Day 54 – One on One Core Synergistics

I was really curious how today’s workout was going to be different from the P90X Core Synergistics that I did earlier in the week. Answer: It was harder, but much like most One on One workouts it was less organized. Total running time was 67 minutes; I was sad to see that as I hit the alarm more than I should have. There was a section that he called the Bonus Section, so I skipped past that and eliminated about 10 minutes. It was enough to give me time for a shower.

The regular workout was hard enough, not sure that I could’ve done any of the bonus moves anyway.

There were some moves that I really liked… Dreya Roll with medicine ball: I don’t have a medicine ball yet (ordered one with P90X2) and didn’t feel like going to the basement to get a basketball; so I used a stuffed dog. Tony says that the heavier the medicine ball the more momentum and balance you have, so it actually makes the move easier. The stuffed dog wasn’t very heavy, so I didn’t see if that was really a benefit. It did keep me from using my hands during the rolling portion and I liked that. Rolling Boat: I liked the contrast of rolling (massaging the back) and holding the boat pose; the rolling was a nice break and felt great. Plyo Runner’s Stretch: Basically in plank and jumping feet to lunges with the front foot to the outside of your hands.

There were some moves that I couldn’t decide on… The whole first section after warm up uses a stability ball essentially as a weight. So, you’re doing leg moves but your arms are killing you because you keep lifting the giant ball. These moves were really hard on my arms despite looking like they should be easy. The other move that falls into this category was Banana Ball Crunches (the ‘dessert’ for a Dreya Roll meal): Holding the stability ball (or medicine ball) in your hands you crunch up and grab the ball with your legs/feet and return to banana, then move the ball back to hands, back to legs, etc. I’ve done this move before, though I can’t recall where. Possibly an ab class I took years ago at a gym. It was hard then and it’s hard now. I like the challenge but it kills my core. Which I guess is the point of today’s workout.

There were some moves that I hated (basically because they were impossible for me)… The two that stick out most were very similar and left me doing the same modification for each. One was standing on one foot, touching the ground and jumping legs back to plank only touching down the one foot, doing a push-up, and jumping back up to one leg. The other was holding a stability ball above your head, touching it down to the ground and jumping feet back to plank, doing push-up on stability ball, and jumping back up to raise the ball above your head. Jumping feet back while holding the stability ball made me super afraid that I was going to somehow slip and smash my face. It also made me think that I probably need to add more air to my ball. For both of these moves my modification was standing, jumping back to plank, push-up, jumping back up. And my modified moves wore me out.