well I hope some good Samaritan scrapes me off the floor

[hope101]

Thanks for the info. Sounds indeed like a killer exercise.

[groundhogg]

About "Mason Twists," I think the girl in that DVD holds her legs straighter, more pointing upward (which makes me think she must be a total beast!!!!)--but most of them have their legs bent, feet up about chest high, back straight, but holding the torso at an angle up from the florr...balancing, as DianeR said, and then you have to REALLY twist to slam the floor with the clasped knuckles...and the speed they go is also a factor. I still can't do that one all the way through.

Last night I went ahead and did back & biceps / ab ripper x without groundhubby...he's always too busy and gets home too late --he's falling behind...getting ready to go away from town again...so I guess I'll end up finishing up before him.

My biceps are aching deep, deep inside this morning...did I over do it????

I was mostly using a 15 lb. weight throughout...maybe that's too heavy for me for that one...I havent' been writing all the stuff down, like you're supposed to do...so ...maybe just absent-mindedly I was going too heavy or something???????

I didn't pay any attemtinon to how heavy the other girl was doing in there last night...seems my mind was a million miles away as I was going through this.

Anyway...I feel I've almost conquered the ab ripper x beast...except for the final 50 Mason Twists, of course! ouch.

[DianeR]

15 pounds? Boy, you are a beast

I almost did all the reps in ARX yesterday. I made it to 49 on the Mason Twists. At the end it was all pain. I was losing my ability to hold my body up. I was losing altitude and had muscle failure at 49. So close

Of course, this was a mistake. They say not to let your ego get involved & don't get obsessed with numbers. I was just so close. The last time I had 44 so I thought I could make 50.

I must say I felt ripped the rest of the day, and not in the way one should be. Today I'm OK, though.

I had gained two pounds since beginning the program. I haven't changed what I am eating or how much. According to the calipers, if anything, my body fat is a little down. My measurements are all the same except my biceps are 1/2" bigger. Can a woman really get some more muscle that quickly? Linda Hamilton arms, here I come

[groundhogg]

DianeR, have you done back & biceps yet?

It's too bad I haven't written anything down, suddenly I seem to have gone brain dead as to remembering how much weight I normally use on that one!!!! Maybe 15 lbs. is too much for my size! Well, anyway, the biceps are feeling all better by this time.

We got pretty mixed up, off schedule on our workouts. Groundhubby is away again and I'm peddling as fast as I can on my own, just figuring it's every groundhogg for himself by this point. He can just jump back in wherever I am when he gets back home this time . I want my 90 days to be over with!!!!

If I can manage two workouts tonight at home, I'll be caught up and ready to start week 3 of phase III!!!! But, I don't know for sure that I feel like doing two in a row...plus, the doggies will be very bored with me, having waited around the house all day long for a groundhog to return, only to find her obsessed with non-stop workin' out!

Anyway...I'm assuming I'll begin week 3 of phase III either tomorrow or the next day...and probably have few comments since these weeks are all just recapitulation from here on until the end. If I can get back on schedule, I should be all finished with the brutal 90 days in three more weeks!

As I said, I probably won't have too much to comment on, since I've done all the workouts before. My only concern from here is GETTING to them...it seems it's getting harder and harder all the time.

We figured that whatever happens after our initial 90 days...with lots of outdoor work and stuff waiting for us with warm weather ahead...however we can or cannot manage the workouts into our days...we thought it might be a neat idea to make p90x our regular New Year's "Resolution"-type activity...i.e., to start the p90x, 90-day routine on January 1st and use up those cold, dark winter evenings to while away the wintertime and welcome in the springtime...we should finish just in time to see the seasons begin to change! Sounds like a good idea, anyway!

[DianeR]

No, I haven't done Back & Biceps. I think that comes in Phase 2, right?

I'm held back in biceps with my left arm. I really struggle with those reps. But maybe I'll be up to 15 pounds by the time I get to where you are in the program

I write things down so I can be sure to do more or at least the same each time I do a routine. I really need this with pushups because those are the things I struggle with.

So far I only missed one day, when I was feeling goofy because I was reacting to something I have eaten (or not, I'm really unsure of things these days ). Surprisingly enough, it was the stretch or rest day. I suppose I could have just skipped the stretch, but I wanted to do it. I told myself I would do the stretch and the next day's exercise, but I just didn't feel like doing that.

Oh well, everything is going to get messed up when I go to my son's college graduation and later go on vacation.

I made it through Plyometrics yesterday without breaks, until I had to wait for my heart rate to come down before I could stretch. Then I had to wait the longest time for my heart rate to be low enough that I felt I could shower. (My husband passed out in the shower one time when he went straight in with an elevated heart rate; I don't want to do that ) Those people on the DVD have heart rates that get down in, what, 30 seconds? I guess more rapid recovery is something my body will have to learn.

[groundhogg]

We always opt out for the stretch or rest days...we do nothing! We've only used tthe stretch DVD during "Recovery" weeks, when it's part of the regular week.

I think 15 lbs. is probably a little high for women on the biceps workout...I think I just wasn't thinking the night I did that...ugh...it hurt for a couple of days afterward.

I struggle with pushups too. I don't like the girly knee pushups either, so i always opt for whatever i can come up with for real...sometimes I have better days than others...i do my best and forget the rest .

I'm now doing the same with the pullups...I've abandoned the chair...for me, it doesnt' seem to do a lot to do pullups with the chair. Since our pullup bar is pretty low...I can jump up and get myself up with the help of my hands and jumping, and then can lower myself down fairly decently...then I hit the floor, jump back and do each one that way. It's cheating, but it feels like it makes more demands on my muscles than chair pullups did...so I'll wobble along like that, with fewer reps, as much as I can do.

I think pushups and pullups are just extremely demanding for women's bodies, because we don't have the same span of shoulder width and just cannot get the fulcrum effect that even out-of-shape men can get just because of physical cosntruction of their wide shoulders.

We've got the advantages of wider hips, though...which allows us to...ummm...have babies and get fat???????

[groundhogg]

2 1/2 weeks away from being finished with this seemingly eternal 90 days!

[groundhogg]

We are just finishing up our p90x...in the final few days.

I wanted to post a picture, but all I could do was screw up everything in place already, with my poor cyberspace skills and such.

I need a better picture anyhow...one of these days groundhoggie can help me...if we are ever together in a situation with the camera/ a computer, and my remembering to do it.

Planning on beginning again after a week or two's rest. This time around, we plan to make the following changes:

No more yoga x. We hate it! We'll drop the yoga x and the kenpo x and do cardio x in place of plyometrics. This way, we're substituting one DVD/ one workout (cardio x--which we've never done, but it has a little yoga, a little kenpo, and a little plyo, and is only 45 minutes) for 3...which frees up some of our time.

This way we can also keep the weeks going without having to struggle just to get one week's body strenghtening DVDs into 2 weeks of actual time, as life is allowing us for now. So we'll get 90 more days in progression, while combining plyo, kenpo, and yoga into just one night of cardio x. We can use the treadmill and take walks (sometimes I can, or sometimes groundhubby can too--manage to fit in a good walk during lunch at work) to fill in the gaps and make sure we are still moving, somehow, for six days a week. We'll see how that brilliant plan works out.

I'll get a picture up as soon as THAT brilliant plan works out too !

[hope101]

Glad to see the update, groundhogg. I, for one, have missed seeing your posts. There were so few people coming to the board the last few weeks it was getting pretty lonely.

[groundhogg]

now, don't get lonely! You could always PM me or even send an e-mail if you want...I just about always answer if I'm stuck ont he computer at work...most days at work I'm stuck there for several hours.

I just feel funny being on here so much right now because, well...I'm sort of caught up in a...sort of a...an unexpected turn in the highway...you could say. There...that make any sense whatsoever?

hey, don't ever feel lonely...I'm usually hanin' 'round close by!

[hope101]

Well, just because you're not McDougalling 100% because of your own specific health issues doesn't mean you don't have a lot to contribute on other topics. I mean, you are a well read woman who is very aware of a lot going on in the alternate health care world, not to mention a 90pxer. But thanks for the PM offer. I'll take you up on it if it gets too slow here.

[groundhogg]

groundhoggie has posted her photos on beachbody.com...I still don't have mine anywhere, and certainly not ready for puttin' mine up there

http://forums.milliondollarbody.com/eve ... /438103958

[libellule]

Thanks for groundhoggies' post! I didn't get to see the pics, because of technical difficulties.

Keep posting!

XOXO

[hope101]

Wow, she got herself some pretty nice deltoids and ab definition for 90 days. Especially as her build suggests she won't every be really bulky. Thanks for posting the pics.

[groundhogg]

I still don't have a picture anywehre...one of these days, though. I don't have good-looking clothes...never been a clothes person...like all I have is jeans and some Hillary Clinton-lookin' things to wear to special events...


...nothing to wear that shows any body parts .

Anwya...one of these days I'll get it together.

In the mean time, we've started our first week of our 2nd round of p90x.

This time I've made up some charts using some alterations that will fit our lifestye at the moment better...


Since we have tons of manual labor to do several times per week, we're doing the building workouts...there's 3 of them per week, including the ab ripper x on those three workouts, doing those as specified in the program.

But on the alternate days, when there are the plyometrics, yoga x, and kenpo x workouts, we are optioning either those workouts, or at least 1 hour of hard, aerobic labor as a substitute. This way we can count the stuff we've gotta get done before summer is gone and not feel that we're falling behind in the workouts.