Restarting P90X and Committing to the Beachbody Challenge!!!

So I decided to restart P90X this week and have committed to doing the Beachbody Challenge. I am actually on Day 3 now..just finished the Shoulder and Arms workout and am a bit sore but feeling really good. I am coaching a few people through this Beachbody Challenge and even created a Facebook group to keep everyone motivated to complete the challenge with me. If anyone else is interested in joining us for the next 60 or 90 days (depending on the program you choose), I would love to have you on board and to be your Team Beachbody Coach. You can sign up for a free Team Beachbody membership here with me as your coach. Send me an email to coachkimberly (at) dynamafit (dot) com as well stating you're interested in doing the Beachbody Challenge or to just have me as your coach.

Day 1 (Wednesday's workout) was the Chest and Back where I had to do a lot of pull ups/chin ups and push-ups. Still working on my pull-ups as I can do only a few chin-ups and after that need to do assisted ones, but hopefully in 90 days I'll be able to improve with these exercises. I had skipped the Ab Ripper X on Wednesday due to lack of time, but did it yesterday.

Day 2 was the Plyometric workout - mega legs and "jump training". My legs aren't as sore as I thought they would be today, probably because I'm used to doing a lot of kicking and other plyo drills in my Taekwon-do and kickboxing classes. I did the Plyo workout in the morning and then sparred with my Adult Taekwon-do class last night. Great sparring class and we also knocked

out the Ab Ripper X together as a class. Abs are feeling great today.

Day 3, today, was the Shoulders and Arms. I may try to repeat Ab Ripper X again today to get back on track or may just push it to tomorrow's workout along with Yoga X. Who knows, I guess depending on how I feel and what kind of time frame I have tomorrow. The Shoulders and Arms workout went really well today. I was really happy with the reps I did for each exercise. The only thing is I think I need to go buy some 8 lb dumbbells really soon. I have 5s, 10s, 15s, 20s and 25s in my home gym (for shoulders and arms I only use up to the 15s though). It would be great to get some in between weights like the 8s and 12s to challenge myself more on some of the exercises but not make it too difficult.

Anyways, I'm going to juice some more today too. My husband and I got the Breville Juice

Fountain Compact and have been loving it. Previously, we were using the Jack Lalanne power juicer classic. It works great as a juicer, but the cleanup was a pain. It was very messy and inconvenient with all the parts whereas the Breville compact juicer is simple to use and clean up with only a few easy to remove and clean parts. I am probably going to make a carrot, beets and apple drink today and add some Greenberry Shakeology.

Week 3

I didn't stay true to the RevAbs workout schedule this week, but did manage to workout 6 days this week, and regardless of what workout I do, my end results are really what matters to me. Week 3 of my RevAbs workout and fitness journey started with the Total Strength and Mercy Abs workouts on Monday. I decided to use a resistance band instead of weights for the workout and boy were my arms sore the next day from the lunges with shoulder press. I found that with dumbbells, I was able to lift them overhead no problem, but the resistance bands were pretty difficult and really pushed my muscles to work hard to straighten my arms over my heads for the press.

Tuesday and Wednesday I decided to take advantage of the beautiful weather and took Ethan for an hour walk with the stroller both days. The trails surrounding our house has lots of hills and add to that the heavy stroller, it was a pretty good workout as we jogged and walked.

Thursday I did the Power Intervals workout and felt great with the cardio. Friday I took Ethan to the rec center for a swim. He loved the water. It was only his second time at the pool, but this time he had so much fun and splashed in the water and kicked around.

On Saturday, my husband and I spent the entire day at the dealership. Initially, we were just going to drop off my car, a Lexus IS250, for an oil change and to check out some of the used vehicles there not really expecting to buy a car that day. I had been leasing my car and still had 10 months left on the lease. We found a used 2002 Lexus RX300 that was in very good condition with low mileage. My husband's awesome negotiating skills got the sales rep to get us out of our lease and got us a great deal on the SUV. We were very excited to get a more practical vehicle for our family. The dealership was awesome and had great customer service. We were also in a hurry to get to church as I had to teach Sabbath school, so they went through all the paperwork as fast as they could and I made it in time to teach my class. Well, although it was a long day, Smitty and I knew that we had to work out. We both decided to do the P90X Chest and Biceps workout as I wanted some strength training and in particular to work on my arms. The workout was much needed. I can feel it even today. We finished the Chest and Biceps with Ab Ripper X.

Today, I spent the day relaxing with my son and also got some housework in. We then went to dinner with my husband's aunt and cousin. We came home around 8 and I had to put the baby to bed. I always get my workouts in late at night around 9 or 10, but I guess that just works with my schedule better. I almost didn't want to do my workout tonight and didn't feel like doing a DVD workout for the night so I improvised and created my own routine.

I did a 30 minute kickboxing workout. First, I warmed up with 2 minutes of continuous jump roping..great cardio!. Then I briefly stretched out (especially my already sore arms from yesterday's workout). I used my free standing kick bag for the workout and started with 10 reps each of the following:

#1 - Jab, right round house kick
#2 - Jab, cross, switch round house kick
#3 - Jab, cross, left hook punch, right round house kick
#4 - Jab, cross, left hook, right upper cut, switch round house kick

Then 10 right round house kicks, 10 left round house kicks

10 reps of the following:

Left hook, right upper cut
Right upper cut, left hook
Jab, cross, right knee
Jab, cross, switch knee
Jab, cross, right knee, right round house kick
Jab, cross, switch knee, left round house kick

10 left front kicks, 10 right front kicks
10 left side kicks, 10 right side kicks

25 jumping jacks
10 knuckle push ups
15 full sit ups

I repeated the circuit again a second time.

I finished the workout with punching drills:
30 seconds alternating punches in a sitting/horse stance
30 seconds left jab, 30 seconds right jab (with the last 10 sec punching as fast as possible)

The it was a cool down and stretch to finish the workout, which again took about 30 minutes total from start to finish.

Week 2 of RevAbs (restart)

I decided to restart Week 2 of my RevAbs workout last week due to all the interruptions I had. Also, I probably will be blogging my updates weekly instead of daily now.

Anyways, last week I got 5 of 6 workouts in.

Monday I started with Power Intervals and wasn't able to work out on Tuesday. Wednesday and Thursday I had actually tried out the new Tony Horton One On One workout I got in the mail - Cardio Intervals. It's a 40 minute cardio workout that includes 20 different exercises that are 30-60 seconds each. You repeat the circuit twice. It included moves from Tony Horton's P90X. It was a great cardio workout, you especially get more out of your workout if you truly push yourself.

Friday I did the Fire Up Your Abs workout.

Saturday we took our son swimming for the first time. I think he was taking everything in. He wasn't scared but I think because everything looked so new and strange he was just studying the place. We took him to the Trails Rec Center where they had fountains, a lazy river and a big slide. Of course we didn't take him down the slide, but we took him through the lazy river a few times. I got to swim a couple laps but that was the extent of my workout for the day.

On Sunday, I did the Power Intervals workout and half of the P90X Ab Ripper X workout.

Day 10 RevAbs

I got my husband to workout with me today. We did the Total Strength and Mercy Abs workouts. Feeling tired now, but really good. I'm glad that I got a workout in and even got to workout with my husband to keep me more motivated.

My pulled groin muscle is feeling much better today as are my knees (although I can still feel a bit of pain in my right one).


Food:

Sausage and biscuit for breakfast
Lunch - Grilled teriyaki salmon w/ side of macaroni and jasmine rice
Snack - potato chips
Dinner - Asian style noodle soup with ginger, garlic and chicken broth, bok choy and Hawaiian chicken meatballs.
Snack - Peanut butter granola bar

Day 9 - RevAbs

So the last 4 days I unfortunately missed my RevAbs workout. I had a sick baby and wasn't feeling well myself. I did get a mini workout in on Sunday (did some jumping jacks - about 2 minutes continuous plus 25 push ups and 1 minute of sit ups/crunches). Monday I did some Tae Kwon Do training for about 30 minutes, but still, I feel bad for missing those workouts.

I also realized today that I had done the wrong workout on Day 8. Oops! Oh well, I just did that workout today since I did Day 9 workout last time. So today was Power Intervals again.

The Power Intervals routine is:

Lunges (with weights 2 sets of 8 reps per leg)
Cross-overs (jumping jacks with straight arms, crossing them in front, and crossing your feet)
Squat Thrusts (Burpy without the push up) and stand up and press arms up
Mercy (break)
Repeat cross-overs
Repeat Squat Thrusts

I always like this workout. It's great cardio and strength training, but I really need to do something about my knees..especially my right one. The jumping jacks sometimes really aggravate it and the lunges are sometimes painful. I am going to look up some exercises I can do to strengthen my knees (or the muscles that support it). Hopefully it'll get better.

Anyways, today I had for meals/snacks:

Breakfast - Bowl of Blueberry flavored oatmeal and water
Snack - mixed nuts and peanut butter granola bar
Lunch - chicken caesar salad
Snack - Egg sausage breakfast biscuit (the frozen kind)
Dinner - Pasta with 1/4 turkey stuffed green bell pepper, side of tofu and fried catfish fillet

Week 2 - Day 1 (Day 8) RevAbs

Yesterday was a day of rest, or as Brett Hoebel calls it, "Mercy" for RevAbs. I was going to start Week 2 yesterday since I already had taken a rest day during the weekend, but was so busy with work that I skipped the workout.

Anyways, so today I started Day 1 of Week 2 (Day 8 of 90). The workout was Fire Up Your Abs. Here's my RevAbs review of the Fire Up Your Abs workout as well as what I did today. I do admit, at one point today, I was debating skipping the workout as it was getting late, but my determination to reach my fitness goals kept me going and I'm really glad I did the workout.

I love how Brett demonstrates the moves and explains how to do it but also has one person for each workout do modifications of each exercise in case you are not able to do the exercise as is. I did have to the the modified versions for the jumping jacks and most of the striders today because my bad knee was acting up. I swear, one day I'll get knee surgery, but until then, all I can do is stretch and modify my exercises to not strain the knee so much.

My favorite exercise in the Fire Up Your Abs workout routine is probably the Dumbbell Jack Knives. You lay on the ground flat on your back and extend one leg while bending the opposite knee. Holding one heavy dumbbell with both hands, exhale as you simultaneously lift the dumbbell and your straight leg (to about a 45 degree angle) and press lightly towards your shin, all while flexing and engaging your abs. As Brett says, half the effort is going up. The other half is on the way down.

I love all of the RevAbs abs workouts as Brett targets six different areas:
1) Upper Flexion
2) Lower Flexion
3)Side Flexion
4)Double Flexion
5)Twist
6)Extension.

The Fire Up Your Abs workout routines include:

Warm-up with marches (bringing knee up to chest), skips and then a jog. He also has you do jumping jacks and more skips and kicks to get your muscles ready for the workout.

The ab routine starts with the forearm plank for 1 minute, then he has you do the cobra to work your back muscles where you lift just your upper body off the floor and bend your elbows forming a "W". The third exercise is the dumbbell jack-knife, as described above. He finishes the ab routine with the side plank, having you hold on each side for 30 seconds.

Brett mixes in cardio with the striders. He has you do 2 sets with a 30 second "Mercy" break in between. For the striders you are in a lunge like position with your arms pumping in the opposite direction as you constantly switch your stance as if you are cross country skiing.

The second round is the same except he wants you to push harder. In the third round, the spice round, Brett gives you variations to make each exercise more challenging.

1) Plank - Lift 1 arm for 2 seconds and alternate, or you can just lift your elbow for 4 seconds. For a real challenge, you can do the windmill where you bring your entire arm out and sweep down to your legs like a windmill all while balancing and maintaining a straight body position and engaging (or firing as Brett calls it) your abs.
2) Cobra - Form a Y with your arms
3) Dumbbell Jack-knife - Switch Grip on dumbbells - cup the dumbbells with the back of your hand towards yourself.
4) Side Plank- stack your feet instead of the staggered stance
5) Striders are done with hammer fists to bring more power and tension to the move

Day 6 - RevAbs

Tired but feeling good! I love the feeling after a great workout. You know that the pain and exhausion you feel is just temporary...it's all for the reward at the end.

Today's workout was again Power Intervals. 30 minutes of strength training, intervals, and cardio. I again used the 10 lb dumbbells..feeling everybit of it during the lunges, and especially during Spice Round with the added dumbbell press during the last 16 lunges. I did stick with it though and am proud of myself for making it through every single lunge with good form. :D

I stayed with Brett and his crew during the crossovers as well, but those darned squat thrusts always get me. Round 1 was fine. Round 2 was hell. I had to stop once or twice. During the Spice round I was able to go non stop but adding the "spice"? Forget it! I had just enough in me to stick through it to finish without stopping, but my legs were too sore to be able to add the drop.

Today's workout I really felt my muscles working though, especially during those crossovers. Looking at all the fit people with toned abs just makes me really want to stick to my workout and nutrition even more.

Food for today:

I started with an egg white breakfast burrito made with 2 egg whites, half a slice of swiss cheese, a tortilla wrap and 2 slices of turkey bacon with 3 slices of tomatoes.

I had a banana for a snack.

Lunch I had a small steak and asian stirfried noodles from last night.

I ate a small slice of swiss cream filled cake (I know, I know..my treat for the day).

Dinner I had a half cup of rice with a chicken drumstick (rotisserie style) and a bowl of salad with fat free ranch dressing.

I had a peanut butter granola bar for another snack.

Oh for drinks, I drank just water all day.