ExamineHealth

 

Exercise is a critical component of your overall health; it may even be one of the most critical.  Of course, there are an infinite number of ways that one can get the requisite exercise, and many of us are on the search for the program or type that fits us best.

It is my strong belief, that just as important as what exercise you're doing, is that you are changing what you are doing over time.  Variation is a key component to consistently improving your fitness.  Our bodies are incredibly adaptable and will quickly get used to any movement or set of movements that we repeat on a regular basis.  This will initially result in significant gains, as your muscles and neurology adapt to the new movements.  However once they've mastered that particular motion, the progress will begin to taper off.  Every single muscle in your body can be worked in different ways, from different angles, at different speeds, to achieve different results.

This is why the primary concept behind P90X is variety.  They refer to the approach as 'muscle confusion'.  The idea being that you work your muscles in a variety of unique ways to keep your body from getting used to any one particular movement and hitting a plateau.  With enough changes, your neurology has a harder time locking onto a particular exercise and understanding it.  Before you know it, you're hitting it with another variation to keep it on it's toes. 

The first thing that you'll notice about the program right out of the gate will be Tony Horton.  As with all video-led exercise programs, if you can't stand the instructor, it makes it really hard to keep hitting play day after day.  Tony is an enthusiastic instructor, keeping you entertained and motivated throughout your workouts.  It is tricky to pull off enthusiastic without occasionally dipping into annoying, so it's hard to really blame Tony if he slips past your annoyance filters from time to time.  All things considered, he doesn't bother me at all; his energy is high enough to be appropriate, but not over the top.  The videos are really well done, with the workouts involving 4 to 5 total participants of varying skill levels so that you can see variations on each exercise.  There are plenty of cameras moving around so that you can get all angles of each exercise and there are never any questions about how a movement should be done.

 

THE P90X PROGRAM

The P90X program itself consists of a nutrition plan, a fitness guide and 12 different workout videos. 

Each video focuses on a different section of the body, and a different goal.  The videos consist of Chest and Back, Plyometrics, Shoulders and Arms, Yoga X, Legs and Back, Kenpo X, X Stretch, Core Synergistics, Chest, Shoulders and Triceps, Back and Biceps, Cardio X, and Ab Ripper X.  They provide charts that detail which videos to do on which days throughout the entire 90 day program.  The program is 6 days a week, 3 weeks on and one week off, for 90 days.  During the rest week, they recommend you do cardio and stretching to allow your body to recover from the beating you have been giving it.  This is a key concept to any exercise program and is implemented very well in this set.  Recovery is when you actually build muscle; the exercises themselves are only breaking down your muscles in preparation for the recovery phase.

The strength workouts themselves are probably closest to your traditional circuit training workouts.  You move through the exercises quickly, with little rest in between.  This keeps the heart rate up and keeps you sweating!  I don't think that I would quite classify this workout as volume training.  Tony frequently reminds you to keep your reps between 8-10 for strength and bulk, and 12-15 for lean muscle mass.  However, even with those rep counts, the number of sets of the exercises are high enough that you're definitely over the volume that's done for a high-intensity training session or a super-slow motion workout.  All in all, I think that the relationship between volume and intensity is about right and you end up with an incredible pump.

This is a workout that is perfectly adaptable for men and women both.  They have women in the videos and they are doing the same exercises as the men are.  Granted they aren't using as heavy of weights, but the intensity level can still be high.  My girlfriend has expressed concern about bulking up due to doing the same workout that I'm doing.  The truth is that it's very difficult for females to put on bulk the way that males do.  The way muscle is built on your body is largely a function of testosterone, and women simply don't have the testosterone levels naturally in their body to support kind of bulk. 

What this workout will do is increase the amount of lean muscle mass in your body.  This is a good thing in many regards.  Yes, it will provide that 'toned' look that is so desirable, but it also increases the basic fat burning capabilities of your body when it is at rest.  Each pound of muscle burns approximately 35 calories per day.  Which would mean, every 10 pounds of extra muscle will burn approximately 350 calories a day, or an extra pound of fat every 10 days.  Regular weight training also boosts your basal metabolic rate by about 7%, which causes you to burn more calories while not even moving.  Hopefully this is enough to convince you that strength training is an important part of overall health, even if your fitness goals consist primarily of weight loss.

Of course they do address cardio in this program, and they do it well.  The cardio workouts will definitely get your heart rate up!  The Kenpo X is a type of Tae-Bo workout that involves punching, kicking, blocking and throwing elbows.  It's a really fun workout that hits your whole body and get's your blood pumping.  The Plyo workout is one of the toughest workouts in the program.  It's basically jump training, and has you jumping all over the place in a way that absolutely pushes you to the edge.  The schedule sets you up to alternate between strength training and cardio, which is a good recipe for success.

It should be noted here that these workouts are HARD.  This is not a program to get you into shape, this is a program to get you into BETTER shape.  If you are starting from a level of no physical activity whatsoever, this is probably not the program to start with.  That being said, the videos are set up so that you don't have to be able to completely follow along the whole way.  Tony gives you ways to modify the movements to make them easier, and frequently reminds you that you can pause the video to catch your breath or take a quick break throughout.  The benefit of this approach is that you won't outgrow this system, regardless of how good of shape you are in today or in the future.  The concepts are sound and it's built with plenty of headroom, you can simply increase the weight and intensity in order to keep progressing.

Progression is an important principle in weight training, you want to make sure that you are consistently moving forward, and not getting stuck in a plateau.  This program is very well suited for this, with workout tracking sheets included for each video so that you can keep track of your weights and reps.  This allows you to get direct feedback on how you're progressing.  This way you can monitor as your strength increases to ensure that it continues.