P90X Days 4-6: Something Smells Like Updog

After Day 4's Yoga, something smelled like Updog. "What's 'Updog'?" you ask? Oh, nothing much. How about you?

So, I'm actually done with Day 8 and about to do Day 9 this afternoon, but I figured I'd go ahead and post on Days 4-6 now and 7-9 later tonight or tomorrow hopefully. I figured two shorter posts were better than one long one. So, on to the summaries.

Also after Day 4's Yoga, both this picture and the one above were unsuccessful attempts on my part to demonstrate my mastery of one of the easiest Yoga poses I learned: "Upward Dog"...or "Downward Dog"...or some kind of dog...I really don't remember, Dogg.

Day 4: Yoga. It sounded easy enough. Sit around with your legs crossed and stretch a little to some soundtrack of nature sounds. Maybe light some patchouli incense and form a hippie drum circle afterwards with some of my less hygienic friends or acquaintances. No big deal. Suffice it to say that I did not have much knowledge of nor respect for Yoga. This is no longer the case.

The first few poses were not so bad and actually felt kind of nice, stretching muscles I rarely use. "Upward Dog" for example, is the pose I tried to take a picture of myself doing because it was fairly easy. Unfortunately, the pose is essentially the top of a push-up (arms straight) with terrible form (head and chest up, back curved downward, hips and knees almost touching the floor) and therefore, not easy to take a picture of myself while demonstrating. After the first few minutes, the poses got increasingly more difficult and holding them for any length of time was every bit as challenging as the other workouts. To say the least, I was stunned to be dripping sweat just a few minutes into this workout (as early or earlier than in other workouts so far).

Some of the pose names still strike me as a little silly (Warrior One, Warrior Two, Reverse Warrior, Child's Pose, Sun Salutation, etc.), but the physical challenge behind many of them (lifting this leg, leaning that way, bending at the knee, getting as low as you can, holding one arm over your head and another straight behind you, keeping your head up, all while keeping your balance and maintaining good form for a certain amount of time) is NO JOKE. You definitely feel strain and stress in muscles that need it and with any consistency, should develop some flexibility.

By the end of the workout, I felt that I had won a few small battles and look forward to seeing what I can do better next time. All in all, a very challenging and educational workout that may have eliminated yoga references from all the hippie jokes from my comedic repertoire. Oh well. There are always granola and Toyota Prius references.

After Day 5, I felt like I had just run the Kentucky Derby.

Day 5: Legs and Back workout and Ab workout. Like everything so far, this workout tested me physically, but also mentally. I used to love doing leg workouts, but pretty much laid off most of them 8 or 10 years ago when my knees couldn't take the stress of some of them anymore. I don't recall my knees screaming out in pain at me during this workout, so either I didn't work hard enough or the workout itself is well-constructed to not cause permanent knee damage. In any case, there were a lot of moments (during wall squats in particular) that muscles were shaking and sweat was dripping and I could not think about anything in the world except how long another eight seconds sounded. Some of these exercises seemed like they would never end. To tell you the truth, I'm still not sure they've ended.

Ab workout, as usual, sucked. But I'm slowly getting better at it (I think).

After Day 6, I was quite winded and had the bright idea to take a picture of myself in agony from a different angle. Weights in background are larger than they appear.

Day 6: Kenpo--er--Cardio. Day 6 is supposed to be "Kenpo X" (some sort of martial-arts/self-defense/cardio-like workout), but Brian (the buddy that challenged me to do this in the first place and loaned me the DVDs and pull-up bar) forgot to include the Kenpo X DVD in the stuff he gave me. So, as a substitute, I did the Cardio workout (which is what he said he usually did anyway). I'm hoping to get the Kenpo DVD from him (or someone) at some point so that I have tried and done the whole program, but this will have to suffice for the first two or three weeks at least.

Cardio left me winded and drenched with sweat, but thankfully it was the shortest workout so far at about 43 minutes. It combined elements of some of the other workouts (some Yoga, some Kenpo, etc.), so it was actually kind of a fun mix and a nice change of pace. Definitely not as painful or mentally challenging as the others so far, but a good cardio workout nonetheless.

Stay tuned for Days 7-9...Rest/Stretch (guess which I chose), Chest and Back/Abs (again), and the one I've really dreaded repeating (and still have to do today): Plyometrics. Uh oh...