Where I'm at

So I remember when I started how nice it would have been if someone actually posted their starting reps weights etc.. This way I'd have a way of gauging myself and where I would like to be. So here's the first one.

Chest & Back

Description	1st Set	2nd Set
Standard Push-Ups	20	10
Wide Front Pull-Ups	7 Less Chair	7 Less Chair
Military Push-Ups	10	4
Reverse Grip Chin-Ups	15 Less Chair	16 Less Chair
Wide Fly Push-Ups	10 With Chair	4 With Chair
Closed Grip Overhand Pull-Ups	12 With Chair	8 With Chair
Decline Push-Ups	8	3
Heavy Pants	14 @ 22.5 lbs	12 @ 25 lbs
Diamond Push-Ups	6	0
Lawnmowers	18 @ 25 lbs	15 @ 25 lbs
Dive-Bomber Push-Ups	6	0
Back Flys	15 @ 20 lbs	12 @ 22.5 lbs

P90X round 2

OK so I'm starting my second round of P90X. Here are some before pictures. Didn't do so well on the maintenance in between rounds so I'll have to work on that for next time. Definitely lost some muscle mass.

Oh and here are the results from my fit test:

Resting Hear Rate: 45 bpm
Pullups: 7
Vertical Leap: 17"
Pushups: 25
Toe Touch: +3"
Wall Squat: 3m 40s
Bicep Curls: 17 at 22.5 lbs
In & Outs: 47

Cardio Heart Rate:
1min 100
2 min 83
3 min 73
4 min 67

Lessons Learned

Well it's been a while since I completed P90X and I've been thinking about what I accomplished and ways I can improve for next time. So here are some lessons I'm going to apply on round 2:

1. Do your workouts in the morning.
   
   This is one of the biggest challenges for me. Last week I was experimenting with this. Doing the workouts at 7am right after waking up. I noticed that I just didn't have the energy to get the most out of the workouts. I read that you should wake up and just do it, but after an entire evening and night without food I don't have a lot of stored energy to workout. So I decided to use a trick I learned doing long distance cycling. When you do a 100 mile bicycle ride aka century you need to constantly refuel or you'll crash. Similar to when your doing P90X a big meal right before or during a century would be a bad idea. Of course for cycling there are all sorts of magical bars/gels to deal with this. My personal favourite are Clif brand Shot Blocks. They are square blocks of hard gel. 3 of them is about 100 calories loaded with carbs. I find that after eating these I am in much better shape to do the workout. They're really easy to digest so no worries about seeing them again during your workout.
   
   
2. Repeat a couple of days of meals until you get sick of them.
   
   OK I admit it. I really obsess over my diet. I feel that my diet is one of the largest factors to my success or failure. I was really going crazy trying to do all the cooking in the meal plans. Even once I got good at the cooking and started using a grocery delivery service, it was still too much. I have been experimenting with repeating a couple of days from the meal plan. I do this until I'm sick of it and then pick another couple of days. This seems to be a good way of saving time and money. As a single person, if I'm eating a different thing every day for a week I'm almost certain to be wasting food. If your cooking a different thing every day it's harder to combine steps/remember ingredients etc. So next round I'll try this approach. This will hopefully help in the next observation.
   
   
3. Sleep and rest are just as important as exercise.
   
   I wasn't getting nearly enough sleep during my 1st round. I was so concerned with getting my exercises, following the meal plan and trying to have a little bit of a life that I was lucky to get 6 hrs of sleep a night. This isn't good when you're doing that for months. So my third challenge will be getting a full eight hours of sleep a night. In bed my 11pm and up at 7am.

So there you have it. My 3 resolutions for next round. My next round will be beginning next Monday by the way. I'll also be cycling at the same time so it's will be pretty close to doing doubles.

Wish me luck.