Every night at 9 p.m., Tony Horton comes to my apartment to kick my behind. I'm talking, of course, about fitness instructor Tony Horton, the leader of the popular P90X extreme training system.
For the past 30 days (or "Phase One" in P90X lingo), my girlfriend Michele and I have committed ourselves to the program, and to Tony. It's been absolute hell on our bodies. But, we're both former athletes tired of the prefix, so the program has been tremendous for both of us, and to struggle through the workouts together, it's been comic relief for our relationship. You really get to know your partner well when you're writhing on the ground side by side, cursing at a workout video.
And we really have been writhing on the ground. The program is tough; there's six different videos every week for twelve weeks and each routine is a demanding hour-plus with dozens of painful exercises with ridiculous names. Such as, a souped-up version of jumping jacks called "wacky jacks"; an impossible abdominal exercise called "crunchy frog" where you must extend your knees in a seated position and lean back and forth with arms wide; and there's a core exercise called "superman bananas" which requires rolling back and forth with legs in the air. I pity our neighbors downstairs who must listen to us shouting "I hate bananas!" as we pour with sweat and bang our fists on the ground.
The best part about doing the program with Michele -- aside from both of us getting back into shape -- is that we have a daily activity to do together that doesn't involve a crappy show about New Jersey housewives. The second best part is decoding midday conversations where one of us subtly hints at taking the day off.
"Babe, I'm really sore today," she said last week.
"Yeah, me too," I responded.
"So... you know."
"We can't skip it tonight! Tony will be pissed!"
"But I hate crunchy frogs!"
I hate crunchy frogs too. They're brutal. But we've formed a bond with Tony that's too strong to be undone by our hatred for Dreya rolls, the Groucho walk or crunchy frogs.
There's also diet regimen which accompanies the exercise program, but we've decided to just eat sensibly instead. Gone is take-out Chinese food -- we now cook all our meals. By we, I mean she does most of the work, and I am a sous-chef, relegated to mostly simple tasks like chopping (decimating), seasoning meat (pouring different spices on meat and hoping it tastes good), and testing if whole wheat pasta is cooked through (I throw it at the wall to see if it sticks). I try.
These are late dinners, by the way. By the time the workday is over and we've finished our workouts, it's after 10 p.m. So we stagger around the kitchen, completely sore; her legs ache and my lower back has been tender for a week. The discomfort even led to a separate incident when I decided to combat the back soreness with a bag of frozen vegetables and a layer of Icy-Hot -- at the same time. Don't do that. Don't ever do that. Just trust me.
But despite all the pain, the soreness and the time commitment, it's been completely worth it. In 60 more days, or two more phases, I'm sure we'll both be athletes again and we'll have done it together.
And each night until then, we'll lay in bed moaning, "Damn you, Tony. Damn you."
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"I love it, but I hate it!" (P90X, not your article.)
P90x will undoubtedly work for some people, but so will any thought through programme that you stick with over a period of time.
P90x is for lazy suckers.
Welcome to the less than 1% club, my friend.
For the other 99% of the planet, P90X and working out with Tony Horton is a revelation.
P90X (and Power 90) are two workouts that will bring newcomers to the fitness world from out of shape to the "best shape of their lives" in weeks. I lost more than 50 pounds 4 years ago after finding Tony and these routines, and freely admit that I, like most Americans, put fitness too low on my priority list for far too long. Now it's a daily regime, and Tony and his routines have been with me for more than 4 years on.
In short, stop the hate ALA -- and be proud/glad to see others finding their first steps towards health and workout bliss with Tony Horton, Beachbody.com, and the Power 90 and P90X programs.
My workouts/blog can be found at http://mclainhome.blogspot.com, and you can check out P90X at http://bit.ly/timcoach -- and have a better day everyone.
Eliminate sugar (read: no hard candies, gum, soda.) Eat out only 2-3 times per week, switch to whole grain breads/pasta over white, eat more chicken and fish, down a handful of nuts or an apple for your snacks, and load up on veggies always.
Make time to work your body 30-60 minutes, 5-6 days per week. (Power 90 and P90X are a great start, other workouts also will fit the bill.) Walk, bike, lift weights, etc. consistently.
Borrow my (and Tony Horton's!) mantra to stay motivated: "If I workout today, I will feel good, be healthier, be more fit, and the quality of my life will improve."
In my experience, staying fit is 80% what you eat, and 20% how consistently you work out. After 90 days, all of this will all become a habit.
I just tried to drop a pizza & beer hint to her, rather than doing legs/back/abs tonight, and then I read this? Crap, now I have no excuse, because Tony AND Brett will be mad.
P90x is great, but I don't follow the diet exactly. They diet they have basically cuts all carbs AND fats, leaving only protein. In my mind, a program like this needs more food intake, so I'm just doing low carb and it's working great.
And crunchy frog ain't got nothin on Dreya rolls, but Pheiffer Scissors trump all!
Not *quite* true. I was very skeptical of it because I come from a cycling background, where carbs are just plain necessary.
I'm on my second round of P90X. During the first, I ate my normal fairly healthy diet and got decent results. This time, doing the meal plan, I went from 13% to 10.8% body fat in the first phase. I blew off Kenpo X to ride a bike on the weekends, and I didn't have my usual carb-based endurance, but that's easy to bring back.
The Phase 1 plan usually has a sizeable whole grain serving at night (e.g. wild rice), occaisionally some fruit in the morning, the "recovery drink" (130 calories of mostly sugar), and the "protein bar" (again, fair amount of carbs). I substitute non-Beachbody products for both the recovery drink and protein bar.
There's also a fair amount of nuts and other sources of healthy fats and oils.
Phases 2 and 3 are very balanced. I had whole-grain waffles with breakfast, a pita with lunch, and I think there's some rice in my dinner tonight, as well as a fair amount of olive oil and some salad dressing of my choice.
If you could mention the diet guidance next time that would be great, because most people think it is all about sit ups...
;-)
You should probably not eat so late in the day, but if you have no choice, you have no choice.
Eating so late is less than ideal, but you're right -- we have no choice. Late evening is the only time Michele and I can do the program together.
The program seems rigid but I've checked out the Beachbody message boards and the trainers seem to approve various modifications. For example, a lot of hardcore runners just can't give up their running so they'll substitute a long run for Plyometrics. So it can be flexible.
I was maintaining at 150-153 lbs before starting P90X last fall. I dropped 7 lbs really quickly that first month doing doubles and have been maintaining 143-145 ever since and that's right where I want to be. Also, I never followed the food program. I feel that the diet stages are more geared towards men who want to bulk up. I'm a woman who wanted long, lean, defined muscles. And now I've got them! Yay! Thanks, Tony!