p90x - month 2

Phase 2 is done. I'm still on schedule missing only two optional stretch workouts. The biggest problem I've found with a 6/7 day a week workout routine is that if you get sick, you're screwed. If friends visit, you're screwed. I got sick and had friends visit. My solution was to double up the workout which was not fun.

In general things are getting easier. Yoga is still problematic but my flexibility has improved dramatically. Plyo still gives me sore legs the next day but I feel like I'm actually keeping up with the instructor now. Core Synergistics still completely wipes me out though. Overall the workouts are still hard but I feel like I'm getting a solid workout rather than one that I limp through.

A few other points:

• I have had some of the worst cramps in my life on this program. Specifically a small leg muscle in the inner thigh that seems to traverse from hip to inside the knee. I've had two cramps in this region. It is excruciating. Mainly because I simply don't know how to stretch it. I just have to sit there and bear it. A friend mentioned he gets them so bad that he actually has bruised legs the next morning. It's horrible and I live in nightly fear of these things.
• Apart from that fear I sleep more soundly than I have ever done in my life. It is nearly impossible for me to get up in the morning and I almost never move at night. I always wake up with deep creases in my face.
• Last week for the first time people have started to comment on if I was working out. One poor guy's wife told him to go and ask me what I was doing. He is now the proud owner of a P90X DVD set. It was only in the last week that I noticed a significant difference as well. My performance also started to improve in the weight sections around this time to where I felt I wasn't languishing anymore. I can knock out about 20 reps of push ups on an 8 set workout and almost 8 reps of pull ups on an 8 set workout. Oddly though my Day 60 pictures and Day 30 pictures don't look that different. I can't quite figure that out.
• I'm still not building much muscle bulk. It still continues to be increasing tone that I'm getting. Striations in the shoulder muscles are coming out. Tricep definition is improving. I do have man boobs now of the protein type but they're not huge. Etc.
• In what is a complete 'never happened' moment for me before my abs are becoming increasingly toned and actually visible. Not 6 pack yet. Not even 2 pack. But you can see vague outlines of them.
• The 'most improved' award goes to the glutes. I have a typical white-guy flat butt. Through plyo and core synergistics and kenpo things are actually becoming, dare I say it, perky. I would say most of the hard work in the routines is the lunge based exercises. And there are a lot of them. It'd be hard not to improve your glutes.
• My fat content is purely dependent on my diet, not my workout. I was lax on the diet this month and I've had zero drop in fat. I've seen a number of blogs writing about P90X who don't follow the diet and become fit, strong, limber, toned and yet don't lose a pound of fat. I've posted about this before. There is no study done that shows exercise helps you lose weight.
• Mentally I'm getting worn down. Part of that is a sickness I've had towards the end of Phase 2 and part of it is just doing something like this for so long. I'm curious where my mental state will be at the end.

My goal for the last month is to hit the diet hard and get up to at least a clean 10 pullups per set for the 8 set routines.