T25 Wrap Up

Saturday, I finished the Gamma round of T25 for the second time around. Can I just be the first to say the past four weeks has FLOWN by? I feel like I just decided to repeat the cycle, and BAM! It’s over.

I’ve owed you all a Beta and Gamma wrap up for quite some time now. Due to my procrastination, and likely traumatization from Gamma, over the past few weeks, I have literally forgotten everything about Beta. I don’t remember the workouts, I don’t remember how I felt doing it. I just remember being bummed when it was over and really wanting, nigh needing, to keep going on the T25 track. Enter Gamma.

Gamma I can tell you about. Because the pain and torture is still fresh. Yes, pain and torture. It was seriously such an ass-kicking, I actually thought I was knocking on death’s door a few times.

This round was no joke. The workout calendar for Gamma is only four weeks, down from the five-week Alpha and Beta cycles, but it definitely makes you work just as hard. Unlike Alpha and Beta, which are aimed at increasing your overall fitness, burning fat and replacing with lean muscle, and basically beating you into a coordinated gazelle, Gamma is about strength and building muscle. As such, every workout requires free weights. And also ends in you feeling like your every extremity is going to fall off.

There are only four videos in Gamma, and each requires both agility and power. In my opinion, the hardest of these was Speed 3.0. Essentially, it’s balls-to-the-walls speed AND strength movements. Yeah, both. At. The. Same. Time. Imagine being asked to do Jack Pushups as fast as you can. Like, “Excuse me, Mr. Shaun T. I can barely do one Jack Pushup, and it takes me a century to complete. And you want me to beast mode through, like, a million in 30 seconds?!  Please tell my family that I love them and that I died miserable.”

Despite the difficulty and the inordinate amount of curse words I directed at my iPod during this phase, Gamma was by far my favorite cycle of the program. I loved that I got to use weights for every workout. For some reason, I felt so much more productive. I guess I just like lifting things up and putting them down. Not that Alpha and Beta were lame, rather, they were representative of a progression of fitness and ability. Each phase built on the previous one. So by the end of Gamma, you were using that Plank you learned in Alpha and that Side Pulse Plank you learned in Beta to inform Gamma’s Walking Ski Abs. I really appreciated that evolution. It was like watching my coordination and ability morph from that of a narcoleptic kitten’s to a cheetah’s. (Note: no hard feelings, narcoleptic kittens. You sure are cute, but you’re like a loose cannon, and ain’t nobody want that on their team during a battle royale for dinner.)  Now that I’m looking back, I feel really accomplished when revisiting the Alpha and Beta moves, knowing that the moves that used to kill me are now slightly more tolerable.

Gamma phase definitely did what it says it does—increases strength and endurance. The most marked achievement of this, for me, was being able to do all sorts of cool pushups now. At the start of Alpha, I could barely do 10 regular pushups. Now, I’m doing jack pushups, oblique knee pushups, in-and-out arm pushups, leg-up pushups…Total win. Also, a major victory was when I was able to get through Speed 3.0 without stopping. I wasn’t able to keep up with Shaun’s pace the whole time, but I also didn’t need a break or find myself gasping for oxygen. And I have some cut lines on my arms and legs for all the trouble. Not too shabby.

But in case you were curious, I don’t look like a ripped model from the T25 infomercial. I didn’t have a complete body transformation or an astounding weight loss because, honestly, my love for cake is invincible. But I did keep track of my body metrics and measurements along the way, and figured I would share some of the benchmark readings with you all.

The poor formatting of this chart really triggers my OCD tendencies.

So after 18 weeks of Alpha, Beta, and 2 rounds of Gamma, I came out the other end alive, and with a few less inches on my body. And there’s no better victory dance than survival, y'all.

Now on to new adventures!