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So I'm not exceptionally healthier, wealthier, or wiser. But I fell asleep very early last night, and woke up very early this morning. And of course I hadn't gotten around to doing anything right after work like I had hoped - I barely had enough time to spend a little quality time with Matthew before he got cranky, help put him down for the night, and fix dinner. And I can't do the Ab Ripper routine shortly after dinner, so...

The good news is that I woke up super early, and didn't put off this morning what I unintentionally put off last night. I started out with Ab Ripper, and did 370 moves. And then I re-watched part of the Ab Ripper video and realized that I'm indeed counting some of the moves wrong, but so far in the Wrong way. For example, I haven't been doing 26 wide leg side touch sit ups, I had been doing 13. I didn't get much later into the video before I realized I absolutely had to get started on Plyometrics or else I wouldn't have enough time to get ready before our nanny arrived - or more importantly before Matthew woke up.

I'm still debating if I'll go to physical therapy tonight or tomorrow. Regardless of that, I'll be doing shoulders and arms later this evening. I'm supposed to do another Ab Ripper after that, but since I skipped on Monday and the make up was today, I guess I'll just count that as my Ab Ripper for today and resign myself to have yet another week pass where I skip an Ab Ripper routine.

I got the flu shot yesterday, for the first time ever - having an infant at home who just had surgery last week makes it a little more important to keep the family healthy, so I went ahead and got it. I didn't even feel it. I just hope my shoulder isn't sore today to interfere with my regularly scheduled workout tonight. It doesn't seem so bad just yet...

Sure, the date that's listed for this post is 10/28, but it's actually for 10/27. I just got a really late start. After physical therapy tonight, I came home, ate dinner, watched Heroes, and fell fast asleep. I woke up to walk the dog, and noodled around a bit, and decided to start on my Monday routine for the night.

I'm still progressing (as the chart below will show). 120 pushups, 31 pull ups, 15 chin ups, and 78 shoulder moves - whereas a week ago I did 112, 20, 10, and 77, respectively. Note the stair steps in the chart. I'll hit the shoulders more on Wednesday on "shoulders" day (Wednesday), and I'll end up doing more pull ups and chin ups on the other "back" day, Friday.

Also I'm thinking a raw rep count doesn't really tell much for the moves I'm doing with weights, since I increase weight if I'm able to do 12 or more reps. Maybe I'll just multiply the weight times the reps. And since that's likely to be off the chart, maybe I'll divide by 10 before charting.

Did I do the Ab Ripper routine tonight? Heck no. I just did it yesterday, and I really don't want to do that two days in a row. I'll just do it after work tomorrow. I hope ;-)

After much cajoling and self-flagellation, I convinced myself to start Kenpo X tonight, and I finished it.

Yay.

BTW, I can hardly move right about now, still being a bit sore from the Legs and Back routine yesterday.

I must be counting something wrong.

Granted, I haven't been using the DVD for Ab Ripper X - I wrote out the exercises from the video, in order, and have been doing them sans television, but writing down my reps (since I knew I wouldn't be able to hit 25 reps of each move from the start). I also know that the last move, the Mason Twist, should have me doing 50 reps instead of 25. But I've got 13 moves listed, and 25 of each of those ought to be 325 moves. Add 50 for the Mason Twists, and that's 375 instead of the 349 that I believe is mentioned on the DVD.

BTW, I did 345 today.

The V-up/Roll-up combos still kill me - I could only do 15, and that was with taking a lot of breaks between reps. And the Oblique V-ups are also really tough for me - 20 a piece for those.

But I did 25 reps for practically everything else*.

• 26 for the cross leg wide side ups, since I wanted to do an even number for each side. 24 for the Fifer scissors for the same reason, but couldn't go over 24. And only 40 Mason Twists, because I was tired and even though I'm sitting on an inch of quarter inch yoga mat folded up, my butt still hurts. Like over my tailbone. Possibly my sacrum.

With Matthew in the hospital last week, it was about all I could do to try to keep up with the program. I think I did a fairly good job while doing my best to keep everything else under control.

Monday I had done the Chest and Back routine, but skipped the Ab Ripper.

Tuesday started early at 4:00am. After Matthew's surgery and after his recovery was well underway, I snuck home for a bit to do the Plyometrics workout and take a quick shower before heading back to the hospital and sleeping on the rock hard couch in the freezing Parent's Lounge. I took it a little less easy on Plyometrics because my knees are feeling a lot better these days.

Wednesday I managed to find time to get home for the Shoulders and Arms routine, but skipped the Ab Ripper routine. I should stop making a habit of that. Took a quick shower and headed back to the hospital to sleep on the rock hard couch in the freezing Parent's Lounge. I'm still moving up with weights on these exercises, so I'm not quite at my maximum effort.

So Thursday I went home in the morning for the Ab Ripper routine, took a shower, and went back to the hospital. Thursday night I went home with the intention of doing the Yoga routine, but I got back late and had a few other things to do, and ended up sleeping at home. But on the couch so as to not be too comfortable. I noticed that it was a lot easier to hit more reps on the ab routine without doing it immediately following another hour long workout. I did 317 moves.

I meant to wake up and do the Yoga routine Friday morning, but mornings and me still don't get along very well. The rest of Friday was a blur - I went back to the hospital, helped pack up the room, went over all the discharge paperwork, took Matthew to the car, and had Lisa drop me off at work. I got home, helped put Matthew to bed, managed to wrangle some grub, and practically fell asleep on the couch - but I had to walk the dog, so I did that and collapsed into bed.

Saturday was a nice family day, like nearly every weekend day since Matthew has come into our lives. But I still made time for that pesky Yoga routine in the afternoon. Later in the evening I did the Legs and Back routine, but since that was my second workout for the day, I skipped the Ab Ripper routine. Noticing a pattern? :) 34 pull ups and 26 chin ups.

Now it's Sunday, I've wasted some time creating a nice graph to track my progress with the program, and I haven't done the Ab Ripper routine like I've promised myself I would. And then later I plan to do the Kenpo X routine.

But first things first, I need to let my dinner digest a little more before I attempt the city of hurt that is Ab Ripper X. And then Kenpo X.

I'm sure I won't find anything to get in my way from doing these tonight.

I'm absolutely certain of it.

I think.

8-D

Not much to report - moving along with P90X.

I did that Chest and Back routine again, but started late again and had to skip the Ab Ripper X routine.

Today I did 112 pushups of several varieties - standard, military (elbows in), wide stance, decline, diamond, and dive bombers. I did 20 pull ups (10 each wide and narrow grip), 10 chin ups, and 77 rowing moves, but with heavier weights than last time.

Mental note: sushi is probably not good to have about an hour before a workout. At least not spicy tuna maki with extra wasabi. It didn't come back up, but it definitely didn't taste better the second time around.

And Matthew's surgery is scheduled for 7:30am tomorrow, which means we need to get to the hospital at 6:00am, which means we need to leave by 5:20am to be extra certain we're not late, which means we need to bathe him around 4:30am, which means we need to wake up around 4:00am. Ugh.

And then if I can at all manage it, I need to get myself to physical therapy possibly. But I'd definitely like to make it home for the Plyometrics workout, and of course the Ab Ripper routine to make up for skipping it tonight.

Did I say "Ugh" before?

Double ugh.

I was beat last night and fell asleep early. Too early to be able to do the Kenpo X routine like I was supposed to.

So instead I did it tonight.

My lats are pretty sore, I guess from the Legs and Back routine Friday. Legs are mostly fine. They were a little tender yesterday, but have been feeling pretty good today, if a little stiff after sitting for a while.

I'm nearly 100% free from knee pain. I can still feel a little on certain twists or stretches, but I'm not easing off as much on the workouts as I was last week. I think the stretching and exercises I've been doing for my legs have helped. But I'll likely still hold off any major running undertaking until I'm a lot more confident that I've built up the strength in my legs. Physical Therapy affords me the opportunity to really focus on them with several exercises I'm unable to do at home.

I have to do the Chest and Back routine tomorrow. I hope the soreness fades.

I'm nearly desperate to do anything to keep my mind off of Matthew's surgery on Tuesday, so I probably won't put tomorrow's routine off.

Yay!

I didn't put off doing the Ab Ripper X routine - I just jumped right into it a couple of hours after breakfast. It seems like not doing it immediately after another hour-long workout also gave me the stamina to do a lot more of the reps.

Wednesday I didn't do significantly more reps than I did on Monday (which was 174). But this morning I busted out 270. Two hundred seventy! And no cheating! (It's really hard to cheat on this routine).

Granted, I might not have enough juice to repeat this performance after an hour-long workout (like I'm supposed to be doing M-W-F), but cranking this out today makes me feel really good.

As far as muscle recovery and soreness abatement, I received my The Stick yesterday in the mail, and immediately started rolling over some of my muscles. I hit my legs first because they need some tender loving care. Then on a lark I decided to roll over some other areas - my arms, my back, and then my trapeziuses. eses. Traps. =D I found a surprisingly hard knot in my right trap - maybe this has been the cause of all my recent shoulder pain? So I focused on that for a bit longer. I don't think I loosened it up too much, but noticed my trap was experiencing a different kind of hurt after that. Whether or not I triggered a "good" pain remains to be seen. I'm going to be hopeful.

In about a half hour we're going to pick pumpkins with Matthew - I'll be sure to post some pictures from the adventure to my photos site.

I had another late start tonight, so I only did an hours worth of the legs and back routine. And not a solid hour - although I was tempted to skip ahead when I did fewer reps, I instead used the time for a little ballistic stretching.

Because I haven't done this routine before, I really wanted to take it easy on my legs so I'd be able to walk tomorrow when Lisa and I take Matthew to pick out his very first halloween pumpkin!

And because it was so late when I was done with the hour of the legs and back routine, I decided to hold off on the Ab Ripper X routine until tomorrow.

Now I just need to make sure I don't find an excuse to put it off tomorrow :)

The "back" part of the legs and back routine was just several different pull ups and chin ups of varying grip widths. I did about 53 in total, the second set of which I "cheated" a little and let my feet touch the ground at the bottom of the move. But I'm still counting it as 21 chin ups (underhand) and 32 pull ups (overhand). A lot more than I did 5 days ago. And right at what I did a couple of months ago.

The legs part was pretty challenging as I alluded to before - instead of doing about 25 of every move, I did anywhere from 10 to 15 based on how my legs were feeling. I'll see how my legs are tomorrow. My only concern is that I didn't hit my hamstrings as much as my quadriceps, and I think part of the reason I was having issues with my knees a few weeks ago was an imbalance between the major opposing muscle groups of my legs.

If they're sore tomorrow, then I guess I'll know :)

So I was sore, but I lived.

And the next day I did the full plyometrics workout. Slightly modified to be easier on my knees, but not so much that I didn't have a good heart rate going throughout. And my knees felt fine later that night, and the next day, and the next. Of course, by "fine" I mean "still hurting, slightly sore, still feels like they're recovering". But to me, that's great. More on how great my knees are later.

The day after Plyometrics was Shoulders and arms, and Ab Ripper. I'm still taking shoulder specific lifts fairly easy - like anything involving the deltoids or rotators, and I'm aggressively increasing the weights on mid- and high-back exercises - traps, scapula, etc. And I'm also increasing aggressively for my biceps and triceps. So those are all sore. And of course I also had more physical therapy right after work, and the Ab Ripper routine afterwards. I'm increasing the amount of core reps I'm able to do with Ab Ripper, but not very quickly any more - it's hard work, and a tough uphill climb.

The day after that I did the Yoga X routine. Or at least, a half hour of it. I got started too late, and I worked up a really good sweat in that half hour. Lots of isometric exercise of muscles. Next time around I'll definitely do more of the Yoga, but I was feeling pretty beat.

About those knees - I was walking spike and decided to jog half a block on the way back. And I'm still walking fine the day after. Hooray!