The Reason Behind the P90X Recovery Drink

There are a lot of questions about the P90X Recovery Drink. People want to know if they really need it. Why is there so much sugar in it? Isn’t all that sugar bad for you? Can’t I just use a protein drink? Etc. These are frankly all good questions, so I put together a discussion of the science behind recovery drinks in general

Aerobic vs. Anaerobic Exercise

I previously discussed this issue when I talked about heart rates. To quickly summarize though, aerobic exercise is when you are exercising below 80% of your maximum heart rate. At this level, you are basically doing what most people consider cardio exercise. You are using oxygen to create energy. You will be able to talk and exercise at the same time.

With aerobic exercise, you are primarily using fat as your energy supply. Think of carbs as the kindling to get the fat, which are the logs, burning.

With anaerobic exercise, your heart rate is above 80%, and you are using carbs as your primary, and possibly only, energy source.

Carbs Are Only Stored In Muscle

The heading isn't totally accurate, but mostly accurate. For the purposes of muscle energy, carbs, specifically glucose and glycogen, are stored in muscle for immediate anaerobic energy needs, as well as the kindling for burning fat. While it is safe to assume that a person has a virtually unlimited supply of fat, they have a very limited supply of carbs.

The amount of carbs stored in the muscle varies by the individual, however the average person should have about an hour’s worth of carbs available for anaerobic exercise.

Carb Crashes

You might have heard of a carb crash, where an athlete collapses during exercise. You might see a marathon runner or triathlete just collapse. Someone lifting weights might just sit down and pass out. This is because they ran out of sugar to power their muscles. Also, the brain runs primarily on carbs, so this is why they are incoherent as well.

This is why they provide Gatorade or similar drinks only during longer runs or competitions. While distance athletes are engaged in aerobic workouts, if they go on long enough without taking in any carbs, they will eventually run out. This is also why someone doing P90X or Insanity may become weak or nauseous during a workout.

P90X and Insanity Deplete Your Carbs

Insanity’s interval training has you workout anaerobically for extended periods of time. P90X is essentially circuit weight training, which means that you are in an anaerobic state for long periods of time as well. All of this means that you are burning up the sugar/carbs in your muscles for an hour or more at a time. This is why Tony Horton and Shaun T sometimes recommend that you have recovery drink during your workout; to replace the burned up carbs. If you have a very hard workout, you might burn up your carbs even before they hour.

This is Why You Need Carbs/Sugar

When you look at the ingredients of the P90X Recovery Formula, you find that it has 39 gms of sugar. The reason for all of the sugar is that simple sugar is quickly absorbed into the blood, and can quickly replenish the burned up sugar in the muscles. If you don’t replace the sugars, you will drag, and also be slightly mentally impaired until your body breaks down stored fat into sugar. Breaking down fat takes a relatively long time.

Protein Drinks are Not Good for Recovery

As you can see, you need carbs for recovery, not protein. Protein is in the P90X Recovery Drink as it is absorbed later and does help with muscle building and repair. However, protein is absorbed in the small intestines, and it takes about 30 minutes before the protein is absorbed into your blood. Either way, it will not replace the carbs in your muscles will not satisfy your immediate energy needs. Protein has its place in muscle repair, but not as a recovery drink itself.

Even more important is that studies indicate that when you have a lot of carbs within 2 hours of working out, it increases your glycogen synthesis and storage. This means that you will be able to workout longer and harder in future workouts.

Recovery Drinks Fill The Purpose

While the P90X Recovery Drink is built into the P90X Nutrition Plan, you don’t necessarily need it after every workout. If the workout is not strenuous, then you can skip the recovery drink. I would say that if you are going to look at alternatives to the P90X drink, you need to make sure you are looking are making the right comparisons. For example, some recovery drinks advertise 30 servings for $30. However, they only have servings of 110 calories, so it is actually $30 for 15 servings since the P90X recovery drink has 220 calorie servings to adhere to the P90X Nutrition Plan.

P90X and Insanity Gift Guide

As the Christmas shopping season picks up steam, I thought I would offer a few gift ideas for P90Xers and Insanity fanatics, and those who love them. Some of these gifts are obvious, while others might actually be more interesting as trivia than gifts. Either way, consider those who will appreciate them most.

First, you might want to review my post about what to do after P90X. It has several potential gift ideas already. However for less obvious ideas read on.

Bring It!

Bring It! is the long awaited book from Tony Horton, due out on December 21, and is a great present for any P90Xer. I can go on, but this is probably the best present for the Tony Horton fan in your life.

Insanity Fast & Furious

If you are a fan of Insanity or P90X, Fast and Furious is a great workout to add to your library. It is a quick plyo workout that is a great to use for P90X Doubles, or in case you miss one of the other cardio workouts. At only 23 minutes long, it still probably burns more calories than Cardio X, and is definitely a great option when you are short on time.

P90X One on Ones

After you have done P90X, you can get tired of one or more workouts. The One on One workouts are P90X like workouts that you purchase individually and primarily used to add variety to a round of P90X. They can also be used to add upper body resistance training to Insanity. The Fountain of Youth is possibly the most popular workout in the series as it is a valid 45 minute version of Yoga X. The latest workouts are samples for the upcoming P90X:MC2 program, and can add both variety and increased intensity to the workouts they might replace. For Insanity owners, 30-15 is a great upper body workout.

Pull Up Bar

While P90Xers probably have a pull up bar already, Insanity fans probably don’t and will definitely need one for Asylum. Asylum is the going to be the Insanity graduate program, but won’t be at least until late February. It is going to be a full body workout and include pull ups. So get your Insane relatives psyched for the new workout, and get them a pull up bar.

The Gymnast and A Marine Story

Dreya Weber naked. For many men, and some women, that is the only description necessary. While many people know that the “Gorgeous Dreya Weber” from Legs and Back, Core Synergistics, etc, and P90X cover model is an aerialist, who appeared in Pink’s Grammy performance, Michael Jackson: This Is It, and other venues, few people know that Dreya has starred in two award winning movies. The Gymnast was her first movie, where she stars as an aging gymnast, who realizes she is a lesbian. This is probably a topic of conversation itself, but her husband, Ned Farr, director of P90X, is also the director of the movie. It is definitely a unique gift for many P90Xers. A Marine Story is a similarly themed movie that you can preorder now.

Super Troopers and Beerfest

Another P90X celebrity that few people know is Eric Stolhanske, the one legged guy from Plyo X, who is a member of the Broken Lizard comedy troupe. Broken Lizard is behind several popular movies, at least with some groups of people, like Super Troopers and Beerfest. So, enjoy Eric at his non-plyo best.

Bowflex SelectTech 552 Dumbbells

If you really want to make the P90Xer, or for that matter the Insanity fanatic, in your life happy, nothing beats a single set of dumbbells. Bowflex SelectTech 552 Dumbbells are an adjustable set of dumbbells that meets the needs of just about any Beachbody need. Tony heavily endorses this product in P90X+.

PowerBlock Classic Adjustable 5 to 45 lb Dumbbell Set

The PowerBlock Dumbbells are similar to the Bowflex dumbbells, but has some advantages and disadvantages. There is more limited range of motion with the PowerBlocks, but they are more compact. It is a personal choice, so I list both.

PowerBlock SportBlock 24 3 to 24-Pounds Dumbbell Set

The other adjustable weight sets might be overkill for women, but the PowerBlock SportBlock 24 Adjustable 3 to 24-Pounds per Dumbbell Set seems perfect. It accounts for the required weight range of about 95% of the women who do P90X, and is a lot easier to move around the house. These are also significantly less expensive than the larger sets of adjustable dumbbells, so they can also serve the needs of about 75% of men’s weight needs for P90X. You can supplement this with a good, strong band for exercises that would require more resistance.

Shakeology

While I realize that many people over pitch Shakeology and sell it like snake oil, I do not know a single person who uses it daily as a meal replacement and has not lost significantly weight within several weeks. It is a great way to jumpstart someone’s New Year’s resolutions in a very easy way that can save a lot of money when you consider the cost of the food it replaces. If you want to know how to get it for as low as $2.30 per serving feel free to send me a message here. I have used it for a long time. My family uses it. My kids ask for it, and I still have every single friend and business acquaintance I sold it to. I think that speaks for itself in this day and age. There is even a money back guarantee.

Body Gospel

Insanity and P90X are not the right program for everyone, so if you have someone in your life who might appreciate a Christ-based fitness program, Body Gospel might be perfect for them. While still challenging, it is designed so that even people with more than 70 lbs to lose, will get a great workout.

Bowflex Strapless Heart Rate Monitor for Women

Both Tony Horton and Shaun T recommend the use of heart rate monitors to insure you are in the right calorie burning zone. Also, many people want to know how many calories they burn in a workout. The Bowflex Strapless Heart Rate Monitor for Women is non-intrusive and great for women looking for this type of function.

Bowflex Strapless Heart Rate Monitor for Men

Without going into too much detail, the Bowflex Strapless Heart Rate Monitor for Men is basically the same heart rate monitor as the 10S mentioned above, but styled for men.

Bowflex Heart Rate Monitor with Strap

While the functionality is basically the same, the Bowflex Heart Rate Monitor with Strap model has a chest strap that is used to measure the heart rate, vice the watch component. Besides of being less expensive, many people find straps to be more accurate than their non-strap competition. Some people find it annoying, but many people say they get used to it, and like that it is more accurate. All models are presented for your convenience.

Fitness is a Great Gift Year Round

While this list was made for the Christmas season, the fact is that fitness is a great gift to get for anyone, for any reason. Don't wait for New Year's to start a new fitness program. Beachbody's programs are available to you, whenever you need them.

Your Heart Rate Questions Simplified

Questions about target heart rates are common with P90X and especially Insanity. Shaun T frequently tells people to check their heart rate and to make sure it’s safe, whatever that means. This blog intends to clear up the common questions about heart rates and their effects on exercise.

If you have a short attention span, and don’t care about why, the most important thing to remember is that your body is the best heart rate monitor. Your body will tell you when you need to stop or slow down. That being said, the rest of this article explains this and discusses the broader concepts.

Max Heart Rate

In theory, your body has a maximum heart rate, which is the fastest that heart can theoretically beat. The common estimate for max heart rate is 220-your age. So if you are 20 years old, your max heart rate is 220-20 or 200 beats per minute. If you are 30 years old, your max heart rate is 190. If you are 40, your max heart rate is 180 and so on. This again is just the widely accepted estimate formula of max heart rate. To actually get your maximum heart rate, you have to go to a lab and have your max VO2 measured, where they put a hose in your mouth to measure what's in your breath, and you run on a treadmill to see at what heart rate you stop burning fat.

Biology 101-Your Body Stores Fat, But Not a Lot of Carbs

Before I go on, I should cover a basic, seemingly unrelated, issue. As people know well, your body stores energy as excess fat. Your body does not store any extra protein, and stores a limited supply of carbs, as simple sugar and glycogen, for immediate muscle and brain needs. The average person has about an hour’s worth of carbs stored in their muscles for very hard exercise. If you eat a lot of sugar, insulin converts it to fat as quickly as it can for storage for future needs. If you eat a lot of protein, it too is inevitably converted fat for storage. You will see why this fact is important shortly.

Target Exercise and Heart Rate Zones

Really the discussion about heart rates is irrelevant except as it impacts your exercise. Specifically, there is Aerobic and Anaerobic exercise zones. Aerobic exercise is when your body uses fat as your primary energy source, and Anaerobic exercise where sugar is your primary energy source. Heart rate is what drives your body from Aerobic to Anaerobic exercise zones. Briefly, when your heart beats faster, you move from Aerobic to Anaerobic exercise zones.

Aerobic Exercise

The aerobic exercise range is generally considered when your heart is beating from 60-80% of your max heart rate. So if you are 20 years old, and your max heart rate is 200, your aerobic range is 120-160 beats per minute. This is the range where your body is theoretically burning primarily fat for energy.

You still need carbs to get the process going, but during aerobic exercise, you burn about 80% fat and 20% carbs. Think of carbs as the kindling wood to get a fire going. Given that you have a virtually unlimited fat supply, and are burning carbs slowly, you can exercise for a long period of time.

You can use a heart rate monitor, but the best test is seeing if you can talk while you exercise. If you are exercising aerobically, you should be able to talk while exercising.

Anaerobic Exercise

If you are exercising above 80% of your max heart rate, you are theoretically in your anaerobic range. This means that your body is using sugar, aka carbs, as your primary energy source. When you are in the anaerobic range, you will be breathing heavily and you won’t be able to talk while you exercise. You may be gasping for breath.

The place where you potentially run into a problem with anaerobic exercise, is that as your body has a limited supply of carbs, you can run out of carbs. If you exercise anaerobically for an extended period of time, you can run out of carbs and experience a carb crash. However as was stated, you have about an hour’s worth of carbs in your body, and if you are doing Insanity or P90X, you should be ok.

It is Still Better to Exercise Anaerobically

While most people naturally assume that it is better to burn fat instead of carbs, you still burn more calories in the anaerobic range. The faster your heart rate, the more calories you burn. It is that simple. If you want to burn calories, and push your body to its limits, anaerobic exercise is more effective even though you are not burning as much fat. Your body will begin to convert fat to carbs for energy.

What This Means for Insanity

While it may be controversial, I recommend that people skip the heart rate monitor, and let their body be their monitor. If you are “Digging Deeper!” you will be in the anaerobic range for most of the program. If you try to stay in the aerobic range, you will likely stop every 20 seconds and have to wait for another 20 seconds and barely get a workout in. Insanity wants you to go all out and do it perfectly and stop when you lose your form. That means you need to ignore your heart rate and listen to your body. Of course this assumes that you have a healthy heart, but you shouldn’t be doing Insanity if you don’t.

What This Means for P90X

P90X is very similar to Insanity in most ways. P90X is essentially circuit weight training, which will keep your heart rate in the anaerobic range for much of the workout. There is however more rest during the workouts than with Insanity, so you can sustain the workouts for longer periods of time. You won’t have to worry about your heart rate with Yoga, and you will likely be in the aerobic range for Kenpo X and Cardio X. During Plyo X, you will likely be in anaerobic range for a good portion of the time.

Just in Case

If you do find that you begin to feel lightheaded, develop a halo vision, or become weak during an anaerobic workout, you may be suffering from a carb crash. If that happens, you should take a break and have some recovery drink. This again assumes that you are otherwise healthy and well hydrated. Again, as the workouts always say, you should see a doctor if you have any problems.

Don’t Worry About It

The human race was exercising long before the advent of heart rate monitors, and we seemed to do fine before that. I just don’t want P90X and Insanity to start looking like a 1990s aerobics class, where everyone stops every 5 minutes to check their heart rate and wait until their heart rate goes down. Their hour workouts ended up being 30 minutes, and results went down. Unless you have your Max VO2 measured, you are really just guessing anyway. Just learn to trust your body and you will be fine.

When Will I Begin to See Results?

Given all of the focus on incredible results in the infomercials, it is natural for people to want to know when they will personally see results. After all, P90X and Insanity are extreme programs that deliver extreme results. However, individual results vary greatly, as do the timeframe and nature of those results.

Body Fat NOT Weight

Before I begin the article, I want to stress that your most important measure of success with either P90X or Insanity, or any other exercise program for that matter, is body fat. If you are decreasing your body fat, assuming that you don’t have an eating disorder, you are improving your physical condition. You are losing fat, even though you are possibly increasing your weight due to muscle gain. That is very good. More muscle burns more fat.

While there are several ways to calculate body fat, the easiest and most consistent method I found is on teambeachbody.com. The Body Fat Calculator on teambeachbody.com is under Eat Smart > Nutrition Tools. If you don't have a teambeachbody.com account already, click here for a free one.

Use that to track your real progress.

Insanity vs. P90X results

Insanity and P90X are clearly very different programs. Insanity is a plyometric cardio program, while P90X is essentially a circuit training program with different forms of cardio thrown in. This means that you will get different results with both programs. For example, Insanity is clearly a lower body workout, and will improve your lower body more than any other program ever could. P90X is 65% an upper body program, and you will see great toning and/or muscle development in the upper body.

Given that the leg muscles are naturally the largest muscles in your body, when you start to work them, especially with a plyometric workout, you will put on leg muscle with Insanity. This means that your fat loss will be offset on the scale by your muscle growth. So, for most people, the scale is not the best way to determine your results.

While P90X will also develop muscle, the muscle growth tends to weigh less, so it is easier to lose weight on the scale. However, that does not mean that the scale will tell you the whole story, as you are still putting on muscle, while losing fat.

The Cruel Irony

The speed of your obvious results is also impacted by how much you have to lose. If you are already in good shape, eat well, and are basically doing everything right, your results will appear much slower than someone who has lots of fat to lose. So don’t expect immediate changes if you only have 10-15 lbs to lose. If you have less than 10 lbs to lose, you might not lose any weight as you can easily lose 10 lbs of fat, while gaining 10 lbs of muscle.

Early Results Come From Dietary Changes

Assuming you have significant weight to lose, you will likely see measureable weight loss in your first weeks. This is due to a change in diet. While you may eat a lot following the P90X or Insanity nutrition plans, you are eating whole foods that are not processed. You will be eating less sodium, which means that you will reduce pounds of water retention. A great deal of water retention is in your fat cells, so you will reduce body fat.

Also, you will be eating less processed carbohydrates, which have a high Glycemic Index. While you don’t have to understand the science behind it, foods that have a high Glycemic Index cause an insulin release, which causes carbs to be converted to fat for storage. Also high Glycemic foods are likely to increase cravings, while low Glycemic foods keep your blood sugar steady, reducing cravings, so you eat less.

Diet Does Matter

A frequent question that comes up is to whether a person can just do the exercises and not follow the nutrition plans. In short, you can. You will be in better physical condition to a certain extent, but you will not get the weight loss or aesthetic results that you might be looking for.

Insanity Results

If you don’t have a lot of weight to lose, or are in good shape already, you will likely not see a lot, if any, weight loss in the first few weeks. As a matter of fact, you might not see much over the life of the program. However, you must calculate your body fat. It will be extremely likely that you lost many pounds of fat. Again, you have to get what the scale says out of your mind. That is possibly the worst measure of success with Insanity.

I would especially advise you not to listen to when other people say that they started to see results. Everyone is very different. If someone says to expect to see results the next week, again don’t listen. While you might, you very easily might not. While such comments might provide enough encouragement to get you to the next week, it can be a major set back to when results don’t come. Again, don’t worry about the scale. See how you do with body fat and your fit test.

P90X Results

P90X results tend to be much more consistent. Many people tend to lose weight early on if they follow the nutrition plan. Also for people who have not recently done any strength training, they tend to find that they are slimmer from the weight lifting. However, that is not universal. Again, if you are in good shape, you results will come slower. You should see your numbers go up, with regard to reps and weights, but you might not see too much weight or fat loss early on.

However if you have good results early on, your results might slow down once your body gets rid of all of the sodium and adjusts to the lack of processed foods. This is a good thing. Then you are down to a combination of fat loss and muscle gain. While it is impossible to state how the results may come for every individual, if you follow the P90X nutrition plan, you will generally lose 1-2 pounds of fat a week on a steady basis. While that may be a major slow down from the initial weeks, it is a good sign that you are now tackling straight fat.

Conclusion

Doing P90X or Insanity, you will see major physical improvements. However with regard to results, you have to stop focusing on your weight and focus on your body fat. A future post will focus on what happens if you aren’t losing body fat, but for now just be aware that everyone is different and that you should trust the programs, as they have worked for millions of people around the world.

What Equipment Do I Need For P90X?

One of the biggest benefits of P90X is that it does not require an expensive gym membership. However, that does not mean that you don’t need any equipment. P90X strength training does involve resistance work, which means some body weight work, like pull ups and push ups, but there is also a need for dumbbells and/or bands.

I should also say that you have to prepare your kitchen as much as you prepare your exercise equipment, however that is the subject of a future entry.

My Ideal Recommendations

A Pull Up Bar

There are a lot of pull up exercises in three of the P90X DVDs; Chest and Back, Legs and Back, and Back and Biceps. While you can do pull up alternatives with bands, I strongly recommend a pull up bar if your circumstances allow them. Having a pull up bar provides for both maximum resistance and the most consistent resistance.

Pull up bars are actually very simple; literally they are a bar. With rare exception, pull up bars install in a doorway. Most of them involve drilling into the doorframe to attach supporting clips, and the bars are permanently installed. However, there are some bars which are removable and don’t require damaging the frames for support.

The P90X Chin Up Bar is a removable bar that can install in most door frames. It is a great quality product that grabs the top of the doorframe to hold it up. It also has multiple handles to allow for varied workouts.

Dumbbells

P90X uses resistance training three days a week. For that you should use dumbbells. The question then becomes what weights? While the answer is typically dependent on the individual, I would recommend that you get at least 3 pairs of dumbbells; one light, one medium, one heavy for you. However, the more you can get, depending on what you can afford, the better. You can also get a good band to make up for a few dumbbells.

For Men

If you can only afford 3 sets of dumbbells, I would recommend that the three minimal pairs would be are 5, 15 and 25 lbs. Ideally, I would recommend that you fill in the 5 lb increments and go up to 35 lbs. If you have limited money, buy the three recommended and fill in the lower holes first. Then you can buy more as you need them and can afford them.

There are also the adjustable dumbbell sets, which are easier to deal with. The two common choices are the Bowflex SelectTech dumbbells and the PowerBlocks.

 

 

 

For Women

Women can generally try pairs of 5, 10 and 20 lbs. As you have the money, you can buy the 15 lb weights, and any heavier weights as you believe you need them.

Bands

I want to be very clear that there is nothing wrong with bands, and if they are your only options, you will get a great workout from them. The biggest recommendation is that not to get cheap bands. Cheap bands can snap, and when they snap, it hurts and they can injure you. While you can get a single band, a set is better as they are more versatile. Compared to dumbbells, they are also much less expensive.

The Beachbody sets are the best that I have found to this point. They sell three sets, and are described at this link. For the purpose of doing pull ups, you need an attachment to put it up high enough so that you can use a pull down motion. There is a Band Accessory Kit that has a strap that lets you use a standard doorframe for the purpose.

Other Equipment

There is a variety of other equipment that you might want to consider, but is not as critical as the other equipment. The first thing you might need is a yoga mat, if you do not have a good floor surface for yoga and stretching. A yoga block can also help as it provides some extra stability for people who are beginners to yoga, as well as add extra challenge for those who are more experienced or limber.

PowerStands were invented by Tony Horton to give you a fuller range of motion with push ups. If you want to get the most out of your chest work, you might want to consider these.

Conclusion

I know it seems overwhelming to buy a few things after you spend money on the P90X. However, consider that you have these costs as a one time payment, as opposed to spending many hundreds of dollars a year on gym memberships. More important to consider is the improvement in the quality of your life. It works out being a very small cost to pay.

Basic Kenpo X Footwork

One of the biggest problems people seem to have with the Kenpo workout comes from basic footwork. The Kenpo workouts use three basic stances; Neutral, Forward, and Close Kneel in Kenpo terms.

A Neutral stance is the mother of all stances, in Tony terminology. It is the same as the running stance used in many of the Plyo exercises, with the heel-toe alignment. The easiest way for me to get you in the right position is to recommend you put a broomstick or other pole pointing directly to the TV.

If your right foot is forward, put your right toe on the inside of the pole.

Put your left heel on the outside of the pole, with your feet shoulder width apart. Now angle your feet 45 degrees towards the TV. Bend your knees a bit. Your weight should be balanced 50/50.

Just reverse the feet if your left foot is forward.

To get in the Forward stance, all you do is turn your back foot so that your toes point forward. Your back leg should be straight, and your weight balanced 60/40 (front/back). Most important, your hips and shoulders should turn with the foot so that your body is facing forward.

A Close Kneel is basically a Forward stance with your back leg bent and you kneel a little lower. You are on the ball of your back foot, instead of your whole foot.

Putting It Together With Punches

There are 4 primary punches used in combination with the footwork; Jab, Cross, Hook, Uppercut. Jabs and Hooks are only thrown with the front hand, in a Neutral stance. Cross and Uppercut are thrown with the back hand, in a Close Kneel. There is an important reason for that.

When you throw a Jab, Cross Combination, your feet start in a Neutral stance, and you jab. As you throw the Cross, your feet and body switch to a Close Kneel stance. As you go back to the Jab, your feet switch back to a Neutral stance. And so on.

When Tony says, "Hit with your hip and your body!" this is accomplished by changing stances properly. Again, all you are really doing is moving your back foot, and the body should go with it.

Your feet do the same thing with the Hook, Uppercut Combination. The harder you throw your hips and your body into it, the harder your workouts.

I will try to create videos soon. Let me know if you have any questions.

What to Do After P90X

One of the most common questions from P90X graduates is, “What’s next?” They want to continue growing, but at the same time they want variety. Even Tony Horton has Variety as one of his 11 rules of fitness. So this blog has the alternatives and things to consider when making the critical decision.

First I have to say that I am happy there is a decision to be made. Unfortunately, way too many people don’t even complete P90X. But you did, so I congratulate you. I then have to ask you 1) What did you like most about P90X? and 2) What are your goals for the next 90 days or so?

Generally, I would have to say that there are 4 common alternatives: 1) Do another round of P90X, 2) P90X+, 3) Insanity, or 4) P90X One on One. I will be writing separate reviews and descriptions for each of the programs, but in the mean time, I am going to write a general overview, so you know what to consider. Before I go on, I should say that there will be P90X:MC2 coming out in late 2011. But until then, these are our options.

The Alternatives

Let me first give a 30,000 view of the alternatives. Clearly, you know what P90X is like, and you know what to expect. If you like P90X, it might very well pay to stick with it. I don’t really need to say too much about that.

P90X+

P90X+ is very much like Core Synergistics XXX. There are 5 workouts in the set and it uses most of the workouts from the base P90X set as well. Of the 5 workouts, there are 2 strength workouts that take up 3 of the days, Interval X+ which is somewhat of a Plyo X replacement, Abs/Core+ that replaces ARX, and Kenpo Cardio+ that replaces Kenpo X.

As mentioned there will be a more detailed review later, but essentially P90X+ is much more about muscle endurance than strength. The workouts move quicker and get you sweating more. The exercises are much more like Core Synergistics, where you are doing multiple moves in the same exercise for a time period. For example, there is one exercise where you do one pull up followed immediately one push up for two minutes. There are very few max rep sets.

The benefits are that it gets you sweating and the workouts are only 40-45 minutes each. They do provide variety. The downside is that you will potentially lose some size and strength. However if you like Core Synergistics, you might really like P90X+.

Insanity

Insanity in many ways makes P90X look easy. I describe Insanity as Plyo XXX 6 days a week. It is much more intense, as you are going all out from one exercise to another. It will definitely improve your endurance and leg strength much more than P90X ever could.

The workouts are shorter than P90X, ranging from about 30-41 minutes in Month 1 and 47-59 minutes in Month 2. You add an ab workout 1-2 days a week. The program is also only 63 days long, so there is less of a commitment.

The downside is that Insanity has relatively little upper body work. There are some Core Synergistics type pushups, but they are timed and not max rep. Additionally, it doesn’t help your flexibility as much as P90X doe. It can also be very taxing on your legs.

Here's a video of Insanity for those people who are not familiar with it. It is actually much harder than they make it out to look. The sweat is very real.

P90X One on One

P90X One on One are individual workouts that are released at a rate of one a month. As of this writing, there are 26 available. These are essentially videos of Tony Horton working out in his private gym. While that might not sound attractive, it does allow for versatility. One on One isn’t intended as a program with a specific schedule. You basically use the individual workouts as you choose to, ideally to add variety to the basic P90X set. For example, Fountain of Youth is essentially a 45 minute version of Yoga X. 30-15 is an alternative to Chest and Back. Plyo Legs can replace Plyo X. There is one called ARX2. The Volume 3 workouts are being used as the test kitchen for P90X2.

Here is a video of Tony describing the new One on One volume and how it relates to P90X2.

What Should You Choose

So if you want to know what to choose, it again comes down to what are your goals and what do you like. I have to admit that I strongly recommend that people do Insanity, at some point in time, as it provides incredible improvements for your legs. There literally is no comparison for that. You can potentially do a hybrid, where you combine P90X and Insanity to try to get the best of both worlds. However if you don’t like Plyo X, don’t bother with Insanity.

With regard to P90X+, if your primary concern is variety and you want to change things up, and you like Core Synergistics, this is potentially the program for you. However, you will maintain, as opposed to improve, in all areas, except weight loss and endurance.

One on Ones are definitely a way to mix things up. The workouts are very similar in nature to P90X workouts. However, you have to pick and choose individual DVDs, or just get all of them. With 26+ possibilities, there are clearly many options. However there are probably only a few you will use on a regular basis.

What Matters Most

In the end though, what matters most is that you do something that will.  It is great if it meets your goals and likes, but doing any exercise is always better than doing no exercise. You can very quickly lose your strength gains, while gaining back any weight, if you do nothing. P90X is great in that it keeps you coming back for 90 days. Ideally, you should keep coming back for a lifetime, no matter what program it is.

What is P90X?

The textbook answer to what is P90X is that it is a DVD based home fitness program featuring Tony Horton. That is like describing Michael Jordan simply as a basketball player. P90X is actually the most popular home fitness program every put together, with well more than 1,000,000 copies sold.

P90X is produced and distributed by Beachbody, which is the leading producer and distributor of home fitness programs, as well as nutritional supplements. As with all Beachbody programs, P90X has both fitness and nutritional components. While most people know P90X for the 12 DVDs that come with the program, a significant portion of the results come from eating properly.

For a detailed description of the different exercise DVDs, you can follow this link. Fundamentally though, there are 5 strength workouts, 3 aerobic workouts, 2 core workouts and a yoga and a stretch workout. The P90X schedule uses the Muscle Confusion philosophy, which essentially implies that the workouts do not repeat on a frequent basis, so your muscles do not get used to the workouts. The schedule has you do strength workouts every other day, three days a week. There is then yoga and 2 cardio workouts on the alternate days. There is also on optional stretching workout for your rest day.

The workout schedule is divided into three different phases of 4 or 5 weeks each.

One thing that is important to note is that P90X derives it’s name from Power 90 Extreme. Power 90 is an extremely popular program from Tony Horton, and a follow up program was a natural. Extreme means that P90X workouts can be extremely tough, and the workouts generally range from about an hour to an hour and a half a day. If you can take the commitment, it will provide results.

The nutritional program is also divided into three phases. The program starts out with a low fat/low carb approach and increases carbs and decreases protein in the subsequent phases. While more details will be covered in later entries, the surprising part of the nutrition plan is that it actually has people eat many more calories than they think they need. The high protein means that there is a lot of bulk to the food. Also, given that you are doing hard workouts for more than an hour a day, you are potentially burning an extra 1,000 calories a day.

In the end, what really makes P90X is Tony Horton. If you don’t like Tony, you won’t like P90X. If you like his corny jokes and overall energy, you will stick with P90X. There are plenty of workouts out there, but what made P90X so popular are the results of hundreds of thousands of people who spread the word. The reason they had the results is that they stuck with the program, and the only reason they stick with this program, above all others, is Tony Horton.

If you want to purchase P90X, you can follow this link.

Introduction

I started this blog, because I noticed that 99% of the questions to the P90X Facebook Groups and Pages have all been asked before.  P90X has been out for about 5-6 years now, and there are few if any questions that have not been asked about the program by multiple people.  Frankly, most of the questions have been asked hundreds of thousands of times.  That being said, what has not changed is the formal guidance from Beachbody, which produces and distributes P90X.

For that reason, I thought it would be helpful to write a book that supplements what Beachbody formally distributes.  I contacted Beachbody, which while enthusiastic about the project, doesn't currently have the time to support it.  There are also issues that we need to address as to how to fairly treat me as the author, while I am also an Independent Beachbody Coach.

In the mean time, I created an outline for the book, and I thought I would start to write the book anyway and post it as a blog.  This way I can make the information available to the people, and frankly it demonstrates my ability as a Beachbody Coach to others.  While being a Beachbody Coach implies that you are a sales affiliate, and doesn't necessarily imply additional competence in fitness or the programs, I pride myself on my fitness and nutritional knowledge and background, as well as my familiarity with the programs.  Besides of P90X, I have completed Insanity, P90X+, Turbo Jam, 10 Minute Trainer, and tried a few other Beachbody programs.  I also have a black belt in American Kenpo Karate (the style that Kenpo X is based on) and competed in martial arts tournaments around the world.  Admittedly, this also helps me to establish credentials in this area.

If at anytime you have questions, please feel free to contact me for answers or to recommend it as another chapter in the book.