The Force is not strong with this one

Well here I am folks. Almost seven months to the day I'm back (don't worry, you can hold the applause)! The last seven months have been long and arduous, and I'm glad that this phase of things is coming to a close. The best part is that I'm going to be starting P90X all over again. Yep, that's right... Tony Horton will again be exerting control over my life. However, I have a few ways to make things a little more bearable this time around. I have a lot to cover today so I won't really get into today's workout, but I'll tell you this - chest and back today felt like the first time I did it last year. BONK!!

For those of you that do care I've been away at training for my new job for the past seven months. I did have the chance to workout while I was away, and I even managed to convince a few of my friends to take part in the P90X experience with me. The difference being away was that I had access to a full gym, so about 2 months into being away I started doing some powerlifting which I really liked. In all honesty I would like to continue doing it, but space and time requirements confine me to mostly working out at home. Thankfully I have P90X as a great alternative to a gym workout.

Admittedly there is a downside to only being able to do P90X. I really want to focus on strength, and you just don't push enough weight in the P90X workouts to really bring your strength to the next level. Will you get stronger with P90X? Absolutely. However, I really want to get my squat over 400 lbs., and that's NOT going to happen with P90X. P90X will help me shed a few unwanted pounds (probably 5-10) and get my cardio back up to par. Admittedly I haven't really worked out that much over the past few weeks, so this cycle of P90X is really more about getting me back to a solid baseline than anything else.

I don't want to dwell on the negatives of doing P90X again, so let's talk about the positives I've experienced because of P90X. The most surprising thing is that even though I wasn't working out I really didn't gain any weight. I know I'm a little softer than when I stopped last September, but it's really not that big of a difference. My last time on the scale I came in at 195 which is only a few pounds heavier than where I ended. My legs are just as cut as when I stopped and my clothes all fit the same. So at the very least P90X got my body stoked to the point where it was able to keep burning calories at the same rate. I also ate pretty poorly at times over the past seven months, so I consider myself lucky.

P90X also turned my body into somewhat of a junk food detector. I stopped eating the strict P90X diet last September, but I maintained a lot of the eating habits, especially at lunch (at the very least it saved me a lot of money). What I found is that whenever I did eat poorly my body reacted REALLY badly. I found myself getting sick to my stomach pretty often, and it became clear that my body wasn't going to tolerate too much crap. I could down two avocados and a 3 lbs. bag of salad with no problems, but if I ate a double cheeseburger I would feel queasy. I'm sure there are a multitude of reasons for this but the lesson I've learned is that too much junk makes me feel horrible. There's no better deterrent to bad eating than that!

Now that I'm coming into my second full round of P90X and have a solid understanding of the program I'm going to be making a few changes to suit my needs at this point. The first thing to change is that I'm going to be taking out the plyo and yoga to make room for some Krav Maga training and running. While plyo was one of the main reasons for my legs getting shredded, I need the workout time to be able to train and get a few miles on the road. One of my goals for this year is to be able to build up to solid 5-mile runs, and trashing my legs once a week won't really help with that. So basically I will be doing the Monday/Wednesday/Friday workouts (including Ab Ripper X) and then mixing in my own runs and Krav Maga training. I would say that will get me to where I want to be.

Most importantly I have completely ditched Tony this time around. I gifted my P90X DVDs to a buddy of mine, so I'm going to be using a few Excel spreadsheets to get me through my workouts. While I'll miss feeling like crap because Erik Stolhanske is kicking my ass in plyo with one leg I won't have to suffer through Tony gushing over Drea Weber.
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