Customizing P90X

This is a reference post for those looking to use P90X for specific purposes like sports, weight loss, or muscle gain. I also explain how to mix it with other workout programs, like Insanity. There’s a fair bit of reading here but it’s pretty straightforward and very condensed—essentially just the basics of periodizational sports specific training—and well worth your time if you want to tailor P90X to suit individual goals beyond just getting in shape.

The principles here are valid for P90X2 as well. Of course the schedules would change but all the other info is vital for understanding specific uses of these programs. These are posted in order. If you’re confused skipping ahead, chances are your questions were answered earlier. If not, post a question on the Team Beachbody Message Boards and it will get to me.

Muscle Confusion

Customizing P90X

Insanity and X

Skiing and short cycles

Sore, Hungry, Tired: 3 Signs Your Program Is Working

Gaining Mass

Losing Weight

Endurance Sports Overview

Running

Triathlon

Dancing (oddly enough I didn't write this one)

Creating Hybrid Programs

How To Choose The Right Exercise Program

In my last chat I was asked why P90X2 wasn’t as good for weight loss as P90X. Ironically that same week Tony Horton hosted some coaches for a workout at his house where they burned over 1,200 calories in an hour doing an X2 workout. This doesn’t mean the question was dumb. It means it requires a longer answer than I could give at that time because it starts new topic; how to choose the right exercise program.

If everyone burned 1,200 calories during an X2 workout it would be amazing for weight loss. But many people do not because P90X2 is what we call at Beachbody a post-graduate program. Its predecessor, P90X, is a graduate program and the series original, Power 90, is an intro program. Trying to do P90X2 before you’re ready is like walking into French IV when you haven’t taken French 1. You’re not ready and, thus, won’t be able get the most out of it. In fact you’ll probably feel lost.



At Beachbody we’re creating fitness solutions for the entire planet, and most of this planet doesn’t play in the NBA or NFL. P90X2 was created specifically for our customers who’ve become so fit they require an elite program on the level of the professional athlete. If someone lets you borrow a surfboard are you going to paddle into Pipeline and attempt to catch your first wave? Probably not. Choosing the wrong fitness program will drown your results just as fast. A brief rundown of the Beachbody line-up will help you understand why.

"hmm, maybe i should have started on a beach break..."

P90X2 and Insanity: The Asylum are currently Beachbody’s only post-graduate programs. They were designed for our customers who’d mastered P90X and Insanity. If you can’t do those programs it doesn’t make sense to begin something harder because you won’t have the fitness base to complete the individual exercises, much less the workouts. And if you can’t do the workouts you won’t get very fit.

As an example let’s take the workout P90X Chest & Back. I’ve had people tell me they only burned 150 calories in this workout. I’ve burned over a thousand. The difference is when you can’t do push-ups and you can’t do pull-ups and don’t modify correctly so that you fail at 10 reps or more per exercise than the difference in that workout is night and day. I’m completely pumped from my very first set to the last, 45 straight minutes pushing my anaerobic threshold—it’s everything I can do to not puke! But someone who can’t do the exercises won't get pumped will likely max their caloric burn during the warm-up! This is exactly why we have you do a fit test before you begin: to see if you belong in P90X in the first place.

For X2 we expect you to be able to do P90X. If you can’t do, say, Warrior 3 in Yoga X you’re not going to be able to do Warrior 3 curls or kickbacks--just one of numerous examples. We do offer exceptional modifications in X2 but, like X, they still require you to find a point where you fail at the required number of repetitions to work their magic. As I said in another post, you can’t claim X2 workouts mastered until you can use the same amount of weight (in its difficult positions) as you can with P90X.

In Asylum, Shaun yells at his cast that “this is not Insanity, people!” as if that program is light cardio. Most of you know that Insanity is anything but so it shouldn’t surprise you that if you can’t do Insanity you might not make it through the warm-ups of Asylum.

Beachbody’s graduate programs include: 90X, Insanity, Turbo Fire, P90X+, and Debbie Siebers’ Slim Series. These programs were based off of intro programs that are similar in style but accessible to almost anyone: Power 90, Hip Hop Abs/Rockin’ Body, Slim in 6. If you’re inspired by P90X but can’t do the fit test, a round of Power 90 will give you much better results and will ultimately have you mastering X and X2 a lot quicker than beginning with the harder program.

In addition, our intro line has many other options to fit your personality. We now have what I call gentle, moderate, and hard into programs. Our goal is to have workouts for every single demographic. We want to eliminate all possible excuses for not getting healthy.

added bonus of power 90: retro chic

If you’ve never exercised or are coming off an injury that’s impaired your ability to move you might consider Tai Cheng because it will retrain your movement patterns. Love the idea of martial arts training but want something more challenging, try Rev Abs. If you hate to exercise but love to dance you might try Hip Hop Abs, Turbo Jam, Body Gospel or Yoga Booty Ballet. Conversely those who are challenged by coordinating their moves might prefer Slim in 6 or Kathy Smith’s Project You, which use simple exercises to great effect. Those who like pumping iron should consider Power 90 or Chalean Extreme. And if you’re ultra-time crunched we’ve got 10 Minute Trainer to get you in the habit of daily exercise.

As for results; all of our programs work exactly the same. Seriously, our test groups get similar results in every program we make (we don’t release them until the do). We screen the test groups to make sure the right people are doing the right program and you should too. Of course X2 graduates are ultimately fitter than Power 90 graduates but that’s because they’ve done more homework. Just like a French IV graduate is more fluent than a French 1 there is a logical progression to getting fit and it’s much easier and quicker if you’re taking the right class.

P90X2 For Outdoor Sports V: An Off-Season Schedule

I’ve officially decided to recommend flipping phases one and two of P90X2 for most outdoor athletes. I also think you should practice some of the phase one workouts during your rest phase at the end of the season before you begin training.

My rationale is that it’s better to avoid doing a lot of sport-specific training when you’re gaining muscle and phase II targets hypertrophy. In a perfect world you’d do the phases in order but most cyclists, runners, and climbers are lucky to take a month away from their sports, and those are the ones who get paid. Recreational athletes—who play sports for fun—have a very hard time stepping away from their sports at all. Bringing phase II to the fore lessens the chance of overuse injury because sports-specific training should, at worst, be base fitness and nothing your body can’t handle while it’s gaining muscle.

Without further ado, here’s what I’m doing this off-season.

I 2 “practice weeks"

II Phase II for 4 weeks.

Auxiliary training will be hang board training also based on hypertrophy (details later). The bikes will stay out of sight and I’ll ski for fun and aerobic conditioning. I’ll attend the Ritte training camp at the end of January (get destroyed) and then move into...

Phase I for 3 weeks.

Auxiliary training will be climbing on my wall and other more intense climbing training and a few cycling sessions, mainly on the trainer, as well as skiing.

Phase III for 4 weeks.

Since this phase is so intense all other training will be based around how well I recover from the workouts. Hopefully I’ll be testing (again) some PAP training for climbing. I’d like to have a climbing peak in April/May as I’m also building my cycling fitness.

So that is the overview and, of course, it will change somewhat as it goes down as that’s what programs inevitably do. I’m excited about it. Base fitness was excellent last year and I’m thinking it’ll be even better in 2012.

pic: a preview of ritte's winter training camp.

P90X2 For Outdoor Sports IV: Goals & Reality

Now that you’ve assessed your goals and timeline you want to look the reality of just how much you can train. Most of us are not full-time professional athletes and need to be time efficient. There are too many variables to address in one post (or book) so I’ll carve out my plan as an example.

Let’s begin with my personal assessment of yesterday’s topic. Most of my goals are far off so scheduling my program is fairly simple. Still, however, three months is too long for most of us to be away from our sports. So I will be altering the P90X2 structure to allow more time for sport-specific training to occur as the season approaches.

Last year I averaged about 1.5 hours of training a day, which includes dog exercise (a post on multi-tasking this will be part of this series). I tested this on a series of long events during the month of November. A post on this is coming, too, but the gist is that it’s possible to train fairly short for very long events. Not optimal but it can work. Anyways, 1.5 hours isn’t a lot when each X2 workout takes an hour.

My goals for the year are a mixture of short and long events and I think I can strategize how to train for both in 1.5 hours a day. I’m 51, so you’ll see that theme at work as I present my 2012 tick list.

Climbing:
5 first ascents, 1 5.13
5 long days, 1 grade V in a day

Riding:
5 races, 1 100 mile
5 big days, 1 multi-day self-supported

Running & Skiing
No goals but to improve and get 100% healthy as there will be running and skiing on the ’13 agenda.

Current assessment: Back in the days when I had a ton of free time this wouldn’t have been a problem. With my current schedule, however, it’s going to take a lot of planning and discipline to get it done. The training is almost the easy part but I want to do well in the races so it’s got to stay focused. Also, I’m trying to climb at what is my limit these days, at least for one peak, and I’ve never been in 5.13 and bike race shape at the same time, so there’s a lifetime achievement goal on the agenda, which is always good for motivation.

I need a very high level of base fitness to make this happen, which is precisely why nothing is scheduled early. I want to be able to do a full unabridged round of P90X2. I also want to come out of my winter training ready to climb hard so some multi-tasking will be in order. If I can tick off my power goals in the spring it’ll be much easier because I can focus on endurance as the days get long. Now that my agenda is clear I’m ready to draw up a plan. I’ll post it tomorrow.

P90X2: How To Design A Sport-Specific Training Program

As you sit down to embark on next season’s training plans here are a few things to keep in mind as you’re sorting out how P90X2 is going to fit into your year. I’ve written a lot about designing programs, both using Beachbody programs and not, and at this point in your planning P90X2 is no different than anything else because we’re simply looking at the big picture of when to target non sport-specific weaknesses and when to integrate sports training back in.

These two articles, written for P90X, will help you get the gist of what your training structure should look like:

Customizing P90X for Specific Goals: Part I

Endurance Athletes: Get Ripped in the Off-Season

Your first consideration is time. How long until your first event and, more precisely, how long until your important event? All training should be planned around a peak. In any given year we can probably peak twice and your most intense phase of off-season training should at the furthest point from these goals. So, for example, if you want to peak in February and again in October you’re better off scheduling a short cycle of training now and more off-season oriented training beginning in March. If you’re two peaks are late spring and fall—very common for both climbers and endurance athletes—now’s the time to get going.

If you’re of the former scenario, P90X2 can be utilized in a short cycle of training. Here’s an article on how that might work.

Customizing P90X for Skiing: How to Structure a Short Training Cycle

That’s enough reading for today. Tomorrow I’ll be back with my personal goals for 2012 and how I plan to schedule my training phases using P90X2.

pic: my schedule from winter 2010

P90X2: Practice Week

Using P90X2 for outdoor sports requires an evaluation process that each of us must do in order to schedule it the most sensible way. This week I’ll post on the aspects of this while concurrently doing some of the workouts in what I call a practice week.

One of the principles of X2 is based on the specificity of adaptation. This is true of every exercise program we’ve made but it’s never been pushed as far as we’re taking it this time. For some of you learning the movements of this program will be like learning how to dance. When the movements you’re learning click (like in the pic) is when you’re going to start seeing crazy progress so I’m getting a jump on it while I’m still in recovery mode.

“Core should be the first workout because it teaches you so much,” said Steve Holmsen, one of the program’s developers who’s also Tony’s ski buddy and the guy who got him psyched on balance training. And, in fact, all of phase I of the program is about learning. But we outdoor athletes might be best served to alter the schedule to accommodate our sport-specific training. I will go into this later but, for now, consider jump starting your winter program with some practice.

When I’m in recovery mode I play. I still exercise, sometimes a lot, but I have no targets or goals and I certainly don’t diet. Sometimes, like this year, I have injuries and when I do I will keep going with my rehab. So my play schedule has been basically climbing, easy riding, and easy running/hiking (ruking) along with stability workouts like this and this. And also Friday Night Arms, which I’ll go into in a separate post.

With that in mind my practice week looks like this.

Daily: whatever I want/have time for sports wise.

Practice schedule:

Day 1: X2 Core
Day 2: X2 Mobility
Day 3: Friday Night Arms & rice bucket
Day 4: X2 Power and Balance
Day 5: Shoulder and pelvic stability & X2 Mobility

P90X2 For Outdoor Athletes

I’m going to be starting a round of P90X2 designed to get me ready for a season of riding, running, and climbing. Today’s Psyche post is on the above photo of the package sitting in my garage that was followed by Twitter and Facebook posts, “There's a package sitting on the floor containing P90X2 and collateral material that's burning a hole in my post-challenge recovery mode.” All pre-orders should be in transit. If you don’t have yours yet it’ll be there any day. Anyone interested in sport-specific training should join me.

P90X changed the landscape of home fitness training forever. P90X2 is going to raise the standard, particularly for those of us who participate in athletic activities. One of my promotional articles (for Active.com, I think) concluded with a line about how I’ve never been so excited for off-season training to start. I’ve been tinkering with this program for years and it’s finally coming to fruition. I’m psyched.

like presents under a tree, the x2 kit begging me to action.

Over the next few months my goal is not only to get into tip-top shape, but to preemptively answer your questions about sport-specific training with X2. Put this blog on your favorites list and tag along. It’s going to be a helluva fun ride.

Scheduling

There are two absolutes when beginning any training program.

1 - You should write out a structured training program and try to stick to it.

2 - Don’t necessarily stick to it.

All programs should have a plan with some scientific basis. The science can be as absurd as you want, as I’m all about testing as it’s the best way to learn, but there should be a scientific theory about what you’re trying to do. If not, just go out and play. Writing a schedule should be somewhat painstaking because you’re trying to anticipate all of the possible scenarios and variables. Then, once your theories are soundly structured, you’ll want to do your best to follow it or you’ll never learn whether or not your theories work.

To stick with an entire program, however, should almost never happen. Besides life getting in the way the biggest program variable is your body’s recovery ability. If you aren’t recovered you should not stick to your schedule. If you’re always recovered your planned program was probably too easy. Therefore, build your schedule knowing that it will change. If you have time, plan what you’ll do to stay on track when the schedule goes awry.

Here’s my program through March. As iron clad as it looks now I’m certain I’ve overlooked something and that it will change. As we move into the program I’ll eventually present each individual workout so you can see what I’m doing.

The dietary component of this plan will be vegetarian. But it will be fully applicable to carnivores as well. It will also be revolutionary. Keeping in mind that revolutions don’t always succeed, follow my plan at your own risk.

For reference: HYP is hypertrophy, ARC is aerobic restoration and capillarity, MAX REC refers to muscle cell motor unit recruitment, or power, training, PE is power endurance (can be a number of different energy systems that will be based on the sport targeted), and Patxi days are massively long training days based on Spainish climber Patxi Usobiaga's insane training schedule.