Hello again, P90X!

We did the first in a series of alternate modified P90X sessions today--DVD 1, chest and back, to be precise. A pretty grueling workout.

I can understand now why I found the Power 90 and Arm Toner routines we were doing to be a lot more aerobic than the modified P90X routines we were doing earlier: it's because I can actually pretty much keep up with the performers on those videos.

With the video editing they do for these routines, if you are able to pretty much keep pace with the participants, you should be pretty winded throughout much of the routine. See, they're not actually doing all these exercises in such quick succession. Instead, "takes" from various studio sessions are being spliced together to make the full video.

With the P90X videos the same construction obtains, but the difference is that I can't keep up on these. The participants are able to do quite a few more reps on most exercises than I can.*

This is especially true of all types of chin-ups/pull-ups. I'd say that at my best when we were doing our modified P90X more regularly last year I could do 4 unassisted pull-ups/chin-ups. Now, I can only do 1 or 2. So I do what I can, then switch to assisted pull-ups/chin-ups.

I can do a lot more push-ups, but not as many as the P90X participants (probably 25-30 from a "cold start?" - don't know, since I've never tried to "max out" from a cold start). As a result, breaks between exercises are a lot longer for me when doing P90X routines than they are when we do Power 90 or Arm Toner routines. Thus, I have time to catch my breath and the whole thing ends up being less aerobic.

A further question is whether I should be disappointed about not being able to do more push-ups and/or chin-ups/pull-ups--especially given that I've been exercising regularly for a couple of years.

My answer is that, no, I'm not disappointed. I know I'm working hard and I know my muscles ache for some days after these exercises. And I'm gaining muscle tone and perhaps some mass. Those--especially the first--are my primary criteria for determining whether I'm getting the right kinds of benefits from these exercises. Number of reps is a pretty secondary concern for me.

Your thoughts on this matter? Feel free to offer them.

* Later reflection: it's true that the P90X participants can do many more of certain exercises than I can, as I've said. I've also realized on further reflection, however, that breaks between exercises on the P90X DVD's are longer than the breaks taken on the Power 90/Power Half Hour DVD's--deliberately so. Part of what they're so obviously trying to stress on the P90X videos is, after all, the importance of recording progress; so they deliberately take time between each exercise for the participants to write down their results (how man repetitions and/or how much weight they used).