There seems to be no real concrete answer for the questions How Often Should I Workout. Between work, kids, school and other ‘life’ factors often cause working out to fall between the cracks.

According to the latest joint American Heart Association/American College of Sports Medicine guidelines, all healthy adults ages 18-65 should be getting at least 30 minutes of moderate to intense physical activity for 5 days a week. Take a minute or 2 to think of the people you come into contact with each day. How many of them do you think actually exercise at least 30 minutes a day. The answer will more than likely be fewer rather than more. Physical activities could include anything from running, walking, skiing, cycling, swimming and other activities. The lack of physical activity and exercise is large contributor to cardiovascular disease.

So now that you have an answer for how often should I workout, let’s talk about what kind of exercises you should be doing. It all comes down to what you want your results to be. Do you want to lose weight? If so, then doing a cardio working 5 – 6 days a week would be recommended. Cardio exercises will make your heart and lungs pump extra amounts of blood thus delivering more oxygen to your muscles. When your body reaches the ‘aerobic zone’, this means you are burning fat and calories at an optimal level. The aerobic zone is typically 70% - 80% of your maximum heart rate.

If you are looking to build muscle, then resistance training is your best option. Resistance training is designed to increase body strength, muscle endurance and power. The most common form of this is lifting weights. There are countless resistance training routines that one can follow. There are some that use just body weight, free weights or weight machines. The routine you are most comfortable with would be the best recommendation.

In conclusion, I have tried to answer the question ‘How Often Should I Workout’. Try to fit some form of activity or exercise into your day, every day. Some days you may be able to do more than others, but the trick is to be consistent. I have personally found that following an exercise program is what works for me. The best thing about following a program is that it will give you that ‘conviction’ to skip a day or find some lame excuse to not workout.
 

Got a well deserved break last night with Insanity's Cardio Recovery.

I summarize the routine as a combo of Yoga and light Plyo. Your not moving as fast as you can and jumping all around, but you are doing stretches with some different Yoga poses and also some deep muscle with lower body moves.

I was still sweating like crazy at the end of the workout.

Today, my legs are feeling real strong, but just a tad sore. My tri's are also a bit sore from the Wed. workout. I will be missing Friday's workout because I have to travel out of town after work for the weekend. But I do plan to not miss Saturdays workout!

Cheers,

X

Wednesday was the day for Cardio Power & Resistance. I must say, this is the best workout so far!

When I got home from work, I was tired and really did NOT feel like working out. Then of course, my wife just had to get home earlier than normal. This meant I had to drag myself into the basement and do some hard core cardio for 45 minutes:(.

The warmup was a bit different on this which was good. It is crazy because you do the warmup routine 3 times and each time you Dig Deeper and move at a faster pace.

As for the workout itself, there are a ton of fun moves. It is cool because there is some arm and should muscle-building moves in the workout. I was absolutely drenched after this workout. I also felt really energized and more upbeat having worked out.

X

A little behind on the workout blog, but Tuesday was the Plyometric Cardio Circuit workout. Overall, the workout of course kicked my butt. By the end of the warmup I was dripping with sweat.

This was not on of my favorite workouts. This is partly due to the workout mats on my basement floor. They tend to move around a bit when you are doing a lot of movement. Alot of the workout moves start from the plank position and consist of moving the legs alot.

I really need to invest in some new shoes and also a heart rate monitor that calculates calories burned. I really want to know what kind of calories I am burning.

X

So call it official. I started the new workout from Beachbody called Insanity. The first night was the fit test. This is something Shaun has you do every 2 weeks so you can see your improvement throughout the program. You basically do a few minutes of warming up and stretching, then it is into a series of 8 exercises. You do as many as you can in one minute. You then get 45 seconds of rest and time to record your results.

At the end of the workout(fit test) you will definately be sweating your butt off and breathing heavily...but it feels great.

Next up....Plyo Cardio!

Ok....been too damn long since I have blogged, but here we go...this might be a bit lengthy, but I have a lot to catch up on!!

I have started a routine that consists of the following weekly routine. I am doing 2 weeks rotations at different reps per set....15's, 10's and 5's.

I am showing the second week for each routine below....I plan to do another week of 5 reps...take a week off and then start it again and see what gains there has been.

This really is the first routine I have done in about 10 years, so I hope to see pretty huge gains.

Week 2 - 15 Reps - 2 Sets

Monday:

Chest Dips: 9 | 3

Chins: 10 | 10 - both sets assisted

Deadlifts: 95lbs. x 15 | 15

Full Sup Curls: 25lbs x 10 | 10

Wednesday

Bench: 100lbs x 10 | 10

BB Bent Over Rows: 85lbs. x 10 | 95lbs x 10

Bulgarian Splits: 10lbs. x 15 | 15

Lying DB Ext.: 35lbs x 20 | 13 - two hands

Friday

Standing DB Shoulder Press: 25lbs x 15 | 15

HIgh Pulls: 95lbs. x 10 | 95lbs x 10

Hack Squats: 95lbs. x 15 | 100lbs. x 15

Calf Raises: 120lbs x 15 | 15

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Week 2 - 10 Reps - 2 Sets

Monday:

Chest Dips: 10 | 10

Chins: 5 | 10 - second set assisted

Deadlifts: 135lbs. x 10 | 10

Lying DB Ext: 25lbs x 10 | 10

Wednesday

Bench: 125lbs x 10 | 135lbs x 10

BB Bent Over Rows: 135lbs. x 10 | 10

Bulgarian Splits: 30lbs. x 10 | 40lbs. x 10

Preacher Curls.: 95lbs x 10 | 7

Friday  - MIssed this workout...OOPS!

Standing DB Shoulder Press: 25lbs x 15 | 15

HIgh Pulls: 95lbs. x 10 | 95lbs x 10

Hack Squats: 95lbs. x 15 | 100lbs. x 15

Calf Raises: 120lbs x 15 | 15

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Week 2 - 5 Reps - 2 Sets

Monday:

Chest Dips: 10 | 10

Chins: 5 | 5

Deadlifts: 150lbs. x 5 | 160lbs x 5

Lying DB Ext: 35lbs x 4 +1 | 3+1

Wednesday

Bench: 140lbs x 5 | 145lbs x 5

BB Bent Over Rows: 140lbs x 5 | 145lbs x 5

Bulgarian Splits: 70lbs. x 5 | 70lbs. x 5

Preacher Curls.: 100lbs x 5 | 5

Friday  - this is Today!

Standing DB Shoulder Press:

HIgh Pulls:

Hack Squats:

Calf Raises:

Just got my new Gold's Gym XRS20 weight-bench over the weekend. I didn't want to spend the money on a 300lb. weight-set this weekend, so I figured I would use my neighbors temporarily until I can afford to buy a bar and weights. Even though I really didn't use the bench, it felt great to actually lift some weights...seeing it has been years since I have. Here is what I did tonight:

Bent Over Rows - 25 total reps - 5-6 first set.
5 sets of 5 at 95lbs.

Dips - 25 total reps - 5 first set
5 sets of 5

Split squats - 25 total reps - 5-6 first set. ( I went pretty light because I want to be able to walk tomorrow)
5 sets of 5 - each leg

Didn't want to overdue it on the first night....

A few days back, Jbryd turned me onto a blog written by Ryan Miller from trainlikeanathlete.com. He had written a blog and had a video showing how to take a routine of 4 exercises and doing reps for each in the cycle of 8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1 without any rest. I thought, what the heck...I'll give this a try.

I went ahead and picked 4 exercises:

• Wide-fly pushups
• Arm Curls
• Wide front pullups
• Chair dips

I must say...this was much hard than I thought it would be. I was sweating my butt off by the time I was done, and I also got a real nice heart rate going.

Having dedicated 1.5 hours a night to P90X, I have realized that you don't really need to workout for that long. I also realized, that I just don't have that amount of time to dedicate each night. The more and more I learn about High Intensity Training, the more I am liking it. Bust your butt for 20 to 25 minutes and still having some time in the evening to relax.

Cheers.

Going to start keeping a log of my interval training. It is not an exact science as I started P90x on January 1 of this year. So I have gone from not running at all to this. I want to track my progress!

Monday - 5/4/09 - Evening

• 2 minutes walking
• 3 minutes running at 5.5
• 1 min @ 8 then 1 min walk x 3
• 1 min @ 9 then 1 min walk x 3
• 45 sec @ 10 then 1 min walk x 3
• 3 min at 7

Total Mileage - 2.3mi in about 27min.

Let's start this out by giving a little history on myself. I was always active and involved in athletics during my high school years. I must say though, when I hit college the thought of exercise some seemed to escape my mind. That trend basically continued for the next 10 years. After graduating college, I would go through cycles where I would start to exercise, but not have any real plan. I would stick with it for about a month or so and would just fall back to doing nothing. At the time I made the decision to do P90x, I was about 220lbs. Pretty fat for a guy about 6' tall. On to the first week......

I had decided to take the first week to just familiarize myself with the exercises and get used to the routine. I ended up doing this for all 3 phases. Boy, did I have a rude awakening. Let's just say, these workouts were kicking my 'you know what'. By the end of the first week, I was so sore, that I literally could hardly walk. The leg routine ended up putting the final blow on me. Let me try to give you just a few stats/thoughts on what I could do before beginning P90x:

Chest & Back

1. Standard Pushups: Maybe 3 - 5

2. Reverse Grip Chinups: 0

3. Diamon Push-Ups: 0

4. Dive-bombers: 0

Plyometrics

What can I say...not a chance in this workout. I hadn't done that much jumping in 10 years.

Shoulders & Back

1. In and Out Bicep Curls: 8 x 15lbs

2. Chair Dips: 5

3. Full Supination Concentration Curls: 10 x 20lbs

4. Lying-Down Tricep Extensions: 8 x 12lbs

Yoga

I had never done or even really watched anyone do Yoga before. After attempting to do this workout for the first time, it gave me a great deal of respect for those who do it. I am not the most flexible person in the world, so I knew this would be a struggle. I was having trouble just doing Plank to Downward Dog!

Legs & Back

Legs had to be the muscles work worked the least over the previous 10 years. This workout is killer, but it is a really great workout. Like I mentioned earlier, after doing this workout, I could barely walk I was so sore.

Kenpo

I had to skip this workout the first week due to being so sore! However, this is a great workout that is not too muscle intensive, but it gets your heart rate up there and you burn some major calories. By the way, I had no height on my kicks:)

Has anyone had these same exeriences? If so, I would love to hear about them. I will document Phase 2 on my next blog. Also, feel free to leave comments!

Xfactor

After making the commitment to myself to do P90x, there were several steps I went through to prepare myself to start. I will list a few important steps that I think will help anyone who is thinking of starting P90x and expand on them.

First: Be sure to read through all of the literature you get with the package. There is very useful information in the guides.

Second: You definately want to take the Fit Test. The best thing about doing this is after your 90 days, you can come back and fill the rest of it out and see what great progress you really have made.

Third: Calculate your nutritional level. You may be stunned, as I was, at what it calculates out to. When I calculated it, it basically told me that I needed to eat 3,000 calories a day. In the end, this was very hard for me to do. I ended up taking in about 2,500 calories a day. Believe me, you will need every bit of energy it provides!

Fourth: Plan out how you will tackle your meal plan. This may actually be the most important part of P90x. You have to find what works for you. Some of the recipes provided take time and money. I eventually found 4 or 5 good recipes that were quick and easy to make, and that also tasted good! I have also gotten in the habit of preparing a lot of my food on Sunday for the week.

Fifth: Preview the workouts before actually starting them. This will not only pump you up, but it will help to familiarize your self with the flow of the workout when you actually start to do them.

I hope these tips might help someone who may be just starting their P90x journey. Please feel free to leave any questions or comments!

Xfactor.

In this blog series, I am going to try and document how P90x has changed many parts of my life. I have just completed the whole program, but I am still using its workouts regularly. In an effort to keep the blogs short, I will cover many topics over the next few weeks.

I am sure just about everyone has had a night when they can't fall asleep. You stay up watching tv, but there is not too much to watch at 2AM in the morning. More than likely you have seen the infomercial for P90x. Your first impression is 'Wow, that looks like a really intense workout program'. I can remember it actually pumping me up, making me want to get straight out of bed and start working out.

Towards the end of 2008, I started to realize how out of shape I was. I hadn't worked out regularly since high school and my job consists of me sitting at a desk. One day in the middle of December, 2008, both my wife an I decided that we were going to start the P90x journey.

So stay tuned and let me tell u how the journey has been.