Friday, August 26, 2011

P90X Chest, Shoulders & Triceps - 8/26

The plan was that yesterday I'd return the truck to my parents, and then ride my bike the 50 miles back home. The problem was that as soon as I woke up, I knew with fairly good certainty that it wasn't going to happen. If I really needed to, I could have done it, but my legs were still too fatigued from the past several days workouts they had seen. They felt fine for normal everyday stuff, but I could tell they just didn't have it in them for a comfortable enough 50 miles of hills. So, I ended up deciding to take the day as a rest day. I knew I had a long run coming up this weekend, and due to the approaching hurricane, that run would have to take place on Saturday. While I already had today (Friday) as a legs rest day, I didn't want to add stress on top of noticably fatigued muscles in my legs that might cause ITB issues. So, that was that.

Sometime between yesterday and today, I decided that come winter time, when I do more strength training (which would probably take the form of a couple days of certain P90X routines), that the upper body workout I'd probably end up doing on a weekly basis is the Chest, Shoulders and Triceps. The other options would be Back & Biceps, but that would be limited to one upper body muscle, and the back would already be covered in the Legs & Back routine I am currently doing on Tuesday. I could do Chest & Back, the routine I've probably done the most, but again the back is redundant. So that left Chest, Shoulders & Triceps.

This was the third time doing the routine, and there are certainly segments that are tough. The chest portion is a lot of variations on traditional push-ups - slow-mo pushups, plange pushups (like military, but the hands are more towards your ribcage), pike presses, 2 twitch speed pushups, and the super-psycho plyo (clap) pushups. The clap part isn't that psycho - but when Tony launches his whole body into the air at the top of the pushup, and claps his hands - well, that is psycho. Especially when it is something like exercise 20 out of 24 in the routine and your arms are already wasted. I can only manage the clapping part if I am on my knees, at this point. Most of the shoulders and triceps exercises involve using weights, and I'm pretty much limited to 8 lb and 4 lb weights. More and more, I'm thinking I'll have to scrounge some weights for cheap off craigslist or something. But then again, I still manage to fatigue myself, so I don't know. It's a rough enough routine that all three people in the video can't finish strong - so it is definitely a strength workout that will work you.



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