I got right to it once I got home. I wasn't in the mood to mess around. A meeting went way longer than it should have discussing things that didn't need to be discussed. So I wanted to blow off some steam.
I started the Advanced Phase of YAYOG tonight with Timed Sets. To be honest, I am not a fan of the Advanced Phase, not because it is tough, because it is boring. I like variety in my workout but this specific phase is the 8 rep phase. Today, only 4 moves but for 8 sets each. To me that is just a cop out for a trainer. "Here, do this one move for 20 seconds, 8 times." Just boring. But my desire to actually finish the program is stronger than my desire to escape the boredom so I went all in. The four moves in today's routine were the same four moves from the Intermediate Circuit Training routine: Star Jumps, Half Dive Bombers (but I did full... sort of.), Oblique V-Ups, and Hip Raisers (I used push-up stands so my butt would clear the floor.) Yes, the Star Jumpers Killed me, but I didn't slack off. I pushed even harder in the last two sets. I didn't want my rep count to drop, so I crushed it. But I was dead. I had to recover quickly so I tried to control my breath. For the Dive Bombers, I was considering doing four sets of Dive Bombers and four sets of Pike Push-Ups (Pike Push-Ups are the modification for this move) all the way up until I finished the fourth set of Dive Bombers, but something inside my head wouldn't let me switch moves, so I stuck with Dive Bombers. But my arms and shoulder were SCREAMING, so I did a little modification. Going under the fence is fine, but in the later sets, going back under the fence was way too intense, so instead of going back under the fence, I just went straight back from Up-Dawg to Down Dawg on a few reps. But my arms were just rubber after that. Luckily, I crushed the Oblique V-Ups. But my arms were so blown, here's what happened. On the Oblique V-Ups, I was supposed to put my upper arm behind my head and touch my elbow to the rising knee. But being in that bent position for that amount of time, started to burn too much, so I just put my arm up straight and then behind my head when I could. THE BURN!!! The final move, Hip Raisers, is the easiest of the four. I just tried to keep a good range of motion. On the last couple of reps in the later sets, my shoulders and triceps were, again, SCREAMING!!! But I gutted it out.
I was planning to do the Pull-Up challenge right after the routine, but my arms were just too fried, so I did the Abs next. Happy to say that I made it all the way to the weighted moves, but that got me. Too Fried! But just a little break and I was able to finish to the end of that ab routine.
Day 2 of the 30-Day Pull-Up Challenge was pretty much the same as Day one, but the order was different, plus there were supposed to be an increase by 2 reps. There was also a change in variation order. Today, it was Parallel Grip, then Pull-Up, then Chin-Up. The rep sequence was 4-6-5 twice, the I added two reps of Parallels. I actually noticed some improvement in the fact that I didn't need as many breaks in the second round. Especially on the Chin-Ups. If my arms weren't fried before, they sure were after this challenge. I also had the hardest PUMP on!
I could barely lift my arms for the Flow series, but once the Flows started, I Flowed as I should. It actually soothed some of the burn during the Flows, but it came back once I stopped.
Finally, since I was sitting a lot today in meetings without my special chair, I felt a little tight, so I did the lower back stretch. It felt so awesome. Got nice and loose.
In the end, I torched a nice 906kcals. I topped out at 190bps on my HRM. Mark from YAYOG said today's routine is the toughest in the program, so I'm looking forward to the next routine. Tomorrow's recovery day is definitely needed.
Here is my calendar for the month of September. I string of blanks at the beginning of the month because of my back, but I slowly got back into it, so now I'm going to crush all my challenges!
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