14 May, 2012

P90X Day 17: Shoulders & Arms

I made a mistake after Shoulders & Arms last week, and it cost me this week. As I’ve mentioned previously, I’m using some pre-setup weights for my workouts. I have three sets that I’ve been using. A heavy one, a medium one, and a light one. My light one is 15 pounds, and the medium is 25. That’s actually too big of a difference. I need a 20 pound set setup.

Which, now that I think about, I could actually do without much trouble. I don’t use my heavy set for Arms & Shoulders, so I could spend 3 minutes and convert that one into a 20 pound set. I don’t know why I didn’t think of that until this minute.

Anyway, I use the 15s for most of the exercises, and the 25s for a few of them. But, last week I noticed that the 15s were too light for a couple of the exercises, but the 25s were still too heavy for those exercises. I had a week to do something about that. I could’ve ordered another set of weights, so I could have 4 sets, and have that 20 pound set. Or, I could’ve done just what I realized this minute, and set up my heavy set for 20 pounds.

But, I did neither of those things. Nor did I do anything else. Apparently, I somehow thought that in a week, I’d gain enough strength that the 25s would magically work for me on those exercises. Several of them are ones where Tony says that even he prefers to use 25 pounds and under.

Of course the 25s were still too heavy. But I did get stronger. The 15s did even less for me this week. And that was true on even more of the exercises. I’m not saying they did nothing for me. But Tony says over and over “8-10 reps for muscle mass, 12-15 reps for lean muscle”. And by that he means that when you reach that number, you’re done. You can’t do any more, at least properly.

Well, I’m going for muscle mass. I need to be in that 8-10 range for everything. As I’ve said before, not because I’m trying to look like The Hulk, but because I need the muscle mass to help manage my diabetes. I was over 8-10 on a good half of the exercises today that I did with the 15s. Worse, there were a couple that I easily passed 15 and ended up over 20. I had to pause the DVD because they were moving on to the next exercise, and I hadn’t reached the point yet where I was “feeling the burn”. I have to fix this problem for next week.

I got a good workout, but it could have been quite a bit better. Still, I was quite sore and tired and sweaty afterwards.

And, of course, afterwards came my best friend, Ab Ripper X. Ab Ripper X is going to give me great abs…if it doesn’t kill me first. And I honestly don’t know which it’s going to be. Ok, I exaggerate. A bit. But this is still the hardest part of P90X for me. And it’s more than just abs, it’s core work. I feel it from my lower chest down to my thighs. Still, at least my sit ups are looking better. Gotta be thankful for small things. A few months ago, I couldn’t do a sit up. Period. Now I can. I can’t yet do 25 of them, but I’m getting closer.

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