Working out

So there's this new craze that’s catching on like wildfire. Half my friends are either on it or talking about getting into it. P90x. Funny thing is… it actually came out a while ago, but didn’t hit my social circle until somebody uploaded it onto the web. I guess we still haven’t abandoned the poor college student mentality of ‘why pay for it when someday it'll be uploaded and you can download it for free?’ (along those lines my own personal culinary maxim still stands strong, ‘the best food is free food.’)

So back to P90x where the ‘X’ stands for extreme! What's the deal with this? Is it really that effective? What makes it so different from all the other "8 Minute Buns of Steel" or “Billy’s Tai Bo to the Max Bootcamp” dvd's? So I checked it out for all of 10 minutes. This includes the stretching and stirring the pot exercises where I thought, ‘Man… I’m like almost halfway done and I haven’t even broken a sweat. My friends are all pansies for saying that this workout is intense!’ Then about 6-7 minutes later the real work out started. Needless to say I didn’t make it all the way through. Sidebar, is it just me or does friggin Tony piss you off? He starts off telling everyone to do some extravagant weight or number of reps and then does two and, ‘gotta check out what everyone’s doing’ and friggin just talks for the rest of the time! Honestly, channeling my anger towards him actually helps me finish the set of 25 that he tells me I should do.

My typical workout:

I’m the kind of guy that goes to work out at the gym and tells himself, ‘I’m gonna do 3 sets of 10’ and about 2/3 of the way thru the second set, decides he’s gonna have to take a 10 min water break before he can finish the last set, knowing full well that as a member of the ADD infused generation born in the eighties, our threshold for walking away from something and actually coming back… all of 2 minutes.

It’s not like I’m lazy in terms of my work out. I just get a little overzealous with what I think I’m capable of. It's probably a result of our Asian mom's brainwashing us to score higher, study harder, and generally be better than we can. Besides, it’s not like any Asian male really works out to get strong. There's always gonna be a black guy that can lift twice as much as you... with one hand. Our muscles are purely for show. Ladies, take heed. We'll open that jar for you no problem (just heat the cap over a stove, and it'll pop right off) But if u need a car pushed outta a ditch. I hope you're a AAA member.

Also, half the time I’m working out I’m just admiring myself in the mirror. Guys, there’s no need to hide it. No need to sneak furtive glances at yourself or pretend to lift up your shirt to wipe your brow when you and everyone around you knows your checking out how your keg->six pack is coming along. I know we’re all ingrained from a young age to be modest but hey. If I’m gonna take time away from watching reruns of Entourage and How I Met Your Mother, I’m gonna be watching something equally as satisfying. Me. Muscles bulging, veins popping, sweat glistening… lifting that awesome 15 pounder as I watch myself in the mirror. Sometimes I pretend like I’m Mr. Incredible and curling a locomotive in each arm. Trust me it helps. So does counting out the number that it actually feels like you’re doing... softly of course... ‘1,240… 5,022… 1,800,003..’