P90X Week 3

This week should really be called "MORE OF THE SAME."

Just more of the same from the previous 2 weeks. And more, and more, and lots more, of it. I did more pushups, more pullups, more 1 and 2 legged squats, jumped higher, landed softer than I had in the first 2 weeks. Add to that my functional swim, bike and run workouts and this all made for a very active week of working out indeed.

I must say at the end of it I was totally pooped. Normally I sleep about 7 hours a night with a 1 or 2 hour nap during the day. By week 3 I was up to about 9 hours a night with a solid 2 hour nap each day. And I was napping way more during my lunches and breaks at work.

I think I'm really starting to put this together and I'm seeing improvement everywhere. Not to take anything away from Tony Horton and P90X, but I'm really seeing what consistency and focus in fitness is all about. When I worked out before and I worked on my sports, there really wasn't a single unifying theme. Now I think P90X gives my training a focal point around which to plan my triathlon specific work. Gone from my daily and weekly routine are those "JUNK" miles. Gone are the workouts I was doing to accommodate friends so I wouldn't have to train alone. (Basically, I had already started this prior to P90X, but Tony and crew gave me an excuse to say "no" and used up any spare time that was left for it anyway.) Since I only have 4-6 hours of training left after P90X, I make my triathlon workouts count. With this new focus, I'm already contemplating how to incorporate this into my thinking about training throughout the year.

I do want to mention one other thing since I don't think I've covered it in earlier blogs about the program. The YogaX workout is just plain badass. Yep. No other way to put it. I've been doing yoga now for over 2 years and I've progressed fairly well during that time. But the poses Tony and crew do in this video are wicked challenging. This video is about an hour and a half long which makes it about 30 to 40 minutes longer than the other P90X workouts. It also has quite a bit of strength, balance and core work so while it may seem as though it is a recovery workout toward the end of the week, it is not. Honestly, the Yoga they do in this video is every bit as intense as most intermediate classes I've done. The only reason I wouldn't classify it as advanced is the poses are what you would typically find in beginner and intermediate classes. But what makes it borderline advanced is the length of the vinyasas at the beginning, the shear number of balance poses, and that some of these balance poses such royal dancer (also called Natarajasana) or wheel/upward bow (also called Urdvha Dhanurasana) seem to be held forever. While, as with all movements and exercises in P90X, you aren't require to do them (and Tony does advise caution while showing modifications and less challenging alternatives) the fact that these types of poses are in this workout simply bear out what I'm saying. I'm saying I could already do yoga and I found this video quite challenging. But it does what it is designed to do. And that is to make the strength you are developing within the program accessible and controlled by emphasizing muscle coordination.

Next week is a "Recovery" week. Whatever that means in Tonyspeak. But there are multiple YogaX workouts and something new called Core Synergistics. I can hardly wait.