P90X – Phase 2 Thoughts

I’m a bit past halfway of Phase/Month 2 of P90X. And holy crap. . . they take it up a notch! Here are my short comments for the main exercises in Phase 2:

Chest & Shoulders & Triceps – A circuit of chest, shoulders and triceps exercises. They decided to up the chest workouts from “doable” to “crazy”. Gone are the “normal” push-ups from Phase 1 and instead they introduce more difficult ones such as push-ups where your hands are beside your chest instead of under your shoulders or 1-handed push-ups. The shoulders and triceps exercises have some exercises from Phase 1 and some new ones. Some are slightly more difficult but not too bad. Overall, there is definitely some hurting going on the next day. . .

Plyometrics – Oh Plyometrics. . . here you are again. . . This is one of my least favourite workouts but also the most intense. This time around I don’t have to modify as much as in Phase 1 and I can generally make it through better than before. The amount of sweat it not pretty. This is the only workout I do in just a sports bra (as opposed to wearing a sports bra and t-shirt). My back becomes covered in sweat and my ponytail reaches my back. Thus partway through the workout my ponytail starts getting pretty wet. Then through capillary action (or something similar to that), sweat moves up my ponytail so more and more gets wet. By the end of the workout, not only is m, Bay body dripping sweat so is my hair.

Back & Biceps – They decided to split up the arms and pair up chest with shoulders and triceps and biceps with back. This isn’t a killer workout but it does a good job working the biceps. Near the end my biceps are hurting and I have to work hard to lift up those weights. Back exercises are relatively the same involving mainly various types of pull-ups and weight exercises.  One new pull-up is the “Corn Cob Pull-up” and it’s hard. It’s very awkward to do it on the lateral pull-down machine but I do my best.

Yoga X – Although I dread plyometrics, the workout that is the hardest for me and my other least favourite is yoga. I generally enjoy yoga but this is above what I’d consider my “beginner yoga level” and there hasn’t been much improvement on my end compared to Phase 1. It involves a lot of strength for the first 45 mins and then flexibility for the last bit. I’m not that strong nor am I flexible so it’s difficult. What I do like about yoga is the stretching. I feel wonderful after I stretch. Tony always says, “Do your best and forget the rest”. That applies for all of the workouts but for me I apply it most to Yoga X because it’s so hard for me.

Legs & Back – This is the same workout from Phase 1. I don’t really have anything to add to this from last time. It’d be nice to have something different for the legs as they have something different for all the other muscles but guess they didn’t want to do that or didn’t have the time to make another. Who knows. . . But it is a good workout any my legs hurt. The wall squats and the one-legged wall squat are painful!

Kenpo X – I actually don’t do this workout and replaced it with running. Although Kenpo X probably does a better job working all parts of your body compared to running, I needed to keep my running up and  knew I had to do it by replacing one cardio exercise with another. I didn’t replace Plyometrics because it’s a much better workout. I also think this is not an accurate name, “Kenpo X”. It’s really cardio kickboxing and not kenpo at all. I think they probably just named it that to sound cooler.

I’m almost done Phase 2 and then on to Phase 3! One day I’ll do a breakdown of the specific exercise in P90X. At least I hope so