p90x workout plan

fletcher21 · Post by **fletcher21** » Wed Jan 28, 2009 10:04 pm

Anyone here do this, or know anyone who does? I'm thinking about picking it up to get ready for summer.

DChaps · Post by **DChaps** » Wed Jan 28, 2009 10:21 pm

I have not personally used it fletch, but it is the one infomercial product that I have almost purchased. One of my college roomates has trained using this and when I saw him last summer he was ridiculously ripped and looked in better shape at age 42 than when we were running track together at UGA. I asked him what he had been doing and he said the p90x workouts. Of course, the key is you actually have to do the work, which he said is very demanding from a time and committment standpoint. He is a college coach and has followed many different training philosophies and programs and was actually swearing by this one. Still seemed too good to be true to me, but like I said, seemed like the results were there. He was putting in about 10 hrs of intense workouts a week. So on one hand, for most people 10 hrs of intense exrcise of any kind is going to do you some kind of good. Still too expensive for my blood, but let us know how it goes if you end up buying it.

fletcher21 · Post by **fletcher21** » Wed Jan 28, 2009 10:25 pm

I'm pretty sure there are different p90x versions.. I'm not sure.. I'm not gonna be buying it, but rather acquiring it by means that pk500 would be proud of, if you know what I mean

I was told it takes 7-8 hours a week. Sounds like he might be doing some of the advanced programs. I'm gonna start out normal, and move up as I progress. I'm 5'11 and 165, so I am starting off in an OK place. I would love to get my soccer player body/energy back, so hopefully this works for me

Smurfy · Post by **Smurfy** » Wed Jan 28, 2009 11:56 pm

A few people where I work are nuts about p90x. One guy does a workout every day at lunch time.

These guys swear by it.

TCrouch · Post by **TCrouch** » Thu Jan 29, 2009 11:52 am

My buddy here at work used to be a "normal" guy. Kind of in shape, kind of out of shape. A couple of years ago on our yearly Catlina excursion, our office is at the beach and of course in swimsuits. Dude looks like he's on 'roids, he's so ripped. Not BIG, but just ripped. Of course everybody wanted to know what the hell it was, and he said it was the P90X.

When I saw this post I went back in to ask him about it, and he gave me a link to this review he had written. Hopefully it helps out. This isn't my review, but his:

To use P90X, you need a pull up bar (I know of one person who uses their kids' swingset) and either resistence bands or hand weights. For me, I used the resistance bands that beachbody.com sells, as they offer the heavier resistence that I need for bicep curls. The cost of the resistance bands is much cheaper than the cost of purchasing dumbbells (which are usually around $1 per pound, but you have two arms, so $2 per pound...a pair of $40 lb weights is $80; beachbody sells a trio of bands (30 lb, 35, 40) for around $35). You can buy a cheap pullup bar with brackets at a sporting goods store for around $20.

If you're interested in doing P90X, be committed to changing your diet. That means drinking more water, focusing on the amount of protein grams and carb grams that the P90X nutrition guide follows, and keep your P90X workout appointments as if you're keeping a doctor's appointment.

I am a P90X graduate, and my results were such that at a beach party with several co-workers, when they saw me in my bathing suit, nearly every one of them wanted copies of my P90X DVDs (that sounds hokey, but I wear a shirt and tie to work, and the only thing they'd noticed is that I had lost weight; they didn't notice that I also got cut). My body shape went from a block shape to a nice triangular shape, with a smaller waist (4" smaller), nice wide lats, a wider, defined chest, and a six pack.

Before P90X, I had a bowflex. Problem with the bowflex is that I didn't maintain a consistent schedule with it, I hated working out on it, and I'd quit after 20 or 25 minutes of weightlifting. With P90X, you're working out for an hour (or more), you're following their warmup routine, and you're doing cooldown stretching afterward. Stretching was a big thing I did not do with Bowflex, and that cost me quite a bit in soreness. With P90X, I get intense weightlifting with the bands as well as pushing and pulling my own weight with a variety of push ups and pull ups, and I get the stretching.

When you're not weightlifting, your 7th day exercise is stretching, and the third day exercise routine is Yoga. Between your pre-workout and post workout stretches, the stretching at the end of the week, and Yoga (the toughest workout IMO), your body is getting some good stretching in.

As for Tony Horton, he makes the DVD's fantastic. He's been training people for years, and that type of training comes out on the videos, because he anticipates the type of form mistakes you're going to make. "Drop down into Warrior 2, Mr Hass. This is Yoga X, My brother". Damn, look at me, I could go lower myself. You see the workouts, the close ups that the cameras give you are important closeups, not closeups for the sake of moving the camera, and Tony shows you proper techniques for these exercises. Use the chapter advance and back buttons on your remote to advance to the previous or the upcoming exercise, in case you need to see it again. That's pretty nice. And the thing about Tony is, he makes the workout fun. He's enthusiastic about the workouts without being plastic. He's funny, he's quotable, and he doesn't give you that stupid perma-grin that you'll see from other exercise videos. He knows it's hard. He knows you'll fail when you start. But you can't help but get into it.

By the end of a workout, you should be in a flop sweat, you'll be proud of yourself for working your butt off, and there'll come a time when you'll find the exercises easier and the time it'll take to reach that 90th day will come sooner than expected.

One of the P90X books tells you to take some pictures of yourself before you start, and then take them every month. They tell you which poses to do for your pictures. I took them, and honestly, I couldn't believe the difference when I looked back. After 90 days, I looked at my measurements (a couple inches on my arms, 4 inches off my waist, etc) and I wasn't overly impressed by the numbers. Then I looked at the before and after pictures. Before the before pictures, I weighed 175 lbs, having lost around 30 lbs by way of a better diet and treadmill walking/jogging/running. I was pretty athletic, but you couldn't tell by my body. No chest, love handles, no arm definition. Those were my before pictures. My after pictures showed a guy who lost 15 more pounds (5'11", 160 lbs) with a wider chest, lats, obvious tricep definition and bicep definition while standing still, no love handles, those little side belly "pockets" that you see on really fit people, and my back even looked pretty ripped.

When I started P90X, I could do 3 pullups. Now, I can do 25 in a set. The most I did in a workout was 171 pullups. When I started P90X, I couldn't do a single diamond pushup (I could do plenty of regular pushups). Now I can do 20-30 diamond pushups.

I didn't eat whatever I wanted (though even at 36 years old, my metabolism is at such a place where I pretty much could eat anything I want, but I choose to eat healthy, because I don't want to put food in my body that's going to counteract my gains from weight lifting). The P90X Nutrition guide even says if you're not going to commit to changing your diet, you might as well not do the workouts.

As for the workouts themselves, they are very tough and very rewarding. When I did the first workout, Chest and Back, I thought about quitting because I was so out of shape compared to the guys on the video. Couldn't do a diamond pushup. Struggled with other pushups, etc. Very upset and frustrated. Tony Horton, on the DVD, suggested that could happen, to not worry about the reps, and to just keep going. Best advice I could've gotten. The weighlifting/pull up/pushup workouts are fantastic.

The Plyometrics workout isn't what I expected from plyo, but your legs gets one helluva workout, and you will sweat your butt off.

Yoga, to me, is the toughest workout. An hour and a half, and the first half is grueling moving poses, and the last 7 minutes, Yoga Belly 7, is a major ab crusher.

Ab Ripper X is still very tough for me to get through, but at least it's only about 16 minutes. Ab Ripper X relies a lot on good flexibility, which I don't have, but you will get an awesome ab workout with this.

The workout I sweat the most on, though, is Core Synergistics, which you only do once every four weeks. Absolutely rigorous. Keep a towel close by unless you like watching yourself drain a bucket of sweat onto your carpet while you're trying to move back and forth in plank.

If you are willing to commit to this program, you WILL succeed. Think of it this way: For the next 90 days, you can sit on your ass, or you can bust your ass. You're still going to see the end of those 90 days, and you'll never regret the days of exercise you did. It's impossible not to succeed at this. You work your body too damn hard.

fatheadX · Post by **fatheadX** » Thu Jan 29, 2009 12:30 pm

I have not done this, but I did a little research several months ago. The key points were that you need to already be in pretty good shape to start this and it is a real commitment and you have to bust your ass. People really like it. There were a few for sale on craigslist in my area, but I haven't checked it recently. I wasn't ready to commit.

Diablo25 · Post by **Diablo25** » Fri Jan 30, 2009 9:00 am

I have tried the cardio and abs workouts and they are ball busters...but they are good, intense workouts. The cardio workout is about 40 minutes and it involves a combo of plyo, yogo and martial arts moves. The abs routine is about 18 minutes and it kicks your ass. I recommend it IF you have the $$$.

ProvoAnC · Post by **ProvoAnC** » Fri Jan 30, 2009 8:06 pm

www.crossfit.com

its free

eman · Post by **eman** » Sat Jan 31, 2009 10:44 pm

One of the guys I play basketball with went through the program and I couldn't believe the difference. He was around 5'11" 215lbs and got down to 190lbs and looks sculpted.

He let me borrow some of the video's but my lazy ass couldnt get through a complete workout. I should have stuck with it but it's pretty daunting. I need to get down to the basement and workout right now...

Macca00 · Post by **Macca00** » Sat Jan 31, 2009 11:21 pm

The DVDs can be found via the PK method. Some of them look f'ing insane (but in a good way).

fletcher21 · Post by **fletcher21** » Sun Feb 01, 2009 5:42 pm

Diablo25 wrote:I have tried the cardio and abs workouts and they are ball busters...but they are good, intense workouts. The cardio workout is about 40 minutes and it involves a combo of plyo, yogo and martial arts moves. The abs routine is about 18 minutes and it kicks your ass. I recommend it IF you have the $$$.

On the p90x site, they charge 120 bucks, plus 20 for shipping for the dvds. The misc equiptment is optional, and the only ones I needed to buy were some 10 pound dumbells, as well as the pullup bar.. 200 bucks is worth it for someone who needs to get in shape.. But paying retail is for suckers

I suggest every one of you guys try these workouts! This isn't a gimmick diet or anything, it's a way to get in shape and stay in shape.

TCrouch · Post by **TCrouch** » Wed Apr 15, 2009 5:21 pm

This post really got me to looking into that some more, and my wife and I actually started it back in early March.

I wasn't even close to "in shape" when I started, which is why I wanted to get going. I was drinking way too much beer, way too many sodas, and eating absolute crap (and on a horrible schedule), which multiplied everything. I'd tried a workout program now and then but never really dug in.

We started this and immediately changed our entire diet, following the P90X routine to the letter. The first week, I thought I was going to die. I literally couldn't move my arms the next day after a workout. It was insane. But pretty quickly, my body got used to it.

When I started this thing, I was bordering on "huge fat ass tub of lard", as I'm 6'2" and the scales were nearing 300 lbs. My scale actually hit 293 and that's when I went "you know, my dad died of a heart attack at 53 and here I am, going to be 36 and getting more out of shape by the day". I was busting out of 44" pants, and even though I could still run around occasionally and play some tennis or the random game of football with my friends, I was still completely out of shape.

I used to work out a ton while in the Navy, so I still had a lot of muscle frame underneath my whale blubber. But I've been out for 13 years now, so it's not exactly habit at this point.

To make a long story short, this thing has completely transformed our lives. I've gone from 290's to 250's in 6 weeks, and lost 4 inches off my waist. The muscle definition that I'm getting is absolutely ridiculous, and I have so much more energy than before that it's ridiculous. I know that a lot of that is simply eating a balanced diet with an actual breakfast, lunch, dinner, snacks, etc, but I have no intention of stopping this after 90 days.

If anybody still has doubts about how to get in shape, you absolutely, positively CANNOT go wrong with P90X. I can't tell you how much better it's made me feel and look, and I'm not even 1/2 way to where I want to be. The funny thing is, I still have a ton of time late at night to get my game on, because the time immediately after I get home from work is my workout time, and then I have family time/dinner time, etc...

It really isn't a huge commitment. We're talking about 90 minutes a day, but it will be one kick in the ass each 90 minutes. I even recently had to bump up to the Bowflex SelectTech dumbbell set, because nothing I had would give me enough weight anymore.

If anybody's thinking about it, I'd be glad to talk to them about it. I feel like a bloody infomercial on the product, but it's absolutely amazing.

James_E · Post by **James_E** » Wed Apr 15, 2009 5:27 pm

I'm on week 6. Wife and I are doing it together. I've lost 8 pounds, at least an inch on the waiste (went from 3rd hole on the belt to 5th hole). My wife hasn't lost any weight, but has put on some muscle and her waiste is smaller too.

It will kick your ass. Plyometrics especially will have you begging after 20 minutes. (Wife and I didn't complete the full workout until our 3rd try....) You think Yoga is easy? PFFFT!! Try Yoga X. It BURNS.

It works. But ANYTHING at this level of intensity would help you get in better shape. However... the way this is structured it keeps it interesting, with the exercises changing every 30seconds or a minute. The nice thing about this is that it is a completely spelled out plan... just follow along.

I highly recommend this to anyone on the fence about it. It is about 90 minutes per day.. and if you still eat like crap you will not see the gains alot of people do. You have to eat well.

NoJoke · Post by **NoJoke** » Wed Apr 15, 2009 6:01 pm

I'm doing it too. Dropped 20 lbs in a heartbeat, or it least it felt that way. Felt a million percent better. I play a lot of tennis also, and I feel faster and lighter on my feet than ever before. Since I've started it, I'm beating tons of guys who smoked me in years past.

I don't do the workouts as religously as I used to (I'm actually gonna start a new series hardcore in the near future), but I do enough to keep most of the benefits. After watching every dvd a number of times, I can tell you that they are neither boring or annoying yet, which I think says a great deal.

My highest recommendations.

RallyMonkey · Post by **RallyMonkey** » Tue Mar 30, 2010 10:20 am

Well dug this thread out of the backlog but had to find it. Much like a few others here i took a look in the old reflector two weeks ago and did NOT like what i saw. I'm 5'8 but tipping the scales at 210. In my defense, i'm built like a linebacker so i'm not fat, but i'm certainly sporting a belly too big for my liking. Needed to do something so....

Ordered P90X. Did a lot of research and listened repeatedly to testimonials (including Mike and Mike) and made the leap. Started the program on Sunday so did day three (arms and shoulders) this morning.

This thing is sick. I ache everywhere, not hurt, but the good soreness that is supposed to accompany a real workout....something i haven't felt in years. The plyo day, yesterday, was the most difficult workout i've ever done in my life....and apparently Yoga is worse whenever that comes.

I have to admit, as of right now there are a couple of exercises, abs in particular, that i simply cannot do. Not bad form or any of that, simply cannot. So for those of you who have been through it, did you find this early on? I figure i keep trying and eventually it will come around, but wow, what a shock that i physically could not perform the motion they wanted.

All in all i'm pretty excited about this (there's a phrase i've never used regarding working out). I shifted to the nutrition plan as well and all i keep telling myself is "get through week one" as from what i can tell that's where most people fall off.

Last question, i've noticed a number of reports that weight loss doesn't really start to be evident until week 4 or 5. Was this the case in all of your experiences as well? Just trying to get an idea so i don't get disappointed if i don't see the weight drop early on.

Thanks and on with the pain!!

TCrouch · Post by **TCrouch** » Tue Mar 30, 2010 10:38 am

Depends on what yo have to lose, Rally. Mine was pretty evident in the first couple weeks (I dropped two pants sizes in the first month), but I had a ton of fat to burn off anyway. The nutrition plan is a big part of it, as you don't realize how much bad crap you eat.

Yoga is an absolute ass-kicker (it should be coming up tomorrow if you just did Plyo yesterday). Just push through it, as embarrassing and retarded as it feels. At least you get a more traditional arms workout today

RobVarak · Post by **RobVarak** » Tue Mar 30, 2010 11:09 am

This is not a (banned subject) post...or at least it's bi-partisan. I've seen elsewhere that the class varies from 15-20 participants from both parties and that one of the creators actually comes in periodically to train with the Congressmen.

Apparently there's a group of p90x devotees in Congress. Good to see that some of them can be disciplined about something.

Danimal · Post by **Danimal** » Tue Mar 30, 2010 11:10 am

I've been thinking of getting this as well.

What I can't seem to figure out by going to the website is this a gym workout plan?

Seems like there are DVD's to watch while doing the training but it also seems like equipment is needed. Also talk about pull ups etc, my Gym doesn't have that kind of equipment.

I've read so many good things about this plan, but I don't want to order somethign I can't use.

TCrouch · Post by **TCrouch** » Tue Mar 30, 2010 11:20 am

Danimal, it's not a gym workout. Theoretically you could do it in a gym, but here's what you need:

A pull up bar.
A chair.
Resistance bands or a dumb bell set.
Push Up bars (helps, but not required).
A section of floor where you can jump around, roll around, etc.

It's all basic push-pull workouts. But while you start with nice and simple stuff like feet-up-on-a-chair pushups, later you graduate to plyo pushups, where you push your entire body off the ground (hands and feet), clap, and go back to another push up. Early pull ups turn into corn cob pull ups, where you pull up to the bar, then go side to side like you're eating a corn cob, then lower back down. It gets progressively tougher as you go.

But all you need is some basic equipment and a space in your living room. There's really no reason not to do it outside of being unable to shell out probably $40 for a doorjam-hanging pull up bar and the cost of DVD's themselves, which I think was $120 or something. I forget.

Danimal · Post by **Danimal** » Tue Mar 30, 2010 11:25 am

Thanks Terry.

I'm so g'dam out of shape right now I wonder if I could even do this program from the jump.

Spooky · Post by **Spooky** » Tue Mar 30, 2010 11:44 am

What happens after the 90 day routine? Do you start it again? Is this something that you do all the time? Have you guys that started it last year kept up with it?

TCrouch · Post by **TCrouch** » Tue Mar 30, 2010 11:53 am

Most people I know do it once, take a month or two off, and then run it again, etc. It's not something that you'd want to run back to back to back to back because you have to keep the workout appointments as strictly as you'd keep a doctor's office appointment. It will absolutely burn you out if you try to run through it non stop.

But a run through, then a month or two of cardio twice a week, or a 3 day-a-week workout with some cardio and alternating on some other body part for the third day works.

Personally, I completely screwed my foot up doing it and developed some pretty nasty ligament damage so I haven't run through it for a 3rd time and consequently gained some weight back, but I've been getting more and more pissed lately and the foot is feeling better. This was the perfect reminder for me to cowboy up and run through it again.

So, thanks

TCrouch · Post by **TCrouch** » Tue Mar 30, 2010 11:59 am

Danimal wrote:Thanks Terry.

I'm so g'dam out of shape right now I wonder if I could even do this program from the jump.

And Dan...you'll get sick of hearing "Do your best, forget the rest...Keep pushing play, keep pushing play", etc.

You don't have to do every workout picture perfect, you do what you can. You're GUARANTEED to be in better shape if you just try it. Hell, I'm all pumped up again just from talking about it.

But if you want to lose a gut, the Ab Ripper X is guaranteed to shred the hell out of you. Nothing like a full upper body workout (or legs) followed by 300+ ab moves in 15 minutes--3 times a week

I've gained some of my fat back since not working out and not sticking to the diet plan, but my abs are still as hard as a f*cking brick wall under my winter blubber layer

Diablo25 · Post by **Diablo25** » Tue Mar 30, 2010 12:39 pm

I bought and did the plan last summer and loved it. I am not embarrassed to say I have a man crush on Tony Horton. He is a stud. I went in on day 1 at 205 lbs. When the workout ended I was 188 and feeling awesome. I bought a house this past November and have been busy as hell since so my workouts have become non existent. I plan on starting the workout again - SOON. Maybe even this week. It is definitely worth it.

Danimal · Post by **Danimal** » Tue Mar 30, 2010 12:51 pm

f*** it.

I ordered it.

I spend more then that on boardgames in a week, so who cares.