Saundra

Stronger Longer Volume Two is a 50 minute workout.  Tracie tells you in the introduction that this workout was designed to improve mobility. The chapters on this DVD are: 1. Warm up 2. Overhead Snatch, Biceps, and Push ups 3. Single Leg Hops and Skaters 4. Side lunges, triceps, and Single Arm Rows 5. Split Lunge and Bird Dog Core 6. Touchdown jump and burpees 7.  Goblet Squats and lunges 8.  Windmills 9.  Posture Exercises 10.Thoracic Mobility Exercise 11. Stretch I did not like the warm up at all. Tracie does tell you that "the warm is a little bit different". I didn't feel properly warm for some of the exercise. It was a slow warm up. In fact the whole work can be characterized as slow and controlled movements.  Most of the warm is floor based.  There is stretching with isolation moves. After the warm up you move into the workout.  Tracie uses dumbbells and a med ball, although the med ball in this workout wasn't really used for cardio. The med bal

Stronger Longer Volume One is a 50 minute workout. Tracie uses dumbbells, a medicine ball and functional exercises to increase your core strength. The DVD is chaptered as follows: 1.  Warm-up 2.  Single Arm Press and Squats 3.  Cardio with Medicine Ball 4.  Dead Lifts and Renegade Gows 5.  Burpees and Medicine Ball Lunges 6. Squats, Triceps, and Push UPs 7. Turkish Get-Ups 8. Floor Press, Bridge, and Core 9.  Thoractic Rotations 10. Medicine Ball Core 11. Stretch As you move through each chapter, a caption displays telling you the exercise or group of exercises you are performing. Tracie explains and offers tips as she performs the moves - showing you a different option here and there. There is more weight work than cardio and I didn't feel the cardio was very "cardio" at all. In one of the cardio segments, you were barely moving your feet, it was just mostly upper body and core. If you are familiar with Tracie's other workouts, you will recognize

Dressed Up Drills is a long one.  I did the workout in two parts.  If you do the workout in its entirety in one session, the workout clocks in at over 80 minutes. So Dressed Up Drills is a series of drill moves combine to make a combination. If you do just the drills by themselves, Kristin calls them "just drills". When you add all the drills together, Kristin call this "dressed up drills".   Hence the title.  The DVD Title Menu has the following options: Introduction Start Workout Just Drills Workout & Pre-mixes Dressed Up Drills Workout & Pre-Mixes Mix & Match Credits Music on/off Just Drills Workout and Pre-Mixes, this section of the DVD features 11 different workout combinations and Dressed Up Drills Workout has 14 different workout combinations. So there are lots of options. The Mix & Match options breaks down as follows: Warm UP                                 All Cardio/Drills Combined Cardio One                            

AB Ripper X clocks in at 16:07 -  So short workout that can be used as an add on. There are 11 exercises and you are doing each exercise for 25 reps. If you do all the reps, you will end up doing 349 reps. Tony adds in a few bonus reps. I felt the burn on several of the exercises. It was a nice challenge. Tony does his instructor thing. He will start the exercise and then get up to instruct. There is not a warm up, but there is a one minute cool down stretch. Equipment: mat 3 & 3/4 stars

Back & Biceps is a 52 minute workout.  The cardio portion of the warm up is 2 & 1/2 minutes.  The stretch portion of the warm up is 6 & 1/2 minutes.   The pattern for this workout is two back exercises, followed by two bicep exercises. There are a total of 24 exercises with a water break after exercise 12. The exercises are time based. One thing to note about the time, when Tony has a left and right side to do, the times are not even. It is not just this workout; I notice the uneven times in other P90X workouts as well. As an example, the time will pop as :42 for the left and then for the same exercise it will show :44 for the right.  So when you see two times on the worksheet, that is why. The last exercise is a drop set bicep curl exercise and there are four rounds and thus four different times.  The majority of the exercises are pull ups or some form of it and bicep curls. The workout concludes with at 2 & 1/2 minute cool down. Equipment:  pull up bar, ba

Chest, Shoulders & Triceps clocks in at 55:45. There is a long -almost 9 minute warm up, that start with cardio warm up moves before going into an extensive stretch segment. After the warm up, the workout alternates exercises  for the chest, shoulders and triceps. There are a total of 24 exercises with a water break after exercise 12.  The exercises are time based and the time varies. Please see workout sheet for the times. The thing that annoyed me about this workout was that all the chest exercises were push ups.  It was that way for the Chest & Back workout too. Is there not another chest exercise? The workout concludes with a 3 & 1/2 minute cool down and stretch. Equipment:  Push up bar, dumbbells, bands, chair 3 & 1/4 stars

Kenpo X is a 59 minute workout. It is martial arts based. After a 12 minute warm up that includes a lot of stretching, Tony takes you through a series of moves that you do with the right lead and then the left. That is my right and left. Tony doesn't mirror cue.  Each exercise you are doing for either 25 or 30 reps. There is a "count up" counter that counts each rep as it is done by the cast members. Throughout the workout, there are cardio breaks in which you are doing the following:  running in place, jumping rope, jumping jacks, and X jacks. This workout has its moments. While not my favorite martial arts workout, I do like it the best out of all the  P90X cardio workouts. 3 & 1/4 stars

Cardio X is a 43 minute workout. This workout is a combo workout. It includes moves that are in the other programs (i.e.  Yoga X, Kenpo, Core Synergistics, and Plyometrics).  It starts with an aerobic warm up of in place runs, jump ropes, jumping jacks before moving into static stretching. Then there is a yoga segment. This is followed by a kenpo segment. Next is a plyo segment and last the core segment. The workout concludes with a cool down and stretch. Equipment use: Yoga block This workout was okay. Didn't love it, didn't hate it. I didn't think there was enough cardio. Considering that most of the other workouts in the system are weight based and stretch/flexibility based, I thought this workout would of been more focuses on getting and keeping the heart rate up. 3 stars

Core Synergistics is a 58 minute total body functional style workout that focus on exercises that engage the core.  Most of the exercises are body weight exercises. There are some exercises in which the cast members use a set of weights or the bands.  Tony also mixes up the exercises where some are floor based and some are done in the standing position. So there is a lot of up and down. This has been my least favorite workout of the P90X system. 2 & 1/2 stars

X Stretch clocks in at 57 & 1/2 minutes.  While not my favorite stretch workout, it is a decent one.  The workout included some atypical stretches, that I appreciated, but it also included a lot of the traditional yoga stuff. In fact I wish there was a more vigorous warm up than the typical sun salutations that Tony included. There are over 30 stretch exercises and you are holding the stretches for a minimum of at least 30 seconds but some stretches are held for a much longer time. Tony walks around coaching the class participants after he has demonstrated the stretch.   3 & 1/2 stars

This is my second week of P90X workouts and it starts with disc 5, Legs & Back . There are 22 exercises.  For every two leg exercises, there is one back exercise. So the pattern is - do two legs and then 1 back exercise. There are a variety of legs exercises but all the back exercises are pull up/chin up exercises. There is a cardio warm up followed by a stretch.  Then you move into the 22 exercises, each of which has a time associated with it. Sometimes you are doing as many reps as you can and at other times, Tony gives you an exact rep number he wants you to perform.  A stretch cool down concludes the workout. While I was sore after this workout and felt the challenge, I really didn't care for a lot of the exercises in this workout. The workout clocks in at around 59 minutes. Equipment used:  pull up bar,  bands, weights. 2 & 3/4 stars

Plyometrics .  This means you are jumping. This means high impact. Although there were some none or low-impact exercises. The workout is about 59 minutes. The warm is about 9 minute and 30 seconds. Like the other P90X workouts that I have done, Plyometrics uses rounds as well. There are two rounds in which you are doing 4 exercises. The exercise are performed for either 30 or 60 seconds. After each round you get a water break. At the end of the workout, there is a bonus round that includes three exercises that were sports specific. The workout concludes with a 5 minute stretch and cool down. I am including a worksheet of the exercises. This is my least favorite of the P90X workouts that I have done thus far. Plyometrics just felt long.  Although I did think the soundtrack was very good and I burned a lot of calories. Equipment - towel, heart rate monitor 3 stars

Shoulders & Arms is the next P90X workout that I did and even though I had a 48 hour break from when I did Chest & Back, I was still feeling it in the shoulder area from all the push ups that I had done. Shoulders & Arms clocks in at just under an hour.  Again, there is about an 9 to 10 minutes warm up - features about 3 minutes of cardio exercises and 7 minutes of static and ballistic stretching. There are two rounds in this workout as well. However, the format is slightly different in Shoulder & Arms. You do three exercises (one for the shoulders, one for the biceps, and one for the triceps) and then you repeat those three exercises immediately. After you do the second round you get a break before starting the next group of exercises. Again, Tony tells you to set a goal with how many reps you are going to do. The time in which you have to do each exercise varies. Equipment - dumbbells, bands, chair 3 & 1/2 stars

Che st & Back clocks in at just under 53 minutes. The warm up is about 9 minutes.  3  minutes of moving the body (i.e. marches, jog, jacks) and 6 minutes of stretches. There are two rounds that alternate chest and back exercises. The first round starts with chest the second round starts with back. Lots of push ups and pulls ups.  In fact all the chest exercises were some form of a push ups.  About 1/2 of the back exercises are variations on the pull ups. I used bands to do my pull up exercises.  Tony and cast showed options of bands and a pull up bar. There is a time limit for each exercise. Tony tells you to set your goal on how many reps you are going to accomplished within that time. The time varies according to the exercise. The workout concludes with a cool down & stretches. Besides Tony, there are three other cast members.  Everyone pretty much works at their own pace. Tony demonstrates and then stops to coach. I had serious DOMS from this workout in the shou

It's long. Yoga X clocks in at 92 minutes and 24 seconds.  This is my first P90X workout and I schedule it for a day I was off work so that I would have enough time to complete the whole workout. The first 45 minutes or so of the workout are Vinyasas.  Lots of them. You are executing other Yoga moves as well but the transition to get you into that yoga move is the Vinyasa. The second half of the work is Balance Postures and Floor Work. I like this section the best. Most postures and stretches you are holding for 30 to 60 seconds. Although a couple are held for up to 90 seconds. The last segment of the workout concentrates on the abs and relaxing postures to include the Lotus Meditation Pose. Besides Tony, there are 4 other cast members.  Tony will start the exercise and then he would stop to coach - walking around to the different cast members. A mat and yoga block are used in this workout. Other than being too long, I thought this workout was okay. 3 & 1/4

P90X is an Extreme Home Fitness Workout Program lead by Tony Horton and produced by Beach Body. I have had this system for years.It has been sitting on my bookshelf collecting dusk.  Every time I scheduled myself to do the workouts, there were other workouts that I wanted to do more. But now, I have pulled them out for the September 2014 rotation. There are three version of the system; base, deluxe and ultimate. I have the base systems and in this system comes twelve workouts.  Along with the twelve workouts which come package in a CD style accordion folder case, are a quick start guide, a fitness guide and a nutrition guide. The Quick Start  Guide is mostly just an advertisement for the system and the various add on products you can used. The Fitness Guide is a 100 page guide. It is very detail. In this guide, you can find information on the P90X concept, information on preparing for P90X (includes a Fit Test), a workout calendar that gives  you three different workout options

September 2014 Monthly Rotation Well I am finally going to do the P90X workouts that I have had forever. I will also be doing the Cardio Coach workouts, plus workouts from Kristin Dowell, Tracie Long and Patric Goudeau. And I have a 5K race schedule for the end of the month.