The Fitness Ninja

Before I get to the body of the review, here are a few links which may be of interest.

*This is a review of my initial run of Classic P90x.  Learn of my love / hate relationship with Tony and company.

* This link conveys my thoughts on Insanity after having completed the 60 day program.

*Finally, here you can find the format and three month schedule of the P90x / Insanity hybrid I concocted (and finished as of June 22, 2010).

There were several reason why I decided to tackle a hybrid in the first place.  I genuinely had a positive experience with both of Beachbody’s products and I wanted at least one more run through of each program just to make sure I had the routines down pat.  However, I didn’t think I wanted to devote another five full months to repeating both programs in their entirety so I took the shortcut and melded the two together.  Second, I had nothing else in line in terms of a workout schedule and a lot of the blogs I read were also tackling hybrids of the two in one form or another (yes, I acknowledge I’m a total sheep!).  Lastly, although I think both P90x and Insanity are top notch products, I also think each has weaknesses that could be compensated for by merging it with its respective counterpart. Namely, with the exception of Plyo X, P90x needs a good cardio kick in the ass while Insanity requires a bit more of the upper body / strength building focus Tony’s program has in abundance.

Like my other reviews, I’ll list the likes and dislikes of the hybrid.

Liked: Varied exercise composition.  The ‘biggie’.

Although both P90x and Insanity tout themselves as full body programs, each package does hold a decided slant regarding the exercises they favor.  P90x leans towards weight training / strength conditioning while Insanity focuses on intense cardio / aerobic routines. And with regards to each program’s ‘bias’, both seem to do their respective focuses justice.  As a result, when combining the two in such a way that they shed their “weaker” components (I’m looking at you Kenpo X and Total Upper Body Conditioning), the remaining amalgamated package is all the better for it.

In my own hybrid experience, I found that Insanity profited a great deal from being paired with P90x.  I got manageable bursts of cardio intensity from Shaun T. without the monotony of doing crazy aerobic routines every day for two months.  What’s more, you only do each of Insanity’s routines once a month (a different Max and Regular routine paired per week).  Thus, if there is a program you absolutely dread (*cough* Max Plyo *cough*), you thankfully only have to do it once every thirty days.

This isn’t to say P90x isn’t improved by Shan T.’s presence in its schedule.  It is. Namely, you get a much more strenuous workout regimen by ridding yourself of Plyo X, Cardio X and Kenpo X and subbing in *any* Insanity DVD in their place.

(As an aside, I don’t really know what Kenpo X is supposed to develop.  Is it cardiovascular capacity? Strength? Flexibility?  It comes up short in all three categories when compared to any other routine in Tony’s arsenal).

Where P90x could decidedly use more variety is in its lower body routine.  I found doing Legs & Back almost every week kinda lackluster as numerous moves in that particular DVD were easy.  For this reason, I swapped a modified version of Crossfit’s “Angie” routine (10 circuits of 40 reps divided between pull-ups, crunches, push ups and squats / lunges).  I thought this gave a much better return for the time spent doing it.  As an added bonus, cutting Legs & Back prevents Katie from re-entering your living room.

Interestingly, though, if I were to re-do this hybrid I probably would re-introduce Legs & Back (sans sound) OR (more likely) get another routine that focuses on lower body work so I could interchange that with the Angie.  *Any* routine repeated ad nauseum every week for the duration of 90 days will get stale.  Having at least one other lower body workout would go a long way to alleviating this problem.

Liked: Cutting out the warm up and cool downs was a great way to speed up the workouts.  I wouldn’t advise doing this if you workout early in the morning as your muscles are especially cold and tense just getting out of bed.  However, if you’re like me and you exercise late afternoons or evenings and your body has already been loosened up by the course of the day’s grind, I’d say go for it.

Liked: Having already gone through P90x once, I was familiar with Tony’s instructions and, armed with the tracking sheets, I was often able to forego DVDs altogether.  This sped up my completion time on days when I was really motivated / energetic as I could move faster than Tony and company and take fewer breaks.  Of course, going on my own worked against me on days when I felt sluggish or distracted as I took longer pauses between sets than Tony would have allowed.  With regards to Insnaity, they’re not the kind of routine I could memorize and perform without the timer and Shaun’s cues so I never attempted them without his guidance.

Disliked: I think the impetus to do a P90x / Insanity hybrid usually comes once you’ve done both programs in their entirety.  At least, that was the notion I got from reading bloggers attempting the hybrid; it was something they committed only after completing an initial run of each program.  So, despite its inherent variety, the hybrid *still* gets repetitive as you are revisiting the same DVDs over and over again.  The foibles of the instructors will continue to drive you nuts (that is, if you keep the sound on) AND you’ll find new things to be annoyed with (Shaun T.’s constant repetition of phrases like “Dig deeper!”, his miscounting of moves and the fact that everything seems to be reversed in his directions [i.e. when he says stretch to the right, it’s actually to his left he’s going to… or is just me and my imagination that this is happening?]).

Disliked: I didn’t know if I should write this down as it’s not really a fault in the hybrid per se but rather in the way certain routines were designed.  Namely, there are a lot of isolated exercises in several of the P90x routines (i.e. curls / kickbacks) which only work one muscle group.  For the time spent, compound moves would have been a more efficient use of time and effort when building muscle and / or strength.  Likewise, Shaun’s routines recycle the same moves over and over again.  Even his favorite upper body move (the push-up) could have used mixing up as he mainly seems to use the same 4-5 types of push-ups throughout the entire program (and there are TONs of variations on push ups).

I really liked doing the hybrid as I felt like I was getting the best of both worlds from Beachbody’s top selling products – Tony’s weight / bar work and Shaun T.’s killer aerobic routines.  I would be more apt to repeat this hybrid than either Tony or Shaun’s stand alone products as I think it shores up some of the weaknesses to be found in either.  Having said that, I *probably* won’t be revisiting either for some time as I just need a bit more variety after 8 full months of these guys.

If I had the resources and a gym nearby that offered it, I think I would dive headlong into a CrossFit program.   As killer as both P90x and Insanity are (I think it’s fair to say they are the most “hardcore” programs offered by Beachbody), from what I read of Crossfit on the internet, it takes the word ‘intensity’ to a whole other level.

Of course, they are making an official sequel to P90x… so there’s always that to look forward to.  Hehehehe….

Tags: Review

This entry was posted on Saturday, July 3rd, 2010 at 9:22 pm and is filed under P90x / Insanity Hybrid, Review. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.