Opinions on P90X Lean? :)

I would recommend doing Classic. You wont bulk up as long as you stay in a calorie deficit. The calorie deficit, weight training, and the P90X cardio will help keep the muscle you have and just burn the fat.

I did P90X lean last year. I went from 146 to 136 pounds. I totally changed my body. Unfortunately, I totally regained the weight...but that's a long story as I was giving a pet some anti-thyroid pills and didn't wear gloves... Plus, my husband injured himself, pet died, busy, overate, underexercised....10 pounds back on! But, it went back on a little differently.

Anyway, back to P90X. You got to do it, do your best, you won't be able to do all of the DVD, and that's ok, do what you can, Dreya rolls were impossible my first time and I got to 10 at the end, do your best and "forget the rest", have pain reliever for your first two weeks, a hot tub/bath too, work through the pain as it does get alot better, you will be amazed at the end of each month, focus on nutrition and eating good foods, the food is just as important as the DVD, and carefully select supplements, and consider a quality recovery drink as it will speed the recovery & muscle soreness. Your body needs really good nutrition to get through this. I skimped on food and good food, and towards the end I was getting sick more then usual. Oh, and you MUST do the Yoga. Very important day is Yoga day. Isometric exercise and flexibility = stronger muscles and less risk of injury. Bands, buy good bands. Super imortant for women doing P90X, as not many can do pull ups....but we can do pull downs with the bands.

At the end of P90x, I got on a treadmill. Short little me was running at 4.7 - 4.9 for 45 minutes straight. P90X really built up my endurance. I still do the Yoga tapes, on Saturday morning. P90X turned me onto Yoga.

I used the pull up bar, to put my bands on (up high), so I could do the pull downs. Some of the workouts do alot of pull downs (or ups). Wide hand, close hands, wide arms, pulling backward, leaning forwards, etc. I really don't think you can put your bands on a door hinge. They would slip. For example, one of them alternates between push ups (on the floor) and pull downs (or pull ups). Apparently, the pull downs develop the same muscles as the pull ups (but less your body weight). I tried to do a pull up, but never could do it. Perhaps if I had done a second round. I will tell you that my arms were getting very firm.

Don't be afraid of the push ups. They are not too bad, and girls can switch to their knees. You'll do alot of pushups, but they also help out your stomach. So, I just thought of flat abs when I was doing them.

As far as weights, you might want to get one more weight, a 7.5 pound. I did almost all of the exercises with either a 5 pound or a 7.5 pound. A 3 pound might also be helpful if the 5 pound is too heavy. There is something called a "lawn mower" which I did 25 pounds or so. But, that is just one, 30 second exercise in an hour tape. I almost always just used the 5 and 7.5 pounds. Tony wants you doing 12 - 15 reps for Lean and 10 or less reps if you want to build arm muscles. The most important is that the last few lifts are hard and causing your muscle to really work hard.

You can start early, but have the pain reliever, muscle cream, hot tub, epsom salt ready. I remember that i felt like someone took a fork to every one of my muscles after I did the first day of "Core". I couldn't roll over in bed to kiss my husband. It got better, trust me. The best is that Tony doesn't work hard on the previous day's sore parts. Instead, he gets other parts sore! HA, HA, HA, HA!!!!