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.
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.
This one is a comparison from when I first started working out, in March, and the end of X3.
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