Yoga is an important piece of the fitness puzzle

During my recovery weeks, which occur for one week after every three or four weeks of training, I don’t do any heavy weight training, or anything too intense, for that matter.

I generally do a lot of yoga. Why?

Yoga builds strength. Yoga builds balance. Yoga builds self-control. And, you know what else? Yoga is hard!

A year after starting P90X, I still can’t get through a full yoga workout without stopping. The moves don’t seem that hard, but, wow, all those downward dogs, upward dogs, and warrior moves Tony does really present a challenge. I usually have to take a break every 15 minutes or so, more often toward the end.

But I keep doing yoga, and one of the reasons is because it is hard. I cannot wait for the day when I’m doing triangle pose and thinking, “Wow, this isn’t too difficult.” I think that day is years off, but I’m looking forward to it.

There is a mental side to yoga that Tony doesn’t really get into too much, and I don’t either. I think the physical benefits are plenty of motivation for me to keep returning to those yoga DVDs.

If you have P90X and don’t like the Yoga X DVD, you are not alone. It’s 90 minutes long, which is more than many of us have time for. Tony Horton has provided, as part of his One-On-One series, two other excellent substitutes for Yoga X: “Fountain of Youth” and Patience: Hummingbird”. I primarily use those DVDs. There is a yoga disk in the latest volume of One-On-One — I don’t recommend it. There are not enough verbal cues, and, in yoga, I think those are very necessary, because you just cannot always see the television.

You may have not given yoga a chance, but maybe you should. I think you’ll appreciate the benefits.

How to do pull ups, when you can’t do pull ups

If you are like me, you struggle with pullups. Pushups I can do, but those back exercises are difficult. In fact, when I did the fitness test before starting Tony Horton’s P90X, I was able to do 33 pushups, but only 1 pullup.

Hmmmmmm….

During P90X, Tony suggests doing chair-assisted pullups, where you do as many pullups as you can, then put your toe on a chair to help you do a few more.

This didn’t work well for me, because (1) all my usable chairs have wheels, and (2) the floor below my pullup bar is tile, so even trying to use a step stool was a problem, because it kept slipping.

I struggled with the step stool all the way through my first iteration of Tony Horton’s P90X. I tried repositioning it, putting something behind it, trying to keep it in place, but finally ended up with it right below my body, which pretty much removed a lot of the resistance and, therefore, rendered the exercise less useful.

As I continued the program and got tired of struggling with the stepstool, I tried using an exercise band, which is another option Tony suggests. Using the band did better for me, so I stuck with that for a while, but eventually I had to acknowledge that a rubber band just does not provide the resistance that a 180-pound body can. I had to start doing real pullups.

Problem was that I didn’t feel I could get enough work in during the time allotted on the DVDs. Tony is a pullup master, and he whips right through them, but I would end up quitting when I thought I still had a few in me.

The answer finally came to me. It takes a bit more time, and requires a pause if I’m using the DVDs, although often, these days, I do the workouts without them.

Here it is: I just do as many pullups as I can do in one minute. I can rest, kip, stand on the ground between each pullup, if I need to, but I do as many as I can do in one minute.

I use my battery operated kitchen timer, set it for a minute, and start the timer before each set. I don’t stop trying to do pullups before the beep.

This gives me the resistance I need to progress, and also gives me a number of real pullups to record, instead of chair assist or band method. Because real pullups are what I want to be doing, that works for me.

Which shoes should you wear for P90X (or for any workout)?

I am writing this quick post for those who, like me, had that question before starting Tony Horton’s P90X. I didn’t know what kind of shoes to buy for the workouts, so I googled it, of course, but I never found a really good answer. Or, rather, I found too many answers.

Having done P90X for a year now, here is my answer: NO SHOES!

No shoes is a no-brainer for yoga and Ab Ripper X, of course, but how about for resistance training and plyo?

Based on the recommendations I found online, I started with some court shoes, to give my feet and ankles extra support. I found this to be uncomfortable, but I wore them anyway, thinking I should.

Then, a few weeks into the program, I read Mark Sisson’s The Primal Blueprint and started visiting his Mark’s Daily Apple website. Mark is a proponent of bare feet. That’s how our ancient ancestors trekked the earth, so should we, he says. Of course, trekking the earth barefoot is not necessarily safe, so he prefers footwear that emulates bare feet, like Vibram Five Fingers, but, dude, dem’s some spensy shoes and I just can’t afford it.

So … barefoot it was!

And still is.

I love working out with bare feet. The only time it’s a problem — besides when I stub my toe on a dumbbell — is when doing Toe Roll Iso Lunges. That move puts a bit of stress on the toes of my back foot, but I endure it, and my toes are stronger because of it.

Don’t have shoes for P90X? Try working out without them — you may like it, I know I do!

Finding someone to work out with. Is it important?

Fitness gurus harp on the idea that you should work out with friends. They help motivate you, keep you on track, supposedly. Tony Horton really talks this up during his workout DVDs.

Whatever.

I work out alone. That’s what keeps me on track.

I need the flexibility that being “single” allows me to have. For example, if I had planned to to work out at 10:00, but I end up in the middle of a task for a client around then, I can easily push it to 10:30 or 11:00. Not so easy to do if I need to coordinate the change with someone else.

Also, what am I going to do, invite a friend over here to get pumped up? I sure as hell ain’t going to anyone else’s place for a workout. Might as well join a gym, if I’m going to have to leave the house.

I guess I can understand the issue.

In the example above, I could very easily put the workout off, and put the workout off, until … it doesn’t get done at all. If I had someone counting on me to work out with him, well then….

But I don’t put the workout off. Do you know why? Because I have the best kind of motivation, the kind that comes from inside myself. I do these workouts for me, so I can feel and look better.

Getting into and staying in shape is just like anything else — you gotta wanna do it. Like quitting smoking. I quit so many times, but when I finally really wanted to do it, I did it. No problem. Never looked back.

Okay, well maybe you decide you do want a workout partner. You accept the idea that the workouts will take longer and that you are now at the mercy of her last-minute schedule changes. You’re cool with that. But what happens when that workout partner no longer can or wants to work out with you? Now what? You are lost. You have gotten into this routine where you and your buddy work out, and now you can’t do that. Failure is imminent.

So I choose to control my own destiny by working out by myself.

I’m not saying working out alone is right for everyone, but don’t think it can’t be done, and don’t use the fact that you have no one to work out with as an excuse for not going it alone.

What’s my weekly workout schedule?

I’ve had some people tell me that they really need the structure of a workout schedule to keep going. I’m the same way — I need some kind of structure, even if it’s a loose one, to stay on top of things.

I’ve heard Tony Horton say that he sits down at the beginning of each month and marks his workouts on his calendar. Not the specific workouts, but just general terms like “cardio” and “upper body”. That’s a nice approach.

I keep it even more structured, though.

  • Monday – Chest & Back
  • Tuesday – Plyo
  • Wednesday – Shoulders & Arms PLUS Abs
  • Thursday – Yoga
  • Friday – Legs & Back
  • Saturday or Sunday – Cardio (optional) PLUS Abs

I do this for 3 or 4 weeks, then take a week “off”, meaning I take it easy and just do some cardio and yoga, no targeted strength workouts.

After the recovery week, I start over, using different workouts than I used the previous block. So, for example, if I did the “Base & Back” DVD during the block before, this time I’ll do the “Legs & Back” DVD. So far all my workouts are from either Tony Horton’s P90X or his One-On-One series. I own Insanity, but I have not tried it yet.

This works for me, mixing things up enough to keep my muscles confused and my mind engaged, and that really is the key to my success: finding something that works for me.

What does your schedule look like?