Morning!
Well, today is the day I started P90x…and let me tell you, ‘awesome’ doesn’t begin to describe it. Why, I hear you ask? Because like other super workout DVDs, there’s lots of encouragement, lots of laughs, and lots of excellent exercises to music that, in this case, really work your muscles to failure.
The first day is Chest/Back and Ab Ripper X. Chest and back includes a lot of pushups and pullups but the good news for me and my family – we absolutely adore these kinds of exercises! ‘matter of fact, whenever we’re at karate and the senseis call ‘pushup time!’, other kids/families might groan, but me and my kids always cheer, yay!
But I digress. 
The thing I liked about Back and Chest is that you’re encouraged to use a chair to help support your weight during the pullups. Given the fact that by the middle, I couldn’t achieve a single pullup anymore, this was really a boon – I was able to offset my weight juuuuuust enough to inch my way towards the bar, thus ensuring I was continuing to the best of my abilities.
Chest/Back has a series of 12 exercises that are repeated in two sessions, and the second session has you perform them in different orders. Very energizing! The time really flew by. I also greatly enjoyed Tony’s commentary; he’s very motivating. One difficulty I did encounter was my weights were ‘way too light – I had brought up the 10 pound jobbers from my basement and they were woefully ineffective. I’ll bring up my 20 pounders the next time (and after I was finished, I did top off my workout by doing 3 sets of 8 biceps curls with my 35 pound dumbbells downstairs. Oooooo, a very nice burn indeed).
Ab Ripper X is a nice little 15 minute workout that includes over 336 ab movements. Each set had 25 reps – I was able to get to between 15 and 25 for each one. While I’m obviously not in top shape, I’m certainly in much better form that I would have thought, having just had surgery last month!
I completed the workout about 20 minutes ago….and my arms/shoulders/back are starting to feel the results. It’s really quite the sensation! I’m looking forward to seeing what P90x has in store for me tomorrow.
Today I also need to take my Before pictures as well. Wheeee!
Enjoy,
Barbara
ps – more P90X goodies!