P90X3 Week 6 Progress

I used to believe the myth that as a woman I should not lift heavy weights, or even lift at all - boy am I glad those thoughts did not stay with me. I used to be the girl on the treadmill, then the elliptical, then the stair master. I needed to burn calories! I figured out very quickly after completing Chalean Extreme, that I needed to lift and go heavy to boost my metabolism and lean out the way I was wanting to. Week 6 involved heavy lifting and my muscles are definitely CONFUSED. Every part of my body was sore at some point this week.  I increased the weights I was using (something my past me would have been hesitant to do), last week I was using 8-10 pound weights, this week I increased to 10-15 pounds. My push up and pull up form have improved significantly and I am able to do 2-3 reps more of each. I got on the scale this week and was absolutely shocked, not by the number on the scale but by the .6% body fat percentage drop from last week. This was a huge victory for me in the fact that it allowed me to throw my old unhealthy - weight loss tactics to the way side, I am seeing first hand that lifting weights does not make you bulky!

I want to go into more detail regarding the workouts in Block 2 for those of you who are still on the fence about whether P90X3 is the right program for you, so here you go:

Day 1: Eccentric Upper
- This 30 minute video involves various pull-ups, push-ups, and exercises that fatigue your triceps, biceps and back . All of the moves are based on slowing down the negative motion of each exercise. For example on the pull bar you would start in the full pull-up position and lower yourself down slowly and then pull-up quickly. Or each push-up you would lower down slowly (3 seconds) and then push up as quickly as possible. Completing the exercises this way allow you to focus on having great form, also eccentric exercises have been credited to challenging muscles up to 30% more than regular exercises which produces much faster results! Every exercise in this video was completed this way, so after this workout my arm muscles were twitching the rest of the day. Killer!

There were 3 types of eccentric push-ups completed in this video. The first was a standard push-up, the second was a military push-up and the third was a staggered push-up.

A military push-up involves keeping the elbows close to the rib-cage, so it targets the triceps much more then a standard push-up.

A staggered push-up involves having one arm graze the ribcage in military style, while the other arm does standard. This requires you to stay very rigid in the core, working your abs. I am still not able to do this completely true to form - hopefully by the end of the the 90 days I can!

Day 2: Triometrics
- This 30 minute video involves 3 levels of one exercise and each is completed for 20 seconds. There are a lot of balance related moves in this exercise. I really liked this program because you had three levels to choose from, let me tell you I was having to do the modified version of each exercise for almost the entire video. I did not want to compromise my form so even doing level 1 or 2 of each move left me very sore. Cannot wait until I can do the whole 30 minutes completing the hardest versions of each move!

Day 3: X3 Yoga-
- Wednesday yoga is something I absolutely look forward to each week. At first, I was unsure if I would want to do yoga each Wednesday, but it really what has helped with my tight muscles. I can stretch and increase my flexibility to create longer -leaner muscles. The routine is NOT easy and I am hoping that one day (in the far future) I can do some of the advanced moves with Tony.

Day 4: Eccentric Lower
- Again this involves focusing on the negative movements but it is all lower body. Squats, forward lunges, side lunges, leg extensions, calf raises, bridges and several other exercises make this video extremely effective. Form is very important in this video to make sure you are not injuring your knees. Bands or weights are used - and you definitely can go heavier here because you are using some of your largest muscles groups.

Day 5: Incinerator
-  The name of this workout says it all! You are going to burn, burn, burn your muscles until you can barely eek out one last rep! The video goes through a sequence of exercises, working opposing muscles groups to exhaustion back-to-back. By the end I could not do another full push-up or pull-up.....burn out!

Day 6: MMX
- This was a fun workout! I was punching, jabbing, kicking and crossing my way into a sweat. This video involved a lot of sprawls so prepare yourself. Sprawling, is like a burpee, except you put your chest all the way to the group and then jump up completely into a standing position. If you like marital arts or MMA fighting you will definitely enjoy this workout.

- Day 7: Rest or Dynamix
I decided to rest this week, but Dynamix essentially is very low impact exercises and mostly stretching type moves that will get your muscles just warm enough to get some deep stretching in.

Onto Week 7!!!