P90X Crushed It T-shirt

Look what arrived in my mail the other day.

It was a nice suprise that I didn't really expect. After receiving so many comments on my transformation I decided to submit my success story at Teambeachbody.com. I was planning to put together my before and after photos anyway for the Asylum T-shirt offer so I thought I might as well enter. They give out $1000 to ten people each month for their stories. Plus I guess they send out free t-shirts to everyone who enters the Beachbody Challenge.

It's a nice motivator that I didn't really know about, but I can share this with you. Here's the link to the challenge: http://www.teambeachbody.com/connect/beachbody-challenge

Something to shoot for. Good luck.

My Diet Plan

Diet is a very important element of health and fitness. While I've followed a number of different plans over the years I haven't settled on just one. Rather I have taken elements from many of the programs and incorporated them into my everyday eating program.

A diet is no good if you can't stick to it and your progress will often be lost as soon as you go off the diet. So I have decided to stop with dieting and just use things I can follow all the time.

Although I generally eat things that I want, I do try to follow these rules:
1) Eat 5 to 6 times a day.
2) Consume most of my carbohydrates at the beginning of the day.
3) Try not to eat after 7pm unless I have just finished a workout (then it's usually a recovery drink, Shakeology, or whey protein powder).
4) Eat 5 servings of fruit and vegetables each day (can include Shakeology).
5) If I don't like it I don't need to eat it.
6) I don't deprive myself of foods I love, but I don't need to go overboard either.
7) If I'm full, stop eating.

That last rule is one of the most important, especially if weight loss is your goal. This is a key principle of a program called Winning Weighs. Imagine your body is like a car and you fill it up with fuel. If you keep filling after the tank is full you will end up spilling gas all over. In your body the excess food that usually would get used for energy is not needed so it is converted to fat for use later. Since you're probably not going to be going for an extended period of time without food, you most likely don't want that fat.

Whatever you do for your nutrition plan, find something you can stick with and that gets you the results you want. I could stick to an all pizza and peanut butter cup diet, but it probably would not help me to run faster or feel fit and healthy.

Here we go again

I decided to start up another round of P90X this week. I planned to take thing easy for a while, but I also could see that if I didn't have a plan for the next few months prior to when I get my P90X2 program, I was going to lose a lot of what I have gained over the summer. I feel like I am in great shape right now so I don't need to necessarily get better at this point, but I do want to keep from going backwards. I know I have a vacation coming up and I'm not planning to do much for workouts during that time.

The major thing that I noticed was that I did not feel sick from the Chest and Back workout this time. Now I did do the workout in the evening instead of the morning and I ate about an hour before doing the workout, so that may have helped. But I started off trying to pace myself and found that I was easily hitting the numbers that I was getting at the end of my last round of P90X. When I finished it up I was able to go right into Ab Ripper X.

Yesterday was the first time that I did the PlyoX workout for quite some time and it seemed easier than it has in the past. I guess when you've been doing Shaun T's Vertical Plyo workout anything seems easier. I do have to say that even though PlyoX seemed easier, it was by no means easy. It just means that I could stick with pretty much the entire routine and work on keeping better form and jumping higher. The workouts are always as difficult as you make them so I still have room for improvement. I try to stick with Dom as much as I can until the jump knee tuck where he has to go double-time. Maybe next time.

I've got to say, it feels good to feel good. Especially after a workout that used to pummel me into the ground.

2011 USA Track and Field 45-49 year-old 400 meter finals

Here's a video from the USA Track and Field National Masters Championships. It's not every day that you get to see a world record get broken. Khalid Mulazim of Cleveland, Ohio, set the world record in the M45 400m by posting a time of 50.18 seconds. It might have had something to do with being in his hometown, but this was an impressive performance.



He also gave an interview after the race talking about his strategy and preparation for races.

Before and After Photos

One of the most important things you can do when starting a fitness program is take your before photos and measurements. I have not always been good at doing this, but I did take some before photos when I started my first round of P90X. I'm very glad I did.

Body transformations don't take place overnight and it's often difficult to notice the small changes that take place when you see yourself in the mirror every day. They also say that you imprint a picture of what you look like in your mind and that image is usually from around age 18-20. So when many people visualize themselves, they have an image in their mind of their body that may not be reality.

In my case I had not looked at my before photos for quite a while, but I remember when I took them I thought I was looking pretty good. I did a few rounds of P90X and was feeling good and losing weight gradually over time. It wasn't until I started receiving a lot of comments from people who hadn't seen me in a while that I decided to look back at those photos and have a bodyfat test done. Boy was I happy that I took those pictures. That was not the body or the face that I saw in the mirror every day. I had become so accustomed to the small changes that I didn't notice the big changes that were taking place. It has given me motivation to keep going and not go back to that.

I don't really feel very comfortable posting photos of myself without a shirt on (especially my before photos), buy I do think it's important for people to see that you can get these kinds of results if you work at it. If there's a reason why I seem to be such a believer in the Beachbody programs, it's because I know they work. They worked for me and I have seen them work for many others. That's why I became an Independent Team Beachbody Coach. To help others to receive the same results I have.

Oh, and the results of my bodyfat test: 4.6%.

P90X/Insanity: Asylum Hybrid Results

I finished up the P90X/Asylum hybrid program yesterday and had my after photos taken. I'll post my before and after pictures in a couple of days. I had them taken with a photographer this time and I am really happy with how they turned out. Here's a little preview.

I did the Asylum program along with my track workouts prior to the Masters US Championships, so I did not quite follow the program as written. This time I did the P90X/Asylum program pretty much on schedule with the program calendar. I'll throw a full review up on www.promisetobefit.com in a couple of weeks, but here is my basic review: It's hard. It's really hard.

This was the most challenging program I have done since college track & field practices. I finished up with the fit test that you do before and after the program and even that is a heck of a workout. I had forgotten how difficult the fit test was, and it's only 25 minutes long.

The main positives from the program are that it has really improved my endurance and brought my weight down lower than it has been in years. I weighed in yesterday at 162.5 lbs, the lowest I have been since 1996. For comparison, prior to my initial round of P90X I was typically somewhere between 180 - 190 lbs depending on the time of year.

With that being said, I will be taking a break from the Asylum for now. It's so intense that I think some time off will be good for my body. I'm not quite sure what I will do between now and when I start P90X2 in January, but I have some ideas. What I don't want to do is lose the momentum I have going or fall back too far in my fitness.

Yoga X

I did the full Yoga X workout last night and I have to say that I kind of missed it. I have been doing a variety of shorter yoga workouts in its place, but I decided that since I am getting close to the end I could use the longer workout.

Yoga X is one of those workouts that when I started and saw that it was 90 minutes I was not excited. Many people I have talked to say they either skip it or only do part of it. It is definitely not a beginner yoga program, but it has really helped me to improve my sports performance, balance, and flexibility. When I did my first round I did the Yoga X workout every time it was scheduled. Since I was working out mostly in the morning it meant waking up at 4:30 to get done by 6 am to get ready for work. My other option was to do it at night which is what I often did, but even starting at 8:30 means I wouldn't get done until 10pm. Then I would get up at 5am the next morning to do my next day's workout.

I eventually found that Tony Horton had created some new yoga programs for his One on One series. He even mentions on one of the programs that there were a lot of complaints about the length of the yoga and that was why he made a shorter version. He has also stated that the yoga session on P90X2 will be 60 minutes. 90 minutes of yoga can be very refreshing at times, but it is not something I can do on a regular basis. There are two programs that I use the most in it's place and they are Fountain of Youth and Patience Hummingbird. They are between 30-45 minutes in length and are a little less extreme than Yoga X.

If I was going to name one thing that I think has accounted for me not getting injured in the past two track and field seasons it would be the yoga. My flexibility and balance have improved dramatically, but the other thing that is very important for a 400 meter runner is the ability to remain calm when your body is in an uncomfortable state. For anyone who has run a 400 meter race you know that the last 80 to 100 meters is a battle between your body telling you to stop and your brain telling you to keep going. Bill Cosby appropriately described it as rigor mortis setting in.

Using the techniques you learn in yoga can be extremely beneficial to getting you through that final stretch. It is important to remain relaxed when your muscles are tightening up. It has helped me in more ways than I probably know and has become a regular part of my workout program.

Last Game Day Workout

I've got four more workouts left in the P90X/Asylum hybrid program. Today is the last Game Day workout, which by far is the longest and one of the hardest. I'm looking forward to finishing up and taking a few days off. It's really improved my conditioning and jumping ability so it will be nice to transition this to the basketball court.

I've got my 30 day after photos scheduled for Tuesday and then I can submit for my free "I'm Committed" t-shirt.

This will be a tough one.

2011 USA Track & Field Masters 35-39 400 Meters

I've been catching up on the World Track & Field Championships coverage from this past weekend. I love the DVR.

I thought I would post our Masters 400 Meter US Championships race.

I'll try to post more of the 400 meter races as I get time.

Training on the go

One of the most difficult things to do while traveling is to keep up with your workouts. When I used to travel for work a lot I would usually just rule out those days and call it a recovery week. Sometimes I would hit the pool in the morning or do some pushups in my room, but usually by the end of the trip I had given up. Many hotels have workout rooms, but they are usually very small with little equipment. When I would get back from those trips it would usually take me a couple of weeks to get back into the gym again.

Now that I'm doing mostly at-home workout programs it actually gets a little easier. If I am traveling by myself it's easy enough to bring a DVD, laptop, and a couple of resistance bands with me. Then I can stay with my usual program with a few modifications. If my family is with me I usually won't be able to get enough space or time to work out. But I can still try to incorporate activities into our day that are active. If you're at a hotel, you can usually take a few laps in the pool or take a walk outside.

On weekend trips, which we seem to take a lot of, I try to adjust my workout schedule so that the most difficult day to work out will be my off-day. An example would be this weekend. We are heading out of town for my son's birthday party. We leave on Friday after work. I do my Friday workout in the morning, move my Saturday workout to Sunday, and take Saturday as my day off (which is usually Sunday). I will need to plan to be back soon enough on Sunday that I can get a workout in at night, but that way I still get all of my workouts in for the week. Then Monday picks up right where it normally would.

I have also condensed two workouts into the same day by doing one in the morning and one in the evening, but I try not to do that unless it is necessary.

What it really comes down to is what works for you and what your motivations are. I'm motivated by keeping my weight down and improving my race times. If I tell myself that not skipping workouts gets me there then I am more likely to find a way to get it done.