In Praise of Chest and Back

After I moved on to Phase Two this time around, I realized I was going to regret losing one segment: Chest and Back. Hey, it's all about muscle confusion, so even the good friends have to go by the wayside for now.

Not that its replacement, Shoulders, Chest and Torture - er, Triceps - is anything to sneeze at, but there's something fundamentally satisfying about C+B: the pull-ups. C+B has six sets of them, more than any other segment.

I don't know many women who can honestly pull off a pull-up, not even one full-effort pull. I'm not sure I even managed one when I was a kid hanging from my paws on the jungle gym in elementary school (all I remember is dangling like a sock monkey, wondering how to move to the next rung). At my gym, Club One, I have only been able to do pull-ups on those weight-balanced thingies (yeah. spent so much time on that machine I got to know it by name).

Back in April during my X-Files reverie, I noted two important things about pull-ups: one, that bands will get you part-way there, but not all the way; and two, the closer I was getting to doing pull-ups on a bar, the more motivated I was to conquer them. Both still true sentiments, except that I never got to the gym to take my pull-ups to the next level. When push came to shove (which was gathering myself and my gear after the Sunday long run and jumping in the car) I usually declined and just pressed Play. For the entire first phase I wondered why I made this decision every week and now that I'm a week out of it I just figured it out: I never really believed I could do a pull-up on a bar.

Hey, flailing and grunting at home is one thing; doing it in public around a bunch of fit people is another.

I'm not worried that much about it. I increased the tension tenfold on my band pull-ups, and have gained that strength. During the second phase I'm working different muscle combinations; in the third I'll have two more shots at C+B pull-ups, six times each. If there's a test for the overall success of P90X for me, that is what it will be: taking my elementary school self to Club One on July 22 (Day 1 of week 9) and seeing (or deciding) whether I can pull my chin over a metal bar, in public, for all to see. If I can't...then I'll try again on August 5, week 11.

After all, a girl can only go so long before pulling herself up and testing the stuff she's made of.

Failure, the P90X Way

I've learned a lot about fitness in the past five years - how to eat, how to balance, what works, what doesn't. What has surprised me about P90X is what it's teaching me about failure.

I'm not just talking about pushing to failure, that muscle-tension mantra that we shoot for when we're taking on more weight for our triceps or whatever. I'm also referring to the entire concept of Bloody Hell, I Just Can't Do This. Now, I am no athlete, although I have tried to adopt that mentality; but there are parts of the P90 workout that I just can't do. And I am learning more about my physical self, my mental approach and my spirit from those exercises than I am from the others.

Case in point: there is this ratbastard push-up in the Chest and Back workout called a Dive Bomber. It has some origins in yoga, but essentially it entails scooping your chest low from a Downward Dog through a push-up position, then reversing it. Not just lowering your chest, scooping it, like you're trying to get under a low fence. Push-ups are tough for me anyway, the upper body focus of P90X was what made me click the buy button. But HOLY Mother of Tony Horton, this thing...I can't even pretend to fake it, can't get close to it, can't even whisper to its future self, I Can't Do It.

And I love that.

Mind you, I have had to fake and stumble through many of the sets during this first three weeks. This is no weenie workout, any of it, even the yoga busts my ass. But the Dive Bomber is telling me stories, like:

- I am not where I thought I was physically
- How I frame this is going to shape the entire 90-day result
- The Dive Bomber is the Signpost

The first is self explanatory - I knew I wasn't an Olympian but I have been able to hop in and out of my concept of "fit" pretty easily. Dive Bomber tells me I am nowhere near the true value of the term fit.

The second, the framing part, comes from an incredibly influencial article written by Alan Deutschman (an article he expanded into a book) for Fast Company magazine, called "Change or Die." Essentially, "I can't do Dive Bomber" will inevitably ensure that I won't ever be able to do Dive Bomber. Instead, I change the frame. The new one is "I'm coming after you, DB, and I will not stop until I have you." This is something that Tony Horton and the P90 program promotes from the beginning - "you're not taking a 'before' picture, you're taking a 'goodbye!' picture." Might seem like simple semantics, but baby, that shit matters. Boy, does it matter.

The last? Dive Bomber is the Signpost. Fear is a famous Signpost; avoidance is one too. You know the Signpost - it points the way to the right road, so you follow it. I may not end this 90 days in the best shape of my life, but Dive Bomber, that fabulous slap in my fitness face, will tell me precisely how many miles I have to go, and what direction to take to get there.

So: How I fail now will determine how I succeed later. (Oh, yeah, NOW it makes sense...)

All this being said, I have wanted to post this for days and wish I had posted it every day: I flipped the switch about day 10 - I can't get P90X out of my head. I plan my day around the workout, and slightly obsess about the food program (I had to have an intervention because it's Girl Scout Cookie season. I did not lose the faith, just followed the shiny thing for a bit) and I - seriously - look forward to the workouts, I do. I have a workout partner. He's a hard-driving bastard who won't let me off the hook. I flail all over the place but he keeps me solid. And every day I see him I thank GOD he can't see me.