I'm not sure what I was thinking. Shortly before my workout today I ate about 1 1/2 cups of cottage cheese and washed it down with a 90 calorie Coke. Then I had some type of allergy related coughing fit. So I took a swig of Robitussin and I was ready to go!
It didn't take long before the mixture of cottage cheese and Coke along with the lingering taste of Robitussin in my mouth reacted very negatively to huffing and puffing through pull ups, lunges and squats. After about 20 minutes, I thought I was going to puke my guts up. Somehow I managed to make it through the workout. I'm bummed because I couldn't really concentrate on the exercises. But I still did everything including improving on a number of things and burnt 834 calories.
One major thing I did was use a chair for pull ups. I see them do it in the video by facing the chair away from them and then using one leg on the top of the back of the chair. I am way too tall to do it that way (and my pull up bar is not mounted at 9 feet like the ones in the DVD). The best way I found was to place both feet on the seat of a chair facing towards me and perform the pull ups while trying to put NO weight on the chair (I tried using only one foot, but I felt it pushed me off balance). It worked very well. I was able to complete 10 reps of the pull ups and 8 reps of the switch grip ones. I could have probably done more but the cottage cheese / Coke issue was getting in my way. I really think it is critical to do this. It makes no sense to do only 2-3 reps of any exercise. I simply can't build off of that. But if I can do 10+ reps, I can slowly incorporate taking the chair away.
Other issues I have in this workout relate to balance. Exercise 1 balanced lunges are difficult for me. I have a chair beside me for balance and I am trying to not use it. But that will take some time. I figure it is better to use something for a little balance rather than not be able to do the exercise with proper form. Exercise 11 deadlift squats are also difficult although I'm able to do more now without the chair than when I started. Exercise 17 Toe-roll lunges I was also able to make some progress without a chair.
I also plan on adding weight next time for 7 Step back lunge and 8 Alternating side lunge.
The cool thing about this workout today is that I felt no pain in my knees and I was able to squat lower and lunge lower than I ever have before. I used to also have noise in the knees and that has dramatically been reduced.
I also did Ab Ripper X this evening. I checked the calories burned and found it to be 124...not even enough to count.
