Month: December 2011

P90X2 X2 Recovery + Mobility Review

As odd as it might sound, this workout is the keystone of the P90X2 system. You do this workout twice a week if you choose not to rest instead. It’s a great deal better in my opinion than the X Stretch workout and if used as recommended will keep you in great shape with regards to flexibility and muscular suppleness. The difference is the mobility aspect of the workout, something that was conspicuous by it’s absence from P90X.

Sun Salutations – Starting with a mini Yoga section including breathing, hamstring stretching and up and down dog.
Leg Swing – A well knows ballistic stretch to soccer players. Basically swinging leg forward and backwards and side to side with the leg straight.
Step Back Lunge Twist – Using weighted bar step back into lunge while holding the bar out in front and twisting your body away from the back leg.
Squat Press – Squat down, press up, stand up
Single Leg Touch Down – Stand on one leg and reach down with opposite arm to touch the baby toe.
Foam Rolling – Just like the daily warm up, a section of foam rolling the bodyparts. This is a 20 minute section of basic foam rolling, a great skill to master for relief of tight muscles.
Next is a repeat of the previous sections
Step Back Lunge Twist – Using weighted bar step back into lunge while holding the bar out in front and twisting your body away from the back leg.
Squat Press – Squat down, press up, stand up
Single Leg Touch Down – Stand on one leg and reach down with opposite arm to touch the baby toe.
Vinyasa to Pigeon – A yoga section providing a stretch for the piriformis and ITB area
Frog – Same as P90X frog, baiscally middle splits on your knees
Hamstring Stretch – Seated toe reaches
Roller Angel – Laying lengthwise on the roller allowing the arms to fall down to the floor
Shavasana Foam Roller – Corpse pose with roller supporting your whole spinal column

P90X2 Schedule – The Complete Listing

If you are looking for the P90X2 Workout Sheets they are HERE.

P90X2 is divided into 3 phases plus a rest week. The thinking is that you can do the weekly rotation of 5 days as long as you wish (3-6 weeks) and then throw in a rest week when you think you need it. I suppose the people who are P90X graduates will gravitate towards doing a 3 week on with one week rest just as they did for P90X which will result in a 90 day program. The three phases are:

P90X2 Foundation Phase

Not foundation as in “base training” but as in your attachment to the earth. Working on the “you can’t shoot a canon from a canoe” philosophy the aim of this program is to build you from the ground up. You may think you have a good base from P90X but, I assure you, we are going to find some weak areas and improve them. The two major areas of weakness in the human body, which leads to probably 90% of sports injuries, are shoulder and hip instability. Solve this and non-contact injuries will virtually disappear.

P90X2 Strength Phase

This will feel more familiar to most of you as it’s similar in structure to P90X. The workouts, however, will keep your body evolving. Functional is the key difference as almost every movement is done from an athletic position designed to improve your body’s ability to move better.

P90X2 Performance Phase

Finally we’ll take what we’ve learned and target your engrams (neuromuscular patterns) to fire efficiently. At this stage we leave “do you best and forget the rest” behind. We’re now walking a razor’s edge of human performance. Push your body to 100% with perfect form. When your form fails, you’re done. The force loads are excessive but the philosophy here is that if you can’t handle force in a controlled situation you won’t be able to handle it when it’s forced upon you.

As for the weekly schedule, it breaks down like this:

Phase 1 – Foundation:

1. X2 Core
2. Plyocide
3. Rest or X2 Recovery + Mobility
4. X2 Total Body + X2 Ab Ripper
5. X2 Yoga
6. X2 Balance and Power
7. Rest or X2 Recovery + Mobility

Phase 2 – Strength:

1. Chest + Back + Balance & X2 Ab Ripper
2. Plyocide
3. Rest or X2 Recovery + Mobility
4. X2 Shoulders + Arms & X2 Ab Ripper
5. X2 Yoga
6. Base + Back & X2 Ab Ripper
7. Rest or X2 Recovery + Mobility

Phase 3 – Performance:

1. PAP Lower
2. PAP Upper
3. X2 Yoga
4. Rest or X2 Recovery + Mobility
5. PAP Lower
6. PAP Upper
7. Rest or X2 Recovery + Mobility

Recovery Week:

1. Rest or X2 Recovery + Mobility
2. X2 Yoga
3. Rest or X2 Recovery + Mobility
4. X2 Yoga
5. Rest or X2 Recovery + Mobility
6. X2 Yoga
7. Rest or X2 Recovery + Mobility

P90X2 – X2 Ab Ripper Review

I haven’t had the pleasure yet, but all of these moves I have done before with Insanity, P90X, Asylum or in my own bootcamp class so I can’t imagine it will be technically challenging. It’s a really great variety of movements though. It doesn’t have the intensity of the Ab Ripper, it seems more user friendly but honestly the  thing I liked about Ab Ripper was Tony getting all wound up about it!

Scissor Twist – 20 – Laying scissors touching opposite foot
Row Your Boat – 20 – Like Crunchy frog but with rowing motion not fly
Superman Banana X – 20 – superman banana in X position
Oblique Roll Crunch – 20 – Same as side crunches but switch sides each rep
Roll V Hold – 20 – V sit then grab hamstrings, roll back, roll up to V sit hold
Abrinome – 10 – Rainbow legs. Lay with legs up 90 degrees, wipe from side to side like windshield wipers or a rainbow
Gate Bridge Lift – 10 – Just simple leg lift with straddle at bottom
Phelon Twist – 10 – Sit with legs straight and together, fold arms across belly and lean back to 45 degrees and twist. Hold twist position then twist opposite way and hold
Scissor Clapper – 30 – V Sit scissors with clap under each leg as you switch
Tornado – 20 – Laying position with feet straight up at 90 degrees, circle feet with straight legs
Balance Bike Crunch – 20 – bicycles alternating knee to elbows but in v sit position. Modified move is just laying bicycle switch.

R9D2 – P90X2 – Plyocide Review

It’s Friday today, if I get home early enough I will complete this bad boy, if not, it will have to wait until tomorrow since I have to coach today.

This morning I felt great after X2 Core yesterday, my knot in my back is gone, thanks to the foam rolling I guess. The workout wasn’t that hard, I do lots of that kind of stuff for my bootcamp but there was enough technical challenge for me to stay focused. I guess being in shape already it’s not supposed to be brutal, but more of a technical exercise anyway. I am sure Plyocide won’t be such a pushover. I am reviewing it here as a log of the movements done, I will report back tomorrow or maybe during the weekend as to exactly how much of a challenge it is!

For plyocide you need all the regular stuff, a foam roller, mat, water and in addition an X taped on the floor and also if you have it a plyo box to do box jumps and so on.

The warmup is the same pretty much as X2 Core, and just like P90X the warmups are probably all going to be pretty standard.

Warmup:
Stability ball work
twists, squats, side bends, lunge back, shelf stockers.

Foam Rolling – Myofascial release using the foam roller
This is a great section to do daily and even better to go into more detail with when you have tight spots or knots.
Roller Sphinx
Worlds Greatest stretch (runners stretch with a double twist) alternating legs with brief hold each count.
Inch Worm – from standing, hands on floor, walk out to plank and back
Scorpion – Laying face down arms out 90 degrees, bend knee bring your foot up to your butt and lift away from the floor. Gently twist the leg to the opposite side of the body but don’t go too far!
Groiners – runners stretch foot switch

The Plyocide Workout:

Wide leg tiptoe squat – Simple wide squat up to tip toes 35 reps
Killer Katherine Lunge – Mary Katherines with med ball side to side, first at hip height then overhead
Fast Feet Chair Jump – Football fast feet with jumps added in
Slalom Line jump – jump over your taped line and back in a slalom forward then back
Water Break
Warrior 3 lunge – W3 back to lunge then back to W3
Jack In The Box Knee Tuck – Touch floor to tuck jump
Think Drill – wide feet football run with occasional sets and stance and arm changes
Spartan Squat Lunge – Squat touching opposite foot, jump into lunge and raise arm overhead. Do both sides!
Water Break
Super Skater Kicks – Exactly what it sounds like!
Depth Charge – Use plyo box, step up, jump down far side then straight jump.
Frog Burpee Hop – burpee with tuck jump
1 leg slalom – hopping slalom
Water Break
1 leg squat – Not pistols, just squat touch floor
Surfer Spin – Jump turns. Start with 2 half turns, then try full turns
Power 90 Cross Hop – Use taped cross and hop across quadrants then switch to other 2 quadrants
Wide Leg Jump Press With Med Ball – Like the X jump but with a med ball
Water Break
Launcher Lunge – With med ball, shelf stacker lifting non loaded leg away from body
Toe Tap 360 – Tap toes on med ball on floor, work all around the ball
Flying Fighter Kicks – scissor front kick followed with back kick
Set Sprint Plank Plyo Jump – Football set to high knee sprint to plank to plyo pushup to jump. Tony calls the order, you follow!

10 Minute Cool Down

This looks pretty intense and I am looking forward to the challenge!

 

R9D1 – P90X2 – X2 Core Review

Round 9 is here. To help you along, here is a full review / workout listing of what is in the P90X2 DVD set.

Round 8 was a pretty successful program I think, with 66 workouts in 94 days, that’s almost exactly 5 days a week average.

Not even 3 minutes in to the workout and he’s already said “but-tocks” in his Forrest Gump voice… seriously, it’s been how many years and he’s still doing that?

X2 Core seems like a gentle start to P90X2 with a section completely devoted to using foam rollers up and down your body to get rid of your tight points, muscle knots and smooth out those bound up joints. Then a short stretch of your legs to get ready for the workout.

The actual workout looks like this:

Warmup:

Stability ball work
twists, squats, side bends, lunge back, shelf stockers.

Foam Rolling – Myofascial release using the foam roller
This is a great section to do daily and even better to go into more detail with when you have tight spots or knots.
Roller Sphinx
Worlds Greatest stretch (runners stretch with a double twist) alternating legs with brief hold each count.
Inch Worm – from standing, hands on floor, walk out to plank and back
Scorpion – Laying face down arms out 90 degrees, bend knee bring your foot up to your butt and lift away from the floor. Gently twist the leg to the opposite side of the body but don’t go too far!
Groiners – runners stretch foot switch

Workout:

 

Sphinx Plank Crunch – touch each elbow with your knee while in Sphinx
Warrior 3 Cross Crunch – Warrior 3 pose to standing one knee to elbow cross
Single Leg Walk Out To Sphinx – Just like it sounds, stand on one leg, go down to hands and walk out to sphinx
Half  Angel – Side elbow stand, raise leg up and raise arm above your head
Roller Boat – Start in V Snap position, grab knees and roll back to shoulders. V Snap is a held position.
3 Speed Med Ball Pushup – Put med ball under your face, do a pushup and tap fingers on ball at top position. It’s like doing clapping pushups but with a med ball in the way.
1 Leg Lateral Leap Squat – It’s a single leg squat with a sideways leap inbetween. Touch the outside foot with the inside hand.
Core Circles – On stability ball in sphinx position just roll the ball clockwise then anti-clockwise.
Holmsen Screamer Lunge – Just like Insanity, it’s a lunge position then kick the knee through to a hop
Med Ball Dreya Roll – Didn’t think you were going to escape the weird obsession with Dreya did you? It’ s just a Dreya Roll with a med ball at your chest that you press overhead during the jump.
Plank Burpee On Stability Ball –  Keep the stability ball in your hand, do burpee but only on 1 foot then switch.
Banana Ball Switch Crunch – Same abs movement you have seen for years, pass the ball from hands to feet staying in banana.
3 Point Squat Press With Med Ball –  Squats extending ball overhead to left, then middle then right.
Slo Mo Balance Climber – Stability ball in sphinx – bring knee to same elbow. Just like spiderman that I do with kids but on ball.
X2 Diver – Wide foot standing to pushup, explode up and clap overhead. It’s a little like an insanity move for triceps where you push back to your feet.
Ryan Sphinx Twist Crunch – From side sphinx touch your hand and foot at hip level then reach hand all way under body and back.
1 Leg Med Ball Burpee – Just like it sounds, a burpee on one leg with med ball extended overhead.
Cool Down – there is an extended cool down with the use of the stability ball to get extended range and keep working that stability!

They probably should have called this thing X2 Sphinx since that seems to be the position of the day! It’s a good mix of balance, agility and strength using bodyweight and I think it’s a perfect way to introduce P90X2. I just hope the rest of the workouts are as well thought out and balanced.

 

R8D66 – Bootcamp2.2 – P90X2 ARRIVED!!!!

Bootcamp was a good class last night, the weights area still not completed so we were on the floor with dumbbells and I think most of the participants are getting a sense of how much stronger they are getting now. The workout was simple:

Strength – burn holds – flex for 5 release for 1 repeat 5x increase weight repeat

To Burn:
Forearm
90 degree bicep hold
side fly hold
front fly hold
laying tri ext 90 degree hold

WOD – 10 reps 3 sets

Wallball shots
double curls

double swimmers press
box dips with lap weight

double press with simulated chest fly
high pull

laying fly
laying pullover

But obviously the big news is that P90X2 arrived on my doorstep last night. The package is pretty click, just like most Beachbody products are, there’s a nutrition book, a big manual that outlines the workouts and the science behind the system and of course a little black book of DVDs. My diet is set, so I am really just in this for the workouts, and since I tend to do a lot of thinking and tinkering with my own bootcamp class I am hoping to both validate what I do and also pick up some more great moves for class. Today is something called X2Core which sounds like it works on your foundation strength, tying your core strength to your other bodypart movements. I will try and write a review of each workout as I do it this time and give my opinion. I just hope that it’s not a let down like I found Asylum to be. The funny thing is that in the manual they give you an optional workout schedule not with Insanity but with Insanity Asylum… Interesting…

Basal Metabolic Rate (How Much Should I Eat?)

Since the bootcamp is Monday and Wednesday this week I took Tuesday off in order to manage my workload a little just in case I ran out of gas for Wednesday’s class. I have been mulling over the content and format for this session and I think once the new gym area is set up I will take a leaf out of the Crossfit world and try to incorporate some strength / max weight work into the class before some lighter MetCon work. For today I don’t think it will be possible even though I suppose I could do squats, the gym and the placement of the equipment isn’t ideal.

That’s later, for now I want to answer another question I get very often… How much should I eat. Once you introduce people to calories and the idea that your body requires a certain amount to function then they get curious and wonder how much they need. It’s an inexact science still, and the numbers depend on a lot of factors. We know that it’s not necessarily calories in Vs calories out since there are “good” and “bad” calories but still there are guidelines that can be used to establish a starting point.

Your body is made up of muscle, bone and fat. Your muscle and bone require significant calories to maintain their state and as such contribute to your basal metabolic rate which is the minimum amount of calories your body needs to fuel itself just sitting still. If you fall below this number, your body will catabolize itself to make up the shortfall either by burning stored fat or by burning lean tissue. Which one it picks is partly due to your diet composition, partly down to hydration levels and partly due to hormonal balances. But to keep this basic lets just say that in order to maintain your lean mass you need to eat a minimum amount of calories. Since our body is only using fat as a “just in case” source of energy we will ignore it in our calculations, especially since it requires basically no calories to exist. So in order to calculate our calories we need to know our lean mass. This is easily done by getting your bodyfat measured with calipers, a fat scale or a water tank dip. These methods will all give you differing accuracies as far as the results but in the case of the scale, it’s a good tool to use on an ongoing basis to give you a start point and an average measurement. For me as I stated the other day my numbers look like this:

Weight 231 lbs or 105Kg (1Kg=2.2lbs)
Bodyfat 15%
Lean Mass (total weight x .85) = 196 lbs or 89.1Kg
Fat Mass (total weight – lean mass) = 35 lbs or 15.9Kg
you could also do Fat mass as total weight x .15 and get the same results.

So I calculate my BMR (not the bullshit BMI!) with the following Cunningham Formula:

500+(22xLean Mass in Kg) which for me is 500+(22×89) = 2458 calories

We take this BMR number and multiply it by a variable between 1.2 and 1.9 to get our caloric requirements for the day. The difference in activity will determine whether you use 1.2 or 1.9 or a number in between.

Again using myself as an example my calories required for the day would be BMRx1.2 up to BMRx1.9 or in numbers:

2458×1.2 = 2950 calories
2458X1.9 = 4670 calories

For most people who are not competitive athletes and spend less than 4 days a week in the gym you are probably good around the 1.2-1.4 mark. For someone who works out vigorously at least 4 days a week (note there is no time duration here) then you can probably bump that up to 1.5-1.7. There are probably very few people in the general population who would need to be in the 1.7-1.9 range.

So in my example I would start out eating around 3000 calories a day and see what happens to my weight, my energy levels and my tolerance for either hunger or the ability to eat that much fruit and veg! The key is to give yourself a place to start and then to adjust as time goes along. As long as you are measuring what you are doing and what is happening, you will know what adjustments to make. But you need to know what the numbers are if you are going to make informed changes.

In the end, do something, have some information about what you are doing because something beats nothing every time!

Going To Be A Great Christmas

I got this in my inbox this morning…

GREAT NEWS!
P90X2â„¢ has begun shipping to everyone who pre-ordered. Orders are being billed/shipped in the order they were received.

Although the process of shipping this much product all at once really does take time, our warehouse assures us that you will have yours a week or two BEFORE December 25, 2011.

Thank you for your order, and we look forward to seeing your Success Story so that we might be able to feature your results in the future TV promotion of P90X2!

Sandra Claus
Beachbody® Operations

R8D65 – Bootcamp Redux Day 1

Today was the start of the second bootcamp session, we are doing 2 days a week now so I decided to bring in the scale and let the participants get their bodyfat measured before we start and then after we are done. Two days a week of bootcamp should make a difference to them no matter if it is strength gain, weight loss or bodyfat loss. I have decided on a 3 day rotation for the class of bodyweight work, weights work and finally a cardio/plyometric day. That way, if they can only come one day a week they won’t get stuck with the same type of workout each time. So we did the weigh in and got to work. Since it is part of the gymnastics class now, the gym girls were there too which is going to make the class pretty big some days.

Before I list the workout though I want to just pat myself on the back a little if you don’t mind.

Last night when I got on the scale I was 231lbs and 15% bodyfat. Now it’s been a while since I posted any of my goals and even though I consistently tell people that it’s not the weight that is important, it’s the bodyfat, I still wanted to get under 220lbs. However, it seems as though I have somehow, without even realizing it, dropped to my goal percentage while my weight has (at times frustratingly) gone nowhere.

As an update seems appropriate so here we go:

Start:
Weight 295 lbs (I was probably too embarrassed to put 300!)
Bodyfat 30%
Lean Mass 206.5 lbs
Fat Mass 88.5 lbs
Waist 50″

Current:
Weight 231 lbs
Bodyfat 15%
Lean Mass 196 lbs
Fat Mass 35 lbs
Waist 37″

Loss:
Weight 64 lbs
Bodyfat 15% – THAT’S 50% OF MY STARTING FAT PERCENTAGE!!!
Lean Mass 10.5 lbs
Fat Mass 53.5 lbs
Waist 13″

I still can’t believe that I have managed to pull off 15% body fat, the last time I was under 15% was when I was at university!

As for the bootcamp peeps, the range was pretty healthy from 21-27% and to be honest I don’t expect to see much of a change since I think most of the participants could use some strength gains not percentage losses.

The class looked something like this:

Warmup followed by…
Cardio Warmup 3 rounds – slow med fast
jog heels up
jog knees up
jumping jacks
heisman
123`s

Chest and abs 3x60s with 30s rest

Regular pushups
Insanity in and out abs
Military Pushups
vsnaps

Arm support and abs 3×10 reps with 30s rest

ARX in and out
push up single balance
Ski Abs
Plank to elbow and back

Basic static legs – sets of 10×3
Air Squats
lunge walk then lunge kick
squat jacks
mary katherine switch

You Need To Know This – Health and Fitness 101, The Basics

I guess I should expect it given where I came from…

I get asked with great regularity about my exercise, diet and motivation. I consider it a privilege to share my knowledge and in that spirit I have put together a basic list of the things that have influenced how I think. Some are my original thoughts, some are not, but it’s all part and parcel of what made me who I am today.

First, let’s get the diet out of the way.

Most of you already know my diet is paleo. It’s what I do and it is what I recommend. Even for kids I don’t see the value in eating grains that are processed and have very little in the way of nutritional value. Eat whole foods, drink water.

Eat like a predator, not prey
What are my reasons for eating paleo? (Other than losing 65lbs?)
Why I eat paleo (By Fitbomb)
Refined Carbs are Just Plain Bad  – including the part about exorphins, or why your body craves carbs like an addict craves coke
Its Carbs not fat that are the problem
Why Paleo isn’t low carb

Now you know how to eat and why let’s quickly address the darling of the weight loss myth – Cardio.

Kettlebells Vs Cardio - The dishonour of cardio
Forget what you think you know – Why cardio is killing you (especially this: 10 reasons I don’t do aerobics)
Why do HIIT – A special nod to my gym girls

The mental game. Why it’s critical to develop mental focus, strength and have a healthy work ethic. Fear and motivation are two topics that come up a lot with my gym girls, and it’s also something I see in the faces of my bootcamp participants. Fear is good, fear is healthy, fear is there to tell you that you are about to become better.

For the kids – Some things you should know…
Fear – Face it, defeat it. Over the years I have had kids who were afraid. Most aren’t any more because they know better.
A big enough WHY? Find your reason, without it you are lost.
Stop listening to yourself – long but well worth the read. PROTECT THIS HOUSE!

So there you have it for now. Some stuff I have written, some links to very good information out there on the web and some stuff I admit I stole because I think it will help you. It’s all important, come back again and again to take what you need and as you do, learn how to coach yourself through life and be the best that you can be for you, your family and those with whom you can share the knowledge.