P90X Work Out Trial

          Two of John’s friends swear by the workout called P90X Extreme Home Fitness. One is a cop who does P90X whenever he gains too much weight. He claims that the pounds melt off. The other P90X friend is a former University of Hawaii football player and current discus thrower who is always in top shape.

           Johnny is friends with a couple in their twenties who decided to do P90X together. He came home and talked about how they’d lost weight and gotten stronger with P90X. He was very impressed. They loaned Johnny the program. The twelve DVD’s have been sitting on our coffee table for more than a month with no takers.

My Zumba teacher Kristyn is a fitness guru, so I asked her what she thought of P90X, and if she thought I could do it. She said it’s a good program and she seemed confident that I could do it, modifying it if I needed to.

So on Saturday I jumped into P90X. The first workout was 60 minutes of exercises for chest and back.  You do a circuit of exercises for thirty seconds at a time. Tony Horton, P90X trainer and creator, urges you on, “You can do anything for 30 seconds, right?”

For chest and back, most of the exercises were varied forms of pushups and pull-ups. Since I injured my rotator cuff doing pushups, I modified most of the exercises. I managed to make it through.

           John and Johnny, who were sitting on the couch watching me or standing on the couch holding a band for me to pull down on, were disappointed that I wasn’t sweating much. That was because I was doing my pushups against a wall, not on the floor, and I usually don’t sweat much unless I’m doing cardio. I didn’t think my back got much of a workout. Maybe it was because of my modifications.

Following the chest/back workout, there was a 30-minute ab workout. It did not include the usual crunches. Most of the exercises were Pilates which Kristyn has “treated” us to in her toning classes after Zumba. They’re hard and because of that, I know how to cheat. I let my hip flexors do most of the heavy lifting. I tried to remember what Kristyn tells us to do to keep from cheating as I struggled along.

         I wish I could say that the next morning I woke up sore, but in reality, I started hurting that night, so I took some ibuprofen. Sunday morning, it was worse. My hip flexors, and chest were not happy. I sat around most of the day, ripping out mistakes I’d made in a quilt I’m working on, and thinking of reasons not to tackle day two of P90X.

At 3:00 I finally dragged my stiff self off the couch and put my workout shoes on. How could I make a fair judgement of P90X if I only did one workout?

Day two was plyometrics—the major reason I was stalling. I hate plyometrics. My not very fond memories of Plyometrics date back to when I worked out at Puyallup Athletic Club, a small club that sadly went out of business. My teacher there would have us jump up onto a surface about two feet off the ground, then jump down, as fast as we could for a set amount of time. If you did well, your reward was to jump up onto something higher. Yay!

    Plyometrics are supposed to be explosive. They’re designed to improve athletic performance. To me, it was grueling and I always worried about catching my toes on the way up and face planting.

An example of Plyometrics.

I was not exactly giddy with anticipation when I slid the P90X DVD into the DVD player. At least these plyometrics stayed on a level surface. I made it through 45 minutes of jumping, and dodging our pets. It was a lot more cardio, so this time I did sweat, although not as much as I do in Zumba.

Plyometrics reminded me vividly of why I love Zumba, and why I was ready to quit working out before I started Zumba. The whole time I was jumping up and down, and side to side, I was breathing hard and thinking it was stupid and boring. There wasn’t any music to get into. I was worried about blowing out a knee or twisting an ankle. It was so boring I actually thought of grabbing a jump rope to break up the tedium. For me, there’s no fun in plyometrics.

Day three, Monday, it was even harder to get out of bed. My hip flexors were chanting, "Ouch, ouch, ouch!" with every step I took. I always hurt the worst two days after a hard workout. The best cure for me though, is to move, to flush the lactic acid out of my whimpering muscles. It was painful, but I managed to lift my feet high enough to get my pants on, and maneuver my arms into a shirt for Zumba.

An hour of Zumba did loosen me up. Afterwards, I did a half hour of Booty Ballet with Kristyn, and actually did some pirouettes! On the way out, Kristyn noticed that I was hobbling along, and asked if I was OK. I answered, “Yep, P90X.” She high fived me, and I headed home for day three of P90X: Shoulders and arms.

The program called for lots of bicep curls, flys, and triceps work. The guys on the DVD were using 25-lb. weights. I was using 8-lbs, and going down to 3-lbs whenever my left rotator cuff yipped at me. I’m hoping that the exercises will strengthen the muscles in my rotator cuff, since I quit doing physical therapy for it. This workout went surprisingly well. It didn’t have a lot of overhead work, my weakness. But it did have lots of curls, which I can usually do until the cows come home, so I got a taste of success. I would do this work out again.

No fancy equipment necessary.

I skipped the 30-minute ab workout, since I’d already spent 2-1/2 hours working out.

I’m sure that tomorrow I will be very aware of it whenever I move my arms. That’s why I’m writing this now. But, I’ll start my day off with Zumba to warm up again. I’ll skip the yoga class at my gym. Instead, I’ll do P90X yoga. In fact, I’m looking forward to it. Yoga is another great “cure” for me when I’m sore from working out. I have my fingers crossed that it’s more “stretching” yoga, than “strength” yoga. When I complete it, I’ll be a quarter of the way through my personal P90X challenge.

Laura Keolanui Stark isn’t exactly sure why she’s doing P90X—curiosity? Boredom? It was free? My friends are doing it? Stupidity? She can be reached at stark.laura.k@gmail.com.