P90X - Day 19 - Legs & Back

I did most of Legs & Back today.  But I had to stop short. 

My back is killing me, and I feel dizzy.  Both are signs to cut it short.  I'll kick it back on with Kenpo X tomorrow.

P90X - Day 18 - Yoga X

I still can't keep up the distance.  Whoever invented Yoga must have had an Indian TORTURE PRISON in mind.  Crap, this is hard to do.

But I'm still trying to hang.  I make it farther each time.  And Yoga X is a part of the cycle every week - even the "rest" weeks.  Once I'm to the point I can go the distance (that's 90 minutes!!), I should be an incredibly fit individual.  That's because it not only means that the flexibility, strength and balance from Yoga are improving, but it also means that the strength levels from the other P90X workouts are having a major effect.  They already are; but just not enough to continue for Yoga X.

Anyway, tomorrow is Legs and Back.  Gonna be worked!

P90X - Day 17 - Shoulders & Arms / Ab Ripper X

Ouch. 

So I managed to complete both workouts.  Of course, I still can't quite keep up with the reps, but I am progressing. 

In the Shoulders & Arms routine, I increased my weight in almost all of the moves, with three exceptions, and those remained the same as last week.  The increased weight came at the expense of the amount of reps, but that's fine.  On a few, I was doing too many reps last week.  My target rep goal is 12-15 on each movement, since I'm looking for a lean physique right now.  If I was going for muscle bulk, I'd be aiming for higher weights and 8-10 reps max.

This is the last time I will do Shoulders & Arms until Week 9 (for those with math trouble, I'm currently in Week 3)

The Ab Ripper X routine will stay with me, three times a week (except rest weeks) throughout the entire program.  But I am, again, progressing.  I was able to do more reps that focused on the core and hip flexors than before.  It's just so damn hard to keep going after I spent so much energy in the previous workout routines. 

Damn that Tony Horton.  But I'll be thanking him in about six more weeks.

P90X - Day 16 - Plyometrics

Another good day with the jump training. Still can't quite keep up, but I'm doing better. My heart rate stays up, and only drops to 135 a couple of times. But for the most part, I'm slightly above my target zone at 163 or so.

The real pain is that I never get a break from this workout. And Tony Horton calls it "The MOTHER of ALLLLLL X(treme) workouts". It'll be on Tuesdays as long as my routine isn't jacked up. But that'll help me in my fighting career for jumps and stamina.

And yes, I completed the entire 60 minutes of this. Ow.

P90X - Day 15 - Chest & Back / Ab Ripper X

The last time I do this workout during Phase 1. I won't do this workout for another month and a half.

But that doesn't mean I won't work these muscles. I just do them in a different workout. That's the premise of muscle confusion - using different movements to work the muscles.

I am pleased to say that I either increased the weights or reps in each exercise. A few exercises were a big fat "0" for reps last week. Today, they were at three or so. Not a huge improvement, but when I couldn't do them AT ALL last week....

A few of the pushups went from "on the knees", to full pushups. The reps dropped a little, but they were better form than last time.

P90X - Days 12-14

So the weekend was a crappy day for me, physically speaking. A stomach/intestine bug kept me from being 100%.

The best I can say is that I did at least something for Day 12, Legs and Back and for Day 13, Kenpo X. I just couldn't do the entire routine. I cut both at about half.

P90X - Day 11 - Yoga X

For all you bastiges that say Yoga is crap, I say "Try it". And try it for real.

I still can't hang all the way. But I made it about four times the duration of what I did last week.

I really need to pick up a pair of yoga blocks, though.

P90X - Day 10 - Shoulders & Arms / Ab Ripper X

Okay, so Day 10 is now over. I may have gone a little nuts in the extra cardio I put my Taekwondo students through, so I couldn't make it more than about 3/4 through the Ab Ripper workout.

But I not only made it entirely through every rep of the Shoulders and Arms workout, I increased my weight by three times for most of the exercises. Only a couple stayed the same as last week, and those were at the end, when I was dying already. But didn't go LESS than last week. That would be dumb.

Hell yeah. This is great. No, that's NOT sarcasm!

P90X - Day 9 - Plyometrics

Okay, so I've been done with the workout for about 10 minutes, now. And I just now came down to 100bpm on my heart rate.

So I picked up a Timex Ironman heart rate monitor for the cardio-based workouts like today and the Kenpo X routine (which is scheduled for Saturday). My target training heart rate should be in the 145-165 area (depends on who you ask, it seems).

So I kept up, dogging it on only a few reps, but I did all the exercises. Damn, that's hard to do. But I kept up my heart rate to at least 155 the entire time, and most of the time, it was 160-165bpm.

The "shelf" of fat is getting thinner and shorter.

P90X - Day 8 - Chest & Back / Ab Ripper X

Wow, that was a tough workout. Day 1 saw me end the chest & back routine at half-way. Today, I not only stuck with all the exercises, I did more, and used more weight (about three times, for those exercises that used them).

I feel a little weak around the chest and bicep areas, but that's good. Means I've been working them hard. However, a few exercises need to go even higher on the weights.


Ab Ripper X still sucks, but I am improving. I did every exercise for at least a few reps.

P90X - Day 7 - X-Stretch

Oooh....tonight marks the end of the beginning. Day 7 means the end of Week 1. And already I'm feeling a difference. Not a huge one, but mostly that my body's starting to get used to the higher caliber workouts.

Now, I have two more weeks of the exact same routine. But I should start to see better form, greater ability to "hang", and an overall weight loss in a few days (since my lower-impact workout has been going on for a while).

After the third week will be a much lower impact "rest" week, where I won't be doing as crazy as I am doing now.

But all in all, I am liking the direction this is going.

P90X - Day 6 - Kenpo X

Wow! What a workout. All cardio, and a sweat-generator! I am dripping right now.

Now the good news: I kept up the entire way. I missed a grand total of about 8 reps, out of a workout consisting of almost 400. My heart rate was consistently over 140bpm for over an hour.

I might suggest this workout to some of my students - it's a martial arts-based workout, and all the movements are basic concepts that doesn't completely go against what I'm teaching. But the workout is a great tool. It would help them keep up in the intense classes.

Tomorrow is a "rest" day with X-Stretch. Then Monday starts the week over again on the same cycle (it will remain the same for Week 3, as well). Then Week 4 will have a must reduced week (but by no means a stop or even a real rest), then Phase 2 starts on Week 5.

P90X - Day 5 - Legs & Back / Ab Ripper X

Today was a lot of lunges, calf raises and pull-ups/chin-ups of various types. My thighs will recover due to the workout I'd been doing for two months (mostly legs). But my calves might yell at me tomorrow. Time to take excessive amounts of advil...

But the Ab Ripper X routine is getting to the point where I can do more. It's several exercises at 25 reps each, and I was able to do at least 20 on almost all of them. A few I could even do at 25.

We're seeing progress.

P90X - Day 4 - Yoga X

Okay, I could barely even keep up for 20 minutes of this workout that lasts for over an hour. Most of it is in the plank (top of the push-up) position, and my triceps are still KILLING me from yesterday.

Note: they actually feel a little better after the workout. What I could do helped rush the blood through the veins, carrying away some of the lactic acid.

P90X - Day 3 -Shoulders & Arms / Ab Ripper X

Another good day. Chest and arms for an hour. Shoulder flies, Tricep extensions, Dips, curls, and multiple versions of each. Many, my shoulders and triceps feel that today.

The problem is that I'm dogging it on the weight for my bicep workouts. Being my first day on this routine, I wasn't sure how much weight to use. So next time I'm on this routine, I'll kick it up another five pounds per arm, and see how that goes. But I won't be on it again until Wednesday of next week.

The Ab Ripper X routine is the same as Monday's workout, and is probably the most oft-repeated routine in the program. But DAMN IT HURTS! I get a break again until Friday when I have to do it again.

Tomorrow is Yoga X. Something tells me I'm in for an ass-kicking.

P90X - Day 2 - Plyometrics

I am starting to hate Tony Horton. But that'll change. Because I must. When I feel a "sheet" of fat bouncing on my front chest and abdomen, it's disgusting. I need to fix this. And so I am.

So today is Plyometrics day. That means Tony Horton came up with about 20 different ways to simply JUMP. Oh, my god; I can't believe there are that many different jumping exercises that don't require equipment.

Add to that a ton of squats, lunges, running (mostly in place) and some unclassifiable exercises, and that means my legs are TIRED. But it feels good. I'm loving it.

I still can't keep up full pace, but this is the first day I've done this routine. But that's okay. I'll get there. I may repeat Week 1 again, depending on how I'm doing on Sunday.

The good part: My back generally doesn't bother me as long as I keep working out.

Ten signs you work in a fear-based workplace

Tyrannical, brown-nosers rising again — and it could hurt your company
by Liz Ryan

A friend of mine called me from a noisy airport. "I can't wait to get to my hotel and tell you the latest drama from my office," he said. "I would have called you earlier, but my boss was in the cab with me."

"Before I hear the drama itself, I have a question for you," I said. "Do you ever talk to your boss about all the craziness in your company?"

"Talk to my boss?" my friend exclaimed. "Are you nuts? I tell my boss exactly what he wants to hear. People who tell my boss what he doesn't want to hear are people who get laid off at the end of the quarter."

The U.S. financial crisis has caused fear in the boardroom, and that unease trickles down to every worker. The principal signs of a fear-soaked senior leadership are a preoccupation with looking out for No. 1, a clampdown on consensus-building conversations, and the shunning or ousting of anyone so bold or naive as to tell the truth about what he or she believes. We've seen the fear epidemic hit dozens of major firms over the past few years, and it isn't pretty. When a leadership team's attention turns from "How can we do the right thing for our customers and employees?" to "How can we keep our stature, our jobs, and the status quo intact, at any cost?" then fear officially rules the roost.

Here are 10 signs of a fear-based workplace. If you're the person in charge of a shop, pay attention:

1. Appearances are everything. When employees are preoccupied with staying in the office later in the evening than the boss does, fear is king. When people worry less about the quality of their work than about how they're perceived by managers higher up the chain, you've got fear.

2. Everyone is talking about who's rising and who's falling. When a daily focus of office conversation is the discussion of whose stock is rising and whose is falling in the company's internal stock index, you've got a fear infestation. A preoccupation with status and political capital is a sure sign that stakeholders' best interests have taken a back seat to me-first, fear-based behaviors.

3. Distrust reigns. Would this be your knife in my back? When your employees have to stop and ask themselves, "Is it safe to tell Marybeth my idea?" you have a fear problem in your organization. Workplaces where people steal one another's intellectual capital are places where trust is subordinate to fear (if trust exists at all). If your business is one where backstabbers thrive, ditto. In a healthier shop, people would be comfortable rising up in protest against a backstabbing colleague, and the paradigm "I win when you lose" would be quickly nipped in the bud.

4. Numbers rule. Sensible performance goals help people understand what's important. An obsession with metrics, daily, weekly, and hourly, and a world view that says an employee is the sum of his numeric goals, are signs of a fear-based culture. Why? A healthy organization builds performance goals into its leadership framework, but the metrics don't equal the framework. When management views people as complex, creative, multifaceted value producers and considers metrics as just one element of a well-rounded leadership program, you can beat the fear back to a tolerable level.

5. And rules number in the thousands. Maybe the most stereotypical yet valid sign of a fear-based workplace is an overdependence on policies in place of smart hiring and common sense. These organizations fear their own employees' instinctive reactions to everyday circumstances (the need to book a business trip, order a stapler, or schedule a vacation day), so they install lengthy, tedious policies to keep employees from thinking independently. A need to tout the trust and openness in the organization constantly can be another red flag. As my friend Marla says, "The more an employer drones on and on in the handbook and other employee materials about trust, the less trusting they are."

6. Management considers lateral communication suspect. My brother worked for a major electronics manufacturer. One day, stopping in the office just before taking off to visit a remote location, he ran into some guys who had just returned from the same facility. "Let's compare notes," said my brother, and five or six team members went into a conference room to confer. Within seconds, a manager burst into the room and demanded, "Who authorized this meeting? None of you guys is at a level to authorize a meeting." Evidently sharing ideas that could benefit the company is only a good thing in this organization if you carry a certain title and salary grade. How idiotic is that? Organizations that don't allow employees to brainstorm with one another are places where fear has made inroads.

7. Information is hoarded. Closely related to the question "Can employees in my company chat freely?" is the question "How do people find out how things work around here?" If the sole answer is, "Ask your manager," you've got some creepy-crawly fear bugs on your hands. Cultures that allow people to hoard what they know to consolidate their power are cultures where fear has smashed trust under its heel. Likewise, if employees learn about a company layoff through the grapevine or in the newspaper vs. a frank sitdown with their managers and their teams, something is rotten in Denmark, and fear is a silent partner in your management roster.

8. Brown-nosers rule. When the people who get rewarded and promoted are the least-knowledgeable but most-fawning ones in the org chart, fear has come to town. Fear-based senior leaders surround themselves with yes-men and yes-women because it's more pleasant to hear the "right" answer than the truth.

9. 'The Office' evokes sad chuckles, rather than laughs. My friend Amelia writes, "As hard as the writers for 'The Office' try to make Steve Carell's character look like the world's most bumbling, officious egotist, my actual boss is worse." When cartoonish fiction looks more appealing than everyday existence to your employees, fear may play a major part. Fear shuts down our ability to think creatively, collaborate, and bring passion to the job. When getting through the day requires a focus on keeping one's head down, taking no risks, and sucking up to anyone in management, your organization's soul has left the picture.

10. Management leads by fear. When senior leaders make virtually all decisions in secret, dole out information in unhelpful drips, and base hiring on sheeplike compliance rather than energy and talent, and the PA system all but blares "Be glad to have a job, stop whining, and get back to work," your company's fear problem is off the charts. I saw an example of this myself the other day when I stopped at a national retailer to look at earrings. A sales associate mentioned to his co-worker, "Crazy thing, I broke something in my car's engine, and my mechanic says it'll be $1,400 to get it fixed." In a flash, the supervisor of the department swooped into the conversation with the message, "Lucky you've got a job, aren't you then! A lot of people are unemployed, and we've got a list of people who'd love to have your job. That's your thought for the afternoon: Lucky Me!" and off she went. When leadership is based on keeping people in the dark and keeping them off-balance, no one benefits except the tier of managers near the top who justify their existence by devising ways to solidify their stature.

Chief executives know in their hearts that smart people, set loose to solve big problems, are responsible for every success and innovation industry has ever seen. Fear-trampled employees don't do a thing for your business. Still, management by fear is a hard habit to break, because fear-whipped underlings don't squawk. Meanwhile, your competitors may be hiring your best talent away and stealing market share while you make it easy for them to do so. Those meek, submissive, broken-down employees might blossom in your rival's trust-based culture. Do you really want to find out?

P90X - Day 1 - Phase 2 starts today!

Today is the second phase of my weight loss/strength gaining fitness plan.  And this phase should last me for many months (six planned so far, and more likely for the next few years).

So today we will dispense with the Pilates morning routines.  I may start them again, but not until I get more used to this new routine.  For those unfamiliar with P90X, it's a relatively new program, sold on 13 DVDs built on the principle of muscle confusion (in which I am a firm believer, and not just because of this routine). 

Today was the Chest & Back routine (normally about 55 minutes, I did 30), followed by the Ab Ripper X routine (about 16 minutes, and I completed it with several breaks).  Both are SUPER intense, and a damn good workout.  I got my cardio going just from these exercises alone.

For you workout freaks (Joe W., James B., Sam H.) - you know the feeling.  It's gonna KILL me tomorrow, but I'm loving it.


FYI, there is a "Lean" version of the program (same DVDs, but the program you follow is cut by about half for each day) for those who are more beginner/intermediate (maybe I should have started there?) or are trying to focus more on weight loss and less on strength.