07/21/11 Strength Training

Guess who did P90x after what I believe is more than a month off?!

ME!

Okay, I did a couple of half assed sessions here and there, but damn. My ass is kicked right now. Super bad. Running ate up what little muscles I have!

I had to go back to my bands and I barely used my 8lb weights. When I stopped, I was on 8/10 lbs depends which one I'm doing. But now, I'm on bands. Damn it!!! In retrospect, I should have started form the beginning. I did chest, shoulders, & triceps. I should have just done chest & back, like start over totally. Over ambitious I guess.

My left hand is also significantly weaker than my right hand which super sucks!!!

Anyway, all this "fail" is just motivating me to get back on the P90x bandwagon. I'm determined to make it work along with running. It seems so counter productive but P90x will give me a stronger core which will help my form in running and running will help me my P90x by working out my legs because I hate doing legs in the P90x. Haha!

But I think I'll randomly do free weights with my left hand. Its really weak. I'm kinda sad about it. Those one arm push ups were killer.

Anyway, yeah. I'll have my 3.5 miler later after work whenever it cools down a bit.  Looking forward to that. But seriously... my ass is so kicked from this P90x session. I feel bummed that I stopped for that long, but like I said, motivated and ready to kick some more ass.

PS. I can't wait for my GU to get here. I bulked ordered em on subscription from Amazon and they came out to be $0.86 per GU. I pay $1.30 at the store and I use about three a week. Or I try to use 3 a week. Limit myself to those 3 and so I get a shipment of 24 GU every 2 months. If that doesn't work, I'll have to do it monthly. But I figured 3 a week that 24 should last me 8 weeks, roughly two months. Hopefully it will work. But I "can't" run with GU. I can, but I feel the lack of energy. It might be mind games, but I really doubt it is because I can still run, but I can feel a lack in my performance and lack of energy. But whatever! I'm glad its coming supposedly tomorrow and I get my combat shorts from Nike today!

PPS. My weight is fluctuating like crazy, but my size is on a decline so I'm not too worried. I'm going to stop using the scale for a month because that fluctuation is driving me crazy even if I know that I'm dropping sizes.

The Hundred totally kicked my ass today.

As if it wasn't hard enough, putting your legs up higher and adding resistance bands (hooked on your feet, pulling down with your hands) just plain old kicked my ass.  My core is burning, but I admit its mildly addicting.

It also helped my freakin' spine! Oh hallelujah. I've been having sciatic nerve/slip disc issues (like I said, mixed diagnosis) and while I don't have to take vicodin because the pain is tolerable, the pain is still there.

I'm also learning and appreciating the importance of stretching. I don't normally stretch before my runs I just kinda jog for five minutes then go at it but I think thats one of the ways I damaged my lower spine/back. I did some stretches today for cooling down and I have to admit, I felt much much much better after my workout. Usually I feel like passing out and knocking out, but I actually feel pretty alert and I kinda want to keep on going but I know I need to let my  muscles chillax. I'm not sure if I'm alert cuz I had some caffeine tho. I couldn't wake up this morning without feeling mentally crappy so I had to get some caffeine in my system in the form of double caffeine Rockstar.

I'll probably do some P90X or Insanity later. I really want to work on my core and yeah, the hundreds help, but I want to push it, not too much, but just ennough.

::edited to add::
I did 3 sets of hundreds. My arms hurt, my core hurts, & a bunch of different muscles hurt. It would be okay if I wasn't super cold right now. The cold is just making me feel weird.

Yesterday, because of the rain, I didn't run as much as I wanted. In retrospect, it probably wouldn't have qualified as a run at all. More like "I want to run, oh crap the rain is getting harder lets turn around right away."

So mostly, I just did some strength training.

I have this exact set of resistance tubes that I bought from Walmart. I don't intend to ramble or review products, just saying what I have. Anyway, for a weakling like me, this set is awesome. First of all, like I said, I am weak. The bands come with three levels of resistance and you can mix & match them for your own personal preference. I use the red or blue one, depends on what I'm working out.

They work awesome for P90x stuff that requires weights or bands, but today I just did the DVD that came with the bands. I worked out 11 am - noon and I'm still sore. It put me to work. The DVD is pretty thorough and mixes it with some nice high intensity cardio (or go as intense as you want, I kinda went berzerk this morning). I really like resistance bands, but I'll be honest that I'm terrified one of thesee days that its going to snap and hit me in the face or something. I'm also kinda iffy on the leg workouts with the bands. I'm not sure if its going to be as effective as the shoulders/arms/backs workout.

One thing I don't like are my arms. Wheeew. I hate my arms, especially my upper arms. I really wish there was such thing as being able to target weight loss but theres no such thing. The best thing I can think of while waiting for the weight to fall off my arms is to build those muscles and pull everything in. I do tend to focus on my arms when I strength train. Which I'm not sure is a good or bad thing. I should probably focus on "everything" or at least rotate, but I really don't like my arms.  The workout on the DVD was alreing but I think I'll stick with the P90x workout as opposed to the DVD. P90x is crazy, but I do want to push myself as far as intensity.

Thats what I did today in terms of working out. Pretty tame, but I do feel the soreness 12 hours later. I have no bananas so I couldn't banana it after. Bummer.

I really wanted to put in a solid run because I haven't ran  a good one in two weeks, but its raining. The forecast also doesn't show any signs of rain stopping until mid next week, but I'll just consider it as a sign to keep on resting for my nerve. It will probably only benefit me if I rest it up closer to the six week mark than the one week its been.

::edited to add::
I didn't do anything on Sunday. I woke up feeling sucky. Playing in the rain has consequences y'all.