Ok, whew. Got that out of the way. Let’s talk about the important stuff now, not about the evil ways of woman.

So, week one of P90X is DOWN.

Here is a mini-review.

First off, the program is two parts. Diet and Exercise. Well, I can do exercise. Diet is a little harder. The diet portion is pared to 3 phases. Phase one seems to be a south beach diet, protein loading, carb-adverse program. Yeah, that is going to be hard to get down with. I loves me some carbohydrates.

The exercises are fun. But let’s start off with the caveat that I am in shape. I can bench press a house, I can run and do cardio for hours. Hell, my pull up routine involves doing about 60 pull ups in a variety of grips in less than 20 minutes.

BUT…

You will feel like a weak feeble fool on the strength portions.

Second, I am not a sucker so I am not buying their “signature” protein shakes and whatnot. For a recovery drink, I use the target brand creatine post workout shake. Not enough creatine to make my face puffy, just enough to let my muscles know I care.

I will try to be more faithful to the diet portions too.

Ok, so first up. Chest and Back. My strongest suit, right?

Uh, no. This hurt. I was ready to puke at the end. And I could barely string together more than 10 pull ups at a time. Doing push ups and pull ups in succession does hurt your ego. Recovery, on the other hand was easy. No rubber chest. Maybe my triceps hurt, but that was all. I know that I worked hard though.

Next up was plyometrics. I loved this. Pure cardio but more along the lines of jumping here and there. I did it and felt fine. But much like my POSEX story, the pain came later. I have to hand it to them because the program didn’t touch legs again until the pain had subsided. Nonetheless, I was walking around like a cowboy for days. My legs hurt and were rubbery in a way that I did not expect.

After that, day 3 included arms and back, what I thought was my next strongest suit. That rocked too. Maybe too easy, I had to go buy more weights to be prepared for the next session because I had a choice between the too heavy 40 pound weights and the bands. Good times. I loved it.

Next was yoga. Loved that too. But, I realized that a yoga mat is not an exercise mat. I gave up because the damned exercise mat slipped all over place. I had to give up, but along with some 20lb weights, I bought a yoga kit with proper blocks and mat. So, next week, look out Yoga-X!

Legs and back day: hurt. Deal with it. Leg muscles are your largest group and there a many, many ways to wear them out. But my rubber legs were gone by then, so it’s just a mater of time to learn the moves and do the routine.

The last of the 6 day routine was Kenpo-X. I decided to modify my routine and did a heavy chest routine before hand. I maxed out and then an hour later did Kenpo. I am glad I did that because the Kenpo is fun, but not any more challenging than the 2 hours I spend on the cardio equipment at the gym.

Next week, I will double up with arms and chest weight lifting on the Plyometrics and Kenpo days.

As for Ab-Ripper X. God Damn! You can’t do it. I can’t do it. But maybe in a year, I may be able to do it.

Finally, a lot of the leg routines involve fairly complex motions. Much like the Ab-Ripper portion, you can’t do it. Just approximating the positions is still work though. I guess I will be able to do these better later. They still hurt and sucked my soul out.

Verdict: I recommend this program.

This program is worth the price of admission. The host is motivating, and the exercises, for the most part, won’t get old. I am skeptical about Kenpo. At least the plyometric dvd is so frentic and hard pounding that it will keep me going for months. The diet book is well thought out. If you have the motivation to do that as well.