Granted, before today, I hadn't been diligent about exercising my chest and back. I typically rush through a few sets of presses, flys, and rows, and then call it a day. Usually, the TV in our home gym is on, and I spend too much time between sets distracted by episodes of The Wire on DVD (which I've seen before, but cut me some slack -- it's the best TV series of all time). In sum, I've been fucking around instead of focusing on my workout.
Clearly, fucking around is not an option with the P90X Chest & Back program. Sandwiched between a few minutes of cardio warm up, ballistic stretching and cool down time, the core program consists of twelve upper body exercises, each of which is done 'til you can't do no more. And then you repeat the entire workout.
The Chest & Back routine includes:
- Standard Push Ups
- Wide Front Pull Ups
- Military Push Ups
- Reverse Grip Chin Ups
- Wide Fly Push Ups
- Closed Grip Overhand Pull Ups
- Decline Push Ups
- Heavy Pants
- Diamond Push Ups
- Lawnmower
- Dive Bomber Push Ups
- Back Flys
Ab Ripper X was next -- it's only 16 minutes long, but after an hour of Chest & Back, I was barely able to squeeze out the 339 reps required to get through this core-strengthening workout.
I'm exhausted, but this is exactly what I needed: A good, old-fashioned, boot-camp-style ass-kicking. I still have 89 days ahead of me on this program, but I can already tell that this is going to be fun.
