New to P90X

KimbersNewLife
KimbersNewLife Posts: 646 Member
edited November 9 in Motivation and Support
Hi Everyone,
First I must say I am overweight and out of shape. I can do cardio all day and night but when it comes to things like pushups, sit ups ect I have no endurance. That being said I really want to do the p90x classic program. I tried to start today with Chest&back and ab ripper x as recommended. I only got through 34 mins of Chest&back and did 0 mins of ab ripper x and had to call it quits. Should I do today over and over again until I get it? Or should I move on to the next day as recommended? Has anyone else had experience with this?
It should be said I have done the Kenpo and Cardio DVDS from P90X and loved them but I want to follow the recommended order of things and complete my own little 90 day challenge. Any advise is very appreciated! XOXO

Thanks,
Kimber

Replies

  • SimplyShanRunning
    SimplyShanRunning Posts: 885 Member
    When I first started I did as much as I could and took longer breaks in between, but I went to the next day. Start with lower weights. Try pushups on your knees at the start and buildup. Just dont give up :flowerforyou:
  • KimbersNewLife
    KimbersNewLife Posts: 646 Member
    When I first started I did as much as I could and took longer breaks in between, but I went to the next day. Start with lower weights. Try pushups on your knees at the start and buildup. Just dont give up :flowerforyou:
    Thanks Shan that is a great idea, the push ups were KILLING ME! Ha, at least I know my heart rate was kickin' LOL I know I burned some fat today! "That gristle, that grime, that nasty stuff!" LOL
  • silvertank
    silvertank Posts: 1 Member
    My response is similar. Don't quit. Take as much of a break as you need, but finish each workout!!
  • ArroganceInStep
    ArroganceInStep Posts: 6,239 Member
    When you say you had to call it quits did you stop or did you keep trying and just not do well enough and not count it? If the former I'd say give it another go but to keep trying even if you can't do the full exercise. If the latter I'd say continue. It helps for that type of program if you have a baseline level of fitness, but the point of it is to improve, and doing the exercises is how you'll do that. Don't give up, even if you're exhausted and can't do the full exercise or whatever, keep trying! (Barring physical injury and such of course)
  • KimbersNewLife
    KimbersNewLife Posts: 646 Member
    When you say you had to call it quits did you stop or did you keep trying and just not do well enough and not count it? If the former I'd say give it another go but to keep trying even if you can't do the full exercise. If the latter I'd say continue. It helps for that type of program if you have a baseline level of fitness, but the point of it is to improve, and doing the exercises is how you'll do that. Don't give up, even if you're exhausted and can't do the full exercise or whatever, keep trying! (Barring physical injury and such of course)
    Thanks it was that I literally could not move my body anymore, I hit it full steam all out looking for the most reps and perfection and I literally wore myself out. I have never been to army boot camp but my brother has and he explained to me how he fell down in the sand and could not get up ... that is how I felt! HA!
  • ArroganceInStep
    ArroganceInStep Posts: 6,239 Member
    It might be worthwhile for you to do a trial week to get a sense for what each activity entails. That way you'll know what's coming and (ideally) be able to pace yourself to make it through the entire session. Hurting yourself would probably be problematic in meeting your fitness goals.

    That being said, and also accounting for the fact that you know your body much better than anyone else, I'll mention a short story that I try to think of when I'm having trouble finishing something fitness wise.

    I was doing wall-sits at my dojo (back against the wall, using your legs to keep you from falling) and was at around 3 minutes or something equally awful. I was completely dead and couldn't do anymore and started to get up, but my instructor hit my with his shinai (bamboo sword used for discipline/training) before I could do it. He explained that if I was truly out of gas, that I would just fall over, but because I was able to get up I still had something left in me to go a bit longer. Needless to say out of fear of that cursed shinai I reset and was actually able to go for another 40 seconds before falling over.

    That's what I think of to keep me trying to go that extra bit further. Good luck to you!
  • Natihilator
    Natihilator Posts: 1,778 Member
    Hi new friend!

    Well, I did start P90X, the lean version, but then got too sick to finish week one, started again, and was having really bad joint/hip pain and had to stop. I still do some of the videos, but I'm not following the traditional workout schedule of the program. I've decided to work on my cardio for a month straight before trying with P90X again.

    My advice to you would be:

    - Take breaks! don't feel bad if you have to hit pause a couple times to get through it. Drink lots of water, focus on breathing correctly.

    - Try to complete the workouts, but don't push yourself if it hurts. That leads to muscle injury which is a huge bummer and means recovery time which means no working out.

    - Find ways to adapt the workouts to your current fitness level, but don't let them get too easy. Do modified push-ups by going on your knees, or do wall push-ups. I can't do the tricep arm dips from chair-height, so I go to my kitchen counter which is hip-height to do them. The Dreya rolls kill my back so instead of getting on the ground, I sit on a chair and lift my legs. Get the resistance bands instead of a pull-up bar, and double up the bands as your upper body strength increases.

    - Ab Ripper X is KILLER! Don't do it with the other workout of that day, it's just too long to do both. If you can't get through the whole thing, start by doing 4 minutes, then 8, 12, 16. I also just did regular crunches whenever I couldn't do the ab exercise they were doing in the video.

    - Be careful with Yoga X, especially if you haven't done yoga before. I injured myself from doing the ashtanga salutations, and after researching on the internet, a lot of people experienced in yoga say that Yoga X has a lot of advanced moves which get rushed into, and are not at all suitable for beginners. There are always exceptions, but I've decided to take a beginner's yoga class with proper instruction and supervision next time I attempt to do P90X.

    Good luck! The beachbody.com forums are good for accountability and motivation, but I didn't really appreciate having all the energy drinks being pushed on me and the whole pyramid marketing scheme, so I prefer MFP
  • KimbersNewLife
    KimbersNewLife Posts: 646 Member
    Great effort... and I will echo those that sum it up as do your best, your absolute best- Give yourself some rest after each excercise.. .and try to move on to each excercise in the disk-- modify as needed and do it regardless of whether you can do 1 or 100-- when you can't do any more- call it a day and then move on to the next workout the next day regadless of whether you finish. Repeat. You will get stronger... you will improve... you will complete more and more... At the end, if you aren't where you want to be... do it again. Repeating disks day after day is counterproductive for many reasons.. it will overwork specific muscles and it will make the program an indefinite goal... which is too amorphous to focus on finishing. Just say I will do this every day as they say... I will do as much as I can... and then move on... your progress will surprise you!

    Congrats!

    Awe thanks! Good point about overworking muscles.
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