My intent to blog each day of my exercise journey hasn’t turned out as practical as I would have liked. I had originally planned to post another recap after Day 3 of my exercise journey. However, I am nearly a week late for reasons you will soon see.

Day 2

I woke up on Day 2 of my exercise adventure paralyzed with soreness. I figured I would be able to get through the day though as long as I didn’t need to use the lower two-thirds of my body for any reason. Of course I had committed to a full week of P90X so I did need to find a way of dragging myself to Darrell’s. That way turned out to be one part courage, and one part determination. And, being a man like I am, I made sure to moan and complain so everyone in my family knew how much pain I was enduring in a manly fashion.

This day of exercise was going to focus on the upper body. Personally, my upper body is one of my two weakest areas. The other being my lower body. I’ve always wanted bigger arms and pushing around pens and paper never got me the mass I desired. I figured this day would be brutal for me. And I was not disappointed (or was…I guess…as it were).

Going into this day I thought I knew all there was to know regarding push-ups. Boy was I wrong. There were approximately 8 different types of push-ups to do, each one worse than the previous. There were military push-ups and diamond push-ups and push-ups requiring the use of a chair (and not in the normal relaxing way with which I am comfortable using chairs). And once my arms were rendered sufficiently useless, it was time to break out the weights. But, I fought through. I attempted each exercise as it was presented to me knowing the upper body workout only lasted 45 minutes. And finally, the clock ticked to zero and my heart jumped in elation. I had made it through Day 2!

But no, Darrell had a terrible, terrible surprise for me. And by surprise, I mean he had technically mentioned a second part to this day’s workout but I had forgotten. There was a 15 minute addendum called AbRipper X whose purpose was to finish the DVD’s goal in the event someone actually made it through with their will intact.

I thought to myself that the title AbRipper seemed a bit violent and unnecessary. But 3 minutes in, I realized the title was actually a warning I had mistakenly not heeded. Good heavens was this brutal. Tony, the leader in the video (a man I have grown to hate with the very core of my being – just kidding – kind of) tells the viewer that those who follow along will complete 339 ab exercises within the 15 minutes. I’m pretty sure I was able to accomplish 17 total. And that is with very questionable technique. For some reason all of these ab exercises kill my lower back. I’m beginning to think I may have been doing them upside down or something.

Day 3

From the very first time Darrell and I began discussing P90X he had warned me about the YOGA workout. The YOGA day is an hour and a half and Darrell indicated he wasn’t even able to finish it originally. I was a little skeptical. I thought YOGA was what people did to relax so I was kind of looking forward to the break after my first two days of batterin…errr… bettering myself.

The DVD began with a few basic YOGA moves. Tony went slow allowing those of us who have the dexterity of a mummy to keep up. I learned about a few warrior poses (misnamed if you ask me, I felt like a sitting duck in the event someone tried to attack me at that point) and some dog-related poses. Pretty soon though, I started to feel the burn. Maintaining some of the poses is actually quite difficult on the muscles and I even began sweating. Each successive pose was more difficult until finally, 40 minutes in, a pose came up that I literally couldn’t do anything but laugh at. It involved squatting and twisting and grabbing hands behind the body and under legs. I have trouble with each of these movements on their own. I attempted the move and had to quit before my muscles disintegrated in protest.

Darrell was also finding this day’s exercise less than fruitful so he asked if I was ready to stop. I told him he didn’t have to twist my arm…because it was already in a reverse pretzel position. I can’t even imagine what the remaining 50 minutes of YOGA was like but my brief experience did make me realize that YOGA must stand for You On Ground in Agony.

Over the next few days we did do another upper body workout and ran a few miles. As I have finally regained function in my arms I figured I’d update you all on our exercises. Darrell and I will be doing P90x for only another week but Karina and I have decided to continue to do P90X ourselves. We’ve purchased the DVD series and they are not cheap. As a matter of fact, they break down to approximately $1.60 per X. This is good though. My aversion to wasting money will ensure we keep up with the regimen. I shall keep you informed!