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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.

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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?

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It’s the weekend – to work out or not to work out

When I first started Tony Horton’s P90X about a year ago, I was motivated and ready to change my body. I pressed play every day, did some kind of workout seven days a week for the first 8 weeks. The 9th week, I took Sunday off. It is, after all, an optional workout day, and the workout is just stretching, so, really, Sunday is a recovery day. (BTW, this assumes you started the program on a Monday, which I’m guessing most people probably do.)

As my body moved more toward the shape I wanted, as I started feeling happier with it, and better about it, Saturday workouts, which for me was a cardio, would also sometimes slip.

In other words, I started treating the weekend days as optional workout days.

I don’t think that would work for my brother, who is a bit of a fitness nut, but it works for me.

Look, I work out pretty hard during the week. I don’t dog it. I’m pushing the boundaries of what my muscles can handle. I also tend not to get enough sleep. I need my downtime on the weekends to recover.

The only thing I really try to do on the weekend is one of my two weekly ab workouts — 15 minutes max — and that’s just to get something in, i.e. not be totally lazy for two whole days.

Then it’s up to my body and mind. What are they telling me?

Feeling sore? Maybe a cardio workout to loosen things up. Cardio is always good, because I always feel really great after, for example, Kenpo/Cardio Plus or Intervals, and I think it’s generally a good idea to get the blood circulating hard through the body every so often.

Feeling pretty good? How about a little yoga to improve strength, balance, breathing … you name it.

Yeah, those are both good ideas, and sometimes I’ll make ’em happen. But I don’t feel bad if I skip ’em.

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My experience with the Primal Diet

When I first started Tony Horton’s P90X, I followed the included diet plan religiously.

The plan called for a diet of 50% protein, 30% carbs, and 20% fat. I created a spreadsheet and entered everything I consumed, ensuring I kept my daily totals very close to those targets. I lost a lot of fat.

About six weeks after I’d started P90X, though, I read Mark Sisson’s The Primal Blueprint. It intrigued me and made more sense to me than any other dietary lifestyle I’d ever read about.

If you are not familiar with Sisson’s philosophy, let me explain briefly that it involves eating lots of fat and protein, only some carbs, and those carbs should come primarily from vegetables, a bit from fruit, and not from anywhere else. No grains or sugars of any kind. The concept is that our bodies evolved to eat certain foods. Grains have not been part of our diets for very long, so when we eat grains, we are, essentially, eating things that our bodies are not accustomed to as food.

Because this made a lot of sense to me, I switched from the 50/30/20 diet to a primal diet after six weeks of P90X. I have been on the primal diet since then.

But now I’m switching back to 50/30/20.

Why?

While P90X has been great for getting me into shape, making me much more fit, and strengthening my muscles, well, dammit, my waist size has not budged from where it was ten weeks into the program, shortly after I went on the primal diet. I’ve been stuck. And it’s pissing me off.

I believe that our body composition is at least 80% what we eat, so I’ve thought for some time that I should make this move, go back to 50/30/20. Problem is, I really like primal eating and it’s a healthy way to eat. Plus primal does seem to be great for body-fat-percentage maintenance. But I guess that’s the problem. I’ve maintained my fat level, can’t seem to lose this fat around my gut.

I am not certain that primal is the cause of this lack of fat loss. But I’m back on 50/30/20, as of yesterday, to see if I can find out.

I’ll keep you posted.

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Can my knees handle the pounding of P90X and Insanity?

Knees. They are two of the most important joints in the body. We use them a lot and, so, they are subject to injury.

You may be wondering if your knees can handle P90X or Insanity. I wondered the same thing about my own knees.

I used to run a lot, but then my knees started to bother me. The incessant pounding running puts on your joints is tough on them, so I stopped.

When it came time for me to start P90X, I really wondered if my knees would be able to take it. After all, the Plyo workout includes a lot of high impact moves. Of course, there are modified moves for people concerned about the high impact nature of the routine, but I didn’t want to modify, if I didn’t have to. (Yeah, I can be stubborn — I am just not into this “getting too old for that” stuff.)

At first, good sense — based on Tony’s suggestions during the routine — got the better of me and I did do the modified moves. My knees had some issues, but nothing I couldn’t work through.

This is a good time to mention that you really need to listen to your body. You can tell if you are pushing too hard. You can tell if the pain you feel is something that you can work through or something that should make you stop.

As it turns out, I have a bit of arthritis in my left knee. It hurts, but exercise actually makes it feel better. Go figure.

Anyway, I made it all the way through P90X, eventually working up to the full high impact Plyo routine, and my knees are still intact. In fact, they are better off than before, because now the muscles around them are stronger.

I haven’t tried out Insanity yet. It has a lot more aerobics, and, so, a lot more knee-pounding. I will enter that program cautiously sometime later this year and report back on the results.