Well, it’s been a while since I have made a blog post so just in case anyone is actually reading this I wanted to let you know that I am still here and still on the UY108 program. And loving it.

Today was day 36 and we celebrated with 36 Sun Salutations. Like Travis Elliot said, it’s like meditation in motion. Or something like that. I really let myself fall deep into this and got lost in it. I wanted to keep going after the 36. I was so energized by it. I look forward to 72.

I have started to notice small changes. Changes that only daily yoga practice can bring about this quickly. Little things like being able to go deeper into one legged seated hamstring stretch. But only on the left side because I am still nursing my right hamstring. And noticing that my chest is becoming more open. And being much more mindful of the present moment. Little things. But I still notice, and like it.

You may have observed that I did not mention P90X2 in this post title. I was doing P90X2 for the first 3 weeks of TUY108 but it became too much so I put P90X2 on hold. I do miss lifting weights but I want to give UY108 a chance and want to see where this wild ride leads me. I feel great. I am eating good, healthy food.

My plan is to finish UY108 and then create a crazy hybrid from YU108, Insanity, P90X2 and maybe P90X. Should be a blast.

But for now I am enjoying the UY108 ride.

I can’t promise when I will blog another update but I will try to get one up before day 73.

See you on the mat!

Like the Energizer Bunny, I am still going. On day 12, like last week, I really didn’t want to do two yoga practices in one day so I just did one. Last week I did the P90X2 yoga and this week I did TUY Detox. I didn’t really have the mental focus that I should have had but I stuck with it and got through it.

Day 13 I did the P90X2 Balance & Power. I like that one. I can work up a good sweat doing it. It’s one of my favorites now but I have a long way to go on some of the med ball balance moves.

Day 14 I did the Mountain Pose series. I find that to be a nice relaxing practice that flies by.

During all of the workouts/practices over the past week I have had to modify many of the exercises/poses a bit in order to take it easy on my hamstring. I will see the doc about it on Monday as it is still bothering me.

Ok, I am not having much love for P90X2 total body. Part of it may be my nagging right hamstring issue. I had to modify a few moves. And I am still getting used to the awkward balance moves. I feel clumsy when doing them and it takes the fun out of it. But I press on.

My UY108 (The new hash tag and abbreviation for The Ultimate Yogi program) practice today was Yin Yoga. Long stretching poses. I had to modify this quite a bit too due to my hamstring issue. I will go to the doc next week to have it looked at. Even with the modifications I still enjoyed it.

I had to brawl my way through today’s TUY Strength practice. It was almost like a hockey fight. I am not sure why I had such a hard time with it but I did. Both mentally and physically. My mind was all over the place. Everywhere but where is should have been. On the matt, with me. And physically I was a mess. I had to take child’s pose quite often.

But, I am okay with all that. As they say, it is what it is. I will not judge, I will just observe.

The other thing that added to the difficulty is that I have a nagging hamstring issue that came up almost 4 weeks ago. I pulled/strained/tore? it while playing broomball on ice. It didn’t hurt that day. I noticed it the day after. For the past 3 1/2 weeks it has just felt tight so I have been trying to heal it through stretches. Well, the stretches are not helping so I decided that I would baby it a bit. And that kind of through me off in the strength practice. I think I will go see the doc next week if I don’t see any improvement.

Till tomorrow… Bring it!

I’m 1/2 way through Phase 2 of this awesome workout and I am feeling great! I have said this in the past, and I’ll say it again. This is THE best shape I have been in my life. Cardio and strength. This hybrid hits everything and hits it well. I feel like I could jump small buildings in a single bound! Well, OK, maybe I am getting a bit carried away here. But I do feel like I am at peak condition.

I am a few pounds away from my goal weight and ready to set a new goal. It always feels so good to be in shape and not ashamed of how you look. Like the saying goes, “Nothing tastes as good as thin feels.”

My plantar fasciitis is MUCH better. I have been wearing my night splint religiously and taping my foot everyday. I have not been able to run again yet but, for the most part, the daily pain is gone.

I really didn’t have much to say in this update, but I wanted to get a new post up because it has been a while since my last post.

One more week of hitting it hard and then recovery week. And luckily recovery week coincides with my vacation. I have to make sure I don’t let myself go too much while on vacation. That is always hard for me.

Till next time, dig deep and Bring It!!

I just finished Phase one of this fantastic hybrid workout and I am feeling better than I have in a long, long time. This workout combines the best of P90X and the best of Insanity to make one KILLER workout. It has helped me to break through my weight loss plateau and reach another milestone, 170 lbs. I have lost more than 20 lbs since the beginning of the year. And I have probably gained muscle, which means that I have lost more fat than the 20 lbs would indicate.

And I really feel like I am in tip top shape, and that is the best feeling ever. When I was doing only P90X I could tell that my cardio was suffering. And when I was doing only Insanity I could tell that my strength suffered a bit in certain areas. But by combining these two awesome workouts together I am hitting on all cylinders now.

Injury update: My plantar faciitis is getting MUCH better. After suffering from this horrible affliction for a year, I am finally getting some relief. My podiatrist was almost zero help. The orthotics that he prescribed for me didn’t seem to provide any relief. The physical therapist did not cure me either. So what’s a guy to do? Turn to the Internet of course. I searched out and read as many posts as I could find from people who had cured themselves. I took the commonalities between their cures and put together my own course of action.

This is what has been working to almost completely relieve all of my plantar faciitis symptoms.

1. I try to do my workouts in the afternoon now as apposed to in the morning. I think that my tendons were too tight in the morning and this contributed to the issue.
2. I wear an inexpensive night splint. I believe that doing this one thing has helped the most. I wake in the morning with virtually zero heel pain.
3. I tape my foot and leave it taped and remove the tape only to shower and sleep. I started using duct tape after reading an article from someone who found much relief from doing so. I now use athletic tape or duct tape. This has been a HUGE help! I can mow the lawn without tremendous heel pain afterward.
4. I regularly do stretches that my physical therapist recommended.
5. I do toe “curls” or “scrunches” regularly.

So, that’s what I am doing and it is seeming to work for me.

Tomorrow marks the start of Phase 2 of this workout and I am really excited to start working hard again after having a week of recovery.

Till next time… Bring It!

One more week of Insanity and I’m done! That’s right, just 5 more workouts after today and I will be an Insanity grad. I feel pretty good. A tad beat up, if I’m going to be quite honest, but feeling at the top of my game. (Whatever that means)

I know that I am leaner than when I started. My cardio is better than it was 57 days ago. And I don’t feel like I lost any muscle mass. Actually, I feel that I have gained a bit of mass in my chest. Insanity has a lot of push up type exercises and I think it helped me gain a bit of mass. And other than my on going battle with Plantar Faciitis the only other injury/tweak that I have going on is in my right shoulder. But it has bothered me at times during P90X as well.

I’m really looking forward to next week when I begin a P90X/Insanity hybrid. I miss lifting weights and doing pull ups.

I’ll have my final Insanity review in about a week.

Until then, Dig Deep… and Bring It!!!

This workout is living up to its name. It’s a killer! I incinerated over 1100 calories in 57 minutes today doing Pure Cardio and Cardio Abs. I was soaking wet, my T shirt needed to be wrung out, and I was totally spent afterwards. I felt really strong through most of the Pure Cardio workout and I a looking forward to doing the Fit Test on Monday to see how much fitness I have gained. My gut is telling me that I have gained quite a bit.

My weight has not changed a whole lot during the past 13 days. I may be down a a couple pounds, maybe 3. That doesn’t sound like a lot but I do feel so much better physically lately. And I am liking the changes that I am starting to see in my body.

My Plantar fasciitis seems to be holding steady and maybe even getting better. I’m still going to physical therapy twice a week.

I am really looking forward to finishing this round of Insanity and then doing a P90X/Insanity hybrid workout. They should compliment each other very well. I do miss P90X and have added some pull ups and wall squats to my Insanity workouts. Those are two things I felt were lacking in Insanity. I may even throw some curls in to supplement Insanity in the next few weeks.

Till next time… Dig deep and Bring It!!

Well, that’s one full week of this Insane workout under my belt now and I love it. It is really intense, but it feels great to really push your body to new limits. I have run 4 marathons, many 1/2 marathons and miles and miles of various race distances and have never been pushed to this level of intensity. It’s an incredible workout.

The only thing that I like better about P90X are the warm up and cool down stretches. I feel like I benefit more from the P90X version of these. That, and I miss pull ups and wall squats. So I am doing pull ups every other day and adding wall squats on Thursdays.

Injury update – I’ve been going for physical therapy for my Plantar Fasciitis for 2 sessions now. The therapist does not want me doing any exercises that involve jumping but I can’t help myself and must continue to do Insanity. He gave me some stretches to do and they seem to be helping a little. It’s been worse than it is now so I will keep doing what I am doing and see what happens.

My weight loss appears to be stalled at 180. I am having a very hard time getting below 180. I have been stalled at this weight for a couple weeks now and it is frustrating because I watch my nutrition very closely. I have a splurge meal once a week and ensure that I am in a calorie deficit for the majority of the time. And this results in a calorie deficit for the week. Each and every week. I can’t imagine being more strict with my food intake, this is probably the closest I have monitored and controlled my intake ever.

One final piece of the Insanity puzzle that I am trying to put together is determining my Max hearth rate (MHR.) Depending on what formula I use my MHR ranges from 170 to 180. But I think that it is closer to 185 because that is what my heart rate monitor (HRM) shows when I am forced to stop and take a quick breather. I have seen readings on my HRM as high as 189. I hope that this is safe and my hear is not going to explode during an Insanity workout. Anyway, for now I will use 185 as my MHR. And I’ll tell you what. During Insanity I find my heart rate at the max during most of the workouts.

Till next time… Dig deep and Bring it!!

I have only one word to describe my first real Insanity workout, Plyometric Cardio Circuit… WOW!

What a Killer! I would definitely put this on par with P90X PlyoX, and maybe this was even harder than PlyoX. I can’t imagine what the rest of Insanity has in store for me. I burned 880 calories according my Heart Rate monitor and left a nice pool of sweat on the floor. Not bad for a 40 minute workout!

This afternoon I go to my first physical therapy session for my Plantar fasciitis.

Injury update tomorrow.

Till next time… Dig Deep and Bring it!

I’m half way through this 90 day rotation of P90X and I’m feeling great. I have not lost as much body fat as I’d like but I FEEL great. Strong. It’s amazing how good a little exercise makes you feel.

Tomorrow I go to the foot doc to see what I can do about this plantar fasciitis. I have had it too long and it’s not getting much better.

Tomorrow is Yoga and I am looking forward to all 90 minutes of it.

Till next time… Bring It!

What a difference two weeks makes. My Doc said that my back should be better in two weeks and he was right. I feel like I’m back to 100%. I did all the P90X workouts this week and the only modification I made was to skip Ab RipperX. I felt like I should take it easy on the lower back and feared that ABX would put too much strain on it. I’ll add ABX back in when I start Phase II.

Phase I is coming to and end and the upcoming week is recovery week.  It will be challenging because it is also Christmas week and I’ll be seeing relatives and partying… and eating. It will take a lot of will power to control myself but I will do my best.

I’m also thinking about making my own hybrid-cardio workout using P90X and P90X Plus moves. I will edit them into one awesome workout and use it as a second workout of the day. I’ll let ya know how it goes.

Till next time… Bring it!!

I get knocked down, but I get up again. I love that song, and there’s a good message in it. And here’s a very inspirational video about this very subject. Only a couple minutes long and well worth watching. It’s Nick Vujicic speaking about being born with no arms or legs and why it’s so important to keep getting up. 

So how does this relate to this blog post? Well, a little over a week ago I had terrible back and leg pain. I could not bend over and touch my knees without excruciating pain shooting down my back and legs. I was convinced that I had a ruptured disc in my back so I went to the doc. My doctor diagnosed me with back strain and told me to lay off of the exercise for a couple weeks.

I was right in the middle of P90X Phase 1 and could not see taking a couple weeks off and starting again. So I took 2 days off. I pushed my workout back by a couple days, took plenty of Ibuprofen and rested a bit. By the middle of the week I was doing modified workouts and making sure not to put too much strain on my back. This week I feel like a million bucks. Good as new.

So the moral is this. No matter how bad you think things are, keep trying. Keep getting up when knocked down.

This is my last week of Phase 1 before recovery week. I’m really looking forward to next week. More cardio and more Yoga. My body needs Yoga right now.

Till next time… Bring It!!

Recovering from back strain. Yep, isn’t that always the case. You’re back on track, working out, eating right, and then something comes up that can potentially throw you way off course. That’s what happened to me. But I won’t let it!

I’m not sure what the triggering event was, if there was one. But Saturday I started to feel a bit of lower back pain and by Saturday night it was extreme. When I would bend over to touch my knees the pain would radiate down the back of my legs. It was even worse on Sunday. Was it because I did KenopX on Saturday?

The pain was bad enough to wake me on Saturday and Sunday nights and cause me to lose an hour so of sleep.

I went to see the doc on Monday. He’s diagnosis is that it’s a sprain/strain and not a ruptured or herniated disc. His thinking is that because the pain is equal in but of my legs it is probably not very serious and just a strain. He prescribed Ibuprofen and Vicodin. I am using the Ibuprofen but decided to skip the Vicodin.

So I rested on Monday and did Monday’s Chest and Back workout on Tuesday after work. I modified it heavily, skipping moves like Heavy Pants and Lawnmowers. I also skipped Ab RipperX because my doc said to lay off crunches for awhile.

Today I will attempt to do PlyoX, but will modify when I need to.

I’m going to keep working out as much as I can because I HATE laying off for a weeks and then getting the damn DOMS all over again.

Hopefully I’ll be back to normal within a week or so and be able to bring the intensity once again.

Till next time… Bring it!!

Day 40 was Legs and Back and Ab RipperX. I felt great that morning and my lower back pain was even gone. I am so blessed that I heal quickly. It seems that whenever I get a small injury that it’s gone in a couple days. In the afternoon I ran 4 miles. I had planned on doing some of the P90X Upper Plus exercises but my schedule got rearranged and I ran instead.

Day 41 and I feel like I’m coming down with something. AGAIN!!! Man, I work at home and never leave the house. How do I keep getting sick?!?! It must be due to the fact that I have a pre-schooler in the house. She’s always bringing stuff home. And by stuff I mean germs! Ugh! I really can’t afford to be sick right now so I went out and bought some ZiCam. I usually don’t believe in the stuff but right now I’d try just about anything because I CAN’T be sick!

And because I was sick today I craved junk like you would not believe. Carbs, carbs, carbs! I’m surprised I only ended up at 350 calories over what I burned for the day.

I was scheduled for KenpoX today but was really dragging. I was going to skip it altogether. Then I decided to try one of the oldest tricks in the book. I told myself that I would go downstairs (to my workout area) and put the heart rate monitor on, and just workout for 10 minutes. Ha! Try it. Once you start you can’t stop! I started working on the heavy bag. I did that for about 15 minutes and had a good sweat going. Then I did my own cardio routine. I just made it up on the spot. Once you’ve done P90X and P90X + a few times you have an arsenal of awesome exercises to draw from. Thanks Tony! I just started doing some of my favorite moves. Super Skaters, Pike pull-ups, jumping jacks, prison cell push ups, and so on and so on. I even made up some of my own moves. What a great workout. By the time I was done 45 minutes had passed my heart rate was way up there and I had burned 550 calories.

I do feel a little pain in my right collar bone after my heavy bag work. That happens to me often when I over do it on the bag. Hopefully it will be like the rest of my injuries and go away quickly.

Tomorrow is a rest day but I plan on doing a long/slow run. I am only running 2 days a week now. One day for intervals and one long run.

Till next time… Bring It!!

Back in the saddle again.. YES! Wow it is always great to get back into the real workouts after recovery week. I felt great and very strong during today’s Chest, Shoulders, Tris and ABX workout. One thing that I’ll have to watch is that I heard a little crunching sound in my right shoulder while I was doing (attempting) one armed push-ups. No pain, just strange noises. It scared me a bit but since there was no associated pain I think I’ll be OK.

I did great with my diet today and because of that I feel great too. And I got in a second workout today, a 4.8 mile run on the treadmill and now have a nice big calorie deficit going. If I keep this deficit going for 7 days I can be back in a deficit for the month. Right now I am 10,000 on the plus side for the month. Not good!

Till next time… Eat Clean and Bring It!!

Today was P90X Shoulders, Arms and Ab RipperX. I love this workout, the glamour muscles. I felt good and strong again this morning but I did feel that slight, and I mean very slight, pain in my right rotator cuff. Mainly in the first set of Overhead Shoulder presses and it seems to go away as the workout progresses. Nothing much to worry about but I will be watching it.

After work I did 4 miles on the treadmill.

Till next time… Bring It!!

Yesterday was Day 9, PlyoX and it kicked my butt as it always has. After work I ran 3.6 miles on the treadmill.

Today, Day 10, was off to a slow start. I had a hard time waking up and by the time I got rolling I only had time for Shoulders and Arms and had to skip Ab Ripper X (ABX). I’ll do the ABX and a run after work.

I am pretty sore today, partially from Monday’s Chest and Back workout and partially from Plyo. I was very stiff this morning but still had a great workout. One thing that I’ll have to watch is my right rotator cuff. It feels a bit tweaked this morning, I’ll baby it a little and see if it goes away.

Till next time… Bring It! 

Today was YogaX. My back issue is still bothering me a bit and I had to take it easy during some moves and skip some all together. When I started this workout this morning I thought for a few minutes that I may have to scratch the workout for the day because of my back. But I kept going and my back felt better and better as the workout progressed.

Later in the day my wife gave me a quick massage and then put some Icy-Hot on it. It feels much better now.

After work I shoveled snow for a couple hours and then ran 5 miles.

I am starting to feel like I’m getting tendonitis in my right elbow. Too much shoveling?

Till next time… Bring It!!

Still fighting major DOMS today. Also fighting flu symptoms. I laid in bed for a while this morning and tried talking myself out of getting up and working out.  Luckily I did not succeed and I got up and worked out. When I was up and moving around I realized that I felt better than I had thought. I didn't get moving in time to do today’s Ab RipperX following Shoulder’s and Arms. I had just enough time for shoulders and arms. I’ll do ABX after work before I get a treadmill run in. That is.. after I shovel a bit.

Oh, before I forget, I did have something strange happen during today’s workout.  3/4 of the way through I got a huge knot in my back. It was on the right hand side about 1/2 way down my back and it HURT! I almost went upstairs to wake my wife up to have her massage it. I stopped the DVD and stretched and it got a little better. Good enough to finish the workout.

My wife did massage it for me later in the day but as of this writing I still feel it quite a bit.

Till next time… Bring it!!