Well that kinda sucked

We kicked off Memorial Day weekend yesterday with a BBQ at our house. I managed to stay on track with my nutrition and keep away from all the chips and potato salad. Just had a burger with no bun, wrapped in lettuce and tomato and then some corn on the cob and watermelon. Started the day off early with my workout then spent the day running around - grocery shopping, mowing the lawn, then cooking non stop once people starting arriving. I have to give my wife some credit here. The BBQ was all her idea and I really wasn’t into it, but it was a good time, glad we did it. And the kids all seemed to have a good time. However by the time everyone left last night I was dead tired. I fell asleep on the couch in the family room and then woke up at 1:40 AM. Went up to bed and then had the cat wake me up around 3:30 because she was hungry. Then back to bed until the 5:00 AM alarm to get up and hit my workout. Had to hit the snooze for a few and didn’t get up until closer to 5:30. And then I was faced with……Eccentric Upper. 

So if you’re not familiar with P90X3, Eccentric Upper is one of the workout programs and as far as I’m concerned it’s the hardest one. What does “eccentric” mean you ask? Let’s define.

Eccentric training is defined as active contraction of a muscle occurring simultaneously with lengthening of the muscle . For example, in a biceps curl the action of lowering the dumbbell back down from the lift is the eccentric phase of that exercise — as long as the dumbbell is lowered slowly rather than letting it drop (i.e the bicep muscle is in a state of contraction to control the rate of descent of the dumbbell).

Basically, when you do bicep curls, you fire up on the curl but then lower it back down really slooooooooowly to keep extra tension on the muscles. But this is P90X3 so it’s not just bicep curls. It’s curls, pull ups, push ups, variations on all of them and then of course the dreaded “burnout” period to close it out. Pull ups are hard enough, but when you then have to lower yourself down slowly before firing back up it’s just a thousand times harder. Needless to say, I really struggled with this today. I just feel exhausted and weak and feel like I didn’t get in a good workout. But I pushed through it. And that’s the most important thing - making the commitment and sticking to it. This morning’s workout kinda sucked, but I did it. And I’ll be right back at it tomorrow. See you at 5:00 AM, Mr. Horton. 

#p90x3 #eccentricupper #imnot65 #workout #bbq #beachbodycoach