Tuesday, April 20, 2010

First day of P90x--my initial response

Okay peeps--so this P90x thing is really popular. All my friends here tried it a few months ago--I think most of them lost interest after a few weeks, but they all had good things to say about it.

Since the recovery after my knee surgery I have been walking with a friend, which I think was great post surgery but now I don't think it is doing anything to tone my muscles. I think walking is a great low-impact exercise to burn calories and relieve stress, but it's not going to get my abs or my ass in shape. I try to get to the gym 2-3 days a week as well, but I usually only have 30-40 minutes to get in a workout there.

My friend Courtney is kind of in the same boat as me I guess--we're both stuck with these post-baby bodies with calorie burn from nursing trailing off and still some weight to lose. I decided to give P90x a try to copy her (just kidding). I must say though, It kind of irritates me to work out in my living room when I pay for a gym membership every month. I guess I'll still try to get to the gym too.

So the premise of this program from what I got from the little info booklet---you have 12 weeks, each week you attempt to work out 6 out of 7 days. The workouts range in time, but are generally over an hour. Some days you do two videos (like abs + arms & back), or other days it is just one video. Over the twelve weeks it rotates you around 15 videos.

So today I did Phase 1, week 1 (Chest & Back + Ab Ripper X). It was about an hour and a half. My first impression is that the guy leading the workout is annoying as hell. He reminds me of an SNL spoof of a gym guy. My second observation is that don't have ANY of the equipment needed to do the exercises for chest and back. I know I know, I should have know this ahead of time---the entire chest/back workout was pretty much various pushups and pullups. I did all the pushup exercises *holy crap it was a lot of pushups!* and for the pullups I improvised and used one of the resistance bands my physical therapist gave me to work out my knee. All and all I think I would have gotten the same results if I just went to the gym and did 150 pushups spaced out over an hour. The ab workout on the other hand was awesome. It was pretty much all the same ab exercises my personal trainer would make me do. It seriously was so hard I almost felt sick to my stomach. I haven't done ab stuff since my c-section in August--so a loooong time.

I think I'll give it a week so I can get a taste of the other videos. We'll see. I definitely need something to step it up--I am stuck at 205 lbs---ugh. In my defense work has been super stressful and I haven't had time for a lot of things lately, including the gym.


2 comments:

Olya said...

Interesting! One of the girls I work with is doing this p90x workout and I can see the results already( she's on week 3). So good luck. I was gonna try it too but it's like $150 and I really don't feel like spending the money. I know, I know, I buy a lot of crap, that's not important, but I guess I'm not ready for p90x yet. Plus, I'm kind of scared. I was told it's HARD!!!

Unknown said...

Hey, consider trying the Lean instead... I am preferring that line up. It is the exact same videos just organized differently. It focus a tiny bit more on the slim down and a tiny bit less on the bulk up. You can google for the schedule. I wouldn't start over, I would just pick it up on the day you are on. Although, Kyle is doing the classic and loves it so whatev. =) I mean, honestly... you end up doing the same videos, but ... I don't know. I like it better even though it is probably just in my head. Hey, whatever works!