Thursday, May 6, 2010

Two Tickets to the Gun Show

Pretty sure back and biceps is my favorite P90X workout yet.

I mean, I'm good at this whole "lifting" thing. My biceps have always been pretty decent (you know, "for a girl" and all that) and my back is definitely strong (again with the "for a girl" disclaimer). In general, I'm a heavy-weights-are-awesome kind of person, moreso than a covered-in-pink-vinyl-dumbbells kind of person. I'm even improving -- noticeably -- on my pullups.

However, one thing I'm not so hot at is a little trick called "visualization."

See, in back & biceps, about midway through, there's this little monstrosity called "corn cob pullups."




Above, you can see what they're supposed to look like. And if I had the DVD with me at the gym, that's what mine WOULD have looked like (I mean, assuming I could even do one, which it's very possible that I can't).

But since I didn't have the DVD, thanks to PhillyGuy, who tends to leave them in his laptop and take them to class with him...well, I just read the description and did what I THOUGHT it translated to.

Which was totally wrong. I must have looked like a giant ass on the assisted pullup machine. I grabbed wide, pulled up, then LET GO OF THE BAR with my left hand, brought it next to my right, and lowered down. Pulled up, went wide again, down, up. Let go with my right hand, brought it to my left. Down. Up. Blah blah blah. Um, it was hard, sure. but also totally and completely wrong. I'm interested to see how these are next week, when I actually do them properly.

Here's the rest of the lineup:

•Wide Grip Pull-Ups
•Lawnmowers
•Twenty-Ones
•One-Arm Cross-Body Curls
•Switch Grip Pull-Ups
•Elbows-Out Lawnmowers
•Standing Bicep Curls
•One-Arm Concentration Curls
•Corn Cob Pull-Ups
•Reverse Grip Bent Over Rows
•Open-Arm Curls
•Static-Arm Curls
•Towel Pull-Ups
•Congdon Locomotives
•Crouching Cohen Curls
•One-Arm Corkscrew Curls
•Chin-Ups
•Seated Bent-Over Back Flys
•Curl-Up/Hammer-Downs
•Hammer Curls
•Max Rep Pull-Ups
•Superman
•In-Out Hammer Curls
•Strip-Set Curls (four sets of eight curls with weights decreasing from 20lbs to 5lbs each set)

By the end, my arms were smoked. I LOVE IT. If nothing else, I'm going to end up freakin' jacked.

2 comments:

  1. Holy crap that looks hard, and what's sad is I know it's hard but that guy makes it look so easy.

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  2. You know, no matter how hard I work on my arms, they never look ripped or buff or whatever it is you say about muscle-y arms. At my most fit, they just looked...thin. And I was using the bowflex and doing a lot of lifting at my job and whatnot. Ah well.

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