Tapout XT Week 5!

Good afternoon everybody! As you know, I'm Kevin Wright!  Today, I'll be talking about Ripped Conditioning XT + Ultimate Abs XT.  I'll also throw a calorie counter into the mix as well.

On Week 5, day 2 or Tuesday, I had the honor of doing Ripped Conditioning XT, and let me just say, it was as tough as Cardio XT.  As you guys know if you've read my blog, I'm not very good at cardio, but I am getting better as time goes on, I was actually able to stay with Karpenko and gang during Cardio XT day!  But I'm getting too ahead of myself.  So, what is Ripped Conditioning XT all about?  Simply, it's about losing fat, without losing muscle.  You do a lot of muscle blasting moves, such as -surprise- punches, kicks, and what not.  You also throw some band work and leg band work in there, and you've got yourself a muscle-kicking workout.  Ripped Conditioning XT is 41 minutes long, warm up and cool-down included, plus with the 15 minute Cardio XT, it'll be around the one hour mark.

Plus, since it was my 30th day of using tapout, I had to do a weigh-in!  I was really excited to see what my progress would be.  Below are the results from day 1, 10 and 30:

	Weight	Jean Size	Chest	Bicep	Waist
Day One	297	44	47	16	45.5
Day 10	293	43	48.5	17.5	41.25
Day 30	287		49.25	17	42

As you can see, I've already lost 10 pounds from first starting Tapout, and I've felt that I've lost weight too. I'm looking thinner and healthier as well.  Chest size has gone up considerably as well.  I wish that it'd be higher, but I can't be getting greedy about my progress.  Bicep size is up and down right now.  I deduced that the reason for that is because part of my arms were made of fat, but now that I'm slimming down, I'm losing that fat and my arms have gone down in measurements.  I'm starting to gain abs and I've felt thicker and tougher in my abdominal area, so I think it's okay that my waist has gone up, not to mention that I can see the top of my abs as well now!

At the beginning of the post, I alluded to using a calorie counter.  This counter is called MyFitnessPal.  This useful gadget tracks your exercise, water intake, measurements, and the amount of food you're taking in.  I feel that the important thing about this is the food because you can track everything non-food wise, but the MFP database contains the most diverse food recipes at a whopping 2 million foods and recipes.  In my opinion, it's the best way to track the food you eat and if they don't have a food you made, you can easily add it to the database.  I did that with the chicken salad I made on Friday.  If you're serious about losing weight, but don't know where to start, MyFitnessPal is the best way to start.  They also have an app for Android - MyFitnessPal Android and Apple - MyFitnessPal iPhone, iPad

So today, I talked about Ripped Conditioning XT which builds and tones muscle, my weigh-in where I'm seeing a good amount of progress, and MyFitnessPal which is a pretty nifty gadget and also provided links to Android and Apple services.

Remember, don't forget to add me on Facebook, Twitter, and Google+!  Don't forget to comment as well to let me know how i'm doing!

Facebook - Kevin Wright
Twitter - @TheKevinWright
Google+ - Kevin Wright

Have a good day, everyone!

iTunes 11 Review

It's no surprise that Apple released an update to their iTunes service on Friday.  Only on Saturday, however, was I able to get the update.  I could've gotten it through other sources, but they weren't entirely "reliable."  We will be covering a lot of points with iTunes 11.

I own a DV7 and this is a mac screenshot so I will try my best not to mess up the anything.  If by chance I do get it please, I urge you to let me know so I can change it.  First off, there is no menu system anymore as the menu is up in the upper left hand corner where the green, yellow and red buttons are.  It's become a bit trickier to use the menu now a days, but i didn't go through the tutorial so I was pretty much on my own.

You'll also see that below the apple logo has the normal selections with a few new additions: Playlists and Radio.  Part of the reason for this could be to be able to select them more easily.  I remember having to through a lot of trouble to find my bottom playlists since I have a lot of them.  Also, they brought the radio into the mainstream as well.  Another opinion is because people, like myself, like listening to the radio when we get bored of our own songs.

A few honorable mentions is the repeat and shuffle which took a while to figure out where it was.  For anyone who can't find it, it's next to the play screen, which is not pictured above.  I promise you'll see it when you play a song.  If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to contact me on my google+ page!


Follow me on
twitter @TheKevinWright
FB: Kevin Wright
Google+: Kevin Wright

Tapout Week 4

Hey everyone, how was your weekend?  I hope it was good, because it was good on my side!

I did a couple new workouts this week during Tapout XT: Buns and Guns XT and Muay Thai.  Not only we these workouts fun but they were tougher than I had given them credit for while looking at the case they were in.

Buns and Guns XT focused on - surprise surprise - the arms and the buttocks.  During this workout, which had a lot of mat work in it, I was constantly using my leg band and i'm pretty sure i used my arm band as well.  I remember not being able to walk as proper or with as much power as usual, possibly because workout made my limbs cry uncle.  The workout, thankfully, was only 33 minutes long.  "But Kevin", you all might be asking, "why was this workout so short??"  Well, I'll answer this question with one thing: Ultimate Abs XT.  That's right, a 33 minute workout of blood-gushing pumpiness to the limbs followed by massive core work is never easy.  There were times where I just wanted to stop and leave, but I had to persist, especially since I had never done anything like B&G before.

Muay Thai focused on the martial arts style of fighting.  You were introduced to advanced techniques that MMA fighters use to take their opponent down.  Punches, hooks, uppercuts, kicks, you name it and it happened.  I went no shoes and socks for this because I wanted to get a good workout like the actual MMA fighters did.  Boy, did it ever work!  I felt that i got solid calves from it and also I was greeted with burning feet and legs.  Part of the reason why my feet were hurting was because I don't usually get too much foot workouts in.

What I mean when I say that is many third world countries, such as most parts of Africa for example, walk around without shoes most of their lives or have a very small cushion between flesh and earth.  Their feet get toughened by walking around all day.  By no means is this safe because of infections, but going every now and then without shoes for a workout will give you strong, tough feet.  Next time you do cardio work, sprints or something, try to go without shoes for as long as possible and I'm sure you will be having burning feet afterwards.

Lastly, I'm giving myself a pat on the back for completing my first month of tapout!  I have completed 28 days of tapout and on Tuesday, I do a weigh-in to see how I have progressed since day 10 and ultimately day 1!  I was going to talk about iTunes 11 but that is going to have to be another day.  Have a good night everyone!

Follow me on
twitter @TheKevinWright
FB: Kevin Wright
Google+: Kevin Wright

iTunes 11

Hello everybody! Apparently iTunes 11 has been released, and I will note all the features when i can update it!  Have a good night, everybody!

Posting Weekly from now on! Plus other subjects!

Good evening everybody!  Hope you all had a good thanksgiving!

Firstly, I just wanted to say I'll be posting near the end of every week.  Reason being is because I was on break and I was able to post basically every day.  So look for something from me every Friday, Saturday or Sunday!!

Next, I just want to say I hope you all had a healthy thanksgiving!  I know I know, we probably took in more calories than usual in order to get full and then watched NFL football, but hopefully you all burned it off over the last few days!

This post is really small and I apologize for that, but I don't really have anything to talk about!

Follow me on twitter @TheKevinWright FB: Kevin Wright and Google+: Kevin Wright

Have a good night everyone!!

Day 15: Cross Core Combat

Good Monday, everybody!  I know I know, why use that to open up this new blog post??  Well, let's just say I made it past Day 14 without any injuries this time!!  Day 14 a few months ago, I was getting diagnosed with a vertical tear along my lateral meniscus.  Not good.  Well I'm now on Day 15, injury free!

So today, I did Cross Core Combat.  In simple terms, introductions to punches, crunches, resistance band work, plank work, and kicks and ended it with a killer move known as the Grinder.  But more on that in a moment.  Cross Core Combat or C3 for short, was about 47 minutes long.  We started up with a good warm-up about 8 minutes long, and continued right into the workout.  It was a variety of standard MMA workouts.  One exercise I'll tell you about today is the Superman Elbow.  First, you lay down on a surface with your chest, arms and feet in the air; it varies on how flexible you are.  Next, you simply alternate your elbows across your face as if you were elbowing someone in the face, or that unliked co-worker; really anything(one) would work to use to visualize this movement.  Keep that up for about 45 seconds and you're golden.

Lastly, after the water break of course, was the Killer Move known as the Grinder.  You count down from 10 to 1 doing wide push-ups on even counts and triceps push-ups on the odd counts.  You do Hellcats from 10-1 the whole time after the pushups.  I had to stop a couple of times and ultimately paused the video in order to finish it.  No need to cheat yourself right?  I included a video that would be a lot easier to show than to explain.

Thanks to sctrojan818 for having the video on Youtube!

And that's basically it!  So we talked about C3, me being injury free (yay!) and the fact that Grinders look tough, and are a lot tougher to do all the way through!  Also, you learned about the superman rolls!  Comment in the sections below the toughest exercise you've ever done!  Have a good rest of your day, everybody!

Follow me on Twitter! @TheKevinWright for more frequent updates!

Day 14: Rest Day Plus You'll Learn More About Me!

Hey all my visitors! If you read the title, today's my rest day!  Yay!  It was well deserved too but tomorrow, I'll be back at it with Cross Core Combat, wait for that!

So today, I'd tell you all a little more about me.  Well for one, I was born on October 25, 1991 in New Jersey.  As it has become a staple with learning I'm from New Jersey, I don't not claim Jersey Shore.  That show ticks me off >:( .  Anywho, I moved to Nebraska when I was four and have lived in various places in one town while we lived there and also made a move up to Minnesota.  I think Minnesota was the funnest time for me ever!  I met awesome friends, and I had such a fun time.  Building snow forts, to going to the Mall of America, to driving around the city of Burnsville, MN I just had so much fun.

Next, I'll tell you about my hobbies.  The biggest and most important hobby is that I am a gamer.  I play Playstation 3 and PC with the occasional playing Xbox 360, but I will only play a friends, I will not own one myself.  I can't afford to pay for Xbox Live every year (broke college student.)  I love games so much, that I run my own clan, known as the B3YOND Players.  We're growing in the League of Legends division of the B3P but we also have players on PS3, Xbox and the Wii.  My favorite game to date is Mirror's Edge.  I'm a big lover of modern things and running through a gleaming "utopia" which is ultra-modern is absolutely mind-melting for me!  Some games i play are: Beat Hazard Ultra (PC), The Sims 3 (PC), Uncharted Series (PS3, Vita), and DB Ultimate Tenkaichi (PS3.)  I'm an all-round gamer so I can handle my own on most games.

I've only told you one of my hobbies but what about the others?  Well first off, I like to take long walks on the beach...wait.  Scratch that.  We have no beaches in Nebraska!!  One of my hobbies, being that I am a college football player, is to weight lift.  Because I had gotten a season-ending injury this last season, I could not do any sort of weight lifting.  During the summer before my diagnosing of my meniscus tear (it happened during two a days), I turned to Tapout XT to do body weight training while I completed my own person workout I started while back in high school.  I still don't have it finished yet haha.  We finished this season with a new head coach with 4 wins and 6 losses.  It's not the glamorous life, but other teams have finished with worse.

Since this post is getting kind of long, I'll just rush through the others since they're easy.  I like to listen to music, lounge around, make quotes (I make them all the time, contemplating making a book of them), and also working on my sims 3 world, which i plan on posting pictures here soon.

Just so you know, I don't just plan on talking about Tapout in this blog.  I also plan on giving weight room tips, PS3 game reviews (if i can spare the time or money) and others!  Post in the comments something that you might like me to write about!  Have a good day, visitors!

Day 13: Cardio XT Calf burning goodness!!

As i write this, my calves are on fire from Cardio XT and my abs are sore from Ultimate Abs XT.

I'm into day 13 of Tapout XT and let me just say, today was the hardest day out of them all!  We had to wear the weighted gloves (gloves filled with sand, but dang that sand was tough!)  I kept them on all the way until the end of the workout or the "cool-down" phase for those non-weightlifting type people.  Part of the attire for today was also no shoes or socks, it'd give you a foot workout that way.

We first started out with a few weight distributing exercises.  Hop on one foot forward and back while alternating (it's confusing i know, i don't know how to describe them haha..)  Then we added a forward punch and then a backward punch while turning to different sides.  Throw in some jumping jacks and some sprinting and you've got yourself a warm up circuit!

We went straight into punches, kicks, burpees; you name it, we did it.  The workout was split up into about four different circuits, excluding the cool-down and warm-up.  We had regular water breaks, 3 in total.  They were about 10 minutes in between.  There were times where I wanted to turn it off, and go back to my room.  But, I knew I had to work through it.  Like Mr. Karpenko says, "Results are made out of the comfort zone!"  And boy, out of the comfort zone I was.

Then we transitioned into Ultimate Abs, one right after the other.  This workout, as the name suggests, targets the abs, and obliques with a little glute action.  There are a lot of unusual ab exercises in this one, Banana Boat comes to mind (it's the first exercise!)  To execute this exercise, you must hold your legs in the air and sink your lower back into the mat, while bringing your shoulders off the ground.  Also, it's crucial to have your arms in the air; kind of like trying to touch your shoe laces.  Next, you pull from your abs to bring your upper and lower body together and mimic a small punch at your shoes.

Well, that's about it, and you learned a new ab exercise out of it as well!  Again, if you want to contact me, don't hestitate!  Hit me up on Google+!

Greetings from Kevin Wright!

Hello everyone, who may read this! My name is Kevin Wright! (Obviously)  I currently play football at Midland University and i'm about to be a senior!  I will be posting about Tapout xt for the first few posts until my 90 days are up!

Currently I'm on Day 12 of Tapout xt and what a wild ride it was getting to this point.  Last time i did tapout, i was able to get to day 14 then got diagnosed with a vertical tear along my lateral meniscus with multiple smaller tears under my left kneecap.  Needless to say, it wasn't good.  But anyway!!

So far, Tapout is pretty crazy and I have been feeling myself getting stronger and stronger by the day.  If it wasn't for Mr. Mike Karpenko, I would definitely not be able to push too far, but he definitely knows how to encourage someone to keep going.  Kudos to you, Karpenko!

Well that's enough for me so far, if you have any questions, don't hesitate to contact me!

-K