Day 23: Core Synergistics

Holy ____.

Recovery week my ass.

The whole point of p90x, as I mentioned in my prelude to this blog, is to refuse your body the ability to plateau. There's no hitting a mark and sitting there. It's all about progressing. Today was a prime example.

Core synergistics focuses on, you guessed it, your core. Tony defines this as the area located between your pecs and your waist, front and back. Every move targets that area. It's not that big of a region, yet we didn't repeat a single move.

They have you start this week 4, and not week 1, because there's no way in hell week 1 was I going to complete any of these moves. Easiest thing we did today was a couple normal pushups mixed into their insane routines. I wish I could explain them all, but here go a couple:

Started with the easiest of all the moves, Stacked Foot / Staggered Hands Push-up: Pushup position, but one foot on top of the other. One hand further in front of you than the other. The front arm bends so the elbow flares out, the back arm bends so the elbow stays tight next to your body. Switch arms every 5 reps. Heck, this won't be so bad at all.

Until the minutes ended and it came time for banana rolls. And leaning crescent lunges. And squat runs. Then it was back to pushups. So chest/core, abs/back/core, legs/core, quads/arms/core. And repeat.

Sphinx Pushup: Laying on just your toes and your forearms, use your arms to push yourself up until your arms are straight. Lower and repeat. At this point I was praying to go back to diamond pushups from Day 1.

Then they mixed in some yoga moves, which I already have trouble with. Bow to Boat: Start on your stomach, reach back and with legs bent, grab your ankles. Pull legs to raise your chest. I know it doesn't sound like it makes sense. But it's doable. Then flip over, lift legs about 60 degrees off the ground, and raise head to work the abs. And flip over to repeat.

And so on and so forth.

Remember squat thrusts from gym class (start standing, crouch, kick out legs into pushup position, bring legs in, stand and repeat)? That was clearly inspiration for Prison Cell Pushups.

Just watch (unfortunately Tony's version is not on youtube, so I found this guy):



Honestly, this is not a break week. And, this 110% shut me up for whimpering about not doing Ab Ripper X.

Tomorrow Kenpo, a nice step back to something I can do.