I tried, several times in the past to start working out. I dislocated my shoulder and had to go to psychical therapy and worked on my shoulder there, this was my first time to “workout” in a long time and I found that I enjoyed it, so I decided to join a gym, which didn’t last long.

After seeing a friend’s results with P90X, I decided I wanted to try that but failed several times with it; I never completed a full week. I posted on Twitter one day about how badly I needed to complete the program, due to the amount of money I had put into “getting in shape” already. With weights, buying the program (twice), and other stuff, it was over $1,000. A Beachbody coach approached me and asked me to join her group on Facebook, which I did.

Unfortunately, I fell out of it again and right after that my wife passed away and I never even tried to get back into. Vanessa, my coach, got back in touch with me and asked how I was doing with my workouts and I told her I wasn’t doing them anymore but needed to get back into them but didn’t think P90X was the program for me because I didn’t believe I could keep up with it, she suggested I try P90X3.

We talked for a while about it and I did some research and thought I’d enjoy it, seeing as it was only thirty-minute workouts. Vanessa asked if I wanted to become a coach, like her, and I said “no” because I had never completed a program before and didn’t figure I’d be any good at it but after talking some more she convinced me to do it.

I got the program in, started, and only did a couple of days, then stopped doing it too. I got really upset with myself and looked into some more programs and found Focus T25, a program by Shaun T (the creator of Insanity). After a little research, I found a hybrid that combined P90X3 and T25 and decided to do it. The program was ninety-days long and I’m proud to say that I completed the entire program without missing a day if I did; I made it up by doing two workouts in one day.

I owe my success for the programs to becoming a coach, as I feel helping motivate others helped me motivate myself. Also, the support groups I’m in are great. I’m glad Vanessa found me and was able to help me find a program to help me succeed. Finally, Shaun T and Tony Horton are great trainers and really help push me to my limit.


After I finished the hybrid I started Insanity Max: 30, another Shaun T program. I completed the ninety-days of it and felt great. My stamina increased greatly and I was able to do a workout that I was never able to do before, Plyometrics from P90X.

When I completed Max: 30, I wanted to go back to P90X3 and complete the program, without the addition of T25. I decided to do the mass schedule (MS), which would help build up my muscles better; I just finished this program Sunday (11/1/15).

I love P90X3 and love the results I had with it. My arm strength and range of motion improved greatly. The workouts really pushed me and I feel more confident with my body. I even made a joke on Halloween that I was going to work as Magic Mike and posted a picture of me on Facebook of myself in nothing but a tie and pants, something I wouldn’t have done a year ago.

When I first started P90X3 I wasn’t able to do some of the exercises because I was afraid of hurting my shoulder, I modified and used small weights for some exercises, where needed, but worked my way up over time.

Here’s what the MS looks like (Click the image to enlarge):



I won’t go into detail about all of the workouts but will talk about a few.



The Challenge was my favorite workout of the entire program; it is thirty-minutes of push-ups and pull-ups. The challenge is, you set a number of how many push-ups and pull-ups you want to do for each round and you try to hit those numbers each time.

The first two weeks that I did The Challenge, I set the numbers at 10 (pull-ups) and 15 (push-ups). I was able to do all of the push-ups but came up short on some of the pull-ups in the later rounds. On the third week, I decided to increase the push-ups to 20. By the time, I made it to the fifth and final time of doing it I was able to hit all of the push-ups and pull-ups, with the exception of the last round, where I made it to 8/18. I’m still happy with these numbers and love how much I improved doing it.



Incinerator was my second favorite workout; I always got a major pump out of it. Like The Challenge, I did the workout five times. I was able to increase several reps over time, as well as weights. For example; the second exercise you do is pull-ups, the first week I did 17, the final week 19, not a huge increase, but there were a couple of weeks that I could only do 16. The fourth workout was regular push-ups, the first week I did 17, the final week 25. For an example of weight increase, the first week I did Rocket Launcher Rows with 25lbs (10 reps), the final week with 40lbs, and could have gone up more.



I love this workout and it really, really pushed me every time I did it. There are a lot of hard exercises in this workout and you have to move eccentrically (slowly down) and it kicks ass. The exercise I’m most proud of is the Plyo Push-ups; you go down slowly and pop up, completely off the ground (both hands and feet) ten times. When I first started I was modifying and wasn’t getting off the ground (nor was I able to do all ten) by the time I finished I was able to do all ten, without modifying. The Plyo Push-ups is my single-favorite exercise in all of P90X3.







Eccentric Lower is a lot like Eccentric Upper, only for the legs. It’s another workout that always pushed me and made me push myself. I was always going up on weights for the workout, especially the Sumo Squats. The first week I was using 35lbs and by the end, I was using 75lbs. By the time I was done with the workout each time, I was barely able to walk but it felt great.

I didn’t lose any weight with X3 but was able to gain muscle, which is my main goal anyway. I gained over an inch on both arms and legs. I love the workouts in X3 and will be using it as my “go to” program whenever I need it.

I just started Insanity Asylum, which is 30-days, and will be going back to the original P90X afterward. This time, there will be no stopping me.

Here are some beofore and after pictures. Click the images to enlarge.







This one is a comparison from when I first started working out, in March, and the end of X3.
I’ve been posting some videos of some of my workouts for the last couple of months and have been told the same thing several times, “if I tried that, I would kill myself.” Here’s a secret, I wasn’t always able to do everything that I can now, I had to start small and work my way up.

When I first started doing my workouts, in March of 2015, I wasn’t jumping very high or for very long, now I can jump higher and longer. One of the most intimidating exercises that I faced was Eccentric Plyo Push-ups from the Eccentric Upper workout in P90X3, when I first started them I wasn’t coming off the ground at all and couldn’t do all ten, now I have can do all ten, while getting nice height every time.

The secret to getting better is not to give up. Although I couldn’t do some of the exercises when I first started, I modified the move until I could do it if I got tired doing a move, I didn’t stop working, I modify that too.

I was talking to someone about one of the workouts I posted one day and they said that they would kill their knees of they tried it, I told them to modify, their reply was “that’s cheating.” This is not true! Modifying is not cheating, not at all. It is a way to get your workout done, without hurting yourself.

While I was doing my workout this morning (Speed & Agility from Insanity Asylum) I had to modify some because it was kicking my butt. As I was doing this, I thought about all of the people that told me that they couldn’t do the workouts and thought modifying was cheating and wanted to prove them wrong.

I rested for a couple of hours and did another workout, Plyo Fix Extreme, from 21 Day Fix Extreme. I decided to do it because it involved jumping in every move, only I was going to modify the whole time. Instead of jumping, I just raised my knees, stepped, or in some cases, used no weights at all.

I recorded myself doing the workout (video below); I had only ever done the workout once prior to the recording and had never modified the moves, so I was pretty much making them up on the spot. The video has a modifier (as does all Beachbody workouts) but they were still jumping and I wanted to take that completely out.

I’m not perfect, I actually stumbled a couple of times in the video and I started off doing one move completely wrong, it happens. There are other ways you can modify the moves too, I go fairly deep in a lot of the squats and lunges, but you don’t have to go so deep. Where I lift my knee to my waist, you might not be able to get it as high, at first. If you don’t think you can use weights at first, don’t. Do what you feel comfortable with but get it done.

Don’t be scared to modify. The workout was 30-minutes long, even with modifying I burnt over 300 calories and was sweating like crazy. Modifying will help you get the workout done, eventually you’ll be able to do the regular workout, it might only be one rep at first, but soon you will be able to do the entire 30-seconds of each move with no problem.

The truth of the matter is, if you think modifying is cheating and that’s the reason you won’t workout, that’s just an excuse. Modifying will build you up to be better. I have a bad shoulder, but that doesn’t stop me from getting my workouts done.

As Tony Horton says, “Your limitations might be challenges, but they shouldn’t be your excuses.”

Watch the video below and see how easy it is to modify and still get the job done.

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