Friday, January 30, 2009

P90x Reviews - Chest, Shoulders and Triceps



In my last P90x Reviews, I wrote about P90x Kenpo X, in that review I mentioned that it was probably the weakest workout of the whole P90x System, and I still stand by that remark. But now I am writing about P90x Chest, Shoulders and Triceps, and let me tell you, it is a whole new story. Where I did not feel challenged enough in the Kenpo workout, I felt pushed beyond my comfort in the Chest, Shoulders and Triceps routine. I have done a lot of push-ups in my life, and mostly I have done the just normal ones, like wide, standard, military, and even diamond push-ups. When I did those push ups in the past I usually just try to pump out as many as possible till I cannot do any more. It was different in this P90x workout, Tony has you do slow motion push-ups, which is just torture for my mind and body, because it wants to go fast, just like Ricky Bobby from the Talladega Nights movie. Doing slow motion push-ups was like a culture shock to my body, but even more on my mind. I found myself exhausted after the first P90x exercise, and that has not happened to me at all, ever. Sometimes they even mix in slow motion push ups with fast motion push-ups, or in my case slightly faster than slow motion push-ups. But Like a trooper I pressed on and made it through the workout.

The P90x Chest, Shoulders and Triceps workout is 55 minutes and 44 seconds long, it is an extreme upper body workout and you will not be disappointed when you finish this workout, if you do you should up all your weights and do more push-ups. This routine will provide you with a mixture of muscles pumping moves that will target new muscles so you can build your strength and definition. In this P90x routine you will mostly be doing push-ups, triceps kickbacks, dips, and flys, making sure that you hit ever part of your upper body. No muscle gets left behind!!

You will probably encounter workouts that you have never done before like Two-Twitched speed Push-ups, and then you will do some of the old and faithful workouts like Chair Dips and Overhead Triceps Extensions. You will pretty much do everything in this workout and that is why the P90x exercises are so great. They bring so much to the table; it is like a feast on Thanksgiving, because there is such a wide variety of food or exercises that you can feed on.

At times you will probably use weights or bands during this workout, I found it more comfortable to use dumbbells for most of the exercises in this routine. But you can do whatever you feel like, I know dumbbells are pretty expensive, so resistance bands will probably be the way to go, and they work just as well, maybe even better. Just make sure you go at it with all you got and do not give up.

Wednesday, January 28, 2009

P90x Reviews - Kenpo X



Today my review is on the P90x Kenpo X workout routine, this is one of the cardiovascular workouts for P90x. To give you a little history of what Kenpo actually is, it was created by a man named Ed Parker Sr. and he founded Kenpo after he was exposed to a wide variety of martial arts around the world. He brought a new concept to American fighting, using your whole body as a weapon in every motion, nothing is wasted. P90x decided to bring this into the system for it intensity, balance, coordination, stamina and of course fun.

With my own experience with P90x Kenpo X, it was okay for the first few times I did it, but I felt with this workout that it was definitely the weakest of the whole p90x system. Now it is still a lot of fun, I mean you are punching, throwing elbows and knees, and kicking, you feel like you can kick someone's butt afterward, but if you are already a cardiovascular type person, this workout might not get your heart rate up like you want it too. I will say this, the great thing about this workout is that it brings a different flavor or a nice change from all the other workout routines.

The workout itself starts with some nice little stretches, so you can get the tendons and joints all warmed up before you being the next section. It is very important with this P90x home workout that you do not fully extend with your punches and kicks, because you do not want to be banging your joints, you can get injured that way. It is also very important to know if you are doing too much on your hamstrings so do not try to kick so high that you tear your hamstring apart. The first exercise you will do is called Twist and Pivot, in this exercise you will stand in a fighting position, but you will just be turning your torso, and pivoting on your feet, you should feel your hips exploding like you are swinging a bat. After this exercise you will begin to do a series of exercises that have you do hooks, uppercuts, and jabs. It might take a little bit to get used the motion of it all, but once you get it, go after it with all you got, so you can get your heart rate up. My favorite routine in this workout is called the knee kick. You being in fighter's stance, you then reach out like you are grabbing someone by the collar pulling them down, and at the same time you are bringing your knee up. It is pretty much like you are bringing someone's face to meet your knee.

Even though I thought this was the weakest workout that p90x has to offer, I still feel like out of all my P90x reviews, I had the most fun with this Kenpo X.

Friday, January 23, 2009

P90x Reviews - Legs and Back


Alright, so with the P90x Legs and Back routine, you are going to be obviously working out the legs, and at least with me I can usually do a heavier workout on my legs. When I went to the gym I was able to lift a lot and continue to go on and on, and work out for about a whole hour. So I thought this should not be to bad, it should at least be my strongest workout. Technically, this is my strongest workout, but I was surprised on how much this P90x challenged me, without hardly any weight lifting.

You will start off by doing the normal warm ups and stretching you do in almost every p90x exercise. After the warm ups and the stretching are done, hold on, because you are about to do 23 different legs and back exercises. Just to let you know, you will be doing a lot of lunges and squats, and then once in awhile they throw in pull ups , so you can work out your back.

There really are some challenging works in this routine, I do not know if you have ever done lunges and squats for hour but it is hard, and besides that there are these lovely exercises called wall squats which is really what this P90x review is for. I was doing this workout the other day and one of my roommates were just about to leave and saw me doing a wall squat, and apparently i did not look to happy, because they thought I was mad at something. Truthfully, I was mad, I hate doing wall squats because they hurt so bad, it has been my least favorite leg exercise ever since I was a little kid and we had to do it in P.E.. I do have to admit, it is a great workout and probably the most challenging exercise in the P90x Legs and Back routine. The first wall squat you do is 90 seconds long, for 15 seconds you sit just above 90 degrees, and then you sit below 90 degrees for 15 seconds. You do that for the whole 90 seconds. If that is not hard enough for you, do not worry the second wall squat routine is single legged. This is 60 seconds long, you sit at a 90 degree angle and then you lift a leg off the ground for 10 seconds, and then you switch legs. You will absolutely love when you switch legs.

This is a great workout and you should enjoy it very much.

Wednesday, January 21, 2009

P90x Reviews - Yoga X


Okay so before I begin writing on this P90x Yoga workout routine, I must use a disclaimer before. I do not do this with any of the other P90x Reviews. Disclaimer: I am in no way flexible, Yoga is definitely not my strongest workout. If you are a Yoga fanatic, I am sure you will do a lot better at this workout than me and I am sure you will be challenged. I have been doing this Yoga routine for awhile now and I have seen some flexibility changes, but I am in no way a yoga master.

So first and foremost, this is the longest workout P90x has to offer, it is about an hour and a half so make sure you have enough time to do it because you do not want to stop in the middle. For anyone who has never done Yoga, you are going to be in for a surprise, seriously, you will probably struggle. A lot of people either really enjoy this workout, or get completely frustrated and give up on it or substitute it. I urge you, if you are one of the people who cannot stand it, continue to press on, because it will help you so much with the other workouts and avoiding injury. But if you absolutely hate it or have some religion problem with it, than there is always the P90x X Stretch routine, it is about an hour and it is not as tough as Yoga, but you will still get a great stretch from it.

Let me talk about some of the routines that you will be doing in this P90x Yoga X routine. If you are not used to Yoga you are going to be uncomfortable, I recommend if you are shy you do this where no one can watch you, so you can remain focused on your stretch. You start off the workout with Sun Salutations, in this exercise you will do what is called downward dog, and upward dog, with push ups in between. You will pretty much be doing those positions all the way through the first 45 minutes, so do not get bored with the repetition. During that time you will also do what Yoga calls warrior positions, there is warrior 1, 2, 3...and reverse warrior. You will hold these positions and sweat like crazy. You will also be put into positions that will make you feel like a pretzel, but just push on.

The next 45 minutes you will be doing balancing positions. Warning, you might fall over a lot, if you do just get right back into it. There will be some exercises in this second half that you will look at and say, "What?! They want me to do that?!" There is an exercise that is called shoulder plough, you pretty much are standing on your shoulders with your legs straight up in the air, and then you drop your legs down by your head, it is wild. It is also an advance move, so if you can't do it, do not push yourself to far, because you could possibly hurt your self. I have personally made some great advances with that exercise.

P90x Yoga probably has one of the best endings ever. If you can just make it to the end you will enjoy the cool down time. You pretty much just lay on the ground and do not move and it feels great, they do some crossed legged humming stuff at the end, I do not do that, that's to weird.

Monday, January 19, 2009

P90x Reviews - Shoulders and Arms


The P90x Shoulders and Arms routine focus obviously on your shoulders, biceps, and triceps. They are what people like to call the glamour muscles. So if you are serious about wanting defined and strong arms than you do not want to take this exercise for granite. In this p90x workout you will need either dumbbells or p90x resistance bands. Personally I like having both, there are some workouts that are more comfortable with dumbbells and you can keep better form, but then there are some workouts where I think you get a better workout from the bands, just go with what ever you feel comfortable and what you feel you can get the most out of.

Before you start this workout, there is about 10 minutes of warming up, this part is very important because you do not want to inure you arms or your shoulders, especially your shoulders. So make sure you do all the stretches and work out that rotator cuff till it is good a ready. Tony Horton will explain to how the workout is going to happen. You pretty much rotate from the shoulders, biceps and triceps, in that order, over and over again till the end of the workout. Once you complete a section, you do it over again. There are some pretty great workouts in this P90x routine. I use the resistance bands more than I use the dumbbells. Any workouts that are for the biceps I like to use the bands because you can adjust them by standing on them to get more resistance, plus the resistance is heavier than any dumbbells I own. I do like to use the dumbbells if I am working out the triceps. I feel that I can control the dumbbells more and keep better form. The p90x resistance bands also work great for the shoulder exercises.

A few of my favorite workouts include the p90x resistance bands, one of them is called the deep swimmers press, and it works out your shoulders. With one-foot forward and one-foot back and the back foot stepping on the band, start with your hands by your waist and then push up with your arms stretched high, and then do it again. That is one of my favorites for the shoulders. One of my favorite exercises for the biceps is called the one arm isolation curl. With one arm you hold in isolation with tension, and then the other arm does four curls and then switch arms, make sure you never lose tension. Like I said earlier this is a great workout and out of all of my P90x reviews, I feel that this workout is one of the best. Especially if you push yourself.

Friday, January 16, 2009

P90x Reviews - Plyometrics

Today, I am doing my P90x reviews on the Plyometrics workout. You might ask yourself, "What is plyometrics?" And that is a very good question, because before I did p90x I also had no idea what it was either. I wish I knew what it was before I did it, just so I could know what I was about to get myself into. Before you start the workout Tony Horton says, "This puts the X in P90x," so you know that it is going to be an insane workout.

Plyometrics is also known as jump training. It is used a lot with sports, especially with sports where jumping is very important to be successful. Now you might think, "What is the point of doing plyometrics, if I do not play sports?" Well, if you are serious about doing P90x, you will do this workout. And really who cares if you are not playing sports, this workout kicks butt and you will hate it because it's hard but enjoy it at the same time because you know its working.

You start off doing some warm ups like you do before every workout, except with this workout you do about 2 minutes worth of lunges before you even start the workout. Each workout is about 30 seconds long and like Tony says, "you can do anything for 30 seconds." Um...yeah...you will be surprised how long 30 seconds can feel like. If the exercise goes for a minute, that usually means it is the last of that section, and then you repeat that section. Pretty much you do a lot of jump squats and jump lunges through the whole workout. The nice part about this workout is if you get to the end, you get to do a bonus round that involves actual sport moves. It is actually really fun and refreshing.


The plyometric workout is one of the workouts that you will continue to do through the whole three months. So like my other P90x reviews, you need to make sure you do not take advantage of this workout, make sure that you give it your all every time you do it, because this workout will help you with other workouts that you will have to do later. Each time you need to try to get deeper in your squats and lunges, but if you find that this workout is too much for you, than you can always substitute it for the Cardio X DVD.