P90X: Day 8

Chest and Back with Ab Ripper X

Welcome to week 2! So far, it has been an awesome and humbling P90X experience. Today I did Chest and Back with a great deal more effort than I did last week. When Tony Horton said, "Maximal effort here", there was definitely effort towards the maximum! I pushed away the chair for assisted pullups, instead using just my upper body muscles to achieve the desired results. For the first round I stuck with sets of 3 on all the pullup exercises and on the second round I found myself doing sets of 5 on all pullup exercises. They hurt a ton but I just imagine myself hanging above snakes, spiders, and palmetto bugs... this seems to give me the extra 'umfph' to get my chin above that bar, especially the palmetto bugs.

Ab ripper X went well. All exercises were performed with 15 reps or more, except that V-up exercise, sigh.

My thoughts on Week 1: Today starts week 2 of the P90X workout program. Last week was rough. The dieting, the working out, the carb crash are all very demanding mentally and physically. Regardless, I pushed through and completed all the DVD's allotted for that week. This week brings new challenges such as: increased effort, more straining, more determination is needed on my diet, and a new found fear of palmetto bugs. I see Week 1 as the base of the pyramid and the process of week 2 as building the next layer of foundation till it is complete Sunday.

Nutrition:
Breakfast: Wheat English Muffin, glass of skim milk
Morning Snack: String Cheese, non-fat yogurt
Lunch: Sliced Chicken, dried cranberries
Afternoon Snack: Banana
After workout: Protein Shake
Dinner: Chicken cooked with almonds, green beans, small salad with fat free dressing