Friday, June 4, 2010

Day 83: Why P90X isn't fair

"If you start to get squirrelly, come out of it." -Tony Horton- Legs&Back

Before I say anything, the title of this post is not an excuse or me whining. It's a challenge.

Why I think P90X is not fair (and this may be different from person to person). When I started P90X I weighed 168lbs. Currently I weigh 149lbs, which is fantastic. Here's where the fairness comes in... nearly all of the exercises P90X requires are body weight (squats, lunges, pull-ups, chin-ups, sit ups, push-ups, the list continues). Granted, yes, when I started I could only do 20 chinups, now I'm doing 25ish, but where's the glory? I've lost 12% of my body weight (resistance) and am now doing 15-20% more reps. To me, that's not all that impressive - it's more like EXPECTED results.

So, what do I plan to do about this imbalance? Well, for starters, yesterday's legs and back I wore a backpack containing two of my heaviest college books (Anatomy and Physiology + Biology) throught the whole workout (with the exception of wall-squats). This brought my weight to 173lbs. Doing chinups and squats at this weight is far more note-worthy and respectable than doing them at my new weight. So my hopes for the rest of Phase 3 will be to continue challenging the system with improvements. Without added resistance, I'm mentally beating myself up.

I'm not yet sure what I'm going to do with ab-ripperX, perhaps 1 book on my chest, but we'll see. KenpoX tonight after work. I'll see what happens with the backpack.

4 comments:

  1. I have weights that clasp around your hands; if you choose to continue that could be a good addition to a kickboxing workout. Good luck with your last little bit!!

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  2. Hm I might do that in the future, thx for sharing the tips!

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  3. Wow! Way to step up the game. I'll be interested to hear results.

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  4. So far, from one day's experience. DEADLY.

    I was so hungry this morning I could have eaten a whole grocery store, including the structure itself.

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