P90X

Chances are, you've heard of P90X, the most popular DVD workout program ever produced. It's commonly featured in late-night infomercials, and knowledge of it has spread to many by word of mouth. As the name implies, it's a 90-day program designed to whip you into shape, and it works. It was produced by a company called Beachbody and it is led by none other than Tony Horton.

Tony Horton. Richard Simmons, eat your heart out.

P90X is not for everyone, though-- those who are too out of shape will find that they won't be able to keep up. For these people, P90, the less-extreme predecessor of P90X, would be a better choice, along with several other programs that Beachbody has to offer. For extremely out of shape people, you can never go wrong with the classic tried-and-true weight-loss program: diet and walking (or even jogging).


The Right Stuff

Tony Horton is extremely encouraging and does not fail to motivate you. He's ridiculously full of energy and gets you excited about the program, especially from the start. That builds momentum and makes it easier to stick to the program even if the workouts are not easy. Somehow, Tony manages to make those as fun and entertaining as theoretically possible while still kicking your butt. He nudges you out of your comfort zone without you realizing it a lot of the time.

 Tony is very spontaneous. 

The difficulty level seems to be just about right. Most workouts are intense enough to be productive and efficient, but the nature and pace of the workouts makes them very flexible and allows the user to adapt according to his/her own skill level. What do I mean by that, exactly? Time management.

As far as the regular resistance-based workouts go, a lot of the exercises are done on a time basis. You do what you can, and often there's time left over for you to catch your breath before the next movement. This works great because those who are in not-so-good shape are weaker, thereby finishing sooner because they cannot do as many reps, allowing them more time to rest. When an exercise is based on the 8-12 rep scheme, it still works well for the newbies because less resistance or weight means a smaller cardiovascular demand.

The program goes with you; once you get over that initial adaptation phase, each workout pretty much has its own difficulty level that stays constant. The ability to do more reps or more weight puts a greater cardiovascular demand on you, so you progress with the program and it doesn't get much easier or harder.

 Eventually, you too can master levitation.

This goes for the hardest video, Plyo X, as well. Tony puts emphasis on pressing pause and taking a break if you need it on all the videos, but this advice is especially pertinent for this one. The plyometic workout is hard. It never gets easy. It pushes your limits. Tony Horton recommends a heart rate monitor. When I'm in the middle of a cycle and not taking a break (There were less than 5 times when I got through the whole thing without hitting pause) my heart rate tends to be in the range of 160-180 BPM. The upper limit of 180 and into 190 territory is a ridiculous amount of exertion. I've broken 200 BPM on rare occasions-- that is almost literally maximum effort.

Plyo X: Hardcore training. 
Also, the "weight control" range is BS; it's arbitrarily named.

On difficulty

P90X is tough, especially "the X in P90X," Plyo. However, there comes a point where workout difficulty becomes more self-torture than simply a physical challenge. I am not an advocate of exercise that is this intense. I am not masochistic; I believe that difficulty has a place, but sustainability is much more important. Exercise should not be unenjoyable to the point of suffering.

Very entertaining, but it's really not that bad.

Speaking of celebrities, Isaiah "Old Spice Guy" Mustafa does P90X as well.

Structure

P90X works very well because it mostly follows the general structure of HIIT (High Intensity Interval Training) and resistance circuit training. These are extremely effective ways to lose body fat, and they also happen to be very good for building muscle on new trainees. This often results in a recomposition of body mass, which is often termed as the "transformation" that is so heavily lauded in the advertisements.

The program has a great amount of variety with over 10 different workouts, some of which are very unique. The 90 days is split into 3 three-week phases with a "rest week" after each phase. However, "rest weeks" are mostly "let's do something different" weeks instead of actually taking it easy during that time.

Not all videos were created equal. Some are easy, some are hard, one in particular is hard in another way: yoga. At an hour and a half long, this workout made me run out of patience after a few weeks, in spite of Tony's assertions that it is worth it. But it is great for developing flexibility and non-traditional strength; it is an aspect of fitness that should be appreciated, though some people take yoga too far and use it as their primary form of exercise, thereby neglecting more important things.

 

Trust me, this is harder than it looks.

Learning by Doing

There are a lot of educational and psychological benefits to P90X, which are just as good as the physical changes that the program makes, if not better. The program is great for introducing the uninitiated and the directionless into having a solid fitness regimen.

• The nutrition plan helps to change your perspective on eating and food if you've never followed a real diet before.
• It pulls you away from the common misconception that "cardio" on a machine or otherwise is all you need to lose weight.
• It teaches you the correct way to lift weights, and shows women that resistance exercise should not be avoided.
• It demonstrates that you don't need a gym to get in shape.
• It emphasizes flexibility, something that is often overlooked.
• It proves that you can change your body for the better if you want to.
• It builds character, to some extent
• It improves discipline and self-control
• It toughens you up
• Etc.

The program is great for building mental endurance and toughness. It teaches you how to "bring it"-- to transcend mental blocks and give a serious effort, focusing on the task rather than your comfort. It teaches you how to set a goal and achieve it. And it does all this without being too difficult.

P90X does not require you to be this intense and inspiring.

Words of Wisdom

Sorry for being cliché, but the journey is more important than the destination. The journey never ends; those who reach their goals and fall back to their old ways are defeating the point. I don't like saying "fitness is a way of life" because that sounds a little too serious. Rather, it's more of a hobby. A hobby does not control your life-- it's something you do. If you want to live longer and look and feel better than everyone else your age as you get older, you're going to need to be active. But that doesn't mean you have to do P90X, or try to look like a fitness model. 

Problems with the Program

The nutritional plan is fairly decent. It's outdated and not very flexible, but it works for the most part. It throws around some broscience (workout/gym "bro" + pseudoscience; false assertions made by those who look good but don't necessarily know what they're doing) which is harmless on its own aside from spreading falsehoods and ignorance.

Some of its marketing is misleading, specifically the term "muscle confusion" which is a load of pseudoscientific crap:

 Broscience and steroids. I'm dead serious on the steroids accusation-- the results on this guy were not remotely possible without them.

The program is great for getting into better cardiovascular shape and losing body fat. It is not very good for building muscle, unless the user is fairly new to resistance training. However, it does improve muscle conditioning and endurance, and even strength in certain metrics.

Also, it includes static stretching before certain workouts, which turns out to do nothing but weaken your muscles. Dynamic stretching is much better for warming up, and static stretching should be reserved for afterwards.

While most of the equipment for the program is easily justifiable, for-profit Beachbody tries to make as much money off of you as possible. The "recovery drink" mix is mentioned a lot, and is really not much more than powdered protein and sugar that is ridiculously overpriced. The equipment you do need often costs a good bit more from Beachbody than elsewhere. But I guess that's just capitalism at work.

By the way, P90X 2 is (finally) due out in December. I'm not buying it. Too much equipment, and too expensive. Tony Horton is well into his 50s and still going strong. He really is this generation's Jack LaLanne.

My Experience

My whole story is somewhat long, so I'll try to not start too far back. When I came to college, I stuck with mindset my trainer gave me, but decided all I needed to do to gain muscle was to eat more. In the end, I ate lots, gained minimal muscle, and got fatter. Next semester I decided I needed some serious change and committed to doing P90X. I ate a lot less food and worked hard, and started seeing progress pretty quickly. So without further ado, here are my before and after pictures:

This was actually more than 90 days. 

It's been a while since my "after" picture.

One Last Thing

I leave you with this gem of a parody: