So I have figured out why I am hating P90X all of a sudden. It is this lingering painful last rest week. I have always been the type who like to finish practice with a sprint. When I played rugby throughout all my youth either in England for my school or County, here in Canada for my High School, Town, University or Province it was ALWAYS the case that conditioning was last thing at practice. That way you left everything you had on the field and left with a real sense of achievement and pride. Finishing the P90X program with a rest week is like Friday practice before the game. It’s just lame. I wanted to be shredded and beaten down, to be chiseled and have abs like granite and after the last week of resistance training I did. It’s now almost 2 weeks later and I still haven’t got through the rest week because I am not achieving anything. That lack of final punch has left me unmotivated and listless. If the program had been P83X it would have been almost perfect. The only thing that would have made it better would be a week of stress testing workouts. Some way of really pushing you past your boundaries to see what you and your new body can do. Sadly, I think that they have taken that theory and instead of making a kick-ass, bust your balls, show me what a frigging hero I have become week, they have made a “new” program called P90X Plus out of it to wring more cash out of their bloated cash cow that is Beachbody.com.
Colour me disappointed.
What I wanted, and what I will therefore invent would be a set of lets say 4 workouts with 3 “recovery” days (Yoga, Core, Stretch). The 4 days would consist of an hour long workout designed not to train you but to test you. A final week long fit test if you like to show you just what you have spent the last 3 months doing. Sure it is great to say I did 88 pullups in a session or that I did 350 pushups during a single workout but wouldn’t it be better to say that I completed the Graduation Week of P90X in all it’s painful gut wrenching muscle screaming lactic acid spewing hell?
Maybe it’s just me.
At least they could give you the option of trying handstand pushups or inverted pullups even if to most people it would be pure insanity. I have all this new muscle and the only thing that is confusing it right now is the fact that I am still putting fake boxes on fake shelves instead of crushing cars with my bare hands. Durable in the real world? Sure, that is nice. How about phenomenal in my own basement? That is what I was looking for from days 83-90.
Now I’m just irritated and I still have to do yoga before I can say it’s over.