Anybody here wanna do P90x with me?

My husband and I very recently purchased this workout program. I don’t think most of you have mentioned how old you are but my husband is 50 and I’m 47 and this workout is definitely pushing us. We haven’t quite started doing it religiously yet because we’re both still struggling to follow along and we’re also getting our work-out room set up so we’ll have everything we need at hand. Neither of us are crazy about the bands so we’re using a small set of barbells and have dusted off the Bowflex.

So far, we’ve done the chest and back, ab ripper, plyometrics, shoulders and arms, yoga and the stretch work outs. We plan on taking our pictures and our measurements tomorrow as well as setting up the logs to keep track of our progress.

My initial impression is a positive one. I used to be very athletic and active but after a significant knee injury in my 20s while playing soccer, my general laziness and poor eating habits caused my weight to creep up over the years. I recently lost 60 pounds with the assistance of a doctor monitored weight loss program but I know that in order for me to continue to be successful, I have to make changes in my habits and attitude. Period. My being fat was my own fault and I don’t want to gain the weight back. I’m fortunate in that I don’t have a lot of excess skin to worry about even though I was borderline obese. I am, however, flabby and that’s what I’m wanting to tone up.

My husband, while never having been overweight, has had some heart issues, including having a stent put in when he was 48 and he went through an ablation last year. His cardiologist has cleared him for exercise and this is the first time he’s shown ANY enthusiasm at all for working out. That has helped keep me motivated.

I’ve done the X Stretch work out only a handful of times now (due to other health issues, there are some days when I know I’m not going to be able to do the more difficult work outs so rather than skipping exercise entirely, I pop in the X Stretch work out) and I can already see a significant improvement in my flexibility. My husband is having a very difficult time with that as well as the Yoga but we push ourselves through it, knowing we’ll improve in time.

The Yoga X kicked both our butts! Oh, and the plyometrics, too. :wink: We use the Bowflex to take the place of the pull ups because neither of us can do those right now at all so we just pause the DVD, do some chest pull-downs on the Bowflex then go back to the DVD. Yeah, we’re pretty wimpy!

I enjoy Tony’s attitude, his sense of humor and I appreciate that alternate methods are demonstrated for those of us who are out of shape. We find P90X challenging and enjoyable at the same time and the variation in what we do from day to day really helps a great deal.

Nice to welcome more partners in the journey! :smiley: Man, this place is going to be up to our eyeballs in hotties after 90 days! :smiley: :smiley: :smiley:

Just bought it. I’ll start in a week or so.

Do I need anything else? I ordered the pullup bar and one of the bands.

Whoo hoo! I started!

For those of you following along at home, I bought P90X’s wimpier brother the Power90 program, some months ago. And there it sat, mocking me. Then I put it in a drawer, where it mocked me unseen. (But it still mocked. I could hear it.)

After getting all depressed about myself, I finally said, “Self. Let’s go.” And we did. I did the first circuit workout yesterday, then got up at O’Dark Thirty this morning and did the cardio. I’m also tracking my calorie intake online and on my phone with SparkPeople. So, we’re off and running.

I’m excited. Now to just keep it up.

You might need some weights. The bands are good for a lot, but sometimes you might want to transition to weights. Also, you definitely need a mat, unless your floor is really soft and carpeted

Welcome aboard!

Good job! We can always use more people around here! :smiley:

So I’ve got a small update (hopefully people are still following the program)

Yesterday was the 2nd day of my 2nd month. I can’t believe I’ve been able to keep up for this long! I’ve NEVER done exercises so consistently for this long before! Makes me think I can actually get through this thing :cool:

Even though I haven’t been able to keep up with the people in the video, I’ve seen steady increases in the amount of reps I can do and the important shrinking of the gut that is my main goal. Like for instance, the first workout of the first month, Chest and Back, with its millions of pushups totally destroyed me. I was doing maybe 5-10 pushups each time and all with bad form. But by the end of the month, I was knocking out consistent 10-15 reps, even those incredibly hard diamond pushups and dive bomber pushups! This coming from a guy who never thought he could even do 10 with good form and it’s pretty impressive. I’m sooooo happy that I was about to stick to it!

Speaking of sticking to it, this program has completely changed my perspective on exercising. When I used to try to diet and exercise on my own, I would frequently get discouraged when I miss a day of exercise or I break down and eat something awful. When that happens, I would think that all my work had been for nothing and get depressed and stop exercising and watching what I eat. No wonder those plans always failed.

But by sticking to the P90X system, I’ve completely convinced myself not to think like that anymore. Occasionally, I still eat bad. Maybe during a weekend I’ll overindulge. And sometimes I get tired and skip a day of exercise. In fact, even though I’ve completed a month of exercises, there is about a week’s worth of days that I skipped so it’s actually been over a month since I started. But I don’t care, that hasn’t discouraged me and I think that’s the biggest thing I’m getting from this program (aside from my now gigantic biceps! :wink: ). I guess it really depends a lot on changing your mindset aside from just your body

So, a question for all of you following the program. I have this really odd TMI issue that has cropped up and I was wondering if any of you are experiencing it. I’ve found myself shitting a lot lately. Whereas before, it used to be sort of a once-a-day thing, now some days I do it twice. And I know for a fact that I haven’t been eating more because of the exercise. So what’s the deal with that? Is it a byproduct of a faster and more healthy metabolism? It is the only thing I can think of that would make me shit almost twice as often as I did before. Food is shooting through me like a bullet being shot out of a gun! I don’t particularly like it as I have, what I like to call, a “shy anus” syndrome so I don’t enjoy having to drop a couple of bombs in a public restroom

P90X arrived today. Gotta read those damn books.

YogSosoth, first off, great work! I’m jealous of your ability to do so many pushups. I still do 90% of them from my knees, except for dive bombers. I can do maybe 4 of those from my toes b/c the stance is so wide.

I’m still following the program. The HRM has helped quite a bit. It actually spurs me on to stay in my zone and keep moving during breaks instead of standing there gulping water. The new doorway pull up system arrived Monday but I’ve only used it once so far. I still can’t begin to get my chin up to the bar unassisted, but I can get halfway up and hold it for a couple of seconds, which is progress in my book.

As for the TMI pooping question, I haven’t really noticed any changes there. Maybe for a day or two but I attributed that to what I was eating rather than improved metabolism. My weight isn’t changing much beyond the initial 9-lb loss but my clothes fit better. I’m able to wear size 10 jeans and slacks with no “muffin top” showing over them.

They’re having a cake today at the all-hands meeting at work. One of those chocolate cakes from Costco. I swear they put crack in the icing, it’s so addictive. O Great and Powerful Mr. Horton, give me the strength to resist! He’s actually in DC today (I work in Herndon, VA) giving a lunchtime lecture/workout session at the National Press Club. I never thought I’d become the sort of person who’d rather work out at lunch instead of eating cake.

Thanks, I’m sure this program will be as good for you as it has been for me.

I was going to mention something about pushups. It really is true that the P90X changes things up when you hit a plateau. At first I thought it was a marketing gimmick. When I went from 5 pushups on Day 1 to 15 at the end of day 30, I thought I was going to be able to consistently do 15 each time.

However, when they change up the exercises on the 2nd month, I dropped back to 5 :frowning: There are some tough pushup combos in Month 2! But I take the fact that I can’t do as much to mean that I will be getting better like Month 1, because I have that experience of improving in the first month, I won’t be as discouraged. I’m actually excited to do more pushups (though ask me again while I’m in the middle of a set and my answer will change).

If you’re like me, you have cravings for things all the time. Fight them! And if you have to indulge, do so a little bit. Before this program, I would just think that any bite, no matter how small, would mean I failed, but now I know that just like you can’t get fit in one workout, you can’t get fat with one cake (well, maybe if you ate the whole cake! :smiley: ). So if you have to quiet the cravings, eat a bit of cake and know it won’t make that much of a difference in the long run, especially if you stick to the workout. I haven’t had a burger in a long time but I’ve eaten a hot dog and some fries and nachos over the past month. A little bit isn’t going to destroy your workout, so don’t be like me in Week 1 and try to go totally vegetarian: it’s not going to work and it’ll drive you crazy

I looked at the pre-program fit test. I don’t yet know if I can pass all of them, but I think I will be very close … close enough to move forward with P90X.

I still need to do that fit test. Totally forgot about it

So I took a week totally off after my recovery week in month one. I really just needed a mental and physical break, since I was starting to dread the workouts instead of looking forward to them. I’m doing the lean program so the “recovery” week doesn’t really give you much of an actual recovery, since most of the program is cardio, anyway. I’m feeling much better now and ready to get back on that horse! So glad this thread is still alive!

I managed to finally lose about a half inch from my waist. Yay for progress!!! Still haven’t lost a pound, but that’s okay. As long as I’m getting smaller, I’m happy. My arms, despite all attempts to make them smaller and more svelte, look like card carrying members of The Gun Show at this point. Ah well. Better than flabby, I guess!

As an aside, the highlight of this program? I took my niece to see Karate Kid last weekend (as a hardcore fan of the original, the remake was total blasphemy, btw) and I almost lost my shit when they showed the kid doing those inverse push-ups as part of the training montage. I was all like “that’s right bitches, I do that shit on the regular.” Totally badass. :smiley:

In week 7 here. I, too, have not lost a pound or an inch. In fact, I gained 5 pounds. I do think it is muscle, though. I would love to see those measurements go down, but I really don’t think it is going to happen. My weight and measurements have been the same since I was 16 and they probably won’t ever change. Instead, I’m trying to focus on how I look. I’m seeing ab muscles that weren’t there before, and my arms, particularly my shoulders and triceps, look so much more toned. People have been telling me I look taller, and I feel taller (and I’m pretty tall to begin with.) It’s definitely giving me better posture.

I also just like the feeling of getting stronger. I can tell my chest, back, and shoulders are so much stronger- I’ve taken up pole dancing (for fun, not as a career move) and really feel like working those muscles in P90X has made it a lot easier to hang on and swing.

Umm, send some pictures of the pole dancing my way. I don’t believe you :wink: I require proof!

Assembled P90X pull-up bar. Gotta mount the brackets still. You don’t just pop in a DVD and “go” with this thing.

Oh noes! All those downward dogs have given me a case of Benign Paroxysmal Positional Vertigo (BPPV)! At least, I’m fairly sure it’s from the downward dogs. I’ve had this before and it went away after a few days, so hopefully it’ll be OK soon. I was still able to to Kenpo yesterday and today is a rest day.

If anyone is interested, here is a video of Tony Horton’s speech to the National Press Club and the workout that followed. It’s almost an hour long but to me it was well worth watching. Watching Tony confirm that it’s OK to do highly modified pushups from your toes (by juuuust barely bending your elbows an inch or two) has changed my whole approach to pushups. I immediately jumped up and did ten from my toes using his suggestion and WOW what a difference I felt in my core. Anybody who’s still doing pushups from their knees really should watch that part of the video (it’s later in the workout session). It brought home to me how important the full pushups are and how superior they are to knee pushups in terms of engaging other muscle groups.

Bearflag, there is quite a bit of prep for the workouts but it’s so worth it. I have my little pre-workout ritual that helps me get in the right frame of mind. They say “just push play” but you gotta have everything you need ready first. And for some of the workouts, it’s a lot of stuff!

I’m getting there. It’s just going to take longer than I thought to get started.

Today was my first Yoga X where I can put my heels all the way down to the floor on a Downward Dog! I feel like Gumby :smiley:

I just realized that I don’t need the brackets on the pull-up bar, so I guess I’m ready to begin. I previewed the first workout. It looks sooo hard for an out of shape dude.

I am wondering if I should do the workouts on the How to Bring It disc first, maybe for a week or two. I can’t do one pull-up and I don’t want to kill myself on P90X.