My New Exercise Programme

My first blog post... my road starts here!

I thought my first post should be centered around something I'm doing and have an interest in, so there is no better place to start than my current exercise program!

I enjoy sports a lot. I play football weekly; rugby, hockey, and cricket termly, play tennis whenever I can, and swim from time to time so exercise has been a huge part of my life. I understand the needs of my body and how to stay physically fit and have a good understanding of the human anatomy as an object. However, over the summer I had gone away on holiday, and as we all do, didn't do a huge amount of exercise (I did none at all if I'm being honest) and the principle of reversibility had taken full effect. I came back from holiday considerably heavier, unfit, and in no way ready for playing competitively for any sport.

The shock came when we had our first football match back, against another local team. We had previously won the league we played in the year before, going a full season unbeaten. Because of this, we were moved up an age bracket, meaning I was playing against boys that were 18, whilst I was still 16. Despite this, we were confident that we were going to carry our ability through from last season. Bare in mind that it had been around 8 months since our last game.

However, we were wrong.

We lost 13-0. Our first ever loss. I play in defense an I physically couldn't keep up. I was being beaten to every ball, losing the physical battles and couldn't react quick enough. I went home that day very dejected but with a clear idea of what had happened over the summer, and how I needed to improve. Luckily, when I was talking over what had happened to a fellow teammate and good friend he recommended I got Beachbodies P90X3, as he and his dad had done it and found it would suit what I needed, which was to gain Cardiovascular fitness, build muscle and generally get sharper. The full set was priced around £125 and this came with all the DVDs needed along with a nutrition guide and a few other bits. Its a do it at home workout that only required a pull up bar and some dumbbells, which I already had. What I also was the fact that each workout was only 30 minutes! This was great news as I didn't really enjoy exercising for a long period of time. There is a schedule you must follow in regards to the workout. Some days it would be purely cardio, or yoga, and some other days, just upper body. It is 6 days a week, with Sunday being a rest day and lasts for 90 days.

In each "block" (which is 1 month respectively) the exercise schedule changes, with different exercises as you will be fitter and stronger. I'm 1 month in so far and have lost about 7 pounds, and I feel physically sharper and fitter. The program has lots of variation so you don't get bored and every time Tony Horton manages to entertain me whilst doing it.

How has it translated into my sporting life? Very well! I am beating most of the older boys to the ball, can catch up and beat them for pace and am physically stronger than a lot of them. I can also challenge for a lot of the headers despite being short, as the P90X3 has given me buckets of power in the lower half of my body.

Overall I highly recommend it, and once I have finished it I will give a full analysis of it.

That's it, first blog down. I hope you all enjoyed it.