P90X?

Over the past couple months, I have heard about the P90X system from a few different places. Initially it was just vague second and third hand things like facebook posts, but then one day at Yoga a couple months ago, I was talking with someone who said it was a really good workout system and they had excellent results. Then a few weeks ago I was travelling for work, and the person I was working with there sung the praises of it as well.

I have never been a bulk building person - I tried gym memberships and never stayed more than 3 months. I think part of it was expecting too much too soon, and part of it was a desire to settle back into something comfortable - usually some sort of endurance training.

However, now I'm a bit more mature and realistic about expectations, and I also view the prospect of strength training through the lens of being able to improve my tri performance.

So over the past week, I've been looking over the P90X system - the workouts, the nutrition guide, etc - and have been really impressed with how it is put together. I like the fact that there are options like bands vs dumb bells, the lack of need for a lot of equipment, variations on the exercises in the event you aren't able to do the exercises like the video host can, etc. Regarding the nutrition, it starts with a month of a protein heavy diet (about 60%), but eventually transforms into a more typical diet where carbs make up 60% of the foods. The reason I like that is because it is not protein heavy for a long period of time - just enough to burn through some fat, but not so protein heavy as to enter into Atkins diet territory.

Even with its degree of moderation, it is still a pretty intense looking workout system. The biggest issue I have is how to integrate it into what I'm already doing. With training for the half iron taking up from now until the end of June, followed by continued buildup of running to hopefully do a full marathon in October, I had envisioned next offseason being a lot of Yoga again for the flexibility benefits. However, it appears that there is actually a lot of flexibility stuff in the P90X system - either from the stretch days, or the Yoga, and even some amount in warmups and cooldowns for the various muscle group days. So it is possible that I could do the full P90X in the offseason next year and get away with Yoga only once or twice a week as a compliment.