Tony Horton Is A Lunatic!

The first 10 days of the year I’ve stuck to my word and hit the gym, walked through SoHo on my lunch hours, worked in some P90X Kenpo-X on the weekends when trips to the gym were nearly impossible, and have felt fantastic. Now on the 11th day of the 11th year in the 21st Century, I’ve come down to the 11th hour (11PM EST) and I’m 60 minutes away from breaking my 365 Day fitness promise. That cannot happen. They say we are supposed to get like 2 feet of snow tonight and there was no way I was getting to the gym after work.

I’ve eaten dinner, kissed the kids goodnight, watched the Rangers lose to the Canadians, responded to a few client e-mails, watched about 10 minutes of Southland, and virtually everything inside of me is telling me that it’s just time to get into bed – BUT – I went and made this public commitment to engage in physical activity for every day of this year so I don’t want to let myself and my thousands (ha) of readers down. I’ll admit I really thought this was going to be easy. Thank God for my P90X DVDs. I think I’ll pop in the Yoga program. That’s low impact, quiet, relaxing… At least I’ll be of sound mind + body before I go to bed right?

60 min later. It’s nearly midnight and I got through 55 minutes of P90X’s 90 minute Yoga program. OK OK, I didn’t finish the full 90 minutes, but I’m sorry – getting through 30 minutes of that is a pretty good accomplishment in my book. I’m not a Yoga Person OK!? ? I kept thinking to myself throughout – this Tony Horton guy is fucking gotta be INSANE!! But – I give him a pass, he’s from Fairfield County, CT like me, and the guy is in amazing shape. I know in my heart that if I can work Yoga into my routine once or twice per week, for say the next 3 months, I am certain I could get through the full 90 minutes. You can’t help but become flexible after 4 or 5 sessions of this.

I won’t bore you with the particulars of the workout (buy the program if you want to know!) but I am literally sweating my ass off and I finished the workout 20 minutes ago! It’s amazing. Fantastic. Makes you want to cry. Curse at Tony. Definately pushes you to the limit. For my readers who have gone through microdiscectomy, please, please, please, talk to your orthopedist, surgeon, or chiropractor before doing any fitness program. Remember I’m about 16 months out of surgery, and have been through rehab, and a recent 12 week cycle of leg/back strength training, weight loss, and daily cardio.

Tonight proved a lot. It proved that I was very close to doing what most of us do after a resolution. We break them. We fall back to old habits. The grind of daily life after the holidays slowly creeps back into our lives. We go back to being “comfortable”. This workout was refreshing. I tried something I hadn’t done in 18 months, and feel amazingly clear and calm. It’s given me some mental strength to carry on. Now maybe I can get in another 10 days of working out before I hit the mental barriers I felt an hour ago. One thing’s for sure, I know that I can’t make excuses. Snow or a power outage, or really nothing except catastrophic injury (knock on wood 3 times) can stop me. The biggest challenge of the year is coming up though A weekend trip to DC for my son’s hockey tournament, and a trip to Vegas for 5 days of a conference that will certainly include some professional education, maybe a little blackjack, texas hold ‘em, and copious amounts of alcohol. 7 Days of temptation for bad food, hotel luxury, indulgence, and debauchery. If I can get through Vegas – the other 345 days of the year will be a breeze. Next report from DC.

Happy training!

My intial thoughts on P90X

I’ve always been reluctant to try any home work-out programs. You know the ones, where a buff dude with hot women in leotards working out in the background in an infomercial tells you how get flats abs for 6 minutes a day while eating their special food supplements. I always felt that if I wasn’t physically getting into a gym or out for a run, that I wasn’t giving it my all. When you’re paying upwards of $50 a month on a gym membership, that seems like proper motivation to get your ass there at least 3 days a week.

Gazelle Infomercial w/ Tony Little

My cousin Joe, who always seems like a good authority on fitness programs, told me about P90X and how fit he felt after doing it. I remembered seeing the P90 infomercials a few years ago with Tony Horton, who like his other infomercial brethren seemed full of shit. Between Joe’s advice and an unused gym membership, I figured I’d give it a shot.

How does it work? 

I’m only 2 weeks into the program and I’m feeling pretty good about it so far. The first week is not for one with an aversion to pain. You will feel physical pain in every joint and muscle in your body for the first 10 days. I recommend having ample doses of Advil on hand before bed time, plenty of water, vitamin C, and meals high in Carbs/Calories after your weight training work-outs. I’m not a trainer nor am I a nutritionist so I suggest you educate yourself on all of the tricks to muscle recovery and proper nutrition during workouts. Read here for more info on muscle pain: 

P90X is a great program for someone looking for both a challenge and variety in their workout regimen. There’s a great mix of weight training, awesome cardio work-outs like plyometrics (jump training) , yoga, and Kenpo (mix of martial arts and boxing inspired workouts). You use your own body weight a lot of the time for the weight-training workouts. You’ll need a pull-up bar, some dumbbells to get going.

Team Beachbody,  the makers of P90X will lead you to believe that their post work-out recovery drink is the best thing ever. I haven’t checked it out yet but once I give it a try, I’ll post here and let you know. In terms of meals/nutrition, I’m just staying away from crap. Crap in a box, Crap in a Can etc. Eggs, Whole Grain Bread, Avocado, Grilled Chicken, Turkey, nuts, fruits, veggies, granola, and yogurt are all parts of my diet now. I give myself a cheat meal or cheat day once per week and this seems to keep my major cravings at bay.

Results so far. After 2 weeks, I’m down about 7 lbs from 196 to 189.

Music 

Most P90X workouts are exactly an hour long (with the exception of Yoga which is 90 min). Here’s my current playlist on my Ipod. After the first week I decided to turn the volume down on Tony Horton because I just can’t listen to the guy talk anymore. He annoys me, but the workouts are killer. I created a playlist that runs just over an hour.

1.) The Mystical Potato Head Groove Thing – Joe Satriani
2.) Flying in a Blue Dream – Joe Satriani
3.) That Was Just Your Life – Metallica
4.) Broken, Beat & Scarred – Metallica
5.) Symphony of Destruction – Megadeth
6.) Prodigal Son – Sevendust
7.) Pride And Joy – Stevie Ray Vaughn
8.) Everyday I Have the Blues (Live) – John Mayer
9.) The Animal – Steve Vai
10.) The Riddle – Steve Vai
11.) Sister – Steve Vai
12.) Blu Powder – Steve Vai

 

Verdict

Overall, I really like the P90X program. I think it’s something I can stick with and get a lot out of. I’ll post updates every few weeks to show you how I’m doing. I’m thinking that writing about it will keep me motivated and now that I’ve gone public with this endeavour, I’ll have to show results in the end.