Tuesday, March 15, 2011

The Stuff Of P90X2

“What do you people have against being prepared?”
- Burt, Tremors

We’re getting a ton of questions on all of the equipment seen in the background of the photos that have been posted on the making of mc2 so I’ll address all of it today.

The bottom line is that to begin the program all you need, just like P90X, are some exercise bands and a door attachment. We’ve set up the entire program so that it can be done anywhere using bands and standard items you’d find in any hotel room. It’s not the optimal way to do the program but it will work just fine—much better than I’ll bet you’re thinking it will right now. You’ll believe me once you see how hard the cast using the modifiers are working in the videos.

no matter where you stay we’ve got a workout for ya.

But given that it’s a state-of-the-art program that mimics what a lot of high profile trainers do in gyms, we are using a lot of modern equipment. Here’s the breakdown of items you might want to invest in, all of which will be available on the Beachbody web site, as well as their household equivalents.

Resistance: bands and/or weights and a pull-up bar. While you can mimic this at home it’s unlikely that anyone won’t make, at least, a band investment so I won’t go into options like water jugs, soup cans, or your old Chevy. If you’re serious at all, at a minimum get yourself some bands.

philo beddoe trains at home to take on tank murdoch.

Stability Ball: Instability is a large part of this program. Creating instability requires your body to fire its stabilizer muscles, which reduces muscular imbalance that is the number one reason for injuries and biomechanical breakdown in your body as it ages. If you can’t afford a stability ball you have wobbly stuff in your house. Couches, chairs, towels, and beds all move under load, as does your carpet, all creating instability. This means anyone busting out feaux 70s décor like shag carpeting is going to start off with an advantage of sorts. Or you can just buy a ball.

instability, in so many ways.

Medicine Balls: We mainly use these for stabilizing, not weight, so these can be swapped out for even less stable things in the rec room, like basketballs, soccer balls, etc. Med balls are a distinct advantage, especially as you start adding more weight, but you can replace them with all sorts of other stuff.

dr. j mid air during holmsen screamer lunges with med ball.

Foam roller: Here you can get fairly sadistic with cans, pvc pipe, rolling pins, baseballs, golf balls, etc. Many people “graduate” to harder items over time anyway but we’re pretty confident that if you start on them you’ll instantly feel the small investment you’re making for a proper foam roller completely worth the money.

mc2 producer heather coaxes her husband into some home foam roller testing.

Plyo boxes: We only step off of these, and never jump on them, so all you need is a sturdy chair or platform like a stairway.

an upsell for those who are serious about increasing their vertical leap ability.

Pull-up assist: We made it through all of P90x without mentioning this very cool improvement so it’s hard to say you’ll need it. But once you’ve used a proper assist you’ll never be as psyched again for the chair. Not only do you not have to alter your form to use the assist but it also helps you fire the proper muscles and not cheat in order to finish sets, creating better alignment in your movements.

Beddoe forced to mimic clyde after hitting the road without his pull-up assist.

Weighted bar: This is simply a luxury item. At home I use a broom, and I’d hope you’ve all got one of those.

broom or broom wagon; it’s your choice.

10 comments:

Ben said...

Thanks for the info. I have been wondering about the needed items.

Unknown said...

Thanks for the info on the equipment. Looks like I already have most of it & can easily improvise what I don't have.

Really excited mc2.

Unknown said...

Thanks so much. When will you make the items available at Beachbody? Sounds like we could use some of them now!

The Big Engine said...

Um, I think my medicine ball went with my bouldering pad to your house. Can I have them back? Please.

Nice pics. Best post in a while.

Trainer T.s Fitness said...

Thanks for posting this!

Woo woo I have all the items but the assit. I have a door pull up bar I use with a chair, cause I am still too much a weakling to do a full chin. (close)

I don't have a foam roller I have a tube roller I hope that will work and a steady weight bench for the plyo box.

Super pumped!

Anonymous said...

Since we have all summer to get these items, if we want to, it's not that tall of an order to have them... especially if you want the max results possible, like I do!

Steve Edwards said...

After watching Holmsen crush the hotel room modifier in Balance & Power yesterday I'm more convinced than ever about the effectiveness of the no equipment mods. I mean, I'll still use all of the equipement whenever possible. It's better. But instead of making up my own stuff there are workouts I'm actually going to do in hotel rooms. No more need for hotel gyms.

Reed, I have a med ball of yours?! If so I'll bring it south in a couple of weeks.

Reed said...

No. I think I meant exercise ball, but regardless, I probably wouldn't use it, so you should keep it.

Josh said...

"No more need for hotel gyms."

hmmm. clearly you haven't seen the hotel gym at the Panyu Hotel in Panyu, Guangzhou, China. Exercise bike from the Chinese Olympic team, circa 1970 - you remember the one, tension adjustable by leveraging the webbing strap around the wheel in a cam-lever.

Or, the gym at the Empress Hotel in Ho Chi Mihn, Vietnam. A treadmill with no motor, a jump rope with only 1 handle, and 3 barbells: 5kg, 25kg and 40kg.

You're delusional if you think mc2 can compete with that.

-Josh

Coach Safley said...

Great to have a heads up on the equipment. Can't wait to start dripping information to my customers to get them excited about the program. Sounds amazing!