Adaptations

I know that many of my readers check in here to just see how I'm doing because they know me personally. I also know that there are others who look here for inspiration and guidance. They can learn from my mistakes and from my successes. For that reason, I like to make sure that when I make a realization or change my plan up, I want to talk about why I'm doing it and what made me do it.

This morning I woke up at 6:15am. Remember that I'm unemployed at the moment. I have work to do, but it's not like I have to be anywhere at any given time. I watched the sun come up as I gave my wife a goodbye hug and kiss as she went off to work. Also, as she walked out the door, I felt the wind come in. It was cold.

I checked the temperature and noticed that it was only 35 degrees outside with 20mph winds. So immediately I checked my workout schedule for today. I skipped Kenpo yesterday because my shoulder was bothering me, so I have to make that up today. I ran yesterday to make up for a run I skipped on Tuesday because I was sick. I'm shifting workouts this week so that I can still meet my goal.

P90x has a stretch session that is optional. Today is that session on my schedule. I'll skip it and do my Kenpo today. But I also have a 5 mile run scheduled. Not in 35 degrees I don't. I thought about waiting until this afternoon, but by the time it's 2pm, it will only be 50. I ran in that yesterday and felt like crap. Maybe because I was/am still sick, maybe because it was super windy. Either way, I don't want to run in sub 40 degree weather if I don't have to.

As I looked over the workout schedule, I noticed that there are no days on my schedule that are "Cardio X" days. But I know I saw a "Cardio X" in my stack of p90x DVD's. I found that it's 43 minutes long. That's just slightly less than the amount of time it would take me to run 5 miles. I decided to adapt my workout and make the cardio X option my run for today.

I'm not a fast runner, and I doubt that my heartbeat gets up as high as it would in the Cardio X DVD. I figured I'd start with my normal Kenpo, then throw in the Cardio X option immediately after. I'm going to have one hell of a calorie burn doing an hour and 45 minutes straight of high intensity exercise.

After doing the first workout, I felt fine. I felt like I could do it all over again. I also wasn't watching the clock nearly as much as I do in a normal workout... maybe because I knew I was doing twice as much today.

Either way, I jumped right into the second workout. It was a little different than I expected. It was a mix of yoga, kenpo, plyometrics, and core exercises. Because it was chunked up so much, it went really fast. By the end of it, though, I was TOAST.

So if you're working through a program, know that it's ok to adapt your workouts to meet your needs at that time. If you're injured, do something different or do that workout another time and move up a different workout to earlier in the week. You can still get it all done.