Bring It: P90X Day 69

Tony Horton is the master of X... so much so that he has created P90X, an extreme workout based off the concept of muscle confusion. He is here to teach you how to avoid plateaus. The concept is simple: push yourself and keep up the variety. If you want this workout to be successful that means you have to Bring It... for a full 90 days.

This here is my personal journey to test the P90X workout program. If you would like to start from the beginning of this series, please click here. If you want to read about my previous day with P90X, click here.

Feel free to leave your comments below. Whether you are interested in doing P90X or completing your own personal journey with another workout program, it is important to have someone there to not only inspire you, but to keep you motivated. Thanks for the continued support.

I went to bed crying last night. I had hurt my neck sometime yesterday. I don't know if I should attribute it to sleeping funny, pushing it too hard on P90X, or maybe I am just getting old and I moved wrong. I don't know what I did, but it hurt. As I went to bed yesterday I was wondering if I was going to miss my first day of working out.

So, I tried to get the muscle to relax and then my husband gave me a heating pad. (You know - one of those bags filled with rice that you pop in the microwave for about 2 to 3 minutes.) I fell asleep with the heat around my neck. I hoped I would wake up in the morning and this would all be a terrible dream.

When I woke up, my neck felt much better. I could still feel the tweak, but it wasn't nearly as bad. However, my morning slowly ticked away to afternoon and the pain started coming back. I could move my neck better than I could yesterday, but it was starting to act up again. So I decided... it was time to get my workout in otherwise if I waited much longer, it might not happen at all.

So I went ahead and pushed play. I was wondering if I was going to regret this; I didn't want to throw myself into a full blown injury while I currently was only feeling a little tweak, but I know I have come so far and didn't want to miss a workout either. So, I watched myself and did the workout anyway.

I am glad I did. It actually helped my neck loosen up a little (of course a hot shower helped that as well), and on top of that, I didn't miss my workout either. Now, I am not sure what is going to happen later tonight. I might be in the same position as yesterday. Luckily for me, tomorrow is StretchX.

Today I had to choose my battles... It was a tough decision and when I woke up, I really wasn't sure who was going to win.

Today's battle: Tweaked Muscle vs. Guilt

I had a choice - I could rest my tweaked muscle or I could live with the guilt that I was going to skip a workout. If I didn't do it today, I had no intention of switching it out and doing it tomorrow. I knew with my neck being tweaked, there was a good chance tomorrow wasn't going to be any better. So, the battle was going to be a good one.

The competitiors entered the ring.

Tweaked muscle played dirty, it took the first swing before the starting bell even dinged. It swung high and almost crippled guilt to it's knees. There was a surge of pain; you could see guilt was getting beaten up pretty bad. Finally, guilt stepped up and punched fiercly. It looked like a young child swinging and missing. Yet it was persistent. Guilt wouldn't give up. Tweaked neck pushed again, the pain crippling almost the whole right side. Yet Guilt was stubborn. It wasn't going to give up. Guilt went for one final play. It was the only chance. It reached out and pushed play.

In the end, guilt won out. The workout was completed, and while tweaked muscle made it difficult, guilt eventually came out the victor.

*******

Working out with an injury is never advised, especially without a doctor's consent. While I did tweak a muscle (or maybe it is a pinched nerve in my neck - I can't be certain - I have never claimed to be a doctor!), I did take it easy during my workout to lessen the chances of injuring myself for real. While I was able to complete my workout, I did take it easy when it came to moving my neck to the right. I didn't want to jar it any further. In the end, my neck did loosen up a little so it worked out. However, if this was a real injury, working out could have put your progress even further behind.

If you are truly injured, do not follow my stubborn example and keep with your workout. If you do, make sure you cut back the intensity and listen to your body. If it doesn't feel good, you shouldn't do it. The burn you feel should be a good burn; not one that cripples you to your knees.

Day 70 reveals 20 reasons to keep pushing play... click here to read on.