p90x Review and Primer

I just pointed two different friends towards P90x and both of them received their DVDs this week. With that, I thought I'd write a review/primer for them and anyone else thinking about starting the program. Since I've gone through the damn thing 4 times now I know a thing or two about it.

What is P90x?
First and foremost, P90x is a lifestyle change. It is working out every day. Every single f*cking day whether you want to or not. It's weights, pushups, and pullups alternating with cardio days. It is relentless. When you finish a workout, there is another tomorrow. When you finish that one, there is another the next day. I know they show P90x Informercials on late night cable but it's in a far different category than the shit pedaled by Chuck Norris and Tony Little. There are no gimmicks or tricks.

To answer the question more specifically, p90x is a 90 day training program designed for the athletically inclined adult. It combines weightlifting, cardio, stretching, and a balanced diet.

Does it work?
Without a doubt, yes. My entire life I have been athletic and played sports. I dabbled with weights now and again. Almost two years ago I went through 80ish days of p90x. Then in 2008 I started up again, this time with my friend Winnie. We've kept the program going for nearly a year and we are both in the best shape of our lives. I've gone from 13 pullups to 25, doing sets of curls with 15 lbs to 30, 25 pushups to perhaps 50, and so on. I have visible chest muscles for the first time in my life and my arms are clearly bigger. I'm an avid volleyball player and I can tell that I'm jumping higher and hitting the ball harder. In my hockey leagues I have stats from the last 6 years or so and my goal scoring rate has shot up over the last year. I'm 31 and get ragged on by some of my younger friends about my age. But the fact of the matter is that for every day older I'm getting, I'm also getting a little bit stronger than I've ever been in my life.

What are the P90x workouts like?
A typical p90x 'Heavy' week is this:

• Day 1: lifting and abs
• Day 2: lower body cardio
• Day 3: lifting and abs
• Day 4: yoga
• Day 5: lifting and abs
• Day 6: full body cardio
• Day 7: rest or stretch

The lifting videos are all an hour long and comprise of approximately 25 exercises focusing on 2 or 3 different muscle groups (ie chest and back). They are an hour long and should then be followed up by the 15 minute Ab Ripper X video.

The cardio videos are an hour long each and are comprised of a series of short, intensive exercises with intermittent short breaks.

The yoga video is a 90 minute sonuvabitch that I hate. I have to be honest, I only do this video occasionally. I really hate it, not because it's not ineffective, but because I'm inflexible and hate it. I understand that not doing the video doesn't help my flexibility any but F it. I play hockey and volleyball 4 times a week. That's how I rationalize not doing it.

Intermixed with the Heavy weeks are occasional 'Light' weeks which are still six or seven days, but just have more cardio in lieu of the heavy lifting. These give your muscles time to recover - which they'll need, trust me.

The whole program is this:

• 3 Heavy weeks
• 1 Light week
• 3 Heavy weeks
• 1 Light week
• 4 Heavy weeks
• 1 Light week.

Piece of cake, no?

What equipment does P90x require?
At the bare minimum, all you need is a set of surgical tubing exercise/resistance bands. The videos show how to do every exercise with these bands in lieu of weights or a pullup bar. I have a set of these for when I travel though I don't really like them. The equipment I recommend you get is this:

• Pullups bar - ideally one that lets you have multiple hand positions (wide, narrow, etc).
• Pushup stands - I love the Perfect Pushups. Winnie has some crappy Nike ones that roll over on her.
• Dumbbells - I have the Bowflex Selecttech Dumbbells and I love them. I can select in any weight from 5-52.5 lbs and I use them all for p90x. They are hella expensive though. Winnie uses an old fashioned set but doesn't need as big a range as I do. So she gets by with weights from 2 to 30 lbs or so. (In p90 plus, currently the heaviest dumbbell I'm using is 27.5lbs so I could get by with a smaller set.)
• Yoga mat - Get the thickest one you can find. It makes the yoga and ab workouts more comfortable.
• Yoga block - I used my old Gamecube for a long time until Winnie gave me a yoga block. This helps you get in some of the more annoying poses if you aren't flexible.
• Giant Swedish ball - This you don't actually need. But after a couple p90x sessions I got bored so I swapped in bench press for a number of the pushup exercises. The Swedish ball is a passable poorman's weight bench.

What's the best way to get started?

1. Decide if this is something that you really want to do. You can't just dabble in p90x. You must jump in headfirst and commit yourself to the 90 days. That means, before you start, look at your next 90 days and make sure you have time. Make sure you don't have any big vacations. Make sure you can set a routine.
2. See if you can get a friend to do do it at the same time. It might be hard, but for me this was huge. There were many days I didn't want to workout but Winnie pushed me to (and even more days I did the same for her. :) You don't always have to workout together, but having someone to share stories with and commiserate with really helps. There were a lot of times I wanted to quit (I still experience these) and having someone else going through it at the same time makes it easier to go on. I know that some turn to the Beachbody Forums for this. My first time through p90x, Winnie wasn't working out with me so I used this blog as my outlet. Try to find something.
3. Make a 90 day calendar and put it on your wall. Winnie and I both have actual calendars for the last year. Every time we work out, play sports, or even take a long walk we write down what we did on our calendar and put a sticker on that day. On days I workout and play hockey, I get two stickers. This sounds childish but it is a massive motivator. My goal at the end of the month is to have more stickers on my calendar than there are days in the month. I nearly always reach this goal and it feels good. We also number every day so we can see the milestones (and reward ourselves). Day 90 was sweet. Day 365 is going to be even better.
4. On day 1, just go for it. Jump in and do it. Don't be afraid to hit the pause button. Do be ashamed if you can't do any pull-ups by the end. So what, grab a chair. My first day was nearly impossible. I could barely lift my arms at the end, much less do a pushup or pullup. Winnie's was even worse, she bailed halfway through the workout. (That was the only time she didn't make it through a workout though). The only day that was worse than her first was perhaps her second (the first time through Plyo X). I felt like I was going to throw up but she really looked like she was going to throw up.
5. Log everything. I don't like the p90x provided worksheets and made my own. I originally used an excel spreadsheet but then switched to using a Google Doc spreadsheet. I even set up a thing I called my "Power Score" to give me a way to watch my progress from week to week. This was a HUGE motivator for me and always pushed me to do extra reps or more weight. Doing p90x Plus, I haven't set up a fancy spreadsheet yet (I'm back to excel) and haven't taken the time to figure out a good way to graph my progress (the workouts are a little different). Because of this, I don't think I'm quite pushing myself as hard to improve as during the normal p90x.
6. Just keep doing it. The hardest part of each workout is the first 5 seconds. It's hearing the damn p90x sound that starts each video. But once I get going, I don't quit. I just want to be done. So when I really don't want to work out. I drag my ass into the living room and just hit 'Play'. Then I lace up my shoes while Tony's giving his schpeal (sp?) and just do my best. Sometimes I bonk but at least I did it.
7. If you feel like quitting, read other people's blogs (including mine). Go back to when they started the program to see how hard it was for them. If you're suffering through it, then you're working hard enough and just need to hang in there. If you're reading a blog and the person doesn't sound like he's suffering, leave spiteful anonymous comments.
   

What do I eat during P90x?
Well, that's a great question. I kinda threw aside the P90x diet plan and did my own thing. my rationale is that doing the workouts every day was going to take nearly all of my willpower. I would rather spend the majority of my mental energy tracking my workouts rather than my diet. I don't know if this was the right decision. Sometimes I hear someone say that 80% of working out is nutrition. So hell if I know. Regardless, I did improve my diet though and lost 18 pounds over the first 90 days. I've since put some of that back on in my quest to bulk up. Here was/is my plan:

• Drink diet soda instead of regular. I was probably averaging 1-2 sugared sodas per day. I switched to diet just to save the calories.
• Cut out the junk food. This was easy for me. I never really crave junk food and snacks so I just stopped buying it. Not having it meant I wasn't eating it. Done.
• Don't buy fast food. I used to eat fast food once or twice a week. I'm probably down to once a month now.
• Crank up the veggies. I was averaging perhaps one serving of veggies a day. Now I get maybe four a day. This is actually pretty easy to do. I just keep my favorite raw vegetables on hand (carrots, tomatoes, cauliflower, broccoli, etc). Then when I cook something, I just throw some it. It's pretty dumb but it works. When I make an eggs, I just cut up a bunch of whatever and throw it in with my eggs. Voila: veggie omelet. When I heat up a can of chicken soup, same thing. I just throw a bunch of carrots in. When I'm heating up dinner, I throw some veggies in a microwave dish with a top to steam them. Then when they come out I bathe them in ketchup and that's it, four servings of veggies.
• Substitute veggies or salad for my french fries at restaurants.
• Eat whole grain breads instead of white breads whenever possible because everyone tells me this is better.
• Drink two protein shakes a day. I like to use vanilla flavored whey protein powder mixed with milk. Then I throw a splash of one of my various sugar free flavor syrups in there (like the kind they have at coffee shops).
• Take one serving of creatine a day. I don't know if this really works or not but I read that it does. So I take it. I cycle both my creatine and protein three weeks on, one week off so my body does not become too accustomed to taking them.

That's pretty much it for the diet. More veggies. More protein. Less crap.

What's bad about p90x?
Well, it's time consuming. If you take a rest day each week, it's still about 7 hours of working out each week which is a lot. I've been lucky that my job choices have given me the flexibility to take that much time to work out.

Also, it's pretty hard on your body. At numerous times Winnie and I have fought through injuries. In particular our knees and shoulders have taken a beating. We're creative though so if some body part is hurting way more than it should, we don't hesitate to modify the workouts to take some of the stress off. Actually, now that I think about it Winnie kind of sucks at that which is why her shoulder is bugging her and isn't healing where as I recovered nicely from a horrific sledding crash over Christmas.

Lastly, it's pretty repetitive. By the end of the 90 days I knew every one of Tony's jokes. But I got to the point where I could do the workouts without the videos so instead I would watch TV and just crank through my worksheet.

Do you recommend p90x?
Absolutely. You need to be in decent shape to start it because it is hard and time consuming. But I think it's a fantastic program and it's all-inclusive nature is great if you don't have any workout or weight training experience. At the end of 90 days it does leave you with a feeling of "well, now what?" So we just kept going.

What's the deal with p90x plus?
Well, I'm not quite sure yet. Actually, I know more than that. I've been doing it for the last 6 weeks. It does address my above criticisms but I might have new ones. I'm going to hold out until the end before passing judgment but I will write some about it in the coming weeks. Stay tuned.

- Tom

p90x Plus

In January we finished up our 3rd p90x session and started a 4th. After a few workouts I was complaining to Winnie that I was sick of the same old workouts and drastically needed something new. Soon after, reader wossaaat commented and let me know about P90x Plus. I hadn't heard about it so his comment couldn't have been more welcome. I immediately got the DVDs and we jumped right into it.

I'll write more about it over the coming weeks but the short of P90x Plus is that you take the fundamentals of P90x, streamline the workouts, and add your core to nearly every single move. It will get old in time but for now it's a very welcome change that we have embraced wholeheartedly.

Day 344 - Closing in on a year

It's been a while since I've updated this space. But that doesn't mean I haven't been busy. I left my startup, went to Europe, played some hockey, started a new company, and, of course, have been working out.

Other than a few days because of traveling, I essentially haven't missed a day. It's been p90x, over and over and over again. I've hit 25 pullups a couple times now, am curling almost twice what I could a year ago, and, dare I say, even sporting a few muscles I didn't have before.

Winnie's been no slouch either. She's been working out with me about 3 days a week and sticking with the program as well. While I'm proud of my results, her's are pretty unbelievable. 9 months ago she couldn't do a pullup. She can now do 13. Yes, 13. And she's ripped too. I'm pretty sure that if we keep this up for another year she'll be both bigger and stronger than me. It just goes to show that some people are meant to be be stronger than others. I need to start sneaking in two-a-days or something...

Day Mother&*%#ing 177!

Where have we been? Working our asses off is the answer. We just hit the zone and kept on going. The P90x experience 2 was completed and we didn't stop. Through the next 90 days we've modified things just a bit. Winnie and I have both had a bunch of nagging injuries that we've been working around. In particular due to bad ankles and knees Plyo has been relegated to the sidelines though I want to bring it back. That workout in particular is great for my volleyball and hockey.

Speaking of which, all this working out has done wonders for my other sports. I put up the most goals I ever have this summer on each of my two hockey teams. Not too shabby...

I'll have more up here soon on the latest with our pushups, pullups, spreadsheets, wrist violence, and so on.

Day 75 - Conquered!!!

Those of you that read my first P90x Experience know that I only made it to day 78. That's where I pooped out and ultimately bailed because of travel. So close.

Well today Winnie and I made it past day 78! We crushed Back and Biceps and then celebrated with Ab Ripper X. To crown the achievement instead of the usual 50 mason twists to finish the ab workout I did 130.

I feel awesome right now. I'm proud of myself and also really proud of Winnie for getting farther than I did last summer. And I keep saying it but if it wasn't for her then I really question if I could have gotten this far again.

Check out my power graph if you haven't done so in a while. Everything is still going up - and linearly at that! It is so incredibly motivating to continue to put up more weight and more reps every single workout.

I'm also blissfully off that calorie cutting phase and eating normal again. I'm still eating super healthy (had a ton of fruits and vegetables today) but not counting everything. I weighed in at 140 this morning which is good to see. My weight bounces around so much that I think I'm going to put the scale away and only check it weekly now. Rather than let that bother me I want to just focus on eating healthy and putting up weights.

I'm actually looking forward to Friday's Legs & Back workout. I want to max out on pull-ups to start that workout every week so hopefully that record will be climbing over 22.

FLASHBACK! Day 68 - Yoga X?

I did something last Saturday that I swore I would never do again. Yoga X. Winnie made me do it with her and you know what? It wasn't that bad. I haven't done this workout in over a year and what a difference a year makes. I am significantly more flexible than I was a year ago so I can actually bend far enough to do most of the moves correctly. I'm also way stronger than I was a year ago so muscle fatigue wasn't much of an issue. Winnie did it right next to me which helped since she found my jokes amusing and commiserated with me. We did some good Drea bashing (one of Tony's lackeys that I used to find lovely but now find arrogant).

Oh yeah, I also did the Yoga workout in basketball shoes and not barefooted like the pansies in the video in an effort to feel more manly.

The thing that really shocked me about Yoga X was how I felt afterwords. With straight legs I could reach down and touch my toes. I normally fall about 3 inches short and, no shit, haven't been able to touch my toes since I was perhaps 7. And I did it last Saturday. I've tried doing it since and gotten close but not done it again.

So what can I say, I might, just might do Yoga X again since it clearly does things for my flexibility that I might not otherwise get.

I just hope next time my stupid roommate and his buddy aren't drinking and making fun of us during the workout. That's pretty demoralizing. I got that fucker back tonight though. His girlfriend is in town staying with us and I asked her if she wanted to do Ab Ripper X with me. She said yes so then he did it with us so as to not appear to be a pussy. And it crushed him which was sweet. My only regret is that Winnie wasn't here to see him crumble.

Oh yeah, sorry about all the swearing recently. But I feel it gives the blog an edgier vibe. And since I don't believe there is anyone reading this other than Winnie and my friend Jill, it doesn't really matter much.

Day 75 - Cutting Phase Over Early

This evening I chose to end the cutting phase of my ABCDE diet cycle. The short of what I did was 12 days of bulking followed by 12 days of cutting. The end result is that after the 24 days I should have a couple pounds of new lean muscle mass and dropped a bit of fat.

That isn't what happened to me.

Over the 12 day bulking phase I put on approximately 3 pounds with a average daily intake of 3250 calories. I should have put on more so this was my first hint that I wasn't eating enough and had miscalculated my TDEE (total daily energy expenditure). When I started the cutting phase I actually bumped up my daily caloric allotment to 1700-1800 calories per day to handle this miscalculation. Over the next 7 days I ate approximately 1750 calories daily with a diet full of good stuff - fruits, vegetables, and whole grains. Not much junk. Check out my calorie tracker if you're curious was I was injesting.

This morning was the start of Cutting Phase Day 8. When I weighed myself this morning the scale registered 135. That is no joke. 135 pounds. I'm 5'8" and weighed 156 lbs last winter, 148 lbs at the beginning of this P90x experience, and 140 at the beginning of my bulking phase.

The whole mess has backfired. My goal was to put on weight consisting of lean muscle mass. I am now somehow 5 pounds lighter than I was 3 weeks ago. What the fuck? This raises a ton of questions. How much lean muscle mass have I put on? Or even worse, have I actually LOST lean muscle mass (in addition to fat) over the last 3 weeks. This is crazy, 5 pounds over 3 weeks when for over half of that I was actively trying to put on weight. Let's break this down.

First off, I clearly miscalculated my TDEE. I must be a metabolic machine. My body, without any physical activity, is likely burning more calories than I gave it credit for. Next, my activity level is higher than I gave it credit for. I work out HARD 5-6 times per week. I play hockey twice a week plus 3-5 hours of volleyball. I get 20-40 miles on my bike in. It adds up I guess. I previously estimated my TDEE at about 2100-2200 calories. I'm now thinking that I'm more like 2500.

Next data point, I am still getting stronger. Nearly without exception, I continue to put up more weight or do more weight. Look at my power graph, the numbers don't lie. Every heavy workout has a definite linear trend - there are no plateaus yet. So this diet cycle didn't harm my lifting performance. That's good.

So I'm burning (at least) 2500 calories a day yet consuming 1750. That's a deficit of 750 which is high but acceptable according to this article I just dug up. Phew! Except for the bulking phase I was eating approximately 750 calories excess! So shouldn't I weigh the same as when I started?

Ugh. The short of this, I have no friggin clue what to do. I'm considering going through another bulk/cut cycle in a few weeks (but eating 500 more calories per day) to see what happens. If I end up getting fat I don't really give a shit. I can clearly drop weight insanely fast. It's worth trying.

One thing about weighing 135. I'm embarrassed by that. I'm cut as hell right now. Back when I started this 2nd P90x program I was thinking that if I could put on 10 pounds of muscle (which is a lot, I know) and be 158 I'd be huge. I didn't realize how much fat I was carrying around with me. If I put on 10 pounds of muscle now I'll be 145, huge(r), and still less than what I weighed before.

I think I need a trainer. Do those guys really know anything though?