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A week after I noticed that sore spot under my right shoulder blade, it had fully recovered. I was careful not to re-injure it during my second round with P90X Kenpo X.

July 16, 2007

Day 13: Kenpo X

I really had a good time with the Kenpo X workout again today.

While I have written in some detail about my concern for my shoulders when doing pull-ups, as I touched on in my letter to Coach Mcd, I believe the overly sore area beneath my right shoulder blade last week came from a little too much punching enthusiasm. After all, that sore spot did surface the morning after my first round of Kenpo X. Therefore, I was careful not to punch too hard this time.

Tony Horton’s tip of the day for Kenpo X is, “Don’t bang… Don’t bang the joints!” Good advice no doubt. However, perhaps he should add, “Don’t overextend… Don’t overextend your arms!”

I think this is precisely what I did. I was getting all into the punching… “Jab, Cross… Jab, Cross… Jab, Cross, Hook… Jab, Cross, Hook… Jab, Cross, Hook, Uppercut… Jab, Cross, Hook, Uppercut…” And, while I was not banging my joints, I do think I was overextending my arms, particularly on the cross punches.

With regard to that sore spot beneath my right shoulder blade, I think I just stretched it a little further than it wanted to go due to the ferocious force of my right fist!…

Watch out Mike Tyson cause I’m gonna knock you out!!!

Anyway, that sore spot beneath my right shoulder blade feels better now and I was careful not to re-injure it today.

When you are in the early stages of a workout routine, especially when you have not worked out in a while, it is important to monitor your body for budding problems and alter your workout accordingly. This is particularly true when beginning a routine as extreme as P90X. As stated in the P90X Fitness Guide, your goal during the first phase (first four weeks) of P90X is to “finish the workouts in one piece”.

My neck was still feeling a little stiff and my shoulders a little weak on Day 12, so I altered my workout accordingly.

July 15, 2007

Day 12: Legs & Back

Even though I skipped the yoga moves that seemed particularly hard on your neck yesterday, my neck was still a little stiff when I woke up this morning, so I decided not to do Ab Ripper X again today. However, I imagine that I’ll do it again, as scheduled, in a few days.

The rest of my body felt great. Once again, it stuck me that the Yoga X workout is well timed.

Once again, it struck me that the Legs & Back routine is well balanced. I pushed a little harder than last time and once again felt just maxed out at the end.

I felt much better about my performance with the pull-ups today than I have in either of the Chest & Back days or the Legs & Back day that I have done so far. I’m getting the hang of using the chair and getting a nice burn at the end of each set.

Rather than switching the position of my hands every two reps, as Tony suggests, during the Switch Grip Pull-Ups, I switched them every six reps (so only once) during the second set today. I felt like that was a good compromise between protecting my loose shoulders and getting some benefit from the switch. As my reps per set increase, I think I may stick to switching every six reps.

Here’s my Legs & Back stats:

• Reverse Grip Chin-Ups: 5, 6; 12, 16
• Wide Front Pull-Ups: 5, 5; 12, 12
• Closed Grip Overhand Pull-Ups: 5, 5; 12, 12
• Switch Grip Pull-Ups: 6, 6; 12, 12

I did the P90X Yoga X workout a little bit differently the second time through and I was glad that I did.

July 14, 2007

Day 11: Yoga X

When I did Yoga X last week, I attempted, more or less, all the moves and did my best to keep up with Tony & Co., even when I knew I was doing them improperly. I decided to do it a little differently this week.

Since I had the experience of trying everything last week, I decided to go a little more slowly this week and spend more time watching the video.

One of my problems with yoga, although I do have some experience with it, is that I am not so accustomed to it that it seems to come naturally. I have done thousands of push-ups in my 27 years (although not many in the last 9) and I can hit the deck and pump them out with perfect form until I get tired. This is not the case with yoga. However, this is certainly not due purely to my lack of experience.

I’d have to say that yoga is inherently more complex than strength training. Form is of supreme importance in both, to be sure… as is breath. However, it strikes me that, with strength training, once you have the form down, you, more or less, have it down. When you want to make it more difficult you add more weight. But with yoga, when you have it down, in addition to holding poses for longer and stretching farther, you add more complexity.

It is telling that the Hindu tradition dictates that one should learn yoga only under the direction of an instructor. Now, there are many reasons for this, many of which don’t apply to the way yoga tends to be done in the U.S., and I’ll write about these more in the future, but I find it noteworthy that my high school football coach (who was also my middle school baseball coach) never told me, “Only do bicep curls under the direction of an instructor.” Rather, when I first approached him about lifting weights, he wanted me to go out and buy some free weights for myself and get to work pumping iron.

Anyway, I did spend less time doing the yoga and more time watching Tony & Co. today. Anytime I was not sure exactly where my feet were supposed to be, how flat my back was supposed to be, the position of my arms, etc., I stopped and checked out the video. I even stopped entirely for about 15 minutes in the middle when the moves get especially difficult and just watched. I learned a lot, and think I’ll do much better next week.

Once again, even though I spent less time in a state of discomfort this time than last time, I cried during the ohms at the end of the routine. Once again, I was physically and emotionally exhausted. Once again, I have been emotional all day, alternating between feelings of anger and sadness for the most part. However, as I wrote last week, this is to be expected… and won’t last forever as long as I keep doing Yoga X.

In this journal entry, I touch on the related concepts of “muscle confusion” and the “plateau effect”.

July 13, 2007

Day 10: Shoulders & Arms

My neck did feel a little better when I woke up this morning, but it was still stiff, so I skipped Ab Ripper X today.

The Shoulders & Arms workout went better this week, mostly because I had a better idea of which B-lines Bands to use for which exercise and how to use them.

There is definitely a learning curve with P90X. Not only do you need to learn mentally about the program, the various routines, the equipment involved, the supplements to take, etc., but you also need to learn physically. You body needs to learn how to move and what its limits are. There are so many moves in P90X that it requires some coordination and muscle memory to get them all down.

In fact, the whole point behind P90X and the concept of “muscle confusion” that P90X promotes is to keep your body off balance. In so doing, it maximizes the learning curve, and thus maximizes your results by constantly challenging your body and avoiding “the plateau effect”. “The plateau effect” is where the effectiveness of your workout routine diminishes because your body becomes accustomed to the routine. The end result of avoiding “the plateau effect” with “muscle confusion” is that your results are better and faster.

Here’s my Shoulders & Arms stats:

• Alternating Shoulder Presses: 10, 10 orange; 10, 10 green
• In & Out Bicep Curls: 16, 16 orange; 16, 16 green
• Two-Arm Tricep Kickbacks: 10, 10 magenta; 10, 10 orange
• Deep Swimmer’s Presses: 10 orange, 6 green; 10, 8 green
• Full Supination Concentration Curls: 11, 12 green; 12, 10 green
• Chair Dips: 25, 25 bent legs; 30, 25 bent legs
• Upright Rows: 15, 15 magenta; 15, 15 orange
• Static Arm Curls: 16 orange, 16 green; 16, 16 green
• Flip-Grip Twist Tricep Kickbacks: 10, 8 magenta; 10, 15 magenta
• Two-Angle Shoulder Flys: 10, 10 orange; 16, 16 magenta
• Crouching Cohen Curls: 10, 16 magenta; 20, 15 orange
• Lying-Down Tricep Extensions: 12, 16 magenta; 12, 10 orange
• In & Out Straight-Arm Shoulder Flys: 16, 12 magenta; 16, 16 magenta
• Congdon Curls: 10, 10 green; 12, 15 green
• Side Tri-Rises: 10/10, 8/8; 15/15, 20/20

There is much more to say about “muscle confusion”, “the plateau effect”, and P90X, so I’m sure I’ll write more about them in the future.

This series of three emails ended my initial correspondence with Coach McD. They were written on the 11^th, so my neck had yet to stiffen up, which is why there is no mention of it. I thought about writing Coach McD to ask him about it, but it didn’t take long before it started feeling better, so I never did.

July 12, 2007

“Unfun Memories” with Coach McD

After Coach McD’s prompt and detailed response to my question about my shoulders and pull-ups, I wanted to write to thank him and respond to his advice.

Here’s what I wrote:

Hi Coach McD,

Thanks for your quick reply.

The problem is free weights are difficult for me right now, as I am traveling/moving around a lot. I suppose the bands, like the nautilus machine, don’t provide the same kind of effect as the free weights… but P90X with the B-lines Bands should get me on the path that you are talking about just by making me stronger, no?

I used the chair with the pull ups today rather than using the bands per your recommendation and it was easier than I thought it would be.

Thanks for the help.

-James

P.S. The tightness behind my shoulder blade isn’t there so much at the moment.

I didn’t say much, and wasn’t necessarily expecting a response this time, but I got one:

Jim,

Sorry -forgot that you mentioned using the bands. I would guess that they offer very similar results as the weights actually. A nautilus machine typically has only one movement, or track. You can push sideways on a device that only moves up and down, but it won’t budge to the side, meaning that you don’t have to use any other muscles to keep it from moving to the side. The machine does that for you. Only the very narrow range of muscle responsible for the up and down movement will have to engage.

However, I betcha the bands will perform very much like weights. There is no track that you are locked into when exercising with them, which means that you have to incorporate all of the little, stabilizer muscles as well, just like weights. Besides, they are a great way to add strength, as you say.

Glad the pullup tip helped. You brought back some unfun memories with that

Mark

So, I responded back:

Hi Mark,

Sorry to bring back the “unfun memories”.

Looks like I was placed with the right coach. I look forward to conversing with you and sharing my shoulder woes. (But hopefully there won’t be many.)

Thanks, James

Which is precisely how I feel. It’s cool that Million Dollar Body provides you with a coach in the first place. It is even cooler that mine responds. Yet even cooler that mine responds with so much detail. And it’s the coolest that mine has shoulder issues just like me. The folks at Million Dollar Body must be psychic or something!

I wonder if Coach McD has neck issues…

While this may have ended my initial correspondence with Coach McD, this certainly did not end my correspondence with him. In fact, we have been corresponding with some frequency. For, the next time I contacted him, it was to ask him about the Million Dollar Body Coaching Program…

You know about my shoulder problems already. Well, on Day 9, my other major trouble spot surfaced… my neck.

July 12, 2007

Day 9: Plyometrics

Although that area under my right shoulder blade felt fine when I woke up this morning, my neck was quite stiff.

My neck is my other major trouble spot. During a football game in my junior year of high school, I tackled a guy with my head down… improper form and always a bad idea because… you can do things like cause one of your neck vertebrae to tear a hole in another one of your neck vertebrae! This one hurt big time! Nevertheless, I recovered much faster than anyone would have thought. However, the year after I graduated high school, I was in the gym maxing out on tricep pull-downs when I heard a loud click and it suddenly felt like I had been shot in the neck. This time it was way way worse than the first time.

I was working as a cabbie at the time (actually, it was a little more sophisticated than that… we called it a “livery service”) driving people to and from Logan Airport in Boston. If you’ve driven in Boston before, you know that it is not the friendliest city in which to drive, although there are worse (Houston and New York come to mind). Anyway, as you can imagine, driving around Boston all day with a pain in my neck was, well, a pain in the neck!

I’m joking a bit about it now, but I can assure you that I did not find it humorous at all at the time. I was truly concerned that I might never be able to turn my head again. I was in some serious pain and my neck was seriously stiff… and I mean serious pain and seriously stiff… I couldn’t open my mouth much wider than was necessary to eat and breath. During this time, I picked up a few skills that have actually come in handy since. Such as preventing myself from sneezing (people talk about how dangerous sneezing is for NASCAR drivers and the like and say it is a reflex that can’t be controlled… well I can tell you that this is just not true… I know) and yawning through my nose without opening my mouth (as you can imagine this has come in handy on a number of occasions). I should also mention that the looks of horror from folks whom I was driving to and from the airport when they saw my neck-brace didn’t help my psyche… or my tips for that matter.

I went to the doctor and got an MRI and, sure enough, it was the same vertebrae with the hole in it as in high school. After the hole had healed up, which took a couple months of agonizing worry about whether I would ever be able to move my head again, my neck was still totally stiff. My neck muscles had totally freaked out trying to prevent further injury and they just would not budge. Plus, although an MRI indicated that the hole in my vertebrae had healed (for the most part), it, along with my neck muscles reaction to the injury, messed things up so badly that I now had a pinched nerve. Pain, pain and more pain. My physician suggested that I go to a chiropractor.

This was my blessed introduction to the wonderful world of chiropractic medicine. I walked into the chiropractor’s office in pain and agony with a neck that would not move. A few minutes later, after some prodding and poking and slapping and pushing, the good doctor took my head in both his hands, told me to completely relax, and… jerked my head around further than it went before my neck injury!… The relief was immediate! Talk about instant gratification!

Now able to turn my head again, I started going to a physical therapist, who was every bit as wonderful as the chiropractor. In fact, she taught me how to do what the chiropractor did, all be it more slowly, to myself. All I had to do was tilt my head back and, with the support of my shoulders, twist my head from one side to the other.

Obviously, I still have some neck issues, or else my neck would not be stiff right now and I would not be making this journal entry. However, I have learned to be careful with it and, much like with my cramping calves, notice the early warning signs when I have pushed it too far, and take appropriate action.

Even though my neck was quite stiff this morning, I didn’t think it was so bad that I couldn’t do the plyometrics even though they are high impact. I just lessened the impact as much as I could. I remained with at least one foot on the ground throughout the workout and, although I did hear a few quiet clicking noises on occasion, I made it through just fine.

I think that it may have been the Ab Ripper X from yesterday that did it. So, I think I’ll just skip that part of the program until my neck feels back to normal.

I do hope my neck feels better tomorrow.

I’m happy to report that, less than eight weeks into P90X, my neck feels better than it has since high school! Amazing!!!

After receiving Coach McD’s response I was pumped to pump out some pull-ups.

July 11, 2007

Day 8: Chest & Back, Ab Ripper X

Well, I took Coach McD’s advice and used the chair during the pull-ups today. It was actually easier than I thought it was going to be. It worked out quite well and I felt like I got a much better burn going during the pull-ups this week than last week.

Here’s my Chest & Back Stats:

• Standard Push-Ups: 12, 8; 15, 10
• Wide Front Pull-Ups: 5, 3; 12, 14
• Military Push-Ups: 10, 6; 12, 8
• Reverse Grip Chin-Ups: 5, 3; 12, 10
• Wide Fly Push-Ups: 10, 10; 12, 12
• Closed Grip Overhand Pull-Ups: 3, 2; 12, 12
• Decline Push-Ups: 8, 5; 8, 3
• Heavy Pants: 10, 10 orange; 15, 10 orange
• Diamond Push-Ups: 10, 3; 8, 6
• Lawnmowers: 12, 15 orange; 15, 15 orange
• Dive-Bomber Push-Ups: 10, 5; 8, 8
• Back Flys: 10, 10 orange; 15, 15 orange

Just a short journal entry today, as I want to drop Coach McD another email to tell him the spot under my right shoulder blade feels better today, thank him for his prompt and detailed response, inform him that I am following his advice about the pull-ups, and ask him how his advice regarding free weights applies to doing P90X with the B-lines Bands.

My next letter to my MDB Coach, Coach McD, and his response will be coming shortly…

As I said at the end of my last post, I sure did receive a response from Coach McD.

Here’s my journal entry:

July 11, 2007

Coach McD’s Response

When I woke up this morning the soreness behind my right shoulder blade had significantly lessoned.

When I checked my email, I was happy to see that Coach McD had responded to my letter and I was most impressed with his lengthy response.

Here it is:

Hi James,

Funny you should mention the loose shoulder…

I played on a Jr. Olympic volleyball team in high school, back in the late ’80’s, and then on a serious USVBA club team later in college. I’m 6′04, and my position was strong-side hitter. I actually hit with both arms, depending on the called play, or the quickset (one). We used to warm-up by standing near a wall, and spiking the ball down onto the floor so that it would bounce up, into the wall, and move upward and back, toward the hitter, so that you could continue striking the ball over and over again without having to catch it. We did this thousands of times, over the years, to get loose.

I was also the middle blocker. To block in volleyball, I would take a step or two to the spot where I needed to set the defense. The side blockers would then set up next to me on either side, and we would jump together against the offensive strike. The blocking motion goes from arms down, to arms straight up -while jumping. This occurred every time the other team was in the offensive play. My shoulders got pretty loose as well. One or the other would pop out, just for a moment, as you described, usually when landing. I had many spells with a sling, two or three weeks at a time.

I also played baseball, one year of football, two years of basketball, and golf. There was a while there, when my left shoulder would pop so loudly during my backswing that my buddies would say something like “Oh my god man, doesn’t that hurt when it does that?” I only heard it when I practiced. I was so into the shot when on a course that I never even heard it there. The point is that I know exactly what you are talking about, and here’s what has helped me:

Free weights.

Lifting weights over the years has minimized nearly every sports related injury I’ve ever had to the point that I do not feel at this time that I have any real or impairing sports injuries from my youth that have followed or lingered along with me to the present day. In my non-medical opinion, great athletes play their game loose, and relaxed. Muscular tension slows and restricts the range of motion. You can watch the biggest, most muscle-bound boxer fight, and I guarantee you that he is at his best when his arms are relaxed, and he is loose. I feel that most injuries occur when a guy tenses or tightens up. My earlier experience as a police officer demonstrated the same principle on accident scenes where alcohol was a factor. The people who were really loaded, or even passed out at the time suffered far fewer injuries as a result of being in a serious state of relaxation. The person who saw it coming almost always tensed up, and generally suffered greater physical injuries as a result.

This type of shoulder injury occurs, in my humble, non-professional opinion, when the connective tissues are stretched repeatedly due to the lack of muscular support -when the muscles are relaxed during strenuous activity. It isn’t really an injury per se, as much as it is simply the fact that all of the tendons and ligaments are longer than they should be, which allows the limb to slip out of the socket. Again, this is based completely on personal experience, and some thought.

The good news is, that several doctors have told me that connective tissue does shrink back a bit on its own, over time. That implies that sitting around on your can is the best strategy. I can’t sit still long enough, nor am I willing to suffer the atrophy which would result from that implication.

I have found that weight lifting speeds up the process, in part because lifting automatically strengthens the muscles surrounding the connective tissues which lends support to the joint, and partly because the actual act of lifting weights also works directly on the connectors themselves. When you tax the muscle with free weights, as opposed to nautilus type machines, you must employ all of the stabilizing muscles and ligaments just to keep the movement in good form. Muscle tissue is torn down, and rebuilds itself with more fibers, adding strength, bone density increases, and the joint seems to suck itself back into place. You can’t quote me on this because people would laugh at your unqualified source. You can take this for what it’s worth, from one separating-shoulder(s)-having-guy to the next; it really worked for me. My shoulder hasn’t popped in ages. It hasn’t popped out in years, and thanks to creatine, I have never been stronger in my life.

As the pull-ups go, I would set a chair just below, and just away from the bar. Hang from the bar, bend and cross your legs, and put your lowest tow on the seat of the chair. You can assist your pull-up by simply pushing your toe against the seat of the chair. Use a lot of assist in the beginning, and gradually get yourself to the point that the chair is unnecessary. You may not want to hang all of the way down in the first several weeks. Don’t let your arms straighten completely out, as that would start to pull the arm out of the socket. As your shoulders get stronger, and tighter, you can gradually begin to straighten them out a bit more each week.

At USAIRBORNE school down at Ft. Benning, they made us do pull-ups before every meal. I got to where I could do about 20 or so after three weeks of that. The first week, many of us needed another dirty rotten leg (the instructor’s pet names for the trainees) to hold our feet, in the same crossed and bent form I just mentioned, so that we could push off of their hands while we got used to doing the pull-ups. By the third week, we were all knocking them out pretty easily but without help.

I would think seriously about hitting the weights. Don’t kill yourself in the beginning. Light to medium weight, 10-12 reps, and go from there. It just might work for your shoulders like it did mine.

Hope this gives you something to try. Keep me posted on your progress.

Mark

CoachMcD

Wow! I was hoping for some sort of a response, but I certainly was not anticipating something so lengthy, especially given that he got back to me the next day. These Million Dollar Body Coaches obviously take their coaching seriously… or at least Coach McD does… and a fellow shoulder-dislocator to boot… how about that!

With support like this, I’m sure to make it through the 90 days of P90X!

This was not the last time I would correspond with Coach McD. Click on his name to read more about him and his experience with Million Dollar Body and the Million Dollar Body Coaching Program.

As I said at the end of my last post, I’m actually glad that I experienced that bad soreness beneath my right shoulder blade, because it led to my contacting my MDB Coach, which led to my becoming an MDB Coach, which led to this blog.

Here’s my journal entry about the letter I wrote my MDB Coach, Coach McD:

July 10, 2007

My Letter to Coach McD

When you sign up with Million Dollar Body, you get assigned a coach. Given the bad soreness behind my right shoulder blade, I decided this would be a good time to introduce myself to my coach, Coach McD, and pick his brain a bit.

Here’s what I wrote:

Hi Coach McD,

I just completed my first week of P90X, and I really enjoyed it!

I wanted to write to introduce myself to you and ask a question.

I haven’t been too sore this week and the soreness I have had has been good soreness with one exception. There is an area underneath my right shoulder blade that is feeling quite tight. Don’t get me wrong, it isn’t too bad. (I think it came mostly from punching a bit too hard yesterday with Kenpo X.)

However, this is an area that I need to be careful about as it is always tight because my shoulders are too loose and I am prone to shoulder dislocations. I was a three sport athlete in high school, and my already loose shoulders where further loosened by multiple dislocations playing football, basketball, and, to some extent, baseball… and when I say multiple I’m talking like 25 times each. My shoulder would pop out and pop back in… It would hurt… Numbness would set in… I’d slowly regain feeling… and I was ready to go. I elected to go to a great books college (St. John’s College in Santa Fe, NM) rather than pursue any athletic ambitions and I haven’t flexed my muscles much, other than my brain muscles, over the past 9 years (I’m 27). (Although my nutritional health has improved greatly over this time period, so I’m in decent shape… 5’9”, 153, 11%.) Now, for many reasons, I have decided that it is time for me to start working out again.

Anyway, other than any general advice you may have for taking care of my loose shoulders while doing P90X, I was wondering the following in particular: I’m trying to figure out what to do about pull ups… You see, it’s really not good for me to hang loose from a bar and I think pull ups are my weak spot. In the test I maxed out to failure at 6, and am capable of doing no more than 3-5 per set. I feel like this is not enough reps to really be effective. (I want to be able to do at least 8 right?) So, I was thinking about trying out the bands this week and perhaps trying using a chair with the pull up bar in the third week (although this is kind of difficult as my doorway pull up bar is already fairly close to the ground… it might be better just to do them with my feet on the floor).

Any thoughts?

Much Thanks, James

Hopefully, I will get a response from Coach McD soon. It would be really cool if this turned out to be a helpful/supportive aspect of my P90X experience.

Well, I sure did receive a response from Coach McD! Stay tuned…

I woke up on the last day of my first week with P90X with some bad soreness. Get the details below:

July 10, 2007

Day 7: X Stretch

Today would have been my father’s 56^th birthday. Thus, the reasons why I am doing P90X have been on my mind all day.

For the first time since beginning P90X, I woke up with some bad soreness. It is located underneath my right shoulder blade.

This is an area that I need to be careful about as it is always tight because my shoulders are too loose and I am prone to shoulder dislocations. In high school, my genetically loose shoulders where further loosened by multiple dislocations playing football, basketball, and, to some extent, baseball… and when I say multiple I’m talking like 25 times each. My shoulder would pop out and pop back in… It would hurt… Numbness would set in… I’d slowly regain feeling… and I was ready to go.

I attribute my current shoulder woes to pull-ups. It’s really not good for me to hang loose from a bar and pull ups are my weak spot. In the P90X Fit Test I maxed out to failure at 6, and am capable of doing no more than 3-5 per set. I feel like this is not enough reps to really be effective and I worry that I am putting too much stress on my shoulders, which led to the soreness beneath my right shoulder blade. So, I’m thinking about trying out the bands this week and perhaps trying to use a chair with the pull up bar in the third week (although this is kind of difficult as my doorway pull up bar is already fairly close to the ground… it might be better just to do them with my feet on the floor).

We’ll see…

Anyway, I did the X Stretch today and it felt really good. Stretch by stretch, Tony loosened up my entire body.

That spot beneath my right shoulder blade is still sore though.

That soreness went away pretty quickly and has not returned. I’ve been doing pull-ups with a chair and no longer worry so much about hanging from the bar as my shoulders are now much stronger than when I started P90X.

I’m actually glad that I experienced that bad soreness because it led to my contacting my MDB Coach, which led to my becoming an MDB Coach, which led to this blog. But, I’ll disclose more about this in my next post…