P90X3 Day 41 – MMX

As much as I enjoy CVX, I must admit that MMX has become my new favorite P90X3 cardio routine. This workout burns boat loads of calories and leaves me completely out of gas, in just 30 minutes. Comparing the MMX to Kenpo X or Kenpo Cardio Plus, there is no comparison, this one blows those two out of the water. Between all the sprawls, jump kicks and lunging punches, you will feel like you are in the middle of a Kung-Fu movie during this routine. Plus, I like how all the punching and kicking dynamically stretches all of my tight muscles back out, while burning calories. MMX is definetly going to be a workout that I revisit long after I am done P90X3.

P90X3 Day 40 – Incinerator

Today, was my second time doing Incinerator and it is quickly becoming one of my favorite P90X3 routines. One thing no one can deny, is that Tony Horton knows how to make great upper body routines. This one has you alternating between a 10 rep weighted exercise, followed by a max rep exercise targeting the same muscle, to complete the burnout. Compared to last week, I was able to increase my weight on four of the exercises, Renegade Rows, Pterodactyl Flys, Popeye Hammer Curls and Rocket Launcher Kickbacks. Those exercises target the back, shoulders, biceps and triceps respectively. I was even able to knock out more push-ups and reps on the body weight exercises this time, so it is awesome to see that my entire upper body is getting stronger, thanks to P90X3.

P90X3 Day 39 – Eccentric Lower

Today, was my second time doing Eccentric Lower as part of P90X3. In my opinion this is the best strength based leg workout in Tony Horton’s arsenal, and I have done 10 Minute Trainer, P90X, P90X+, P90X2 and even some of the One on Ones. It is slower paced than PAP Lower from P90X2, so you may not burn as many calories, but you are lifting heavier weights, so trust me, as long as you are using appropriate weights your legs will feel like jelly when it’s time to cool down.

I love the mix of exercises in this routine, which target both the large muscles as well as the smaller stabilizer muscles. Ironically the hardest exercises for me today were not the squats or lunges, but rather TT Plus and Bridge Kicks. TT Plus is not even a weighted exercise, but it had me begging for mercy by the time it was over. Overall, I really enjoy this workout and plan to challenge myself more next week, by increasing my weight on a lot of the exercises.

P90X3 Day 37 – Triometrics

Today, was my second time doing Triometrics as part of P90X3. Last week I was really impressed with how great of a body weight leg workout this one is. But, I am still a little disappointed that there is no fast paced jump training workout, like Plyo X in P90X3.

A couple of my favorite moves today were the Speed Skaters and the Warrior 3 Squats. Speed Skaters get used a lot by Tony Horton, but I really enjoy the three levels of variation here. When it finally gets up to the triple one legged hop across the room, it’s just so much fun. Warrior 3 is one pose I have been trying to improve my balance on for some time and so, I relish any opportunity to work on that. Adding a one legged squat to a pose I already struggle with, is just the icing on the cake. I also really enjoy the burnout, which simply has you jumping side to side and bringing the knees up to add intensity. It is quite satisfying to finish this routine out of breath, even though I feel like it is a little weak overall, from a cardio perspective.

One the other side of things I really struggle with the Kabalam, which has you start in a lunge and jump back and forth from lunge to squat to lunge on the other leg. I have been working a lot on improving my squat form in this program and PiYo, But, when I jump into the position it feels kind of weird, since I am used to setting my feet in position first. But, hopefully over time, as I improve with this exercise it will feel more natural.

P90X3 Day 36 – Eccentric Upper

Today, was my second time completing Eccentric Upper, as part of Block 2 of P90X3. Last week, this was my first workout coming back from a neck strain, so I played it safe and went conservative with my dumbbell choices. This time however, I pushed myself and got a lot out of this routine. I was able to increase my weight on all the weighed exercises, except Pterodactyl Flys and Lateral/Anterior Raises, because my shoulders were completely cooked about half way through the routine. Also, last time I was a little concerned that 10 push-ups was not enough per set, so this time I joined the gang by keeping one leg off the ground during the Military Push-Ups and that really turned up the heat. Next week, I will try and keep one leg off the ground for all the push-ups, except the Plyo.

One thing I did notice during the workout, was that my counting started to speed up towards the ends of sets. If you are not familiar with this workout, the premise is to take 3 full seconds on the negative or eccentric part of the movement and then explode through the concentric part of the movement in one second. So, to stop myself from speeding up I went back to the old school Mississippi way of counting and everything became so much tougher. So, please make sure you don’t just speed count your way through this routine. Focus on counting properly, so that you get all that you can out of this upper body blaster.

P90X3 Day 34 – MMX

Today, I finally got to try MMX, as part of P90X3. I have been excited to try this routine ever since I heard about the program, because I have always found martial arts based fitness to be a lot of fun. However, Kenpo X from P90X and Kenpo Cardio Plus from P90X2, left a little to be desired intensity wise, even though they are still a lot of fun. When P90X2 did not have a martial arts routine, I figured that Tony had ditched the concept. But, it is back in P90X3 with MMX and my first impression is very positive.

The pacing of MMX is way faster than either of the Kenpo routines. There is not much explanation as far as the moves go and there are a lot of combinations, so watching this one before you start is a good idea. I did not, so I ended up wasting some time trying to figure out each move. But, even still I got one heck of a cardio workout. In my opinion this one was harder than Triometrics and Agility X and is at least on par with CVX.

The workout starts with a full 5 minute warm-up, which is unprecedented as far as P90X3 goes. But, trust me when you are kicking and punching like crazy for 20+ minutes, you need to make sure you warm-up properly to prevent injury. There are also 3 30 second water breaks in the routine, making the main workout shorter than any of the other P90X3 routines I have done to date. That being said the moves are complex, and you are trying to strike as hard and fast as you can. Plus, many of the exercises have you sprawl onto the ground and jump back up to your feet with each rep, so trust me this one gets tiring real fast.

As far as the exercises themselves go, each one is a minute long, but you do 30 seconds with one side leading and then 30 seconds with the other. Like I said they do get quite complex, such as the Gladiator / Sprawl / Jab / Cross / Hook / Uppercut, for example. If you have done P90X+ than you will be familiar with what a Gladiator is, but if not it has you jump up with the front knee, then kick with the back leg and then punch the back fist into the ground as you land. That was my favorite exercise in Kenpo Cardio Plus and this MMX combination is awesome. Overall, this workout far exceeded by expectations, as far as a martial arts workout goes and I see myself completely replacing the Kenpo workouts with this one in the future. MMX may not actually teach you how to fight, but it is a ton of fun and burns loads of calories. 2 thumbs way up for this routine.

P90X3 Day 33 – Incinerator

Today, was my first time trying out the Incinerator workout, as part of P90X3. I wasn’t sure what to expect with this workout and kind of expected it to be like The Warrior, just because of where it is in the schedule. What it actually turned out to be, is a kick butt upper body resistance routine, that I found even more difficult than Eccentric Upper.

The workout itself is composed of 9 pairs of exercises. The first exercise has you do 10 reps, with heavy weight. While, the second exercise has you do max reps for 30 seconds, to burn out the same muscle group. The second exercise for the most part is a body weight exercise, but there are a couple where you use light weights as well. The 9 pairs of exercises go like this: chest, back, chest, back, shoulders, shoulders, biceps, triceps and the last pair is one bicep and one tricep exercise. So, for example the first pair has you do 10 reps of Renegade Rows, followed immediately by max rep Pull-Ups for 30 seconds. At the end of the workout there is a 2:15 long Burnout. The Burnout is different from the Pull-Up / Push-Up combo we have seen in the past, for the upper body. This time Tony has you start out in plank and he calls out things for you do do, like Simon says except with Tony. The different things he has you do include holding plank, holding low plank, holding side plank and doing Push-Ups. I found this Burnout to be the hardest yet, though that may be just because it is the longest.

As far as the exercises themselves go, some may sound unfamiliar to you, but there is nothing that complicated. One of these strange sounding exercises is Monkey Pump, which is actually just a combination of shoulder moves put together to make one rep. It is basically a variation on the 6 Way Shoulder Fly from P90X2, or the Sagi Six Way from Body Beast.  Flipper is another simple but exotic sounding exercise, in this routine. This one simply has you in elbow plank going back and forth between plank and pike. Another one is Hail to The Chief, which is a tricep exercise much like Skull Crushers, except you do one arm at a time and bring the dumbbell down to the opposite shoulder.

Overall, I was very impressed with Incinerator. The pacing is rather brisk, which means that I found myself out of breath a lot, especially after the 30 second burnout exercises. Plus, I found the back to back high weight / high rep exercises targeting the same muscle group, to be very effective. Trust me, my entire upper body is on fire thanks to the Incinerator, especially since you do it just 4 days after Eccentric Upper.

P90X3 Day 32 – Eccentric Lower

Today, was my first time doing Eccentric Lower as part of P90X3. Just like Eccentric Upper the premise of this routine is spending 3 seconds on the eccentric part of every rep, while exploding through the concentric motion in 1 second. So, using squats as an example, for each rep you should take 3 seconds to lower down and then 1 to push back up. As with Eccentric Upper, we do every exercise for 10 reps a piece. There are 13 exercises total, with no breaks and no burnout round at the end. My first impression of this routine is very positive. In my opinion this is one of, if not the best leg routine Tony Horton has made.

Comparing this routine to the leg routines in P90X and P90X2 is very difficult, because none of those use this much added resistance. Legs and Back from P90X featured mostly body weight exercises, with a few weighted ones thrown in. While, P90X2’s Base + Back only had plyometric exercises for the legs. Plus, both those routines had you doing pull-ups for half the workout. The closest comparable routine is PAP Lower from P90X2, but despite having a couple moves in common with this routine, that workout was very different due to the whole Post Activation Potentiation aspect. While, Eccentric Lower is much more of a classical leg workout compared to any of those.

Since, this routine is much more of a standard leg workout, you can expect many old school leg exercises, such as weighted Squats, Lunges, Sumo Squats and Albanian (or Bulgarian) Squats. However, about half of the exercises target the smaller muscles in the legs, including the hip flexors and stabilizer muscles, by using instability or Pilates type movements. A couple of these exercises, TT (Ton’y Triangle) Plus and Cross Reach, may be familiar to you if you have done PAP Lower. However, there were some brand new moves that I really enjoyed, as well. One of my favorites was the Hip Flexor Splits. This move had you sitting basically right on top of your push-up stands, while keeping your butt and legs of the ground. The movement itself was simply opening and closing your legs, but I struggled big time with this one, because of how hard it is to keep your butt off the ground.

Overall, I really enjoyed this leg routine and like I said I think it is one of the best yet, to come from Tony Horton. That being said don’t expect this one to compare with the Body Beast leg routines, which absolutely blow this one out of the water difficulty wise. Still, I do think Eccentric Lower has a place in everyone’s workout library, because of all the great exercises that target the smaller leg muscles, that are often ignored in standard weight lifting routines.

 

P90X3 Day 31 – X3 Yoga

I woke up with my legs feeling sore from yesterday’s Triometrics. So, X3 Yoga really hit the spot today. This is a great little routine that stretches, relaxes and heals the body quite effectively in such a short period of time. It may not be as great of a workout from a difficulty or calorie burn perspective compared to Yoga X and X2 Yoga, but that does not stop it from being one of my favorites in P90X3. I was feeling so good towards the end of the workout, that I paused the video during the short Plow section, so that I could spend a little more time in it. I also added in some Frog and Happy Baby for good measure, before finishing up the routine with Tony and the gang.

P90X3 Day 30 – Triometrics

Day 2 of P90X3’s Block 2 means another brand new workout, Triometrics. I am half surprised the workout was not named Triometrix, to keep up with the P90X3 naming convention. I really wanted  to compare this workout to Plyo X from P90X, because of the name, how Tony introduces it in the beginning and because that is one of my all time favorites. But, it is not that at all, in fact there isn’t even that much jumping involved. This workout is much lower impact than Plyo X and much easier in my opinion. However, it is still a really solid workout, it’s just that Plyo X is on Insanity’s level of craziness.

Triometrics turned out to be more of a cross between Interval X Plus, from P90X+ and Plyocide, from P90X2. The similarity with Interval X Plus, is that they both have you do each exercise at 3 different levels of intensity, easy, medium and hard, by increasing speed and range of motion. Each exercise is a minute long, so you spend 20 seconds at each intensity. Triometrics focuses way more on increasing range of motion than speed however, since many of the moves involve a balance component, as well. That is very much like Plyocide, where you do one slow controlled balance type exercise followed by 3 exercises heart pumping ones. Triometrics is not split up into rounds like that, but there are a good mix of both types of exercises. The workout flows very well, as I did not feel like I was standing around too much in between exercises and there is only 1 true 30 second break.

As far as the exercises themselves go, there is nothing too exotic here. There are many exercises that are elsewhere in P90X3, and if you have done P90X and P90X2, they will basically all be familiar to you. I was particularly happy that the Run Stance Squats from Plyo X made an appearance, because that was always one of the toughest moves for me.

Overall, I actually really enjoyed Triometrics. Much like Agility X, it is more of a hybrid cardio / leg workout, but I thought this one flowed a lot better and was generally more effective at burning out my legs and getting my heart rate up. I am looking forward to X3 Yoga tomorrow, because my body is begging for some TLC, at the moment.