P90X Status:
Nothing exciting this week. Just "pushing play" everyday and "bringing it" each day. I did beat my sons in basketball but the big news that I didn't mention...the night we played, I "tweaked" my back. At the time, there was no serious pain but I've experienced these "tweaks" before. By the time I got home I was "stiffening up" so immediately I did my Plyometrics workout.
There are some who would say that I erred by doing that...they would probably be right. Wednesday morning my back was in "not so good" shape. I've had much worse and it did get better during the day. I was able to finish my "back and bicep" workout for the day.
I WAS VERY CAREFUL TO PERFORM ALL THE EXERCISES PROPERLY, USING "GOOD FORM".
However, I could not complete all of my Ab exercises, some of these just put too much strain on the small of my back, which is where the pain was located.
....so for THE First time, I failed to complete a P90X routine. I had made it this far .... what worried me more...I wasn't sure if my back was getting better or worse. Luckily, today the back is much better and I was able to complete the entire Yoga X routine. The Yoga really helped my back, it actually felt much better after the workout.
Getting Fit - Two Prong Approach.
Someone was asking me how to get started “getting fit”. Of course I mentioned my story of curling water bottles and doing squats in the hospital room. But then I remembered some other tips or things I did to initiate the fitness journey.
a) Managing your Consumption or Meal Plan (I hate to use the word diet).
I follow the Low Glycemic approach to eating, which basically means that I try to limit my eating to those foods that have a Low GI or Low GL. I won’t go into all that here but there are many resources online. http://www.glycemicindex.com/.
b) Caloric Expenditure: To lose weight, you have to expend more energy than you consume.
To maximize your expenditures or the calories you burn each day, it helps to find ways to increase your metabolism through out the day. You can use these tips in the morning:
1) As soon as you wake up, jog in place and stretch for 30 secs. Next do some push ups. If regular push ups are too difficult (as they were for me initially) lean over a dresser or sink etc and do them at an angle. I liked to do 2-3 sets of 20-30, to get the blood flowing.
2) Knee raises – marching in place, raising the knees as high as possible for as long as possible.
3) At this point, I had worked up a sweat so I would then jump in the shower. While I was washing and shampooing, I would do squats for as long as I could and then finish up with more knee raises.
Doing these would only take a few minutes and if you were like me, this will be enough to get your heart rate up and get you off to a good start in the morning.
HIIT vs Slow Cardio
A friend who is experienced and knowledgeable on all matters fitness and nutrition sent me an article today. It restates the case I was making earlier in regards to Interval Training vs Slow Cardio.
The article backs up what I was saying in a previous post, High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) like Tabata Sprints burns more fat and improves your cardiovascular health more than hours of jogging.
Fit with HIIT: http://ow.ly/iEpv
What is another form of H.I.I.T. …let me think…oh yeah…P90X!
This is kind of funny…in a sad way.
Kids Fool Obesity Researchers, Put Pedometers on Dogs - Health Blog – WSJ.
Falsifying data…yet another reason to distrust studies.
C U L8r,
Steve
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