Day 36: Work It, Make It, Do It, Makes Us Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger

Some of the new exercises this week are absolutely brutal! The "Bicycle" was a killer. I'd start out just fine, then the legs would drop further and further until I couldn't keep them up and going anymore. Forty seconds? Ha! I could barely make it to twenty without my legs dying on me. I unsuccessfully struggled like anything to keep them up in the air and pedaling.

Following that up with the "Plank" and you've got a recipe for a quivering, blubbery mass. The picture looks so easy, what with Patrick's hands just straight out like that. Not me! My hands are balled up into fists like I'm holding on to two spikes driven into the ground for dear life. Each time I barely made it to forty seconds, but I can't say there wasn't a lot of grunting and cursing going on.

Like the "Double Katana", I couldn't do the "Shoulder Press" standing up. I'm not sure if it's because of how long the band is or if it's just me. However, sitting down with the band under the chair worked quite well. I could actually perform the exercise without sacrificing the resistance.

I get the feeling I'll never perform a "Pull-Up". I loved the Monkey Bars at the playground when I was a kid, but I could never manage a pull-up. "Hang-And-Flail-Your-Feet" was more like what I could accomplish. Even today I can still do that move quite well. I can't do a pull-up no matter how I try.

I'm still doing the "Incline Pull-Up"—or as I like to call it, the "Dangle and Drop." Today I almost got to my chin to the bar twice, with "almost" being the operative word. Actually I got closer than I had ever been since we started the "Incline Pull-Ups." The rest of the time was used by having me struggle to lift my body off the floor.

After hearing about the horrors of the "Pistol Squat", I was a little nervous about starting them. Today was the first day we got to do the exercise. It was incredibly easy, which I knew meant that I was doing something wrong. I'm not sure what it is. I look at the picture and I'm sure I'm following Patrick's positioning exactly, but it was still seemed too easy. I finished the sets without figuring out what I was doing wrong. Tomorrow with be another round of "Pistol Squats" so I'll have another chance to figure out what I'm messing up.