Munchkin's 2011 P90X Journey - Starting 3/28

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Hi All,

About a year ago I started P90 and did quite well. I lost 23lbs in 90 days. I lost about 10” off my waist and felt better than I did in a long time. After I completed my first round of P90 I thought I could do 2 or 3 more rounds by this time, but life happened and I never was able to stay on track. There was life and the same old boring routine with P90. Late September 2010 I purchased P90X and the first week of October I started the P90X lean program. That lasted a month before I slipped, fell and hurt my knee. When my knee felt better I tried to go at it again, but once again life happened. After I completed my marketing graduate course I decided to take a term off from school and concentrate on balancing out my life. This includes exercising, spending time with the family, and finding time for me.

A year ago I was concerned more about completing the exercises than eating right. This time around I’m concerned with eating right and doing the best I can with the exercises. I know that P90X is a tough workout, but I do plan to “Bring It!” every time I place a P90X DVD into the PS3 and press play. I restarted P90X for the second time. This time I am doing the classic routine. I started on 3/28 and I’m currently on week two. I know the first two weeks is going to be adjustment for me. I’m hoping this time around no injury occurs and I can complete the full 90 days of P90X. Before I started P90X on 3/28 I knew completing the first week would be hard for me as I did not exercise on a regular basis since the end of October, and I could feel it in my body all last week and even today as I write this post.

I took my weight and measurements the Sunday before I started and will take them again at week 4, 8 and day 91. To lose weight, get in shape, and get healthier.

My goals are eating right and to do my best when it comes to exercising daily. By the end of the program if I can drop between 20-30lbs I know I will have more than accomplish my goals.

 

I've been doing the P90X workouts for about a year now Munchkin (along with limited standard weight training exercises). If I have one compalint about P90X workouts I think that only having one workout devoted to legs, and no heavy training on chest muscles, is in error, so I do supplement the P90X workouts by tossing in some standard bench press, leg extensions and leg curls every week.

Truth be told, I have not lost much weight at all. However, I have never been stronger at any point in my life. My muscles are much more developed now than they were a year ago, and I had been doing weight training for years prior to starting P90X. Perhaps that's why I didn't lose much weight - perhaps I gained muscle mass.

 

Have you noticed a change in how your body looks?

As Tony Horton would say I am a marshmellow. I am obese and need to lose weight. I know I have 50+ lbs to lose and anything else beyond that is a bonus.

I'm not trying to get ripped. Just get health and in shape. If I get ripped cool and if not oh well.

As for the leg exercise; I believe the combination of Core Synergy, Plyometric and the Leg muscle training videos provide plenty of leg exercises.

If I survive P90X and get down to 225lbs or so I am thinking about going with Insanity next.

 

Well yeah - I'm stronger with more muscle development now than I've ever been in my entire life. When I started the workouts, the number of reps and the weight I used is much less than what I do now. It's probably most noticable on the various pullups. I could only do a couple of pull ups when I started, now I can rip off 10 or 12.

I don't know if you'll get ripped - or exactly how you define ripped for that matter - but as a man, it's impossible to do those exercises and not gain muscle mass.

I have no intention of going up to Insanity - although supposedly MC2 (Muscle Confusion 2) is coming out in the not-too-distant future, which I may purchase.

It's due to be released later this year.

 

Since you have been doing P90X for about a year now I am curious to get you thoughts on something. I have a very hard time with yoga X; I mean I can't do more than 10 minutes. I use to be able to completed almost the whole CD but since I haven't exercise in a while I'm lucky if I get up to 15 minutes.

Would swapping Cardio X for Yoga X for the first round of P90X be good for me or should I try to push through Yoga X? My goal is to get through 90 days and hopefully go one more round doing P90X as it was intended to be done. Right now, it is just a matter of getting some weight off.

I thought of swapping Ploymetric for Cardio X, but after completing Ploymetric for the 2nd time I noticed that I was able to lift myself off the ground a bit higher than the first time and I was able to complete 40 minutes of the video instead of less than 30. I'm thinking I might see the same improvement with Yoga X, but I don't know if I will see those types of improvements since I didn't do more than 10 minutes of the DVD last week.

I exercise with each DVD until I cannot exercise any more. With asthma and being over weight by 50+ lbs, I consider exercise that reach 30 or more minutes an accomplishment.

 

Well, I would definitely try to push yourself past 10 minutes, even if it means taking a break for a minute between some of the exercises. Seriously - even a break for as little as 60 seconds to towel off, and hydrate a bit is sometimes all you need to get through it. I do that myself for a whole host of exercises. Like if I'm doing pullups, and I want to do, say 12, but it's at the end of the workout and I can only knock out 8, I'll push pause for 20 or 30 seconds, and then hop back on the pullup bar and knock out the last 4.

I'm no fitness expert, so I'm unsure. If you can really only do 10 minutes, then Cardio X has about 10 minutes of Yoga in it, so I guess that's an option. Yoga is still a challenging video for me, even after all this time. I still lack the strength (or perhaps balance) to do the last 10 minutes of Yoga X properly when they are doing all of those one-legged moves. I don't put my foot down, but I certainly cannot keep it parallel to the floor throughout the enitre sequence either.

I'm kind of thinking the same thing - you might see decent progress if you keep pushing yourself. Yoga is about 50 minutes Yoga and 40 minutes balance positions. I don't do the balance positions at all, because I rarely have 90 minutes to work out, so I just do the first 50 minutes that are Yoga. While I think it's unlikely that you'll immediately jump from 10 to 50 minutes, perhaps you can press pause for a minute, and then go back and try to get to the 15 minute mark of the video. I seriously believe that short breaks combined with forcing yourself to go a little further will produce better gains than popping in a video that will never require you to do more than 10 minutes of Yoga.

There's no shame in pushing the pause button. I've been doing it for a year now, and you're nuts if you think I can run through 50 minutes of plyo without pushing pause. In fact, by the midpoint of plyo, I'm pushing pause after each 4 series of exercises (instead of doing all 4 twice and then taking a break). While I would never encourage you to try to push yourself if you think you are physically incapable of continuing, I have to think that taking a break before continuing is preferable to giving up.

 

I don't consider it giving up if I give it my best and don't make it through the full workout. If I completed 25% the first week, 33% the second and by the third I’m up to 50% of completing the DVD I consider that accomplishments and it is showing improvements each week. That is what I want and it is working to an extent.

This past week I skipped the workouts on Friday and Saturday. The first week I did both Friday and Saturday’s workout on Saturday, didn’t skip just did both in one day. This past week I skipped Friday’s and Saturday’s workout, because I was tired and didn’t have the energy to even start them; forget trying to finish them.

I hope I find it in myself to stay focus and complete all the workouts this week. This is the big week as I should see some progress over the past two weeks. I know the legs workout I may not see the progress like I want due to not completing it on Friday like it should be done; however, the Kenpo (even though I didn’t complete it this week) I definitely should be able to complete as I never had a problem with that workout.

Week 2 done – not the way I wanted, but done, and here comes week 3.

 

I like the Kenpo workout. (Strangely, until I purchased the video's I always thought it was Kempo.) I agree that of all the videos it is probably the first I was able to complete without taking breaks.

 

My right knee went out last night with Plyometrics. I didn't fall but now I won't be able to completed P90X. I will be lucky if I can go back to P90. I am going to try P90 tonight and hopefully once my knee starts to feel better I can start P90X again.

I'm only 33 and my body is slowly falling apart....

 

I hope you have a knee brace. Seriously - if you don't, make sure you buy one before trying any workout which involves intense use of your legs. You can pick one up at any sporting goods store for about $20. It will provide more support for your knee.

As far as doing workouts, I'd say that in addition to Plyo, that Kenpo, Yoga, and Cardio are all out of the question as well. There's no reason why you couldn't keep doing the workouts that focus on the upper body though...