P90X questions?

lporter229

My husband has the P90X videos and I was thinking about adding them to my routine. Currently I run three days a week, do full body strength training videos (such as The Firm, 30 Day Shred) two days a week and Vinyasa yoga two days a week. I would like to keep the same schedule (running is my main love and I do not intend to give it up), but I am not sure how the P90X program will fit into it. I know that you only work certain muscle groups each day. Will I get any benefit from only doing it two days per week? How often does everybody else do it? Any suggestions on how to rotate the videos? Thanks for the help.

lporter229

Bump

jarrettd

Depends on your goals. Strength? Flexibility? Endurance? Balance?

I would think you could "cherry-pick" the P90X workouts to fit your schedule and goals. I'm focused on strength training right now, but I still like to do Kenpo-X and X-Stretch now and then.

Describe what you are hoping to achieve...?

lporter229

Mostly strength and muscle tone. I burn a good number of calories running and I do not want to lose muscle. Of course, flexibility and balance are an added bonus, but I work on these through yoga.

jarrettd

You could cycle through some of the dvd's. You've already got the cardio, so you'd want the ones that are geared to strength.

I would suggest: Chest&Back, Shoulders & Arms; Legs & Back; Back & Biceps; Chest, Shoulders & Triceps; and Ab Ripper X. They are all challenging and use a combination of dumbbells and body weight exercises. You'll get out of them what you put in them, even with only 2 days per week. You may not progress on the modifications as fast as doing the whole program, but you'll surely make gains.

The thing is, you need to make sure you are getting recovery days. Don't do Legs & Back the day before or after a challenging run, for instance. And don't do upper body two days in a row. Ab Ripper X is only 15 minutes, and it's tacked on to the end of all the strength sessions. It would be a good choice by itself almost any time. But I see a potential for overtraining if you try to cram in too much, too close.

Your biggest challenge with maintaining muscle is nutrition. If you are eating a deficit, the best you can do is preserve what you have. To gain muscle, you need to eat a little more than maintenance. This is often a deal-breaker for women who are in a "diet" mindset. I struggled with it myself.

Good luck with whatever you decide!

lporter229

Thanks so much... you pretty much answered all of my questions. I am considering only doing the upper body workouts, at least at first, and alternating them with my runs. Good idea?

SofaKingRad

If you are doing P90X on top of all of the other things you're going to do, you will be one exhausted and very fit person. P90X kicks your *kitten*, even if you just stick with upper body workouts. Good luck to you!

SPNLuver83

You could do just like the kenpo, cardio and yoga "classes"

adamb83

I do this, too - I do cardio 4 days per week and strength 2 days per week, rotating the P90X strength DVDs. Tuesday and Thursday of this week, for instance, might be: Back & Biceps (Tues); Chest, Shoulders & Triceps(Thurs. Then Tuesday and Thursday of next week might be Chest & Back (Tues); Arms & Shoulders (Thurs). I, too, feel like I get plenty of leg-work in with my cardio...but every once in a while I might do the Legs & Back DVD or some other DVD (like Jillian Michaels) that has a lot squats, etc.

lporter229

Your biggest challenge with maintaining muscle is nutrition. If you are eating a deficit, the best you can do is preserve what you have. To gain muscle, you need to eat a little more than maintenance. This is often a deal-breaker for women who are in a "diet" mindset. I struggled with it myself.

Good luck with whatever you decide!

I am beginning to understand this. I don't believe I live in a "diet" mindset, I am just very conscious of what I eat because it has been a mind set I developed long ago. I am not afraid of eating too many calories, but I also have never been in a place where I have intentionally eaten a surplus either. I have just gotten to where I am coming off of an intentional deficit and wanting to go into maintenance mode for a while. Eventually I may try to eat a surplus to gain muscle, but I think I will wait until after the summer for that because I know I will also gain some fat back. At that point, I also figure that I will have to trade some of my running for strength training and I haven't really come to terms with this yet. right now I am looking for a happy medium.

Again, thanks for the help.

lporter229

If you are doing P90X on top of all of the other things you're going to do, you will be one exhausted and very fit person. P90X kicks your *kitten*, even if you just stick with upper body workouts. Good luck to you!

Sorry I was unclear. Planning to add the P90X in place of the other DVDs.

2012asv

I JUST began using p90x... that my husband was insisting on trying also lol

I have incorporated that into my regular schedule... I am doing the Plyometrics dvd at least once a week- that is killer. And then I'm going to use the other dvd's on my strength days based on which muscle groups i'm doing. For me I've found this better than other exercise videos because it isolated different muscle groups and you can pick what you want to work on versus doing an entire body session every time.

Also, since I've started using P90x, I've run better and faster than ever.