Wednesday, October 22, 2008

Time to Make the Doughnuts

I had planned to do my workouts after work and before dinner/evening activities. So I discovered two problems with my plan. First is that consistently getting out of work at 5:30 pm just wasn't happening (surprise meetings, deadlines, yadda yadda). Second was my desire not to be a complete hermit (Hanging with friends, volunteering etc...). I constantly fought the first 60 days of Power 90 to get those workouts in. While the workout is only 45 minutes the time commitment is really just shy of 3 hours. Here's a breakdown of my post work schedule:
  • 20 min to get home (riding my bicycle)
  • 15 min to change/recover.
  • 30 min take vitamin supplement
  • 45 min workout
  • 10 min wait to take Creatine supplement
  • 30 min shower and prepare dinner
  • 20 min eat dinner
That is a 170 minute time commitment which is just short of 3 hours. It's pretty hard to get all that in and then go out. There were several times I had some other activity immediately after work and had to do the workout later in the evening. Those days were really tough because I'd wind up working out at midnight and then was stuck having a late night snack for post workout recovery. In some cases I just couldn't do it and had to skip a workout. So after much struggling I decided that the best time to workout was first thing in the moring. Working out first thing in the morning has many advantages:
  • No earlier conflicts to delay you
  • Helps wake you up
  • Schedule is much more consistent in the morning
  • Don't have to take 2 showers a day
  • All day to recover from your workout
  • Evenings can be a lot more flexible
So here is what the time breakdown looks like with a morning workout:
  • 30 min wake up, immediately take vitaming supplement and drink water
  • 45 min workout
  • 10 min wait to take Creatine supplement
  • 30 min shower and prepare for work
  • 10 min eat breakfast
As you can see put a good dent in the time commitment, only 125 minutes (~2 hours). I was worried about working out on a completely empty stomach but after some research that seems perfectly acceptable, even recommended. Granted the first time my body was definately not happy about the change. I learned it's important to drink at least a whole glass of water when you take the supplement (Now I know what bile tastes like ;-).

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Keep up the good work, my brother! I just finished P90X. Check it:

http://dogandponyshow.typepad.com/90_day_transformations/