Agreed. My son does this religiously every morning before going to work. You could shred hash browns on his abs.
Haven’t tried P90X. We do Warrior X-Fit in the school and are having great results with it. Several of my friends do alternating X-Fit and P90X.
I started P90X this week, but I already modified it. I do all of the upper body and ab stuff Monday-Thursday, but Fri-Sun I’m on a bicycle for at least an hour and a half. I ride on and off road and vary my routes and trails, so I think it’s going to work out. I’m not sure it would be good to do the leg workout and then get on a bike anyways.
OMG, I was thinking about posting this the other day. I have 9 weeks left before a major life transition, so I’m a few weeks down, but I definitely want to start something like this soon! I’m so happy to see this thread!
I’m restarting Phase 1 as we had some travel interruptions and frankly, I wasn’t very good at sticking with it.
It is definitely like a bootcamp style program, pretty intense repetitions and way more than I would do on my own. When trying to follow a strength workout from a book or website I have a tendency to get bored or feel silly, get distracted by whether or not I’m doing something properly, etc.
With the videos I can pause or skip back to watch the form–I do get a bit frustrated as the camera work isn’t the greatest. Many of the exercises are demonstrated with various modifications and the camera skips around a lot so sometimes it’s hard to see a full repeat of the movements in one iteration, and there are some exercises where more discussion of proper form or a side angle view with some lines on the ground to orient foot placement would be very helpful.
The strength exercises are the most useful for me as that is my weakest area, but as far as Phase 1 is concerned, the plyometrics workout is my favorite cardio workout. I prefer to run for my cardio, but the plyo workout works muscles that are obviously not getting hit in my running workouts and the movements have to be good for turnover. I know Hal Higdon doesn’t like workouts or sports that have lateral movement when you are doing marathon training, so for people running really high mileage and with their hearts set on a certain marathon event it might be a bad risk, but it feels great to me.
The Shoulders & Arms is the only strength workout where I feel like I can keep pace with the video, so it’s my favorite.
One of my favorite things about this program is that it doesn’t require a ton of equipment. A pullup bar, a chair, some weights and a mat if you don’t have cushy carpet. Many of my favorite exercises don’t even use those, just the resistance of your own body. The yoga workout is total ass-kicker (especially if you do the pushup between every transition) and doesn’t require anything but a yoga mat.
The hardest thing though is making working out a habit–with the strength workout and the following abs program, it’s asking you for 90 minutes. For some reason it’s been hard for me to find a 90 minute block of uninterrupted time, and because it is asking for such strenuous effort, you have to be pretty careful of what & when you eat before you do it.
I haven’t been following the diet portion, even though the materials pretty much say that if you don’t follow the diet than why bother at all, but with the running we do we’re pretty much already where we need to be food and weight-wise so I’m not interested in doing their Phase 1 eating with masses of protein and cutting out most carbs:
But there are some pretty good recipes in the book and I can see an advantage for those who really like a lot of structure and guidance.
Just a warning though–I balked at buying the set through the website/tv and had read that the Canadian As Seen On TV shops carried the DVD sets, so I didn’t bat an eye at buying a set from a Canadian eBay seller. If I had it to do all over again, I would buy directly from the beachbody website. If my copy is pirated, it is well packaged, but it skips like crazy in certain parts on certain discs even though the discs are completely scratchless, so I feel suspicious and guilty. Now that I’ve actually done the workouts I think full-price is still a bargain for all the great variety of exercises and being pushed harder than I would on my own. The skipping hiccups are super annoying and at the end of the yoga workout there is a weird pixelation that obscures the entire screen. Now, if someone comes along and says they have the same problem with discs they bought straight from the beachbody site, I’ll feel huge relief, but I doubt it as I can’t imagine people not mentioning such egregious glitching on such expensive DVDs before.
And even with my haphazard workout schedule, I have definitely noticed results from the strength workouts, and it helped a lot to have something to do after I managed to piss off my ITBand in February and couldn’t even run 3 miles without pain.
Tortuga, how many miles a week are you running? The only thing making me hesitate doing it is the fact that I like running a couple times a week and will be training for another half marathon starting in July, and aren’t sure if I can do both…
I’m thinking of getting this for the Winter months.
I’ve done Jillian Michaels but I hear P90X makes Jillian feel like a cakewalk. It sounds painful, and therefore, challenging enough to keep me occupied.
Lezlers, my running and exercise schedule has been really erratic. I’ve been trying to stick to a schedule to make it more of a habit, but I’m not there yet.
I run anywhere from 2 times a week (when I have a race on the weekend) to five times a week. My weekly mileage has been about 15-25 miles, less when the ITBand was really acting up and I used elliptical, rowed, or biked instead. I don’t think P90X would interfere with running a couple times a week as it actually feels really good to go for a run after the upper body strength workouts to loosen everything up again. Then do the ab work in the postrun cooldown. Fitting it all in can be a bit hard–I haven’t been able to stick to either schedule very well when trying to do both, but I am good at blowing things off and I’ve never been one of those people who HAS to work out and works out for hours everyday. Since I’m using P90X to improve overall and the running to see what I can do, I haven’t been too hard on myself for being so flakey, although I do want to be better in this second attempt.
You might want to look into heart rate training and start checking your resting heart rate in the mornings for a baseline–apparently, if you are overtraining and setting yourself up for an injury/illness it shows up first as an elevated resting heart rate.
I mentioned that my son and his wife are coaches for this program. If anybody would like their contact information, PM me. I have no idea what sort of fees are involved, but I think they can get you the DVDs, etc. for a lower cost.
I’ve been doing P90X for about 2 years. When I started I was 5’8, 160 pounds (all in the belly) and no muscle at all, but by second 90-day cycle I was in the low 140 pounds and much more muscular. I still didn’t look anything like the guys in the video, but I’m definitely in the best shape I’ve ever been in. I went from being able to do 3 pullups to about 20, and from 30 pushups to about 70. Keep in mind that is going from no exercise at all to doing P90X 6 days a week religously.
My problem is I don’t follow the nutrition plan, just the exercise. I love sweets and pizza too much to give them up, so I never got the ripped abs. But as the others have said, if you exercise hard an hour plus a day you’ll lose weight for sure, there’s nothing particularly magical about the routines.
I would just go in with realistic expectations and you’ll probably love it. I found it easy to stick with it early on just because of the the variety of things you’re doing from day to day. I even kind of enjoy the Kenpo (think kickboxing) workout. The Plyometrics (jumps and squats) on the other hand is a nightmare every single time.
My problem after doing it for so long is that I am no longer getting any stronger. I try to up my weights to stay in that 8-10 rep range, but for months now I’ve just peaked. Either I’m not eating enough or I’m just meant to always have a thin frame. Still though, it keeps me in shape and allows me to eat pretty much whatever I want so I’m able to stick with it (even if I don’t do the full hour every day like in the beginning). If you do it, let us know how it goes!
I really really need something like this. I have no motivation that I can think of to get in better health.
For those who have used it, what kind of extra equipment do I have to buy? The TV commercials seem like you’ll need to buy some weights, some mats, chin-up bars, etc. I’m just wonder about other than the DVDs, what else is shipped to me for my $120?
Dumbbells and a pull up bar are all I bought. You might need a mat or bands though.
I’ve been thinking about doing this for awhile. But two obstacles spring to mind. I’d love the opinions of those who have done it before.
I don’t have a TV. Obviously I have a computer, but is this something I can feasibly do while watching a 19" monitor on a desk?
I live in an apartment. With downstairs neighbors in an old building. Would I be pissing the hell out of them with endless jumping jacks or whatever?
You can do it on any sized screen. I’ve used it on an 11" laptop and a 93" projector. Pliometrics is the only disc that I can recall using a lot of jumping around. For about an hour each week, they’ll hear you on that one.
Another question: How does the training regime go? Pop Disc 1 into the DVD player, play “Day 1” and do what it says, then continue for every following day?
Or is it more like 1 disc for a few weeks, finish it, rest, then put in disc 2?
Regime Calendar (PDF)
You use a different disc each day. It really helps to keep things from getting boring.
I hate push-ups. Can’t stand 'em. Unfortunately, that’s one of the major options for chest work-outs with P90X (there’s also the band too, of course). But the work out is definitely more advanced than Beach Body. Some of it is pretty tricky to follow along the first couple times (superman! banana! superman! banana!).
Overall, I think it’s an OK option for those who don’t want to go to a gym, but for me, I like the variety at a gym more. Especially using something besides a band or my own weight.
I’m tempted to give it a try again as I’ve gotten in much better shape since I previously had done it.
I’m coming to the end of my 90 days and I would highly recommend it. I’ve been working out 5 days a week for fifteen years, and I think I was starting to get lazy about my workouts. This has reinvigorated them and made me realize that working out is supposed to hurt.
That’s sort of the key. He says it over an over in the program. “I know it hurts. It’s supposed to!”
I was in decent shape to start, so maybe if you are wildly out of shape this isn’t the place to start working out. Day 1 is actually one of the hardest of all of the workouts!
I also modify. The Kenpo day I did for awhile, but it is pretty easy. I’ve substituted running intervals for that day. And the Yoga I substitute a long run. Not that I don’t think yoga is helpful, but I found it nearly impossible to do the poses and have to look at the television screen at the same time. I would look up and realize I’m in totally the wrong position. Just too frustrating.
As I come to the end, I’ll take a few weeks off afterwards and then go again. I’ve actually only lost about three pounds, but as I said, I wasn’t in bad shape. And being that I’ve tripled the number of pullups I can do, I think that there is more muscle than there was previously.
I still can’t do all the reps in all the ab exercises.
Tony’s best advice during the program: “You can do anything for 30 seconds!”
I tried to use it on a computer once while traveling and it was copy protected or something. Not sure if I’m just computer illiterate and there is a way around this.
The plyometrics might be rough in an apartment. The rest is probably doable as long as you have a place to do pullups.
Or you can take a resistance band with a special loop that will go into doorframes and stay put. I bought one of those and it works as long as the door can shut tightly and the door frame is solid.
Do not, I repeat: DO NOT, try and jam the band around a corner of the door and pull without the special loop. I had a red welt on my chest for a week as my lesson. :smack: