I have no intentions of ever doing P90X, but I'm curious as to how effective the program is for working your legs/lower body. The people in the commercials I've seen look like they have ridiculous chicken legs, and the exercises seem to put a real heavy emphasis on the arms. If that's that case, then it's not anything I'd be interested in. This is exactly what I do: I peruse the crossfit website and will occasionally do one of their workouts when they look reasonable. They can be really tough and a great workout. Although I agree that a lot of the workouts are random and appear to be thrown together without much thought. There's also a weird culture among those who workout at crossfit gyms. I've never heard "cultfit" before, but it seems appropriate. I get bored easily sticking with a routine for too long, so I have to keep my exercising diversified. I try to lift as JeffPrevails described above 2-3x a week, but also play lacrosse a couple times a week, bike to places when I can (beach cruiser and flip flops, not racing bike and jersey. It's still exercise), surf, and my favorite is a bootcamp class at my gym. Lots of plyometrics, sprinting, and distance running up and down bridges with a group to stay motivated. I was a pretty serious athlete who worked out hard and stayed cut throughout highschool and college, but I never payed any attention to my diet. After college I read a bunch of literature on sports nutrition, starting eating right, and within two months you could wash your clothes on my stomach. Today I started a vegan diet. My ultimate goal is to try it for a month, but I'm setting a more realistic goal of two weeks and see where I am at that point. If after a month I'm going strong, I may try for another month or so. It's mostly out of curiosity, and it's something I've wanted to try for a while. The idea was jumpstarted because I just came back from a vacation where I ate like shit for a week and just felt generally unhealthy and lethargic. It's a lot more difficult than I thought. There are a lot of foods (cereals, oatmeals, protein powders) that appeared to be vegan that actually aren't.
P90x is a lot of cardio and resistance type training. That's fine for most of your body, but your legs are huge muscles. Strength and endurance, though tied together, are not the same. Hitting the gym and performing deads and squats will put some real muscle on you. Most of the people who use P90x want to lose weight and have good muscle definition. I mean, think about the company name: "Beach Body." Can it get any clearer? If you follow the programs religiously, you'll definitely shed fat and end up looking fitter. If you want significant strength gains, you're going to have to either supplement this program with a weights program, or find something else.
Like the others said, just download it. But I can tell you that you will get bored. I lost A LOT of weight doing only two months of the program. By the third month the weight loss began to drastically slow down and there were no more visible results and strength gains were very limited. That just kills any momentum and morale you have so you end up just quitting. That's why I have only come across just one person who has done the program more than once.
This is what I don't like too much about Crossfit. I like workouts that focus on building up core strength through fundamental workouts (i.e. deadlifts and squats and pullups) but focusing on breakneck speed just means the reps will be limited and not executed nearly as well as they could. Some speed-based rotation workouts will naturally work (stair workouts) but not Olympic lifts. I also think nutrition isn't emphasized nearly as much as it should be. Of course other bodies and goals will mean my experience won't relate to everyone, but I think the vast majority of weight loss is related to your diet and not what you do in the gym. I put class and work in front of staying in shape this past year and once I have some more free time (or at least a better suited schedule), I'll get my ass back in the gym and it's warm enough to bike to class and work. I like to get acclimated with small day to day steps so it's easier to keep progressing.
There's a really heavy emphasis on nutrition in our box, but we're also very realistic. Telling you to never eat sugar, grains, gluten, or dairy is retarded. Telling you to not be stupid about what you're putting in your body isn't. At the end of the day, weight loss is merely a caloric deficit. Performance is an entirely different matter, and eating shitty food will definitely hamper performance - whether we're talking speed, strength, or endurance. The closest I come to programming oly lifts in a workout are power cleans or power jerks. We use 50 to 65% of a person's 1 rep max for the weight. And even that only comes after I'm confident in a person's ability to string the movements together with a consistent mind for form and stability. I don't play around about it, and will pull anyone off a workout if I feel like they're compromising form and safety for speed to the point of injury or completely bastardizing the movement.
Out of curiosity, how many of you are only looking for a beach body from a workout vs. functional strength and endurance?
My post probably alluded to me being the beach body type but I'm a small guy looking for functional strength and endurance. I have to eat a stupid amount to gain weight. I wrestled for a pretty long time and ran CC and track too so I like the basic and functional yet intense as hell workouts we did in those.
I'm looking for a beach body. I have a pretty good build right now; I'm not buff and I'm not scrawny. I just want definition. I'm constantly searching for the best workout to achieve that, outside of an hour of cardio, a limiting diet and some crunches. This P90x shit sounds promising, but real time consuming. I already work out for a couple of hours a day, 5-6 days a week. My concern is that I don't know if I can do anymore than that.
Sounds like you need to lose body fat. Just hit the weights (compound exercises) and diet. Diet obviously being the more important factor.
I'm definitely doing it just to get fit and stay attractive to women. I don't want to shit on anyone's lifestyle, I just don't see the point of busting your ass on weights when you work a desk job. Most of the time when someone says "I can bench 350" I hear "I'm compensating for a small penis and/orwas bullied as a kid" I mean, its one thing if you're competing in something or a porn star, but I'm just missing something here. This view has only been enforced by my two friends who weight life and joke all the time about their small dicks. No I don't have visusal confirmation.
The only reason I don't live on the streets and eat squirrel meat is women, do you really think I'm going to work out for any other reason?
I run every other day, 2-4 miles at a shot and vary the weights I carry based upon my mood. Anywhere from 2.5 to 10 lbs in each hand. At the end of each run, I do roughly 100 yards of lunges (while holding the same varied weight of dumbbell). I'll do some calf exercises on the steps or planks if I feel like it. Don't have any complaints. Carrying weights when I run is great multi-tasking, as I can do different arm exercises (though I look stupid) and cover distance at the same time.
I had a few reasons when I started MBP. First and foremost was to just be strong when doing shit outdoors. This ranges from either hiking, to hunting or playing with my son. Secondary is for women. I want to look good naked for them.
There's always working out to improve overall quality of life. Example: Guy came in to see me. He's a teacher in a middle school. "Desk" type job - he teaches academics not athletics. But was obese. He couldn't move up a flight of stairs without being sorely winded. He couldn't lean down to change his tire on his car. Getting in and out of his car was extremely difficult. He's not here to impress the ladies (though he wouldn't mind it) and he's not here to pump his ego. He's here because he wants to make his life...and his later years...bearable when it comes to his health. He wants to be able to move and function without medication. Those are all, I think, very good reasons. As for women - busting ass on weights does a LOT for bone density and of course, overall strength. Too many women are convinced they have to starve themselves and lift stupid pink weights that barely outweigh the paperweight on my desk to be 'toned' and 'not bulky'. Of course, vanity plays a significant role, but you'll find that many people (regardless of the programming they're following) findthat they enjoy the improvement in their overall lifestyle, and that's what makes them stay with it.
Yub yub. I can lift anything I own that I need to lift, as high as I need to lift it. I have two motivations to diet and exercise, to look better, and to allow myself to drink more. If I cut my food down to 1000 calories a day, I can drink 1000 calories and if I work out a bit, I'll lose weight.
I mentioned it in the work out thread but Im really just in it to have the beach body. But it has just been easier to stick to a work out program dedicated to strength training since seeing strength results happens much faster than shedding body fat. The real shitty part is that diet plays an almost bigger role and is ten times harder to keep to since it encompasses much much more time in your life than the hour or so a day you are at the gym doing easily structured lifting routines. If there was a pill that shed fat, Id do it in a second but still work out for definition*. Im not looking to run a marathon and Im not looking to bench press atlas stones on top of beer kegs filled with sand. * and as Crown Royal notes in his next post Id work out for the great endorphin rush that keeps you in good spirits.