Jillian Michaels Criticizes P90X on Exercise Recovery

DVD 3-pack (Amazon)

If you’ve read the tag line of my blog, you know that Tony Horton and Jillian Michaels are two big fitness icons in my life. I started with Jillian’s DVDs after clocking a lot of hours on the treadmill, and she taught me there was more to workouts than cardio. After months of 30 Day Shred and No More Trouble Zones, when I discovered the P90X infomercial, I knew that I was ready for Tony’s mix of strength training, cardio, and yoga. I haven’t taken the time yet to compare Jillian’s approach and Tony’s in a blog post, but for me they have both been helpful.

On the 4/28/12 episode of The Jillian Michaels Show podcast titled “Fat Fighting Foods,” Jillian answers a caller’s question about using a variety of at-home fitness DVDs, rather than repeating the same workout several weeks in a row, or following an exercise program for more than a couple of weeks. Here is an audio clip (MP3) of the conversation from beginning to end.

P90X (Amazon)

To summarize the conversation, the female caller was “curious about how often you can change up your workouts.” She owns a lot of home fitness DVDs, both standalone and longer programs, including P90X. I like her already! Anyway, she wanted to know if it was OK to pick and choose from her various DVDs as she got tired of doing a particular one after a couple of days, or maybe a couple of weeks in the case of P90X.

Ripped in 30 (Amazon)

Jillian’s responded that she doesn’t like it if you do the same thing for more than two weeks. For example, her Ripped in 30 contains four workouts, and each one progresses to the next after a certain number of days. Her recently released Body Revolution (a 90 day program, by the way) changes the workouts every two weeks. When it comes to a longer program like Body Revolution, though, she would prefer if the person sticks to the program for the intended results.

Jillian’s concern with a “scattershot” approach is that body parts should be allowed to recover from one workout (for about two days) before that muscle group is worked again. Jillian loves that the caller is working out. Variety is great too. She doesn’t want her to be working out the same muscle group two days in a row.

Now we come to the interesting part, for those of us who have worked out with both Jillian and Tony. Jillian says “One of  [her] issues with P90X” is that “One day, you’re doing heavy biceps, and the next day, you’re doing pull ups.” In another part of the conversation, she describes yoga (not specific to P90X) as being tough on the shoulders.

30 Day Shred (Amazon)

Jillian is entitled to her opinion, of course, as a certified trainer with her own well-researched approach to fitness. As I said, I have used her videos, including 30 Day Shred, which I revisited just a few days ago when I needed a quick but comprehensive workout. I am willing to consider her comment regarding P90X and “heavy biceps followed by pull ups” as an offhand remark, because of course any day involving biceps and/or pull ups is followed by a different type of workout… except in the case of Yoga X, where she might be making a better point. In the P90X schedule, aside from the recovery weeks, yoga does follow a shoulders and biceps day, so technically that’s two days in a row that might be tough on the shoulders.

Rip:60 (Amazon)

I would love to see a list of the issues Jillian has found in her examination of P90X. Personally, I was interested in what seemed to be a very similar program endorsed by Jillian, called Rip:60. Unfortunately, I think this is more of an endorsement deal, because Jillian is not the trainer in these videos, so it’s not a direct comparison. Of course, it’s in her best interest to point out what she sees as flaws in a bestselling home workout program (now almost 10 years old, and updated a little in the subsequent DVD releases P90X Plus and P90X One on One with Tony Horton). To say that P90X does not provide adequate recovery time is inaccurate, when in fact P90X is based on “muscle confusion” and recovery DVDs like X Stretch, and even the stretching section of Yoga X. Going back to the caller’s question, if you follow the P90X schedule, or at least take care to choose your workouts with recovery in mind, then it’s possible to get a lot of variety and still achieve your fitness goals safely.

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