P90X Day 9 - Double Time

I thought it would get easier.

It hasn't. Not yet.

At the 10% point of this program, I can honestly say that I'm seeing significant results. And that I'm exhausted. Yesterday was the first repeated workout, the chest and back, which means push-ups and pull-ups. P90X stresses the importance of taking notes on your workout so that you can see what you've done, which gives you a place of reference for the next time. I checked out my numbers and set a goal to be slightly better this time around.

For starters, all of my pull-ups last week were done with the aid of a chair, so I decided to do as many as I could without the chair, and then change over. Then, I figured I'd add a few reps of each type of push-up.

This did not last long. I did real pull-ups for the first two workouts, and increased on one style of push-ups. After the first break, I couldn't pull myself up anymore, and I was already starting to drop on the number of push-ups I could do, as compared to last week. Within the first ten minutes, it was clear that, not only was I not going to improve on last week's numbers, I was going to have trouble maintaining them.

So, what does that mean? Does it mean that I'm failing? For a while, it felt like it. I got very frustrated the first few times that I missed my numbers.

And then I remembered that last week, I was doing this workout with fresh arms. This week, I've got a whole week of extreme workouts behind me, so I couldn't actually expect to make the same numbers that I did when I was fresh. In fact, even getting close meant that I was doing great. So, I fought my way through the rest and even got through the abs with numbers reminiscent of my second day instead of my first.

Which brought us to today's plyo workout. I went in with tempered expectations after yesterday's limits, and found that the first half of the workout was similarly difficult. However, the back half felt great, and I even had enough energy to jump into Tony's "double-time" moments. Knowing exactly what was coming made a huge difference in my desire and ability to push myself harder than I would have otherwise.

While my numbers may not have reflected it yesterday, I do feel (and look) stronger already. I need to keep remembering that progress can be slow. I certainly can't compare my numbers to those of the folks on the videos. I can only do the best I'm able on any given day.

And double-time when possible.