My first impression of P.A.P. Upper was “Look at all that equipment, again!” It’s an upper body workout (duh!), so we need the pull up bar, pull up assist, and/or bands, hand weights, towels, the foam roller, plus some items normally associated with the lower body (the plyo box and stability ball), and the weighted bar used previously in Recovery and Mobility.
The cast for this workout includes
- Christina, a nurse and mom of five (including twins), who is not blonde by the way
- Robert, from Texas (just look at his shirt), who accompanied Tony to Japan on one of his visits to the military
- Wayne, an orthodontist who looks like he could pick up his patients in the chair and carry them around. I don’t know why that would be necessary, but you get the idea.
Tony’s tip of the day: Bring your swagger. In other words, don’t be afraid to work hard on each exercise and get some results.
Tony explains again, as in P.A.P. Lower, that each exercise set is a “complex” of four different moves (strength, core, plyometrics, or isometrics). Each complex is repeated four times
I did better on my first try with this workout than I did on P.A.P. Upper. Maybe I felt less rushed, although I did cut it a little short again. It’s easy to do, because of the repetition of exercises, so that I can put in a good effort and not feel as if I am missing anything. Of course, next time I want to do it all.
Some exercise notes:
- Towel pull ups would definitely be more challenging using the bar, but I did my best with the resistance bands in a lunge position, as Christina demonstrates
- The Medicine Ball Pike is a good example of an explosive core move
- I was surprised to see the Roller Angel as an isometric exercise in the workout. It’s certainly challenging if I focus on keeping my lower back where it should be and keeping my hands and elbows behind me.
The stretches at the end are a little different than previous upper body workouts. Tony includes some neuro-integrated stretching with the stability ball.
During this workout and previous ones, Tony has mentioned Marcus Elliott and the Peak Performance Project. Steve Edwards from Beachbody mentioned the relationship between P3 and P90X2 in a recent blog post. I’m sure those of you who follow Tony and Steve know more about this, but I am interested to learn more about P3.
Tip of the day: Don’t be afraid to push just a little bit harder than you think is possible, with good form of course.
