Today was the first day I've ever done the Shoulders, Arms & Triceps routine. I originally figured I'd be doing Chest, Shoulders & Triceps, but when I looked at the P90X schedule, I saw that was in Phase II. So I figured I'd follow along and do the prescribed routine and do Shoulders & Arms for Phase I.
The other reason I avoided this is because I had a hunch that Shoulders & Arms would require dumbbells, and be tough to do with the bands that I have (which don't have handles). It turns out, I was mostly right. I was able to make do with the bands I do have - but I think at my heart I'm really going to want to use dumbbells when possible. The problem is that they aren't cheap, at like $1/lb - and I don't know whether to get 12 lb, 15 lb, or what. So that is potentially a lot of money in trying to hone in on the proper weight. Yeah, there can be dumb bells had for cheap on something like craigslist, but a full set can still end up being a couple/few hundred dollars. I think in the end I'll just end up either getting a few sets of dumbbells and dealing with the possibility of being a few pounds off my ideal weight, or getting a set of adjustable dumbbells and dealing with adding and removing weights in between sets. I'd rather avoid that, but I also don't want to spend hundreds of dollars on convenience. Yet. Perhaps in the future, after I've proven to myself that I may want to stick with this kind of thing, and I get really sick of switching out weight plates, I'll change my mind.
Overall, I was a little disappointed in this workout, though. Unlike other workouts, I really didn't break much of a sweat in this one, so I wonder about my caloric burn. On the other hand, it's not like I'm doing this in a warm room - I'm doing this in a 60F basement. In the end, though, I think the major reason is that it seems to be a workout with a lot of isolation - so there just isn't a large proportion of muscle mass being used in any one exercise. The morning after, I am slightly sore - so I guess that is a good sign.
And of course, Ab ripper kicks my ass. Getting better, but man those Pfeiffer Scissors are killer by the time you get to them.
The other thing I need to do, and soon, is get pictures. It's the P90X thing to do, even though it'd kinda be cheating, since I've done a lot over the past eight months to trim down. But then again, people post before and after pics for subsequent rounds of P90X that they start on.
No comments:
Post a Comment