Core and Abs

I am responding to a request today.  Hope it helps!  By the way my form isn't great on several of the moves, but you should get the point.  Just remember to engage and tighten your core.

Overview

Ab Moves

 

Core Moves

Phase 1 Done

Update from yesterday.

Here are the pictures.  If the video doesn't work let me know!

Nutrition Overview

Change of Topics

P90X2 Overview

Just throwing a reminder out there to anyone.  If you would like to get my thoughts on something or if you have any questions, please let me know.  Thanks!

A Request for You

I'm trying something new today.

2014 Fitness Goals

Yes, I realize that we are now in March, but I'm going to write about New Years' Resolutions.  I have a number of things I want to accomplish this year, but I'm going to focus on my fitness goals here.  The cool thing about New Years this year is that I was already taking care of myself physically, so I didn't really need to "resolve" to get back into shape.  Instead I set a number of goals to accomplish this year.  I decided on five of them.  They are:

1. I want to get under 10% body fat.  I want to do this just to say that I've done it.  I don't know if it's necessarily something that I want to sustain, but I just want to know what it feels like to look really good.  Currently, I'm probably 12-13%, depending on how it's measured.
2. I want to be able to do 50 push-ups and 15 pull-ups without dropping to my knees/popping off the bar.  I actually accomplished the 50 push-ups a couple weeks ago.  Currently I can do 10-12 pull-ups without coming off the bar.
3. I want to be able to do two moves that are hard.  The first is a move called Ted's Chair which is a crazy move from P90X3.  It is a half-chair pose meets crane.  It is really hard.  Originally, this is the only move I specifically wanted to be able to do this year, but about a month ago, I added another to the list.  I want to be able to do a handstand.  It would be really cool if I could do one without using the wall to get into it, but I will settle for using it.
4. I want to run in a 5K.  I want to do this because I really don't like running.  The one form of exercise that I've never understood is just running for the sake of running.  I'm fine with running while playing a sport, but just running has never appealed to me.  I want to run in a 5K just to say I did it.
5.  I want to do something hard.  By hard, I mean some sort of physical challenge that will push me in some way.  I don't really know what or when yet, but here is something which I'm thinking about.  When I was in scouts, I was much bigger than I should have been, and many of the physical things were tough for me.  To get my Eagle, I had to complete one of three merit badges: hiking, swimming, or cycling.  I did hiking because it was the easiest for me.  I've never been a good swimmer and riding a bike usually wore me out pretty quickly.  Each of these merit badges comes with a requirement to do something big to put everything together.  For instance, the hiking merit badge requires a 20 mile hike with certain restrictions.  I was able to do it, but it was still tough for me.  Kind of what I'm thinking for this challenge is to do something now that I couldn't do in Jr High and High School.  Possibly over a week or so I would fulfill the big requirement for each of these merit badges.  It may not be too much, but I just want to be able to say I could do it.  This would entail a 20 mile hike, 50 mile bike ride, and 150 yard swim.  I don't know if that is what i want to do yet, but I will keep you posted as I decide!

P90X Round 2 Completed

Yep, I brought it a second time.  On February 9 I completed my second round of P90X.  In a lot of ways this was round was extremely difficult for me.  I fought through two colds, a shift in my training schedule, and constant boredom to finish it.  I wasn't sure when I originally started the second round if I really wanted to do a second round, and in some ways I wish I hadn't.  I've mentioned before that my brain often traps things and just remember them.  As I began my second round, I found that I had memorized many of the videos.  One of the reasons I love P90X is because Tony Horton makes it so much fun and cracks jokes, but after hearing the same joke 30+ times, I got a bit bored with the videos.  I also found that the people who kind of annoyed me in the beginning really pushed my nerves.  As a result, I often skipped watching the video and just did the workout to my own music, especially in the last month.  It was especially difficult for me on the days I had my least favorite workouts, such as Legs and Back.  However, I kept going and I'm pleased with the results.

Here they are--Day 0, Day 90, Day 180:

Front

Front Flex

Side

Back

Back Flex

Actually Day 30

And my favorite picture:

So now that I've done two rounds of P90X, I definitely don't want to stop.  This really has become not P90X, but P90Life.  I decided about a month in that this would be my last round of P90X for a while for the reasons mentioned above.  I contemplated for a really long time about what I wanted to do next.  I thought about trying an all-yoga program (I really love yoga!).  I thought about a few other programs to try.  After a lot of thought, I decided to do P90X2.  So far I am two weeks into it, and I freaking love it.  I am having an absolute blast with it.  I really stink at it, there are a lot of things which I struggle with, but it is so much fun.  It's a good thing I can laugh at myself a lot because I fall down a lot.  For those who don't know anything about P90X2, it continues many of the principles of P90X, but it adds instability into the equation to train the entire body at the same time.  Basically I do a lot of exercises with one of these:

I also do a lot of pushups on basketballs, which I use for med-balls.  And my new favorite toy:

I freaking love this thing.  I debated for a long time about buying one because I just don't have a lot of money floating around right now, but it was worth every penny.  It helps me really work my sore muscles.  I could spend several hours a day on this thing.  For instance I woke up yesterday with an incredibly sore back.  Although the pain didn't go away completely through its use, my foam roller sure helped get rid of the pain.

So I will come back with an update in the next few weeks with the results from the first phase of P90X2.  In a post in the near future, I will also be sharing my fitness goals for this year.  Thanks for tuning in!  Here are a couple bonus pictures just because.

Kelby's Favorites--Yoga and Stretches

In the second part of this series, I will be showcasing some of my favorite moves and stretches from my yoga workout.  I started to do just a bit of yoga prior to starting P90X, but I didn't do it too often.  With P90X, I do yoga once a week, unless I'm in a recovery week when I do it twice.  As I near the end of my second round of P90X, I have to say that the yoga is definitely my favorite workout.  I've started to grow tired and bored with the DVDs, but not so much the yoga workout.  It really is the one workout I look forward to.  The thing that I love about yoga is that it just works everything at the same time.  It's really intense but relaxing.  It's very hard but so easy.  There are all sorts of crazy things that my body is now able to do because I have been doing yoga.  I would highly recommend everyone give yoga a serious try, it is awesome.

With these moves, I didn't really take many pictures because it's hard to really capture the good things of yoga in a picture.  There also isn't any video because I just didn't want to get too distracted from what I was doing.

Here are some of my favorite poses/stretches:

The first few come from a progression of a vinyasa.  To get here you do a vinyasa up into crescent pose.  Then you do each of these moves in succession while holding each pose for like 15 seconds.  By the way the pictures aren't that great, but you should get the idea.

Warrior Three

Standing Splits.  Here I have a hold of my ankle with both of my hands.

Half-Moon

Twisting Half-Moon

This progression is the last succession of poses through vinyasas in my workout.  I always look forward to it.  I have nicknamed this 5 minute stretch "The Pain" because it hurts, a lot.  Basically I'm balancing on one leg for a couple minutes while twisting my body all over the place.


The next two pictures come from balance postures.  I do four of them, these two are my favorites though.  The first one is tree.  I don't really know why, but I just like this one.  It looks kinda goofy, but it is oddly kind of relaxing.

 The first time I did Yoga X there were a couple of moves that I just about died laughing because I never thought I would be able to do.  This is one of them.  The first time I did crane, I could barely get my feet off the floor.  Now I can hold this position over a minute most of the time.

The next move is the other one that I just about died when I saw it.  I was struggling with bridge when I first saw wheel.  I then burst out laughing when I saw the added leg raise.  I can now usually do the entire wheel segment while adding the leg lift.

Wheel, with leg lift

A bit better picture of what's happening

 Here are some stretches.  The first is a hamstring stretch.  When I first did this, I could only grab my ankle/shin.  Now I can reach out several inches beyond my foot.  This one hurts, but it feels so good.

Grabbing my heel

Stretching past my foot

This is another of my favorite stretches.  This one stretches out the butt quite nicely.

Here's one for the spine.

Finally, one of my favorites, just because of how hard this one looks.

Again, I would advise anyone, especially if you are serious about getting into shape, try yoga.  I love it so much.  In fact, when thinking about what I want to do after I finish this round of P90X, I considered finding a good yoga program for awhile.

I have a request for anybody who actually reads these things.  Would you kindly answer a few questions for me?  I don't want to just be throwing random stuff up on the internet if it really isn't doing anyone good or helping in some way.  Are those who are still reading getting any benefit from this stuff?  Is there some way that I could be more helpful to you?  Are there certain things that you would like my thoughts/opinions on?  I know that I've covered some amount of fitness stuff, but I haven't really touched all that much on diet.  Would people like info about that?  As I've said before, I do this stuff not to show off, I just want to provide help/motivation to anyone else.  I would just like to get an idea of what would be the most helpful stuff for me to do.  Let me know!

Thank you all who have been following my journey!

Kelby's Favorites--Chest

In my previous post, I mentioned that last week I got off of my schedule.  Last Sunday night, all of a sudden I could feel the beginnings of a cold coming on.  I woke up Monday morning stuffed up with a slight cough.  Unfortunately I did a really foolish thing.  I went ahead and pushed through my workout Monday night.  I could feel the entire workout that I just didn't quite have as much energy/strength as usual, but I really pushed myself.  In many cases, I shattered many of my previous rep counts during my workout.  The next morning I woke up, and felt it immediately.  My whole body was just weak and sore.  In addition the cold was now full bore.  I really didn't feel well Tuesday morning.  So much so that I did something I haven't done in a long time.  I completely took the day off.  I spent most of the day in bed, trying to come up with excuses to get my workout in.  Every time I started feeling a bit better and thought I might get something in, the tiredness and soreness kicked in again.  It was then that I decided that I would just take it easy the rest of the week, and restart the week this week.  Essentially push my schedule back a week.  However, outside of Tuesday I did manage to do something every day.  It was actually kind of fun to just decided what I wanted to do.

This, along with a recent conversation with my brother, led me to do something that I had a bit of fun with.  My workout on Saturday consisted of me taking pictures/video of a bunch of my favorite moves from P90X to share with people.  Hopefully someone will find this useful, and hopefully this post doesn't come across as braggy or anything.  I just wanted to share some of my favorite moves to help anybody that could use it.

I originally intended to do this all in one post, but I soon realized that it would be an extremely long post.  Instead I will do a short series of posts providing examples of moves for targeting different muscles.  This one focuses on the chest, pretty much through pushups.

I start off with pushups for a couple reasons.  One, because I do a ton of pushups.  Mondays are my chest days, and this week I did over 240 pushups during my chest workout.  The second reason is that my favorite move from the program is a pushup.

Standard Pushup

Pretty much standard.  This is what you typically think of when you think of a pushup.

Wide-Fly Pushup

Same pushup motion, but the hands are spread further apart.

Military Pushup

Pretty much the same, but the hands are close and under the shoulders.  You want to keep your elbows in tight when doing these.

Decline Pushup

These are pretty fun.  Just do a standard pushup with you feet propped up on top of a chair.

 

Diamond Pushup

Hands are close, feet are wide.  Elbows flare out.  These are also pretty fun, but they are a bit more challenging.

Divebomber Pushup

This one is interesting.  Wide hands, wide feet.  You go under the fence and reverse back under the fence.

Slow-Motion Pushup

With these ones, you basically do the wide, standard, and military pushups, but you go down and come back up in a four count.  One set is four wide, four standard, and four military.

Floor Flys

Another fun one.  Start in plank, then fly out with a pushup.  Do four one side, then four on the other.

Side to Side Pushup

This is kind of a variation of the last one.  You just do a pushup, come back to the top of a plank, move over and repeat.  You can also make the switch at the bottom of the pushup.  Forgive the video on this one.  This was the first time I ever tried to switch at the bottom of the pushup, and it was very ugly.  You should get the idea anyway.

One Arm Pushup

These are hard!  Of all the pushups in P90X this is the only one that I had to initially do from my knees.  I'm still not that great at them.

Clap/Plyo Pushup

Start out with clapping pushups.

Then when those become to easy for you, you can go plyo.  This is probably my favorite move of the entire P90X program.  They are so much fun to do and play with.

Round 2, Day 60--150 Overall

I know that I haven't been the most faithful at keeping this thing updated.  With the new year, I have moved back to Logan.  I love being back here so much.  It's nice to actually have an excuse to go outside the house, and do something productive.  I'm also singing with LDV again this semester which brings me great joy.  While I continue to search for a job, I have been taking a ton of Institute classes to fill my time.  Although I'm not nearly as busy as I was while in school, I'm finding good ways to occupy my time.  With the changes, I've kept going with my workouts (with the exception of last week, stupid colds).  Although, it is a couple weeks late here are my pictures from day 60.

During this month, I finally started seeing that small band around my middle shrink.  I'm also starting to see more tone throughout my body.  I think it's kinda cool to see the changes happening the way I want them to now.

My next will be something that I think is pretty fun to share, whether or not anyone agrees, so stay tuned.  Just for fun, here is another picture from last week (you can just ignore my closet in the background which looks like it just exploded.)