Since I’ve been doing P90X, I’ve received plenty of questions from concerned people.
Many want to know how hard it is. Many want to know if I’m crazy. But mostly, they want to know whether P90X works.
So I am here to answer all the questions.
Question #1: How hard is it?
P90X is hosted by a man named Tony. Tony has been visiting me in my basement for months now. He has the kind of muscles that I would like to have, by which I mean they are visible. He is upbeat, friendly, relentlessly encouraging, and sadistic. People have different reactions to Tony: Anna likes Tony, Abbey likes Tony, Ashlei doesn’t like Tony. At times, it looks as if Tony is wearing make-up, which is creepy, but other than that, I like him okay.
The very first workout that you do is called chest and back. In this workout, you switch back and forth between push-ups and pull-ups, 24 times, and Tony cheerfully expects you to suffer. In my zeal, pre-first workout, I bought a contraption to help me do pull-ups, rather than just using that part of the workout to lie on my back. (Come to think of it, I could use the push-up part of the workout to lie on my back as well) The pull-up contraption fits nicely into an open door space, and it hangs from the trim at the top. It has multiple handles to facilitate a wide variety of pull-up motions.
What it doesn’t do is actually help me do the pull-ups.
If you paid attention in high school biology, you will recall that there are different types of bodies. If you have a endomorphic body, you are what we politely call “big-boned,” which means that your doctor will spend a lot of time making you feel guilty about your diet, and then you will get diabetes and die. If you have an ectomorphic body, then you have visible bones stretching out of random places in your skin, and you do not do well in high winds, and you will get scurvy and die. And if you have a mesomorphic body, then you look like Tony on P90X, with nice muscles bulging in a proper and aesthetically pleasing way, and you will not die. Endomorphs and ectomorphs hate mesomorphs, but they also envy them.
Endomorphs cannot do pull-ups, because they have too much weight. Ectomorphs cannot do pull-ups because they have too little muscle. Mesomorphs can do pull-ups until the cows come home. It’s just like Goldilocks . . . this body is too big, this body is too small, this body is just right.
God, in his infinite wisdom, gave you one of these three bodies. He gave me the ectomorphic body, which means that I step carefully over sewer grates in the road so that I don’t fall in. A large portion of my body weight can be attributed to hair. I will never have nice muscles bulging in a proper and aesthetically pleasing way, the way that Tony has his muscles. Mostly, I have one muscle, and I store it under my bed at home so that it doesn’t get damaged.
Back to P90X. Tony starts out by doing 70 pull-ups in about 50 seconds, and while he is doing these pull-ups he is talking continuously, encouraging me to keep up. Instead of keeping up, I do three pull-ups in the same 50 seconds, all while emitting grunting howls. My third pull-up doesn’t really count, because I try, and make several more grunting noises, but my body doesn’t actually move upward, not at all. Then I fall to the ground. As I lay there, quivering, Tony is giving me some pop psychology encouragement about no-pain-no-gain, and do-your-best-forget-the-rest, and losers-eat-cheesecake, and I can feel my bicep trying to exit my body through my armpit, because it knows that Tony is just getting warmed up. It wants to go hide back under the bed. But it can’t, because Tony is already doing push-ups so fast that his body is creating a breeze, and he is again encouraging me to keep up.
So I roll over and do a push-up.
Yes, P90X is hard.
Question #2: Are you crazy?
No.
Question #3: Do you see results?
Well, I have to be honest here. In addition to telling you to do these gobs of exercises, one after another, Tony also advocates a rather strict diet. His guidelines are as follows: No dairy. No carbs. No red meat. No pork or chicken or seafood. No sugars. No MSG. No salt. No caffeine. No butter, margarine, grease, vegetable oil, corn oil, unsaturated fats, or lard. No desserts. This eliminates pretty much everything in the traditional food pyramid, and so you are left with manmade food products, such as Meth or Twinkies or hard liquor.
I’ve been continuing on with my regular diet instead, so my results are not typical. Here are my results:
I can get all the way through the chest and back video without throwing up. I can get all the way through the cardio video without throwing up. I can get all the way through the leg video without throwing up. I can get all the way through the yoga video without throwing up. I can get all the way through the arm video without throwing up.
I’m not saying that I actually do any of the different things that Tony and his friends do when I watch the videos, but I do not throw up.
Bonus question #4: IS P90X good for family togetherness?
Yes. Anna can now do 5 pull-ups, all by herself. Abbey stands by me and offers encouragement and pats me on the back when I am doing push-ups. Ashlei gets alone time. It’s good all the way around.
So, a ringing endorsement for Tony and his video workouts from hell!
Public service announcement: If you choose, after reading this non-advertisement, to purchase and use the P90X workouts, I (firstly) do not receive any monetary benefit from said purchase, and (secondly) am not liable for the injury that you will incur.
