Thursday, April 8, 2010

Round 5: Day 61: Shoulders and Arms

I've been doing this workout for almost a year and a half, and it still feels fresh and enjoyable. As with the other P90X workouts, it is progressive, in the sense that one can always increase weight or repetitions or both, thus maintaining the challenge in the workout. My approach has been to keep moving the goalposts: when I'm consistently lifting the same weight for several workouts, try increasing the weight. Alternatively, if I find I'm capable of achieving 12 repetitions for a few workouts, I'll increase the weight and decrease the repetitions to between 8 and 10. I believe that this approach encourages muscle confusion and helps to avoid plateaus.

Today's workout saw some modest gains in both repetitions and in weight increases. Also, I've been noticing that my left arm and shoulder are keeping up with my right side. That is a nice improvement in just nine weeks. Also, further to the opening paragraph, I've noticed that my numbers in this workout have been relatively static for the past few workouts, so I've made some notes to increase weights or repetitions. I felt stronger today than usual during this workout, perhaps due to the increase in resistance training this Round. Perhaps that's due to the Just Arms and Diamond Delts routines paying dividends in this workout. At any rate, it seems to me that my shoulders and deltoids have slightly increased in size. I wouldn't say that I'm about to race out and purchase some tank tops, but I am please with my modest gains.

Also, my weight is a bit down, and I think my waist size is decreasing a bit, although I haven't taken measurements in a long time. I'm wearing size 31 pants today, which would have been unheard of a year ago. My BMI says I'm overweight(!), but as I've added muscle and lost fat, I really don't pay any attention to BMI. I'll take the loose clothing test over BMI any day.

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