P90X - Don't Do It

Don’t do it. Put down the credit card. I’m telling you, you’re going to waste that $150 if you type those 16 numbers into the form and hit enter. Seriously. p90x is a fabulous workout, but not for you.

Here’s a brief explanation of why I do not recommend P90X for my clients.

P90X is too hard. Is that brief enough?

Tony Horton will come right out and tell you that P90X is hard, really really hard. He establishes a minimum fitness level one must attain before even attempting the workout. Well, I met those requirements. I am a personal trainer. I am in better than average shape and I can perform every exercise prescribed in this workout. I have tried twice now to work though the p90x DVD system only to quit each time in favor of other workout programs. It’s just simply too aggressive to sustain my, and I’m guessing your, motivation. I got to the point where I dreaded performing some of the DVDs. And when it comes to fitness, if there’s something you dread, sooner or later you are going to stop doing it.

P90X is too long.

I don’t have 90 minutes to workout. One of his DVDs, the yoga one I believe, was close to an hour and a half long. 20 minutes into the workout I was bored and ready to move on to the next obligation in my daily routine. I’m sure the P90X faithful will criticize my lack of discipline and will power, but that’s exactly why I don’t recommend P90X to novice trainers. It takes a tremendous amount of discipline and will power to make it through the program. I heard recently that the success of a fitness program is in its longevity. If you can sustain it, you can attain it. I just simply could not sustain my motivation to keep jumping around my living room when I would have rather been outside doing things I enjoy.

P90X is too complicated.

What’s so complicated about pushing play on a DVD player and doing what the DVD tells you to do? Nothing. But if that’s all you do, you’re going to see 50% of the results that P90X promises. That’s because exercise is 50% of fitness. What about your diet? I got nothing out of the diet and nutrition literature than accompanied the DVDs. I just could not figure out what in the world I was supposed to eat using their system. I go back to what I said earlier. Fitness is a result of longevity. Well to take that a step further, longevity is a result of simplicity. P90X and its accompanying diet plan was too complicated to offer me any benefit.

I have to give Tony Horton his props. I learned quite a few exercises from his DVDs and I shamelessly incorporate them into my own exercise programs. But as a package, I recommend that beginner to intermediate fitness goers pursue less intense, simpler exercise programs to which they will be more likely to adhere over the long term.