Chest, Shoulders, and Triceps – I struggled to get out of bed which seems to happen to me every Monday morning. Once I get myself to stand up, the rest is automatic. I am not as alert as I would be if I worked out at night and that might be a good thing. I wake up, walk downstairs, put my sneakers on and press play. I always appreciate the warm-up as I am still waking up. Once the first set comes, you do not have time to think about anything else so you just do it. Not everyone can work out in the morning but I highly recommend it if you can, especially if you have kids. I find it very easy to exercise early when everyone is sleeping as there are no distractions whatsoever. I worked out in the afternoon on Saturday and all I heard was my two young kids fighting with each other in the room outside my workout area. I was thinking if I did not press “pause” to see what was going on, I would probably hear from my wife. Typical guy, I let them hash it out for a few more seconds and they eventually stopped. The whole time it was going on, I was not focused on exercising. It made me realize even more that working out in the morning is much better.

This morning’s workout was great, I felt a good burn on each exercise. The push-up exercises are designed for you to do maximum reps. I always max out but my goal every time is to do push-ups until the time clock runs down to zero. I will do as many as I can, take a few second break and max out again…the second set of reps is usually just a few more as I am exhausted at this point. I use both dumbbells and bandson the shoulder and tricep exercises. I love using the bands on the straight-arm shoulder exercises,  the tension at the top is far greater than what you would get if using dumbbells. If you have bands, definitely try them on the shoulder exercises next time, you will not be disappointed.

Also – I completed the “mason twist” (ab ripper x) for the first time this morning, I did all 50!!

Kenpo-X – Seeing that I have a party to attend tonight, I decided to double up and do back to back workouts. I felt good after doing kenpo-x so I attempted and completed the cardio-x workout too! My goal was to do cardio-x three times this week anyways so today was the third. This may be my new Saturday routine, I did not find doing back to back workouts too difficult and now I can cheat tonight without feeling guilty. Tomorrow is my rest day and looking forward to it!

Legs & Back – This workout did not changed in phase 2. Actually, the only workouts that changed are the chest, shoulders, arms, and the other back workouts. I might have been a bit weaker this morning than the last time I did legs and back. I did not incorporate dumbbells on as many of the leg exercises as I did last workout. I am pretty sure I had better form though so maybe that is the reason I did not have enough strength to use dumbbells on some. Either way, this workout was tough and I did not feel like I “brought it” as hard as I could have. I am looking forward to doing this workout again next week so I can redeem myself a bit.

ARX – I am getting better each time, I was able to do 44 reps of the “mason twist”. Tony does 50 so I should be able to keep up with him within 2 weeks!

Cardio-X– Last night I doubled up again and did cardio-x.  I take back what I said about cardio-x being easy. I made a cautious effort to keep moving throughout this workout and focused on working hard on every exercise routine. I must have been dogging it the first two times I did cardio-x, last night it felt as hard as some of the other P90X workouts. It does start off slow but the last 20 minutes are pretty intense. This just goes to show that by increasing your tempo a bit makes the workout experience a lot more demanding. That is why P90X should never get easy, you should be pushing yourself harder as you get better at these routines. I now know better to claim a workout is easy, it was me that was the issue.

Yoga-X – Anyone that has done yoga-x knows that it’s 90 minutes long. It’s also somewhat broken into two 45 minute sessions. The first 45 minutes are considered the hard part and the last 45 minutes is also hard but the focus is more on stretching and not balance strength. Well, I only had time to do the first 45 minutes this morning. I did fast forward the video to the yoga-belly routine and completed that as well so I completed about an hour of yoga-x this morning. Some people will actually do the 45 minutes session in the morning and the other 45 minutes session at night. I do not plan on doing the other 45 minute session tonight and I think in the future I will do the same. I do not want to give up on yoga so I will continue to do an hour of it a week, I just think 90 minutes of yoga is a bit excessive. I am doing extra cardio-x workouts this week so I do not feel the need to compensate for the missed yoga piece.

Back & Biceps – Loved it! I felt like I got a great pump out of this workout. As always, I could not keep up with the video on the pull-ups. I did attempt to do one “corn-cob” pull-up but failed miserably. Even though I can’t keep up with the pull-ups, I still get a great back workout in…I just do my best which is usually 4-8 pull-ups (with a small break in the middle). I am looking forward to this workout next week as I know I can do better on the bicep exercises, I was not able to reach my goals on some of them.

ARX – I did complete ab ripper x this morning, it’s nice to bang this out in the morning so I do not have worry about it at night. I am almost able to finish the “mason twist”, I am now up to 40…Tony does extra (I think 50-60) so I will shoot for 45 on Friday.

Cardio-X– My plan is to do cardio-x tonight after I put my kids to bed. I was dreading doing it Monday night so hopefully I just do it without playing mind games with myself tonight.

Nutrition –  Overall, the nutrition piece is going well. I have to admit I had some skittles last night and loved every second of it….and I do not even eat candy?? My daughter had some laying around so I popped a few, then a few more, and a bit more. I guess I have been so good for the last month that anything that is not considered a protein and/or a vegetable really triggers my taste buds. I have my first holiday party of the season this Saturday so I know I will be cheating a bit…hopefully not too much though.