End of Week Ten Check-in

So I've been on this program for what adds up to 10 weeks, including two recovery weeks.  I'm pretty proud to say that I actually got all three workouts in this past holiday week.  I usually plan to blow off workouts when there's pie and gravy about.  Not this time.

Following my new program to the letter started making more sense after I finished the Adaptation Phase and started the Hypertrophy Phase.  It was pretty obvious that the very first workouts were geared towards people who have never worked out or who hadn't worked out in more than 6 months.  There were lots of exercises that focused on teaching form as well as strengthening weak points like wrists and ankles before piling on a lot of weight.  The first phase was there to build a defense against injury and to start training the basic form for the more advanced exercises to come.

I'm excited that I finally get to use my barbell in a workout!  I haven't done bench press in years and it's good to see that doing a bazillion pushups with P90X and then a bazillion more with a weight vest on has very much improved my bench over what it used to be. 

Unfortunately, the program calls for exercises on equipment that I don't have.  So I made a few substitutions:

1. Seated cable rows become lying dumbell rows.
2. Lat pulldowns become pullups (which I can still do enough of to satisfy the set requirements - sweet!).
3. Leg curls/extensions become king deadlifts and one-legged squats.

P90X is what Tony came up with when they asked him to create a conditioning workout with only a very small amount of equipment and all body weight exercises.  And I bet something like this program is the workout he would have created if they asked him to create a mass-building workout a user could go to the gym and do.  Seeing a lot of the same bodyweight exercises (yes, the dreaded wall squats are in the program and king deadlifts look a lot like super skaters).  Slowing down the reps, adding more weight, as well as a barbell, squat rack, and a bench opens up a whole world of new exercises and is a pretty dramatic change-up from P90X.

This latest phase started this past week and is the first time in this program that I am not doing a full-body circuit.  The work is split into two workouts:  upper and lower.  And in this phase I am required to do 4 each.  So Monday is upper body, Wednesday is lower body, and Friday is upper body.  Then the next Monday starts with lower body, then upper, then lower.  Et cetera.

I am most pleased.  My current weight is 178.

Workout B Upper Body
Abs:
Toes/sky
Curlup legs in air hands on shoulders
Lateral leglift 
Pushup hold and lift leg, then arm, then other leg, then other arm in sequence

Superset 1
Seated cable row (lying dumbbell row instead)
Barbell Bench feet on bench

Superset 2
Reverse dumbbell fly
Dumbbell fly

Superset 3
Lat pulldown (Pullup instead)
Barbell front shoulder press seated

Superset 4
Pullover 1dumbbell 2 hands
Seated lateral shoulder raise

Superset 5
Inclined seated biceps curl
Seated single arm triceps extension

Superset 6
Wrist curl
Wrist extension

Workout A Lower Body
Abs
Thin Tummy
Curlup
Side raise
Seated thin tummy with cheek squeeze (it pains me to write those words)

Superset 1
King deadlift
Single leg squat

Superset 2
Hip/Thigh Extension prone
Static lunge back foot on low block

Superset 3
Single stiff leg deadliest
Single leg squat on a block

Superset 4
Leg Curl (repeat Superset 1 king deadlift)
Leg extension (repeat Superset 1 king deadlift)

Superset 5
Seated calf raise single leg
Standing calf raise single leg

Superset 6 (traps)
Dumbbell shrug behind
Dumbbell shrug front