CHALEAN EXTREME DAY 23: Day 2 of my P90x-style recovery week (did Yoga X)

(Originally posted May 12, 2009)

As I said before, I decided to do a P90x-style recovery week this week instead of doing another round of ChaLean's Burn Circuit. Although Burn Circuit has definitely been effective, there's not enough differentiation from workout to workout and it just gets a bit monotonous after a while.

Anyway, last night was Yoga X, which I've not done in over a month! Yoga is definitely a tough enterprise, and it definitely took a lot of getting used to when I first started P90x back in January. It also took a good bit more motivation to do than most since it clocks in at an hour and a half! That's a long workout! But even though I never really am chomping at the bit to do yoga, I've sorta missed having it in my routine since I could certainly tell the benefits it gave me in terms of strength, flexibility, balance, etc.

Last night Katie came over to do Yoga with me, and we made it about 3/4 of the way through before we bonked. Not bad since the hardest part of the workout by far is in the first 45 minutes. And I felt great afterwards. Yoga is tough, but I miss it!

Tonight I might do Kenpo Cardio Plus+

P90X Day 23: Core Synergistics

(Originally posted Feb 2, 2009)

This is actually a tardy update from last week before I went to NYC for the weekend. Technically, this past week was supposed to be a "recovery" period...but all that really means is that there is no weight/resistance training. The cardio, flexibility and core workouts, however, are still in full effect!

Anyway, despite my whining, I actually haven't even done any P90x workouts for the last few days due to my NY excursion...but I figured the ridiculous amounts of walking I did there helped to compensate a bit. Before I left though for the Big Apple, I got to do a new workout routine for the first time in 3 weeks: Core Synergistics. 

This was surprisingly difficult! Actually, it was the first workout in a while where I was fairly frequently having to pause the tape so that I could regain enough composure to continue. Some of that stems from lack of familiarity...but some of that is just because it was so stinking hard. Basically, the whole workout revolves around hammering your core (essentially your body's midsection/torso area) for an hour. The exercises change quickly, and the breaks in between are short! And a lot of the moves were not entirely natural feeling...like the bizarre sort of stuff we would have done in wrestling practices back in high school ("walking push-ups", I'm looking at you!). But it was good to have something new to stir things up a little bit. Makes me somewhat look forward to next week when there'll be two new resistance workouts to do.

Well, normally I would give an exercise-by-exercise breakdown of the workout. But you know what? I'm tired. So..not gonna happen. I'll give another update when I do the next new workout in a few days.

Btw, today marks Day 27. Almost 1/3 of the way through! Will maybe post some progress pics soon.