P90X Round 2, Day 38: Back and Biceps

First, a word about diet. I felt I was low in energy the last couple of days, so I decided to review my diet. Thinking that perhaps I wasn't consuming enough, I ate more yesterday and took my home-made recovery drink (glass of skim chocolate milk with 35mg of whey protein isolate). Today, not only do I not have any significant soreness, I also feel much better in terms of energy level. Tip of the day: if you feel you're "bonking" on the workouts, check your diet, and keep drinking water.

Also, more on energy: I rode my bike into the office yesterday after doing Plyometrics. The ride home was all uphill with a stiff wind in my face. I felt great throughout the ride and barely broke a sweat by the time I reached home. Then, after dinner, I did a 10 Minute Trainer workout (Total Body) with my daughter. I haven't done these workouts since mid-December 2008 and thought they'd be a joke after doing the X, but found the workout to be rather challenging. They move at a much faster pace than P90X workouts (they are, after all, only 10 minutes) so they get their reps in quickly and don't give any rest time between exercises. I sweated quite a bit. The point is, however, that in one day I did Plyo, rode to and from the office and did a 10 Minute Trainer workout. Obviously, my energy level has increased. That would never have happened last fall. Thanks, Tony (and the kids).

Today's workout: the only energy issue I can't successfully address is my wife's snoring, which woke me up at 1:15AM and kept me up until around 2AM. I wish there was some kind of recovery drink for that.

The Back and Biceps workout is basically the opposite of Chest, Shoulders and Triceps. With CST, the intent is to push everything away; with Back and Biceps, it's pulling everything towards you. Many of the exercises are variations of curls and, as it can be easy to cheat on curls by kipping with your back or dropping your elbows a bit to get the weight up, it's doubly important to watch form throughout this workout. I really tried to focus on just using my elbow as a fulcrum, isolating the bicep and forcing the weight to move upwards. It makes a big difference. Even so, I found myself rock and rolling a bit with the weights. I've made a note on my workout sheet (write everything down; information is knowledge, knowledge is power) to sustain an isometric hold during my exercises. Perhaps the number of reps will decrease, but I'll bet there will be an increase in intensity and better results.

Favourite move today: strip set curls. I've been able to increase the weight for this series of exercises progressively over the months. Today I used the blue band for the first two sets and the green band for the last two. After that, there was no raising my arms at all. I left it all on the floor today.

Toughest move today: hammer curls. Could barely squeeze out 10 reps using the green band. At this point in the workout, hammer curls are tough for me (even though Tony says they're a bit easier than standard curls and you should be increasing your weight).

Tony line of the day: "Bobby, you're all sweaty dude. Grab a towel. You too, Katie."

Later: Ab Ripper X