These muscles are going to need some help.

I know one thing.  Based on how I feel right now, I am going to be sore tomorrow.

"Starting Again" Les Mills Combat: Day 1 of 90

Every time I start a new Beachbody Program, it’s a new beginning.  I always think that I am more ready for this one than the last, and I always overshoot the runway.  This one though was okay.  I guess.  I just started Les Mills Combat.  Day one is Combat 30.  I am going to do it with Les Mills Pump.  I have my reasons, not the least of which is not finishing Pump and wanting to maximize the money I spent.  Ha ha.

I started 2012 with P90X in February.  Great results.  Then I did Insanity in May.  Great results…but I didn’t like it as much as P90X.  I took August off because of vacations but went to the gym to run.  Then I did Les Mills Pump in September.  After about 50 days, I got a pretty good sinus infection that required antibiotics and pretty much sapped all my strength.  So, I stopped toward the end of October.  I spent November and December selling my Christmas novel, A Faithful Elf.  I also spent the end of November and all of December treating a double root canal situation that was also causing me a lot of pain.

So here I am now, root canals done, sinuses clear, and with a new program.  The brand new Les Mills Combat.

Day One was not really that hard.  That’s kind of unusual.  P90X and Insanity were brutal.  Pump was not that big a deal at all.  In fact, through Pump, I found myself doing it with my treadmill just to make sure I was sweating.  I can say, though, that with Combat 30, I was sweating.  That’s good.  There was quite a bit of kicking, which is also good.  I had to get used to the moves and motions.  That’s the usual week one issues, though.  It was similar in ways to P90X’s Kempo X, which was one of my favorite routines.  I did Pump Challenge with it.  Again, Pump really does not challenge me that much.  I don’t know why.  It should be different though if I sweat it out with Combat first…we will find out eh?

Okay, tomorrow is something called HIIT: Power.  No Pump.  Let’s see how this goes.