P90X - First timer

Yoga hard keep working it.
Trott27 day3 week 5 mad fun pummped felt great.

Bring It

I just bought a Polar FT7 for $107 at REI and LOVE LOVE LOVE it!! You can get a FT4 for $99 and it does almost the same stuff. I love th fact that it records not only how many calories I burned, but how much of my workout was in the fat burning range and how much was in the fitness range. You will see that on the resistance training days you will burn more fat calories (which is what we want, right?). It motivates you to keep working out with weights and doing the ab ripper X. I used to only do cardio, and am seeing the benefits of weight lifting.

Today will be day 2 of P90x lean, and it's suppose to be the cardio portion. I'm apprehensive about doing it,and sore from doing the Core Synergistic thing (well, what I could do of it). I guess it doesn't help that I didn't sleep well last night. I'm really tired right now.

I keep on questioning whethe I am insane and should maybe do something lesser, like P90, but that looked really boring, and Tony didn't seem as enthusiastic in that.

Tony cracks me up in P90x.

Hey we are on the exact same schedule!!!! Hubby and I just started P90X lean on Monday as well...

Did Legs and Back last night. I had to skip Ab Ripper X as it was getting late. So I guess it's Kenpo and Ab Ripper night tonight. I really enjoy Kenpo so I'm hoping this recent string of being somewhat less fatigued means I will really be rockin' through Kenpo, because I already was doing really good my first week.

It's starting to look like the "lifting" days, with pushups and/or pullups, are going to be my biggest time consumers, going forward. Just doing the 56 or so minutes of Legs and Back took me an hour and a half, and that was without doing Ab Ripper X. (I'm not trying to do "their" rep numbers -- I just seem to need many more breaks.)

I am pretty sure I can whip through Kenpo now, since I have apparently improved dramatically on some aspects of endurance, if I can believe my big wins with Yoga (doing almost all of what they do at a good clip with many less breaks than last week), and especially considering Kenpo was immediately one of my stronger points in my first week. What sucks is that I owe myself that darned Ab Ripper X!

Going to *try* to have time to do X Stretch tomorrow, but not holding myself to it -- at least yet.

Oh, and sadly now that I have my chinup bar, I found out I can't do a single pullup unassisted. So I have to resort to assisted method using a plastic crate thing I push off against to help my arms (hopefully just enough and not too much). Gonna try to concentrate on decreasing the assistance I take from that but for now I just do 6-8 assisted reps and go as with as little assistance as I can.

Don't know how long my excuse of being 235lbs and high BMI will hold, haha.

I noticed that doing assisted pullups helped me improve a lot faster than using bands. Keep at it you will definitely improve!

Also I noticed that a lot of you have finished at least the first phase so far. Did any of you take before and after photos to see if there was any changes?

Hey DS13, for the pullups, yea that is what I am banking on. Next time I do them I plan on working real hard on the negative aspect of the pullup (where you let yourself down slowly). I literally did my first sets of assisted pullups on a real bar last night, after relying on my lat pulldown machine to mimic the motions. So, I find myself in "correct your form!" mode, trying to remember to go for max extension and controlled downward movement. I was a bit sloppy last night with all that not yet sunk in.

Are you doing any unassisted pullups yet? What are you doing for reps, either assisted or unassisted?

I'm still in phase one, myself. I took before photos as P90X program suggests. I occasionally take a couple of front shots but haven't yet done another set of shots in the P90X fashion. I plan on trying to do that at the 30 day mark. At the 30-day point I am not expecting a fantastical change, but I am hoping there's enough visible change to cause some rededication going through the next 30 days. The next 30 is where the changes are supposedly a bit more dramatic.

I'm a little less interested in regular photo ops simply because I kind of diverted my goal from strict calorie counting to just eating healthy and not looking at the scale except to record the journey. I'm well into my third week of virtually no weight loss and have been concentrating more on succeeding with P90X.

(Edit for clarity).

What is it that I am doing wrong? I have the Polare F6 and never burn more than 350 doing P90X??!?!?

What is it that I am doing wrong? I have the Polare F6 and never burn more than 350 doing P90X??!?!?

Which workouts have you done with the HRM? I only get up to 400-500 calories burned in Plyo or Kenpo...the others are all 150-350. You're building tons of muscle and increasing flexibility though!!

I started out doing lean and changed my program to classic at week 4 .Week 5 started today... So tomorrow will be my first time doing plyo...Thanks for your reply I am glad to know I am not the only one not burning BIG numbers! I wear my Polar F6 each time I workout. My husband burns so many more calories than I can.

What is it that I am doing wrong? I have the Polare F6 and never burn more than 350 doing P90X??!?!?

not a thing My polar use to give me those same kind of numbers (stopped working) got a timex it gives me really increase numbers that I know cant be right (lots of reseach). You are fine! I use my number of calorie burned but only eat about half back. I'm very dissappointed that the numbers are so high because I know there not real. If your working on know it, and you are working!!!!!!!!!

For now I do without the calorie count on Timex. I got readings like 1400 calories burned per workout in the first week, so I've been using it only as a HRM and am ignoring the values. I guesstimate at an average of 600 cal burned/workout. As an out of shape 235lb-er I think it is a fair guesstimate given that I easily can peg my HR at near max and have had to let it come down a lot through small breaks. (Once I see it over 170 I pause and walk it off.)

I haven't yet felt like really reading the little instruction book as my electronic microscope is on loan to a friend. Once I get that back I will see if there are some configurations for age, weight, height, etc., that I need to be entering in, in order to make the stupid 1400 calories reading into something a lot more reasonable.

I did Legs, Back, and Abs today and the legs killed. Had to do a lot of pausing. I'm already better with the Abs, but VERY far from being what they are on the video. I'm still lucky to do one of anything that involves legs up in the air.

My HRM said I burned 875 calories doing that exercise. I definitely got my heart rate up into the target zone (probably because I'm VERY out of shape). I don't trust the calorie count, so I put it as 500 cals.

Tomorrow is Kenpo X and then rest day. I'm thinking seriously about doing Stretch X because I can't straighten my legs well on some of the moves.

Did Kenpo today and LOVED IT! I think it's for sure going to be my favorite workout. Said I burned 755 calories (I have a cheaper Sportsline HRM) so not sure about that number). However, I am overweight and my HR gets up into the 170s sometimes so maybe that is close to the real amount burned. Usually, though I don't eat those calories back. Like last night I could have had 350 more but didn't since it was already 10 by time I finished working out.

So, couple questions for those in Phase 2: Have you actually seen any differences in your body yet? Just wondering around what week I should expect to actually "See" my body look different instead of just "FEEL" it.

Do you still get REALLY sore? Some mornings, it hurts just to get out of bed! HAHA since my ab muscles are like jelly (Damn Ab Ripper X!)

Only on Day 6 so I hope by Day 30 I will start to see some change. Trying to stay away from the scale but so far, no weight loss

I have a Sportline, too, and the heart rate measurement is suppose to be really accurate on them. I did Kenpo X, and it was pretty good, aside from fearing I'd knock my uncoordinated self out with the complicated punch moves.

It said I burned less than I did when doing the muscle groups. I had a calorie count of 675ish, with some burn afterwards. I, too, was in the 170s a good portion of the time.

Toward the end, I was gettting tuckered out, so I wasn't doing as well on the punches, kicks (though I did like that 100 punches one--I was good at THAT).

I don't get very good work outs with the abs yet. It strained the small of my back trying to keep my feet in the air, but I already saw improvement the second go round. I actually was able to do one or two of the ones with your legs in the air. I was proud of that. Still, until my ab muscles get stronger, the small of back will probably pay for it.

I still can't do the reverse bicycle very well, either! I get all screwed up.

Anyone else have these problems?

Today is my rest day from P1 week 1.

Tomorrow starts week 2. I'm hoping my one calf (which is REALLY sore right now) is not so sore by tomorrow so I can do a much better job bringing it! My lower back is still a little sore, but slowly going away, so hopefully that's gone by the next ab section.

I lowered my weekly weight loss goal to up my calories to help support these workouts.

Polar I hear is good HRM, I have a Timex which works fine for me. Except I ignore the calorie count. I assume 600 calories/workout but I never seem to be able to eat enough to reach the ~3K cal/day I am supposed to need according to the calculations, so I hope it all works out. (I do try for 3000 cal but rarely get close to 2800, sadly.)

Limped through shoulders and arms due to being somewhat unwell. I was subjected to some bad food I think and am glad to be back on the wagon after a couple days of having to entertain guests. Still am not at 100%.

My weigh-in today really suffered, too: I am now essentially right back to square one, though I guess I need to keep in mind it was a really bad weekend I simply could not avoid, and I probably picked up a lot of water weight. The weigh in, I hope, is just a temporary peak due to the weekend dietary snafus, since I have been hovering consistently at 235 plus/minus 1 lb for several weeks in daily readings. As discouraging as it is, it does not take away from the fact that I am still putting a huge effort into this exercise routine.

Shoulders and arms did go pretty well, when I could finally do them yesterday. I found some weights could be increased this week. I needed the usual handful of breaks but also got a fair number of mini-breaks due to having to change weights. I don't have the "dial in a weight" kind of adjustables so it takes me 20-30 seconds to make changes.

Ab ripper saw me struggling more than the last couple of times, since I did yesterday's round on less rest than the 2 previous times. Still, while sometimes I lost a couple reps, I was OK given the level of fatigue I already had and also considering some of the increases in quality of form I achieved.

With 3 workouts to go before "recovery week" I am just starting to look ahead to what's coming next.

I do think I am worried that I should stay in this first set of routines a little longer, because I don't do well on pushups, and, more worriesome: I can't do a single unassisted pullup on any of the varieties. Tony says you can go a little longer than 4 weeks on a given phase, but I don't know what is best -- how about some other guys (males): did you go into the recovery week and the next phase without doing any unassisted pullups in the first 3 weeks?

Hi DS13, so you are at the 30 day mark?

If it's any consolation I am 22 days in and am not seeing fantastical visual results either. But then, and I guess this is important for both of us: it is consistently the case that people don't "see" much in the first 30 days. The wisdom is that you feel stronger, more capable, but you don't get the visual satisfaction till later in the program. I hear the last 30 days is where you really see a lot of change. I hope so, as with 30 days in, there's not much to see.

I do feel like my stomach is slightly flatter, but the measurement of my waist only kind of indicates that, depending on time of day and last meal thing. I have to stop measuring for now, hahaha.

Like you I do feel somewhat stronger. I am getting that little bit more able to do clean pushups as my form slowly improves. I find these little improvements in ability everywhere, mixed in with all the pausing and collapsing in exhaustion. I did Core Synergistics for the first time yesterday and it destroyed me, but it also allowed me to see some core improvements. The Dreya Roll thing I was introduced to, in yesterday's workout? Well it told me I might be able to do the one (slower, more controlled) yoga move where you lie on your back and get up on your shoulders with your feet in the air. I felt a new strength in my core that just might allow me to do this move next time. At least I hope, because so far each time I tried, I looked like a seal flopping about trying to get into that position!

On the negative side I still struggle with enduring these workouts. I also can't do very many pushups and can only go close to the floor on them a few times at best. Pullups are still completely out; I do assisted and negatives (with a bit of assistance too). I don't care that I can't (or won't) do every single exercise in the workouts I've seen so far (meaning some of the advanced yoga stuff) but I'll try to substitute in those cases. My concerns are endurance, pushups, and pullups, the rest is taking care of itself, or so it seems.

I hope I can bring myself to do 30-day pics here, especially if I have something worth posting. I hear you on the manboobs thing. I keep thinking how I went to a barbeque last summer, didn't think anything of having my shirt off -- but the pics afterward had me horrified! (BTW that moment of seeing those pics is one of my motivators!)

If I do post pics , I'll probably go right ahead and "bring it" exposing the sad beginnings including frontals, and hopefully showing improvement after 30.