Almost three weeks of glorious P90X workouts have already gone by. The fourth week is sort of a recovery week; there’s less emphasis on muscle building and a greater emphasis on total body workout. I’m not looking forward to it; this coming week will include two yoga sessions. Why did it have to be yoga that would repeat twice in one week? Couldn’t it have been any other workout? Really, any other workout at all would have been preferable. Read more

I’ve survived the first two weeks of P90X. 14 days. More than 15 hours of workouts. More protein than I usually consume in a three month period. How do I feel? Pretty good about myself. I think, with these kinds of extreme workout/diet programs, if you don’t bail out after a few days, you’re probably going to stick it out. Read more

What’s the hardest part of P90X? Is it the dieting? Is the exercise programs? It may be that the hardest part of the program is not breaking it, at least not while trying to lead a normal life. This past week we had house guests: my wife’s cousin, her husband, and her two young boys. Now, as you may know, when you have guests over, you don’t usually tend to eat as well as you normally do, you certainly don’t worry about your usual fitness routine, and you probably don’t concern yourself with your eight hours minimum sleep every night. But I had to do all of those things. Read more

I’m not a big fan of yoga. If yoga were an animal, in my view, it would most closely resemble a disgruntled badger. The P90X version of yoga is like a disgruntled badger mated with a rabid wolverine and sired the closest living embodiment of the devil.

My body hurt afterwards. My legs ached. I was dripping sweat everywhere. And for the first time doing these videos, I was getting visibly angry with Tony Horton and “Adam” (one of the guys in the video doing the workout with you). Why was I angry? Because for me, yoga is agony. It’s very much like being torn apart by a devil incarnate bastard wolverbadger. I don’t stretch too well. My body is tight. My legs are tight. My arms are tight. My hips are tight. I’ve never been good at stretching. I don’t usually care. It’s rare I need to double over myself and put my leg behind my back while my arms are sticking straight out; even the kinkiest sex positions rarely involve this maneuver (note that I never say “never”). This being the case, an hour and a half of yoga is certifiable torture for me. Waterboarding sounds bad; having sharp sticks stuck under my fingernails certainly would suck, but I’d pick it over yoga.

I think I called Tony Horton an asshole at least twice during the yoga video. And “Adam” only made it worse. The guy made stretching look easy. I know he’s a dancer or whatever and stretching is probably a big part of his life, but I felt like it was being rubbed in my face when he was able to stretch so far forward he needed extra yoga blocks past his feet to touch, while I’m struggling to touch my toes as my entire body wells up with breath-stealing pain, the likes of which no man should ever have to feel.

So yeah, thank God I only have to do the Yoga video 9 more times. Yippee.

4 days down. 86 days to go.

~ Kip

So, day three was shoulders and arms. After Day One, Chest and Back, and Day Two, Plyometrics, I was a little shocked that shoulders and arms didn’t leave me weeping on the floor. I’m not saying it was easy. There are a lot of hard routines in day three, but it’s sort of a relief after the agony of days one and two.

Since I didn’t feel like sulking on my gym mats and begging God for a merciful and sweet end, I had time to focus more on Tony Horton, the creator of P90X and the guy leading the instructional workout videos. He says some weird stuff. The guy has ego to spare. That much is clear. You know it’s bad when he’s showing off his arms right before the shoulders and arms workout, and you only have your own arms for comparison, which it being only day three aren’t going to impress anyone all that much. Read more

So, how can I sum up day two of P90X in one word? Plyometrics.

What’s plyometrics? It’s jumping exercises designed to make you burn calories fast, improve performance and sweat buckets.

And boy did I sweat. It sounded like someone turned on a faucet and let it pour over my exercise mats. Every time I bent over, a river of sweat rolled down my head and face and onto the floor. To put this into perspective, I was working out in my cool, dry exercise room located in my basement; I don’t sweat this much when I’m running a 5k outside underneath the sun. P90X builds in 30 second water breaks approximately every ten minutes in this 50 minute long video, and thank god, because without them, I’d be passed out somewhere between minutes 16 and 17. Read more

For those of you who haven’t seen the infomercials, P90X is a home exercise system designed by Tony Horton in conjunction with the health/fitness company, Beachbody. The program places great emphasis on a full body workout plan coupled with a strict nutritional guide. I’ve been curious about this program ever since I saw the ads on TV a few years ago. The results looked amazing, and unlike a lot of other exercise programs out there, the makers of P90X don’t pretend it’s going to be easy. It has always seemed to me that the average workout video is made by the snake oil salesman of the fitness world: promising incredible results with minimal 30 minute workouts. Read more

Men's Health Get Back in Shape Kit

I recently saw this at Dick’s Sporting Goods. It contains a triumvirate of exercise equipment: The Supreme Pushup (a copy of the Perfect Pushup), Power Ab Wheel, and an Upper-body Strength Bar. In addition, they give you a workout plan to follow using the equipment, and they explain the best way to perform chin-ups for strengthening your back. Overall, it’s a good kit for the price: $49.99. Sold separately, the perfect pushup alone usually runs around $39.99, an ab wheel is at least another $9.99, and chin-up bars can come in around $29.99, so if you’re looking for all three, this is a great way to save money. Read more

Perfect Pushup: Hype or Reality?

I recently purchased the perfect pushup. I don’t usually buy any exercise equipment I see advertised on TV, especially those with celebrity spokesmen, but I thought I’d give this a try. It’s relatively cheap compared with other exercise products: only $29.99 in the store where I purchased it (though I’ve seen it listed for as much as $39.99). And I figured if the product was all hype, I can always return it and get something more useful.

I’ve been using the perfect pushup for about a week now. I combine it with a series of other workouts. I’ve always been fond of the basic pushup. It’s one of my favorite exercises. A single pushup affects more muscle groups than a combination of exercises. It’s great for strengthening your arms, chest and core. So I wasn’t sure, would the perfect pushup enhance my pushup experience? Read more

I read a study where they took a group of people, half the people received some sort of pain medication after a workout, the other half received nothing. The workouts were the same. All the people in the study were roughly the same build at the beginning. They found that those who did not partake in pain medications actually had a greater increase in muscle mass than those who did use something to ease the pain.

So, what’s the moral? Well, the old adage “no pain, no gain” holds true. Whatever pain medication does to our bodies, it also tells our bodies not to build muscle. Normally, when you work out, you make tiny little tears in your muscle fibers, these tears are repaired, and during the repair process, they muscle grows. The pain medications must do something to prevent the need for this repair process.

If you’re looking to gain muscle, maybe you should avoid that aspirin or advil afterwards to help ease the achy joints and sore muscles. You might want to just soak in a tub or stretch it out. Otherwise, you might not see the gains you were expecting.