One of the new things that Agility X introduces that I hadn't explained in my recap about it last week is the target zones. You essentially set down two parallel strips of tape about 4' in length and depending on fitness level, 3 foot lengths apart, or 5 foot lengths apart. Then you draw "X"s along the strip so that you have 6 evenly distributed "targets" to focus on for moves. This sort of ensures that you maintain a good solid form when going for these moves because Tony makes you go faster and faster and switches directions randomly which is really tiring. This way, if you're zonked and start moving slower, hitting the targets at least forces you to maintain good form just at a slower pace.
Most of the moves are pretty easy to pull off. What makes them difficult is Tony. Tony gives the warning every time that he's going to change directions at a whim and therein lies the real work. What results is a routine that's pretty dynamic and a lot more fun than Plyometrics. Instead of just simply running in a circle, he'll have you run around the 2 strips facing forward the whole time, or run in a figure 8 pattern between strips while both changing direction, or the type of running in that figure 8 pattern. Then he just goes faster, and faster, and switches faster.
There are still some plyometric moves thrown throughout this routine though, and they are TOUGH. One of the first are a series of squat jumps that transition to side lunges. You start out by just jumping up and lunging to each side. Then you end up jumping 3 times into each lunge. Or do side lunges, to skipping between lunges, and finally full plyometric jump lunges.
This week, I was definitely able to get more of everything in, and transitioning between moves was way better for me. Though, I still have a lot of improvement on just about everything. I can't get that close to the speed everybody's moving on screen, but that'll come in time. I think I'll be there in month 3 maybe. One thing that I actually did worse this week was the boat plow. I couldn't, for the live of me, get into plow without feeling like I was going to hurt myself really bad. Of course, if you see the move, you'd see why.
Zulema impressed me with her tenacity on this one. It was giving her a serious workout and setting up some coordination issues that she was struggling with. Makes sense... I was kinda in the same boat last week while she was across the room on the elliptical without a care in the world. I'm sure there were more than a couple points where she was probably ready to throw in the towel, but likely figured I wouldn't have stood for it so she kept at it. We had to stop and take an extended break at some point because the routine was kicking up some major shin splints for Zu. We stopped and I ran her through some quick stretches for that which we learned from X Stretch. Seemed like it did the trick.
One of the things that kinda disappoints me a bit about P90X3 this time around is that while they have someone who's usually dedicated to demostrating a modification. a lot of the time the person forgets to modify, or they don't show it until the time for the move is almost completely over. I had to come up with a couple extra modifications for Zu on a couple of moves that I figure could work out. Now, it could just be that there's really no modification for the move, but the way I see it right now, we can ALWAYS modify anything we need to because it's all about moving. We'll eventually get the right form and get the right move in time.
Anyway, at the end of it, she definitely felt like she'd accomplished something and that was awesome!
I'm not getting much activity from my challenge group. So far, my buddy Todd has been the only one chiming in to report he's completed exercises. He chose the "lean" path to go down and that one looked pretty damn hardcore so good on him for doing it. I plan on stirring the pot here and see where people are at and if they're committed to getting the work done before week's end.
Since yesterday's routine wasn't a really heavy resistance routine, I went ahead an just made a juice this morning. I picked up a few more "exotic" items for juicing when I was up in Seattle. This time I started out with passion fruit. Passion fruit is a seedy, pulpy fruit so It's not gonna juice well in a centrifugal juicer. You're going to want to put it into a slow masticating juicer or cold press juicer. You could also blend it with a little water and then just strain it as well to get rid of the seeds.
1-2 Passion Fruit - they're expensive, but the more the merrier (hence me only using one here)
1 Beet
1 Cucumber
3 Stalks of Celery
2 Apples
3 Carrots
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