Comments on: Heidi’s P90X Journey – Week 1 Completed!

By: kaz

kaz — Wed, 21 Sep 2011 20:55:46 +0000

In reply to Heidi.

Heidi, you can do negatives first. Use a chair to get in the pulled up position and then go to the hanging position, in a slow controlled movement. In time you will be strong enough to do real pull ups.
Hope that helps.
I liked reading your journey here, I hope you keep updating :-)
In couple of days I will start Insanity, have been watching some of it already. Intimidating.

By: Jonathan Register

Jonathan Register — Mon, 13 Sep 2010 23:03:19 +0000

In reply to Heidi.

Yea that doesn’t sound all that safe, so I agree that you should avoid doing that with the resistance band. The ER is never a fun place to be! :-)

My recommendation during the pull ups is to pull yourself up as high as you can (whether it be a 1/4 of the way up, half way up, just go as high as you can) and go to the height for as many pull ups as you can. Once you start getting tired and you can’t pull yourself up anymore, start using the chair (keep it as far back as possible). Write down on your P90X worksheets how many reps you did and at what height (1/4, 1/2, 3/4, etc.) and also record the number of reps you did with the chair. Strive to go higher and do more reps without the chair each time you do the workouts. If you do that, you will continually be pushing your muscles as far as they can go which will increase your strength over time. The key is to just keep doing pull ups without the chair as much as possible.

I hope that helps! Let me know if you have any other questions!!! Keep up the AWESOME work!

By: Heidi

Heidi — Mon, 13 Sep 2010 19:38:10 +0000

Thanks guys! I’m on day 9 now, and going strong.

Thanks for the input on the Yoga, Bill – it’s encouraging and I’m going to force myself to finish it all in one shot this week. :-)

I have a question for both of you… I CANNOT do a pull-up. No matter how hard I try. I’ve wrapped a resistance band around the pull-up bar hanging from the door jamb, and was using that, but I just heard horror stories about 2 different people having that come undone and getting smacked in the face with the contraption and ending up in the ER. I don’t need that… So, do you guys have any other suggestions on what I can do to get to the point where I CAN do a pull-up? A way without risk of ER visit would be good. :-)

Thanks,
Heidi

By: Bill

Bill — Mon, 13 Sep 2010 17:35:25 +0000

Heidi, Don’t let the yoga get you down. The first 45-47 minutes is the only “hard” part. Then you go into the stretches which feel really good. Okay there are some abdomen exercises with 17 minutes left but not as tough as Ab Ripper X. And when done you will feel like a million bucks like Tony says. When I started I couldn’t crane or wheel. Now I can but both are still challenging. All the other workouts are approx 75 minutes if you do the abs with the other muscle groups.

Anyway – success in week 1 – congrats. Keep pushing play & and eat something healthy every 2 hours or so. Drink your water and you will be on the fast track to fitness.

Bill
P90X Grad
(on 3rd round of the program)

By: Jonathan Register

Jonathan Register — Sun, 12 Sep 2010 15:23:39 +0000

AWESOME job and congrats for getting past I think the hardest week of P90X…week 1! It also sounds like you are sticking with a clean eating plan, so great job for doing that! Keep it up, because your hard work and dedication WILL pay off!

Keep pushing play and I look forward to seeing your before & after pics at the end of your 90 days with P90X! :-)