As a teenager, I rode my bike a lot, and in the last couple of years of high school I was a cross country runner. My exercise choices at the time might have contributed to my “98 pound weakling” look, which in my adult life translated into a guy with no upper body muscle, and a pot belly. I had given up on running because my knees were bothering me.
When I bought P90X, it was after I had finally taken control of my diet, lost the excess weight, and I had worked my way through lots of miles walking and jogging on the treadmill, as well as many mornings with Jillian Michaels exercise DVDs. Jillian is a firm believer in body weight exercises, which of course she has in common with P90X. When she uses hand weights, they are light, and they create a higher calorie burn while the legs and/or core muscles are also engaged.
I provide all this introduction to say that P90X Shoulders and Arms (the predecessor to this workout) was my first experience with weight lifting for the sake of muscle building. It’s not very aerobic, which I am told by many sources (including Jillian herself, on her podcast) is exactly how to build muscle rather than burning it off. After the P90X workout, I often felt like I could eat a very large steak, if not an entire cow. I guess that’s how you know it’s working!
I took some time last night to preview the video. It was pretty easy, because it consists of the same group of exercises repeated in 3 sets (not 2 or 4). I guess that fits nicely into the time period. The “functional fitness” component is provided by the stability ball, chair, and/or plyo box which are used as an unstable platform for one foot while we are lifting weights. Once again, the emphasis is on proper form rather than maximum weight, and higher reps where possible.
The cast for this workout includes Jason, Josh, and Monica. All three are Team Beachbody coaches. I will admit that I was really impressed by Monica, for the reasons you might expect. With all due respect, she’s a mother of three, super fit, and ripped. What can I say? Jason is apparently an old friend of Tony’s, and a rock musician. As for Josh, Tony Horton makes fun of his big biceps, and how they get in the way when he does a Table pose during the warm up.
The workout itself is nothing revolutionary. In the original P90X Shoulders and Arms workout, Tony calls it “Good old fashioned American work!” The instability does make it more challenging, for sure. I don’t know if this works against muscle growth, because it’s not safe to use the same weight I might have used for P90X. Here again, in P90X2 the methods and goals are different. The exercises are a two types of bicep curls, a shoulder press, a couple of triceps exercises, and a couple of “fly” moves. Afterwards, I did feel that urge to eat protein, which is a sign that something good is happening inside me. Hopefully I am working towards that “functional fitness,” too.
One final note about Tony’s dialogue: In most of the workouts I have seen so far, he does Arnold Schwarzenegger impressions (not just once; several times!), and he uses the phrase, “Try to make it look hard” when a cast member is executing a difficult move with perfect form. Was he running out of original lines, or did they record all these in the same day, when he was stuck in a rut? I guess I can’t criticize until I have my own collection of highly successful exercise videos, right? Tony, I still love you, man!
