Day 1: Chest and Back

Welcome to the start of a journey!

I started P90X without completing the initial Fit Test--which is due to a faulty chin up bar--but I will soon get into it when I have a spare minute or two to do it. For the time being, I am committing an hour of workout first thing in the morning (or almost negative first thing in the morning because its actually before the time I usually have to wake up) to get it out of the way.

In the advice given by my dear friend Sandy:

If you have to eat a frog, eat it first thing in the morning then you have the rest of your day to enjoy. Otherwise if you put it off...you will be preocupied all day with the frog. So just eat it first thing in the morning.

Below are some pictures I took in January 2007 doing this very program. My roommate at the time had the DVDs, and I wasn't starting flight school until April (which again, is my goal month this year, 2 years later). Quite honestly, I cannot remember why I did not move onto Week 4 when I reached it, I must have gotten off track and then talked myself out of it)



Yes, these pictures are a bit outdated, but I'm not comfortable in asking my male roommate to take pictures of me with my beer belly out. Perhaps when I feel more comfortable I'll take the pictures of truth, but until then I'll be staring at these wishing I had at least a bit of definition from the body I had back then.

I am hoping that I can stick to the program and not let it fall away like I did the last time. I know that it will work, and I've got until the end of spring break to get it done. Well, now that February is a tiny month, it might spillover to May -- let's hope it works some magic by day 30 :)

Chest and Back this morning was very modified; I used resistance bands in place for pull ups and did not feel challenged. The push-ups part, however, were tough considering I haven't done a physical readiness test since April of 2008. I still lack a chin-up bar. Due to time restraints (improper planning on my part) I wasn't able to finish more than 6 minutes of Ab Ripper X. I realize that it is going to be difficult and awkward the first times, but the abdominal muscles will eventually get used to it and I'll be able to finish a full 25 reps for each exercise.

My arms are already feeling the weight of it, and waking up early only pushed me to take a nap. I am starting to adjust my sleeping schedule slowly as flight training becomes more and more.

I am really excited about this and am looking forward to the results!