Wow! I feel great about my workout tonight! I haven't been able to say that in a while either. It's been decent, or good... but not truly fantastic. P90X is hard, without a doubt, and I consider simply keeping up to be an accomplishment in most cases. I feel like tonight, I surpassed even my own expectations. I have been working out late at night, and I think that has an affect on my performance usually... but tonight was just fantastic.
I did Kenpo X, and I think it's become my new favorite workout. I have always loved martial arts, so it makes sense that this is my favorite. Honestly, martial arts has been my favorite way to get in shape for a long time. It's fun, and you know just how productive the hard work really is when you simply imagine being attacked and fighting for your life. Sometimes, you get so fatigued that you just want to drop your hands and let your body go limp just to rest. A little visualization provides a quick remedy for that. If I feel myself starting to slack at all, I simply imagine someone coming at me with a knife, or a blunt object, or anything for that matter... and my fists, feet, elbows, and knees are hitting that target. It definitely allows you to put more power into your attacks, think about keeping your hands up for defense, and maintain your balance throughout the movement.
I feel like my energy level and enthusiasm during the whole routine was at an amazing new high. During the designated break periods, I was actually jumping around with more energy than I probably should have had. I kept my knees up, did all the jumping jacks with great form, and put some real power into the X jumps. Seriously great workout tonight.
Sometimes, I think all it takes is to have one fantastic workout within any given system, such as P90X, to give you a little boost of motivation that eventually equates to better results. I got mine tonight.
Besides just loving martial arts, I think a big part of my success tonight was attitude. I know that I have talked about having a positive attitude before, but I mean it in a different way here. I actually took the time, before putting on the video, to mentally prepare myself to give 100%. I haven't really done that before, to be completely honest. I think to myself before a workout, "all right, I really need to get this over with... I can't skip a day... I need those results." It works, I haven't skipped a day yet -- but is it the best attitude to have? No, absolutely not. The difference with todays exercise was in the thought process here. Instead of just focusing on getting it over with, I got excited about it. I thought to myself, "Let's do this. I want to kick this workout in the ass and make it my bitch." Pardon the explitives, but that's exactly what I did.
Tonight was a mental victory much moreso than a physical one. Sure, working out at 100% is a physical victory, but if it's only one time it really doesn't matter all that much in the long run. However, when you connect the physical success to a particular state of mind pre-workout and during, you can continue to have those workouts every time. It's a step in the right direction, and though I don't expect to have such great workouts every day from now on, I'll at least have something to shoot for.
On a technical note, I paid attention to my heart rate monitor pretty closely tonight. I spent most of my time working out between 170-180 BPM, which is higher than usual but it felt right. Usually, I float around 160 and consider that "my zone" while 140 ends up as the bottom end for slightly less demanding exercises. I burned 1337 calories, which is pretty incredible over a one hour time span. At least, that's incredible in my book. I'd like to hear input from anyone else as far as their heart rate and calories burned during some of these workouts for comparison.
As for my diet, it's still not where I want it to be. It's slowly getting better, but I feel impatient about it. I want to just wake up tomorrow, and all of the sudden have the perfect dieting habits. It's not going to happen, at least not tomorrow. Something else to work for though.
Great night tonight though, despite the diet. This renewed my motivation in a way, not that I lacked it before this... just a much needed boost!
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You know Justin...I feel EXACTLY the same way about Kenpo! It IS my favorite. It IS my Fitness Soul Mate. LOL. I look forward to it every week, and when I'm doing it, it flies by, and I'm totally drenched in sweat, and I could totally do more. I hear you on the positive mental attitude. I'm trying hard to have that same attitude for the bain of the workout system for me, Yoga X.
ReplyDeleteAs for the heart rate monitor. I was bouncing in the high 170's, early 180's as well, and that's too high...but that was at the beginning of this round. Now I'm in the low 160's...which tells me that I have indeed become more fit. I don't pay attention to calories burned...I just know I've burned a hellova lot!
I'm so happy to read about your enthusiasm today.
So X Stretch?? I recommend it. It's an hour, and trust me...your body will thankyou.
Yoga X is my least favorite REGULAR workout, while Ab Ripper X is my least favorite overall. I thoroughly hate both of them. Yoga X just makes me want to quit sometimes, but of course I don't. As for the heart rate, I am fairly sure that Kenpo X is the ONLY workout that gets my HR up that high. I love it so much though. It's also the only one where I sometimes feel like I'm going harder and faster than the demonstrators, especially with the punching segments. Like I said, I've done much more extreme exercises that are very similar through Muay Thai. I don't like the blocking series, especially the star series where they put it all together. I'm not so coordinated with that quite yet. The blocks are very similar to what I've done in Kung Fu, but I haven't done those for quite a while and it does take a good bit of practice. As for the jab cross hook uppercut type stuff, I get really into it, focus on using my whole body, and I get a good bit of speed and power into it. Like I said, imagining actually fighting someone really helps me there :)
ReplyDeleteI know you keep pushing the X Stretch, and I really should have done it too. I guess I didn't have the will to do it after shoveling all that snow and being pretty exhausted in general. I stretched a bit on my own, but probably not nearly as well as I would have with X Stretch. I'll try to do it this week though! Week 3 day 1 is down! Excited to go to the next cycle too!