P90X Review Chest & Back / Ab Ripper X (Day 15 - Phase 1)
- This is where I had to workout this morning. Good thing it wasn’t Plyometrics today.
Did my P90X Chest & Back/Ab Ripper X in a new environment this morning. We had to travel out of town last night for a funeral this morning. I rolled out of bed at 5:00 AM, grabbed all my gear, and snuck out of the room so I wouldn’t wake up the rest of the family.
First of all, props to you folks who travel and keep up with the P90X. It has to be tough to keep with the nutritional plan and find a space to workout.
I typically use dumbbells and a chin-up bar for Chest and Back, today I relied on an exercise band that my wife had purchased in the past and my push-up stands. We brought the portable DVD player for the kids so I used that to watch Tony and the gang go through the workout.
I didn’t have any type of doorway attachment for the exercise band, so I looped it through a piece of cardio equipment that was in the hotel’s tiny fitness room. After going through the workout with the bands instead of weights, I am so glad I’m doing this workout with dumbbells. The bands just didn’t seem to provide the same tension on my muscles through the entire range of motion like the free weights provide. The other thing I didn’t like about the bands is that the tension was different everytime I did the exercises that I needed to step on the band to shorten the distance of the band. With a dumbbell the resistance is always the same.
I tried to eat clean while I was away from home and ate all the healthy snacks that I packed. Glad I did, the hotel had plenty of junk for breakfast and had zero fresh fruit. I packed a couple of apples, some almonds, a couple of protein bars, and some water to drink. At lunch I had some chicken and a bunch of raw veggies.
After we made it back home, my wife reminded me that it was weigh-in night tonight. I was a little reluctant to step on the scale since I was sick last week and felt like I was doing a mediocre job in my workouts. I was pleasantly surprised to see that I had dropped two pounds since weigh-in last week.
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By Boomer, February 17, 2009 @ 11:47 pm
I don’t use bands for my workouts either. However, just to try them out, I cranked out a few curls with them last month. They felt pretty good. Now, while I don’t use them, I must admit that they gave me a pretty nice arm pump. I don’t think they are as effective for back as they are for biceps.
Anyway, congrats on the weight loss.
By Tyler Roberts, February 18, 2009 @ 4:34 pm
Using bands has been my only regret with P90X. I’m at day 45 today and I’m 100% certain that I’d have more muscle mass if I would have been using dumbbells.
By obd, March 7, 2009 @ 9:50 am
I’ve been using bands with p90 and p90 MS and will start them with P90X. I’ve been tossing around the idea of getting some of those multi-weight dumbbells.
I think I’m stuck with the bands, though. The weights are expensive. The bands are portable. Plus there’s always the fear that one of the kids will roll one onto their tiny feet.
I’ve been asking a bunch of sports medicine people and body builders what they think of the bands and even very large/built people tell me I can get just as good a workout with the bands, but you need to have several different bands. As long as you push till failure, you get the same results.
I guess we’ll see. I’ve had good results so far.