P90X Day 10 - Level Up

Struggling to get in and out of the car last night, I had a terrible thought:

I have to work my shoulders tomorrow.

The cumulative effect of P90X has been a double-edged sword. I am definitely showing additional muscle and definition, but I've also got a perpetual muscle ache somewhere in my body. For some reason, last night's ache settled in my upper back and shoulders, making for some rather comical (I imagine) faces as I tried to do pretty much anything that involved moving my arms last night.

This naturally made me a little nervous for today's workout, Shoulders and Arms. What I like about this workout is that it's only as hard as the weight that I choose. Some days, like Plyo, are based in body weight, so it's going to be just as hard regardless of my choices. Even Chest and Back uses push-ups. But, with the exception of chair dips, everything else in today's program is based in weight, and I knew that, if anything was too difficult, I could always drop the weight.

Of course, the downside to that is, if I don't pick a weight that's heavy enough, I won't feel like I've done enough toward my goals for that day. So, I laid out all the weights I might need, based on last week's numbers, with one exception. Instead of the 10 pound dumbbells, I brought out the 25, just in case.

Within the first few moves, I stopped worrying about last night's soreness. My range of motion was not affected, and I was already able to increase weight on a few moves. Still, given the surprises of Monday, I wanted to be cautious.

By the second block of moves, I decided to throw out caution, and I'm so glad I did. In all, there are 15 different moves in this workout, each done twice, and 13 of them involve weight. I based my starting weights off of the second round of each move last time, and in 9 of those, I was able to increase my weight off of last week, not to mention increasing my reps on the other two. Finally, I'm seeing marked results. I'm leveling up.

Which got me all amped up for Ab Ripper, and deservedly so. I was able to increase almost all the workouts (with the exception of scissors and hip raises) to 20 reps, nearly reaching the actual numbers for the workout. I feel like I'm actually making progress in strength, not just appearance.

I am under no delusions about the level of my progress. The is only day 10, meaning that what I have left is still 8x what I've done. I can hope, however, that my rapid progress thus far is a harbinger of great things to come.

I've still got many levels ahead.