Hey Everyone, how’s your day going ? I hope that you’re having a blessed day.
To start out, my day didn’t quite go has I would have liked it but, in thinking about things more closely, and really having some time to reflect – I am a blessed man either way, no matter how I look at it. I’ve a beautiful woman, who loves me absolutely without question in my mind, she has a great family that loves me – I am blessed. I knew right from the moment I met her that she was the woman I wanted to spend the rest of my life with, and nothing no matter how complicated or difficult things get – I know that our lives are forever bound, and soon the only thing that will change the situation is a wedding to re affirm what I believe whole heartedly.
Sorry about that, I really went off on a tanget this time, but I just had to vent a bit to free up my mind so that I can go on to post. I attempted the P90X Yoga X this morning, and I do mean attempted. I thought Yoga was something more for women, and I had a really preconceived notion of how this work out was going to be, I figured its Yoga – how hard can it be ?
OH MY GAWD ! ! ! This stuff is demanding, I mean I had to watch what Tony was doing, and then had to back track to attempt it myself. I felt stretched in places that I never would’ve thought could stretch, the pain was insane – seriously. I mean to go from a flat back (landing platform straight) to go down so that my legs were on the floor with my arms fully extended to elevate the upper portion of my body from the waist up, and then to hear Tony say ‘ now push your head up higher so you’re not like a turtle in his shell ‘ I was stretched out, and it hurt, in a good way, and a bad way. Let me explain the good way first, I mean I was loosening up the muscles in my body, my legs, my chest, my neck and right now my neck really needs some stretching out to loosen it since its rather on the strained side of things. Yet, this was good but for the beginner this is hard stuff, this is tricky but its a good thing that I have the P90X Yoga Blocks to help extend the reach of my hands so that I can attempt in my best ability to follow along. Now here’s the bad thing about it, Tony gives good direction but in my opinion it could’ve been done in a much easier way, by using not only just the one angle of footage it’d have been really nice to get different angles to see what he really wants done, and especially to get close up to see how the poses are supposed to actually look. I think that was the hardest thing in doing the Yoga X is that to do the poses correctly you’re supposed to be looking down, while breathing in deeply and out, working at clearing your mind, loosening your body, loosening your muscles. Yet, for a beginner like myself this was tricky to say the least, since even watching it through, then back tracking to follow the move along I still found myself looking up to make sure that I was doing the pose properly.
The downward dog, is a hard position for me to do, but the great thing to make note of is that while its hard for me to do, its not impossible, its just something I can’t do exactly perfect but I have 90 days to improve on it, I have 90 days to work on it, and I have 90 days to refine the process. I will be honest, some of these work for me, while some of them don’t some of them are harder for me to do like the pose where you just stand in the beginning clearing your mind, breathing in deeply in and out, eyes closed, I couldn’t help but wobble around. I nearly fell over, but I kept at it. Reflecting on things now, I can’t see how its possible to clear your mind while doing this work out, since it requires such mental discipline to remember the poses that are called out, and then to have your body just respond in kind to meet what Tony is asking of you.
I think I can see the beauty of it from afar but while I am just starting out on it, I will perhaps find some enlightenment along the way, I will begin to see it for what it could possibly be, and even very well, use some of these moves to strengthen my body, and soul.
I am just ready to grab a shower, and then off for the night most likely to bed since I am just zonked yet again. I went to bed last night after writing, and then a work call came up at midnight so I had to go do that, well, the time I finally went to bed again wasn’t until four thirty this morning, to be up at nine thirty. So right now, my body clock is a bit out of whack so bear with me. I will post quotes either later on tonight or perhaps tomorrow, either way it will get done.
This is James saying ‘ Be Well, Be Well To Others & You’ll Be Great ! ‘
I sympathize. Yoga is my least favorite of the routines. I think it’s the fact that when you pop in the CD you’re staring 1hr 32mins in the face. I appreciate that the other routines are similar in length once you stick in Abs, but something about Yoga just sucks the will right out of me. Oh well, keep soldiering on.
Side note – I’m 5 weeks in, I still can’t do Crane. I sure do fall on my face a lot though.
I know – we wish there was an option to not see the clock…. We are still struggling with pretty much most of the yoga poses too – crane is hysterical because we’re rolling all over the place and still havent succeeded in holding our bodies up for more than 2 seconds. I have a hard time getting into the mindset – my brain is firing and wondering how standing like a tree is helping, but now that we have done it several times, its starting to grow on me. I was even brave enough to try out a real yoga class yesterday which kicked my butt, but was something I never would have considered doing before. We just took our 30 day pictures by the way and I must say, we look pretty awesome! We cant wait to see yours. Amanda
Hello James,
Colin here. Would like to start off by saying “Good for you!” that you started the program and that you are going strong. I’ve gone through phases over the last couple of weeks where either I felt too tired to do the workout (but did it anyway and felt great afterwards) or looked at myself in the mirror and wondered if it was really working. Well, we’re at the end of week 4 and both Amanda and I are REALLY impressed by the changes that we see between our day 0 and day 30 pictures! I don’t look like Tony yet
, but it’s a huge step in the right direction. It is very motivating and has boosted our enthusiasm so we’re ready to tackle Phase II!
I sympathise with your Yoga X experience – I’d never done any kind of Yoga before. I started with Snake instead of Upward dog (knees on the floor) and progressed to a proper Upward dog last week. We’ve noticed that for all of the exercises, we’re not necessarily doing more reps or higher weights, but we’re doing the exercises better, more efficiently, and that’s where the progress can be seen.
On to Phase II tomorrow – the new workouts look quite daunting, but a change will be nice. Plus, going by the nutrition plan, I get to eat waffles, pancakes and bagels again!
It was well worth the wait/weight 
Keep pushin’ play…
Cheers,
Colin
So here I am, a guy of 32 who has been doing what’s called 1hr45min yoga intensives for the past 5 years. Well, that all fell apart 10 months ago when my daughter was born – and doing yoga or even regularly going to the gym has been dropped because of their constraints on my time.
Which brings me to P90X… When did did Yoga X for the first time last Wednesday night – with my yoga buddy wife watching, I was seriously flattened. Though all the moves were familiar, the postures were possible because I’ve done them hundreds of times before, it still kicked my ass. Meantime, my wife was in the background saying “doesn’t look that hard”. Well, I challenge her to try it, after 3 previous days of P90X.
My body was so worn in the beginning of that first week, I found myself sweating and breathing harder then any of the yoga intensives of days past. For me, it’s a testament of how difficult the ENTIRE P90X workout is, as you transition from one day to the next with the fatigue of the last still leaving you quaking.
Already, I fell this second week easier than the first. Pylo this morning was easier then the first a week ago. So it goes.
What can i say but well done on starting this program. I agree with what you said about this being more than a body transformation. For someone to take this on they need to have there mind focused and want something really bad…
I read a great article and wrote a little about it on my blog also which describes one trainers(from T-Nation) idea about the four key stages of body transformation… Great article…
I will be starting this program when i get back from holiday on the 21st of July.
Currently i have dropped from 338lb (August 27th 2007) to 253lbs (June 2nd 2008), 85lbs weight loss from a good diet and training. From what i have been reading all over the web i know i need to be ready for this program. I am waiting on my chin-up bar and dumbells and it’s going to take a month for them to be delivered, thats the main reason for me waiting to start.
But to help me ease into the program i have started last week with 3 full body workouts in the gym and 1 HIIT training session yesterday. To get into it even more i am planning to do the all the cardio routinesfrom the p90x as well as my full body workouts so when i start i will have a full months training behind me and should be used to some of the exercises on the p90x program.
I have also setup my own blog and am logging all my progress from my preparation to my 90 training once i start.
Good luck on your journey…
To your Success!
I totally skip yoga in my P90X program all together and go to the gym to run 5K on my favorite treadmill. I figure I can do Stretch X and get a good stretch in and the running almost equals the same calories.
I’M NOT GOING TO KILL MYSELF OR PUT MYSELF IN A POSITION TO QUIT.