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Hi All,

Well, I’m back from vacation. I got burnt… big time. But, more on that some other time, because…

Today is my Independence Day journal entry! This is the day that I officially started P90X! Bring It!

July 4, 2007 – Independence Day

Day 1: Chest & Back, Ab Ripper X

WOWY! I haven’t done anything like that in a while. In fact, I’m not sure that I’ve ever done anything like that. I did some circuit training in high school, but I don’t think I ever did it for an hour and fifteen minutes straight, or as intensely. Having said that, I did take it pretty easy on myself.

The P90X program has three phases. The P90X Fitness Guide says that during the first phase “your goal should be to master each movement and finish the workouts in one piece.” It goes on to recommend that you “focus less on the amount of weight you are lifting and instead try to achieve your desired number of repetitions while maintaining strict form.”

The first phase lasts four weeks. So, I figure that I should take it especially easy during the first week and concentrate on my form, especially since I have a history of shoulder and neck problems.

While I did do every set, I certainly did not even do close to as many reps as Tony and Co. I found myself doing an awful lot of huffing and puffing with my hands on my knees or sucking on my water bottle while Tony and Co. were pumping out more reps.

I felt especially pathetic during Ab Ripper X, which includes 349+ reps of various core exercises. I think I pumped out no more than 200 reps myself.

Here’s my Chest & Back Stats:

• Standard Push-Ups: 12, 8
• Wide Front Pull-Ups: 5, 3
• Military Push-Ups: 10, 6
• Reverse Grip Chin-Ups: 5, 3
• Wide Fly Push-Ups: 10, 10
• Closed Grip Overhand Pull-Ups: 3, 2
• Decline Push-Ups: 8, 5
• Heavy Pants: 10, 10 orange
• Diamond Push-Ups: 10, 3
• Lawnmowers: 12, 15 orange
• Dive-Bomber Push-Ups: 10, 5
• Back Flys: 10, 10 orange

As you can see, I definitely went a little too hard during the first set as my numbers dropped significantly across the board during the second set. Also, I think I’ll try using the bands or a chair for the pull-ups next week, as doing 2-5 reps per pull-up set doesn’t seem to be enough to get the type of gains I would like to see.

It sure was fun though!

It’s fascinating to think back to Day 1, Independence Day, in light of the present. P90X continues to make me huff and puff, but this will always be the case as I will always be able to push harder. I still can’t get through all the Ab Ripper X reps, but I’m doing significantly more now than on Day 1, and my abs and core are much stronger. I remember being absolutely exhausted after my first session with P90X… Now I’m frequently doing two per day!

This journal entry provides a brief history of my life as it relates to fitness and nutrition:

July 1, 2007

My History

I was a three sport (football, basketball, baseball) varsity athlete in high school. My best sport was baseball. My senior year I was a team captain and the only player in the league to be unanimously selected to the all-star team (every coach voted for me). As far as I know, I still hold my high school’s record for stolen bases in a season (24 steals in 24 games).

I could have played college ball, but I decided to focus on academics instead and, after I graduated from H.S. in ’98, I wound up at a Great Books school, St. John’s College in Santa Fe, NM. While going to St. John’s was the best decision that I have ever made (I would encourage all aspiring young scholars to check it out), I was too busy exercising my brain to spend much time exercising my body and my physical prowess slowly wasted away.

To make a long story short, in high school I suffered a rash of shoulder and neck injuries during my junior year that made me ineffective on the field and forced me to sit out my senior football and basketball seasons. Determined to make a come back and have a great baseball season, I did a ton of physical therapy and, for the first time, hit the weights pretty hard. When I graduated from high school, I was a muscular 5’ 9” and 190 lbs. As I sit here typing today, I am still 5’ 9”, and my weight fluctuates between a relatively weak 150-155 lbs.

However, attention to my physical health has hardly been entirely absent in the nine years since I graduated high school. In fact, my nutritional health has been quite good, much better than it was in high school. I have learned a great deal about nutrition, and I credit my current 11% body fat reading to my nutritional health over the past nine years. My nutritional health combined with the occasional hike/ski in the Santa Fe mountains (sometimes less occasional than others) has kept my feeling physically alive… but, all the while, I’ve been feeling increasingly weak.

That time that I mention during my junior year of high school where I seemed to be getting injured every week really impressed upon me the importance of physical fitness in order to avoid injuries. Today, I remember those injuries well because I am still affected by them. However, those problem spots, which I will get into in more detail later, aren’t as problematic as they were just over a month ago before I started P90X!

Next up is my journal entry and numbers for the P90X Fit Test:

June 29, 2007

The P90X Fit Test

After completing the “Prep” part of the P90X Prep & Fit Test, I warmed up for about 10 min. with the Cardio X warm up and began the hard part of the P90X Prep & Fit Test… the “Fit” part.

The results:

• Pull Ups: 5 (P90X min: 3)
• Vertical Leap: 21” (P90X min: 5”)
• Push Ups: 18 with bars (P90X min: 15)
• Toe Touch: +5” (P90X min: -6”)
• Wall Squat: 2 min. (P90X min: 1 min.)
• Bicep Curls: 45 with orange band (P90X min: 10 with 20 lbs.)
• In & Outs: 50 (P90X min: 25)
• Heart Rate Maximizer:
  • Immediately following 2 min. of jumping jacks: 152 bpm
  • 1 min. after stopping: 108 bpm
  • 2 min. after stopping: 98 bpm
  • 3 min. after stopping: 93 bpm
  • 4 min. after stopping: 87 bpm
  • (P90X min: Finish the 2 min. of jumping jacks)

I Passed!!!

It was hard though. And, on the upper body strength exercises (pull ups, push ups, and bicep curls), I didn’t pass by much. With the bicep curls, I should have used a heavier band. With most all of the exercises, my form was lacking at times.

The most difficult part was knowing when I was at the point of “failure” (to which you are supposed to perform all the exercises). The P90X Fitness Guide says: “Physically ‘to failure’ is when your body stops you by not being able to go any further without causing injury. Do not force past failure.” Okay, but I am so out of touch with my physical limitations at present that I was always unsure of whether one more rep would cause injury.

This reminds me of my experiences over the past few years with sprinting. In H.S. I was quite fast. I hold my school’s record for stolen bases in a season with 24 in 24 games. However, although my brain seems to think I can still run that fast, my legs object every time I try by instantly cramping as soon as I take my first sprinting steps. I’ve learned to manage by just not trying to run that fast the few times I’ve been in situations where I’ve wanted to run since H.S… (no, none of them involved the police).

Getting back to the question of “failure” in the P90X Fit Test, my best example was the wall squat. Two minutes into it, I was in pain and my left leg was shaking like crazy. However, I continued to hold the squat for another minute, at which point both my legs were shaking like crazy. I could have gone longer, but I didn’t want to hurt myself. So, at what point did I fail exactly?… I’m not sure.

However, I am sure that I passed!

P90X… Here I Come!

Bring It!!!

It’s cool to think about how far I have come just over the past month plus. I now do set after set of what I was maxing out at when I did the P90X Fit Test, and I feel much more in tune with my body’s ever-increasing limitations.

Here’s my journal entry and numbers for the P90X Prep Test:

June 28, 2007

The P90X Prep Test

I got up this morning pumped to take the P90X Prep & Fit Test… and somewhat concerned that I might fail.

Although I was pumped, I tried not to be. As the first thing I did upon waking up was to strap my heart rate monitor around my chest and get back into bed. I dozed for about a half-hour, checking my heart rate every few minutes and moving nothing other than my breath. The reading fluctuated from 50 to 65, but the number I saw most often (the mode) was definitely 53 and it seemed like the mean and median where about 53 as well.

So, I decided to make it official:

• Resting Heart Rate Prior to Day 1: 53 bpm.

After a quick bite to eat, it was time to take my body measurements.

First, I stripped down to my birthday suit, got on my new fancy scale (more on this some other time), and received the following readings.

• Body Fat: 11%
• Weight: 153 lbs.

Then, I put my shorts back on and enlisted my sister and my grandmother’s old tape measure to give me a hand with the following measurements:

• Chest: 37” (around nipples)
• Waist: 32” (around belly button)
• Hips: 35” (widest part)
• Thighs: 18” (midpoint)
• Arms: 12” (peak of flexed biceps)

Next, I plopped my digital camera in my sister’s hands and we took my “Before Photos”. With that, the Prep part of the P90X Prep & Fit Test was done.

Now, the real fun began with the P90X Fit Test…

If you would like to take a look at my “Before Photos”, check out my P90X Gallery in the MDB Community Message Boards. My “Before Photos” are the ones marked “Day 0″.

Hi Again Everyone,

As promised, I’m going to start posting my previous journal entries. I will indent them so they are easy to distinguish from my “commentary”.

Here’s the first entry. Short but sweet. Of course, at the time, I had no idea what this was going to become…

June 27, 2007

My Personal Declaration of Independence

Well, I’ve determined to take the P90X Prep and Fit Test tomorrow, begin the P90X program on Independence Day, and honor the U.S.A.’s founders and founding ideals by declaring my own Independence from my recent sedentary lifestyle and the resulting feeling of physical weakness!

I will use this journal to record my experiences with P90X and hold myself accountable.

‘Til tomorrow…

The P90X Prep and Fit Test is essentially broken up into two parts: the Prep part and the Fit part. My next post will detail my experience with the P90X Prep Test.