Day 4: Kenpo and core

With the grey, rainy sky hanging over us today, I knew it would be a great afternoon to check out the P90X workout videos that my friend has loaned to me for a while. I wanted to do one that would have some good cardio stuff, get my heartrate going, and make me sweat. I settled on the Kenpo X video -- something I've never done before.

(p.s. this shows the P90X+ video -- I only have the regular one.)

Kenpo is a high-intensity cardiovascular workout packed with lots of punching and kicking combinations to improve balance, endurance, flexibility, and coordination (from the website). Basically, it was boxing/martial arts moves, and while I'm not a boxing fan, I know this can be a great workout. I moved the ottoman and pulled up the area rug and hit play.

After the 5 or so minutes of warm-up and stretching, we jumped right into the Kenpo.

Or, rather, I should say the buff people on the video jumped right into it. I flailed my arms and tripped over my own legs trying to do the first set of punching moves. After switching sides and moving onto the next set, I sort of started to get the hang of it.

Sort of.

I still kept messing up which arm punches first, when I hook, when I move my back foot, and, ok, let's be honest, I barely even sort of got it. I did better with the kicking sections, for sure. Clearly, I'm not a fighter.

There were several breaks built into the workout where you run in place, pretend to jump rope, do jumping jacks, and do jumping X's. I kept the impact low but got my heart pumping and really ended up enjoying the workout. Even if I never quite got the punching.

As the workout finished after about 58 minutes, I noticed that the people on the video were sweating way more than I was. That's when I decided even though they had zero body fat, I was in much better shape. Ok, that's probably wrong, but I did feel like I needed to do some more work. So I broke out the Core Synergistics video and did about 15 minutes of that. I may have done more, but by then I'd been working out in my living room for an hour and 15 minutes and I needed to move on, go outside, get some fresh air. I like working out outdoors so much better!

It would've been a great -- cool, grey -- evening for a run. Tomorrow marks the halfway point.