Stairway to Heaven... or Heaving

75 floors. 1700 steps. The tallest building west of the Mississippi. Guess what I'm going to be climbing up on September 28th?

Did you guess the U.S. Bank Building?
You are kee-rect!

I'm going to be a part of the 2012 Stair Climb for the Ketchum-Downtown YMCA. It's an annual fundraiser for their inner-city programs. They do a lot of good for kids & families: after-school programs, summer camps, affordable preschool and daycare, teen counseling... I've been a member of the Y for quite a few years, and I've always been intrigued by the Stair Climb Challenge.

I had a bucket tear!

It's actually pretty amazing that I'm stepping foot on those stairs at all. Around 2008 I was jogging barefoot on the beach and rrrip went my right meniscus (that little colloidal cushion under your knee). Knee surgery followed. I asked the surgeon what I could do post-op. He suggested leg lifts, say, 50 a day.
"For how long?" I inquired.
"Oh, for the rest of your life."
"Anything else?"
"Hmmm... no."

Luckily I found an amazing physical therapist (Derek Plonka, Insight Physical Therapy in Santa Monica) who gave me a wee bit more to work with than that. Through a regimen of icing and strengthening exercises he got me back on track.

Then the other meniscus tore. This time, I opted for no surgery, only physical therapy.

After a year, I was solid on my two feet.

And then my back went out. Bulging lumbar disc. Back to Derek.

GETTING OLD IS SO FUN!!

"Let me sample that creme anglais
one more time, okay?"

After two years of timid exercise and overzealous baking classes, things were getting, let us say, out of proportion.





I needed a change, so I swallowed the "Results and Recovery" Kool-Aid of P90X guru Tony Horton. Surprise surprise, with his exercise programs I achieved both results and recovery! All the dread plyometric exercises made my leg muscles stronger than ever, and my knees feel protected and safe. Awwww....

Before THAT all goes south (really, I'm just two lemon meringue pies and a Bûche Nöel away from disaster) I thought I'd give myself a challenge and go stepping for a cause. I've been running up and down the stairs across the street from where I live, and just last week I trained with the Hollywood Y up and down the CNN building--15 floors five times. I made it!

But I need your help. I'm part of a grand team: author Sally Nemeth (who, as a veteran of these climbs, is the Van Helsing of our group), voice-over goddess Kari Wahlgren, and housekeeper extraordinaire Nubia Avendaño. We call ourselves TEAM TURTLE. Slow and steady! Slow and steady! Our team has to raise $500, and we'd like to get it to $700 by the generosity of our friends. Could you throw a few bones our way to give us incentive? Go to my pledge page, it's really easy. Any amount will help.

Thanks so much.

Update: Due to the incredible and RAPID generosity of a few people, we've blown past our goal and have moved the goalposts (is that a thing? ) up to $1000. Thank you thank you!

Drinking the Kool-Aid

In the last weeks of my grand P90X experience, I have utterly and completely drunk the Kool-Aid. I'm buying stronger bands for my pull-ups, I'm scarfing up protein bars, I'm amping up the weight on my dumbbells. Perhaps it's the realization that I'm nearing the end of the program and I still don't look like a 21-year-old Zach Efron, but a sort of last-ditch desperation has taken over. The most egregious example of this is that when I say I've drunk the  Kool-Aid, I mean it literally. Yes, yes, I broke down and did it: I BOUGHT THE P90X RECOVERY DRINK. A month's supply. How could I not? It's got a high protein efficiency ratio for rapid muscle resynthesis! It's got a dextrose-based formula for optimum glycogen replenishment! It's got the endorsement of TONY HORTON HIMSELF! How could I deny myself such vital tools for success? Hoo boy. The constant shilling, the ads after each workout, it was too much for my little bear brain.

Like this,
but without
the astronauts.

The Recovery drink comes in a huge tub emblazoned with a chiseled torso. It's in powder form, and the smell of it is intensely synthetic and nostalgic at the same time. It's as if you dehydrated a creamsicle and made it into Pixie Stix. A friend, (after mocking me mercilessly) accurately defined the smell: it is exactly the essence of a Bayer's Children's Aspirin. If you have a soft spot for those orange-y, melty little orange pills we all used to take by the handfuls, by all means, get yourself a tub of this stuff. It tastes as fake as it smells (remember Tang?), but after a few days I got used to it. Mixed it with coconut water and frozen strawberries. I drink it every day after a workout, in the precious hour where OH MY GOD THE CHANCE FOR MUSCULAR GROWTH IS OPTIMAL! Hmm. For the record? I notice no appreciable difference at all, as far as post-workout soreness or suddenly burgeoning muscles. Ah well. At least I get to stare at the tub.

My... Preciousssss...

Recently, I went to the Glendale Galleria to undergo a rite which, in terms of transformative ecstasy, must rank up there with one's first dip into recreational drugs or an audience with the Pope: I bought jeans in a smaller size. Waltzed into Lucky Jeans with a swagger. "Well, I was wearing a 32, but I think I'm a 30 now..." I might as well have been wearing a "My Son is an Honor Student at..." bumper sticker affixed to my ass. The salesperson confided that three other folk had come in just that week for the very same purpose, buying skinnier jeans because of P90X. Call Congress! P90X could singlehandedly save this economy, folks!

How weird, how one exercise program catches the fancy of a nation, while other equally valid ones languish in bargain bins. Hey! I'm part of a fad! A trend! How unlike me (pay no attention to that Soloflex behind the curtain...) This is what it must have been like to have ridden that Jane Fonda Aerobics Express all those years back. I somehow missed my chance to display leg warmers, but I shan't deny myself the opportunity now. I'm sure P90X will flame out eventually, and there will be the inevitable backlash and we'll find it's terribly harmful to joints and tendons, but for now, someone get me that Beachbody tank top—I'm going in.

Tony, this could be  you in... five years.

The Sounds of Silence

The one thing that can really drive you crazy about the P90X workouts is the music. It's that synth-y, thump-a thump-a music so popular with porn videos throughout our fair nation (or, ahem, so I hear, have heard, someone told me about that). But that's not the bad part. What is truly irritating, especially for those with any kind of dance/aerobic exercise background, is that the music doesn't sync with the workout routine. So if you're doing a sequence and moving to the beat of the music, you'll invariably be off from the pace set by our rhythmically-challenged trainer Tony Horton. I know, I know, the music is layered in later, but couldn't they have spent a little more time in the studio rejiggering speeds, or given the sometimes erratically-timed Tony a click track?

Luckily, there are some DVD options that can take care of that. During the second week I avail myself of them. I select "No music," which gives you Tony talking but no music. Unfortunately, this puts into sharp relief the babbling of Tony Horton. It makes you realize how utterly inane most of his comments are, unmitigated by background sound. His "He's a wild man!" banter and "I recommend a recovery drink" shilling seems a little... bald, in the quiet room. So I select another option: "Silence and Cues." This only gives you Tony talking when he's giving instruction on what exercise he's about to do, when he starts and when he stops. All the rest is sucked away into silence. Perfection! What could be better!

The only thing is, extraordinarily, unexpectedly... I begin to miss Tony talking. All that silence make me acutely aware of... me, by myself in my little room, my sweaty body jumping on a sweaty mat, watching TV. Is this my life? And from time to time Tony's voice would jump in to give instruction, and you could tell from his tone that he had just cracked wise to one of his compatriots, those people gathered together in the other room, there on the screen, suddenly far away, while you toiled all alone, and then his voice would click off again and he'd be gone with the favored ones. It was like there was a party in the next room and you were working in the kitchen and the host would pop in from time to time to give you orders...

I think I've invested a bit too much in these videos. Perhaps I should spend time with, I don't know, humans.

DAY 5 ROUTINE: BACK AND LEGS

Squats, squats and more squats, interspersed with pull ups. Sound fun? It is!

Participants: Ah, our Teutonic goddess Dreya is back, sporting a short kicky denim sweat jacket which she takes off to reveal her titanium abs. Eric from Belgium, who is, apparently, a wild man, joins her, and sweet Sophia. Poor, poor Sophia. How can she hope to compete with the Golden-haired Shield Maiden? When Tony introduces his "gals," he waxes on about Dreya and her many superhuman accomplishments; the only thing he can muster to say about meek Sophia is that she's got nice teeth. "Like Chiclets." Ouch! Damning with faint praise, Tony! I suspect some kind of past relationship between Tony and Sophia, some brief fling, because he drips this tone of faux kindness and condescension upon her that men do so well with past girlfriends.

Classic Tony Horton quote: "I gotta go check on the kids." Unfortunately, this brings to mind a less savory euphemism, and I keep thinking he's about to run to the bathroom.

Fist Bumps: 4 fist bumps, plus 3 doubles.  

Shameless mentions of the P90X Recovery Drink: Four! He even gets Dreya to shill.
Tony's Stretch Soup of the Day: Tomato Basil. Dreya the Virtuous offers up Lentil, but when Sophia suggests Lobster Bisque, Tony shuts her down with a "That doesn't sound too healthy." Dude! You chose lobster bisque in the last video! Cut Soph some slack!

Tony's Weak Spot: He calls his calves "dinky." 

Gay Appeal: Eric the Belgium looks mighty fine doing Speed Skater Lunges. 

Geographical Trivia: Tony informs us that in Belgium "It's cold all the time!" Really?

"Eat your heart out,
Tony Horton!" 

Notable Exercises: Who knew that sitting against a wall could be so excruciating? We do both Wall Squats and One-Leg Wall Squats, pressing our back to the wall and keeping our legs at 90 degrees for a minute. A long minute. Later we crouch down and do Groucho Walks back and forth. I'd bet that over half the people doing the video has no idea who Groucho is. Equally challenging are the Debbie Sieber Speed Squats, which I prefer to call a Modified Dinklage. 

Yes, Peter, I'm squatting here, waiting for you...

I do very minimal leg exercises at the gym, so this work is helpful and isn't even hurting my knees! It is actually probably helping my knees by strengthening the muscles around them. So far, so good. 


Update: The next morning, you can feel every muscle fiber in your ass, like you're a walking anatomy chart. 

Oh, there's a Diet plan too?

About a week into P90X, as I'm about to embark on the 2nd rotation of 6 DVD's (you get one day off to rest), I start grousing to my fellow grunts that I have no idea what the nutritional component they talk about is comprised of. "What am I supposed to be eating?" I ask them. "Didn't you get that booklet that came with the set?" they ask me back. Ohhhhhh.... Heh. You mean the one that says "Nutrition Plan: Eating for Power Performance"? Could that possibly be it?

Goodbye, my loves, I'll see you on the other side...

It actually is not too onerous, this meal plan. Quite sensible. I'm doing 1800 calories/day, and that's not a problem. And keeping track of calories? I've been doing that with my son for 3 months, but for the opposite reason. Him I'm trying to fatten up (half and half in the cereal? Sure!). Me, not so much.


DAY 3 ROUTINE: SHOULDERS & ARMS
A rotation of shoulder presses, bicep curls and tricep extensions, done and then done again. Tony calls these muscles "The glamour muscles" since you show them off when in a tank top. Here, I mourn my lack of dumbbells. Doing bicep curls with colored bands doesn't quite give you that gritty "Oz" prison weight room feel. Plus, I can never get the tension right.

Participants: Another two guys and a woman: The affable, Matt Lattanzi look-alike Daniel; a Tony Horton doppleganger named Joe, and most important, the infamous Dreya, the Teutonic shield maiden who I will see many times during these 90 days. She is an aerialist, she's on the P90X manual, and she will rip you apart. Don't mess with Dreya. Alas, even she can be coerced into making the forearm "X" sign with Daniel, Joe & Tony at the end of the workout. It's like when my father used to make us do a "thumbs up" shot at every family gathering. It's just embarrassing. Don't do that to the kids, Tony. 

"No one gets paid without
making this sign."

Tony Horton waxes poetic: "Look at those triceps: diamonds of gold."

Revelation of the Day: "Wow upside down is Mom." 
Fist Bumps: 4 doubles! Plus much hand slapping. 
Tony's Soup of the Day: Lobster Bisque.

Straight Quotient: The ubiquitous "My brutha." 

Gay Appeal: Did I mention that one of the guys looks like Matt Lattanzi?
Notable Exercises: For some reason, I really like the Lying-Down Tricep Extension. You're on your side, the lower arm is clutching the opposite shoulder, and the higher arm pushes off against the floor to a straight position. It's so simple, yet so... excruciating.


Each of the weight training days is followed by the aptly named AB RIPPER X.
As you may have guessed, these are 349 core-slash-ab exercises (Tony actually says "slash" with accompanying hand gesture). These exercises I've got to modify like crazy, since there's a lot of Pilate-style heaving one's body up on down balancing on your butt. My back, she no like-a that. Despite the somewhat maniacal, "Great Santini" tone to Tony on this video ("Hit my hand! Hit my hand!!") I do a lot of safe crunches on my big yellow exercise ball. 


Gay Appeal: Finally, someone without a shirt on! What kind of workout video IS this? But it's worth the wait.

Enter Adam, aptly named because he is what the first man on earth would look like. Sigh... motivation enough.

Day 2: Plyo Hell

The good folks at Beachbody.com want you to truly COMMIT to this P90X program, and to that end they encourage you to take your weight and body measurements before, during and after you've done the three months of conditioning. They even give you a little workbook to do record this information. Not only that, but they'd like you to take photos of yourself, in as little as possible, before and after! Make videos! Post photos and videos online! Show the world what you've got, and what you did with it!

Uh, no.

But I understand the conceit (in all connotations of the word). If you can chart your progress, you'd be more encouraged by how your body changed, and more willing to go forward. Here are a few before/after photos of P90X users that I've found online:

This one's pretty impressive, though he's two months over.

Wow, though it's at different angles and postures...
Nah, I'll give it to her.

Amazing what a black background will do for a person...

Hey! No body hair-shaving allowed! Unfair!

Okay, if I'm going to display photos of others, I guess, in all fairness, turnabout is fair play. Though it seems awfully vainglorious, after much trepidation and soul-searching I've decided to go ahead and post my "before" photo. It's not terribly well-lit and it puts me in a, you know, vulnerable position. Please, be kind (click on the "read more" to go on):