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P90X Plyometric Workout in my Living Room

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I did another P90X workout earlier this week but todays workout was much different than weight training so I decided to go for it. Wikipedia defines plyometrics as “a type of exercise designed to produce fast and powerful movements. It is generally used by athletes to improve performance in sports, especially those that involve speed, quickness and power.”  It’s also often referred to as “jump training” because the workouts typically involve jumping in one way or another.  I’ve done various forms of plyometric workouts throughout my life as a high school athlete and then for one year playing baseball in college but since then I haven’t had much of a reason to train for explosiveness.  Most of my favorite athletic events are running, hiking, biking, and climbing.  I haven’t really played team sports in a long time so the need for agility isn’t as high as it used to be.  I’ve done both P90X and P90X Plus and both involve this type of exercise and I found them to be total arse-kickers.  I admit that working out in front of your TV or laptop is a bit corny but the reality is that I sweat like crazy and I can’t walk right the next day so you can’t argue with results.

The video itself is about 60 minutes long but with warmup and cooldown exercises the actual plyometric section is about 45 minutes, still not an insignificant amount of time to be jumping around.  I originally started the workout barefoot because I left my running shoes at work but I was sweating buckets which made my floor pretty slippery so I had to switch to my hiking boots.  I don’t recommend wearing boots during a plyo workout, it’s pretty similar to trying to jump while wearing bricks on your feet.

A view of my living room where I did my plyometric workout. I'm sure my neighbors down below weren't too pleased with me jumping up and down for 45 minutes straight, oh well. Also in view are only about half of the bikes that exist in our apartment as well as a pretty sweet wolf poster (Thank you New Hampshire).

In addition to leaving my running shoes at work, I also left my heart rate monitor at work so I took my heart rate at the beginning of each of the six 30 second breaks.  My heart rates were as follows:

Break 1 (after warmup) – 104bpm

Break 2 – 120bpm

Break 3 – 144bpm

Break 4 – 162bpm

Break 5 – 150bpm

Break 6 – 156 bpm

So this lead to my minimum/maximum/average being 104/162/139 over 45 minutes.  I was drenched with sweat and my legs were pretty wobbly, even two days later (as I’m writing this post) my arse is still sore.  It probably wasn’t the best idea to do this workout two days before running the Ragnar Relay in Cape Cod; a 24 hour, 12 person, 200 mile relay road race.  I’m sure it’ll be fine (famous last words).

I looked around YouTube to try and find some examples of a plyometric workout and this video actually made me laugh out loud: two bros just doin P90X together, super serious, and videotaping it for the world, no big deal haha, enjoy:

P90X Shoulders, Biceps, and Triceps

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Despite climbing all day yesterday, I decided it would be a great idea to do an hour of P90X in the gym.  Today (the next day) I am certainly sore as hell, but I do these workouts frequently so it wasn’t too much worse that normal.  Back in 2008 I did the full 90 days of P90X and I followed it pretty strictly.  I did it mostly because I had seen so many of the infomercials on late night television.  It wasn’t marketed as an everyman’s workout, they said it wouldn’t take Joe-Shmo off the couch and make him shredded, they advertised it was taking someone who’s in great shape, and putting them in unbelievable shape.  I thought to myself, “I’m in pretty good shape and yes I’d love to be in ridiculous shape, count me in.”  I bought into it despite the corny-ness and hype associated with workout DVDs and it worked out great for me and I was sore every day for 90 days, #win.

After doing P90X and P90X+, I still mix the workouts into my weekly routine.  I’ll do one or two of my favorite workouts each week on top of running, hiking, climbing and my other outdoor activities.  Today I did a workout called Chest, Shoulders, and Triceps which has 24 different exercises that rotated between chest, shoulders, triceps for eight sets.

Workout sheet for Chest, Shoulders, and Triceps

After watching the videos a few dozen times and inadvertently memorizing every phrase that comes out of Tony Horton’s mouth, I now go straight off the workout sheets.  There are a few exercises that I don’t like so I replace with ones that I find to be better for me.  For example, who knows why they decided to put a set of one-armed pushups near the end of a 24 exercise Chest, Shoulders, and Triceps program, NFW, not going to happen Horton. So I substitute the one arm pushup for a staggered arm pushup where the hands are offset, one in front of the other but still a shoulder’s width apart.

All in all it was a great workout.  My heart rate didn’t get too high but I was certainly pumped and my arms were totally useless by the end of it which I see as a general success of this workout.  My min/max/average heart rates for this workout were 95/156/131 respectively.  I highly recommend giving P90X a try, the structure helps keep you on track with your fitness goals and it’ll certainly challenge you every day.