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6 | Touchline
P90X3: fitness road test
S
everal years ago, Touchline road tested the enormously
popular P90X2 exercise programme. Hosted by pull-up
star and part-time stand up Tony Horton, this series
was the market leader for years.
In 2013, Beachbody dropped the third in the trilogy. It quickly
superseded the previous versions and has since become the
staple regime for folks who prefer getting ripped in the privacy
of their own garage.
Three years after it first arrived, Touchline has again sent a
representative into Tony’s house of pain, with somewhat
mixed results.
To those who have never delved into the Beachbody back
catalogue, the P90 series is based on new theories in fitness,
designed for minimal outlay. You work out exclusively at home,
needing only resistance bands or dumbbells, a pull up bar and
a yoga mat. Oh, and will power. As it turns out, lots of it.
The new incarnation’s greatest innovation, and most attractive
quality, is that each session totals to only 30 minutes. Sports
science has started pointing in the direction of short and
sharp, rather than draw out and painful.
According to much of the literature, the initial burst of intense
exercise burns glycogen. Once the body realises that it is not in
immediate danger, it switches to breaking down fat to produce
energy. It should logically follow that the so-called “fat-burning”
stage was the sweet spot for getting fit, but it appears that the
first stage is actually more effective.
This is because the burning of glycogen on a regular basis
results in metabolic changes that actually promote greater
long-term fat loss and improved muscle gaining.
We’ll leave the rest of the science to Beachbody, because you
are essentially paying them to do that stuff for you.
In terms of effectiveness, P90X3 is about as close to a sure
thing as you could hope for. There is very little choice allowed
in the routines themselves. There is a classic, bulking, slimming
and doubles version. Once the goal is established, the calendar
takes care of the rest.
This reviewer went for bulk, already being in intermediate
shape. Like all the other versions, there are three phases. Each
phase involved three weeks of intense exercise, the fourth
being a rest/flexibility week.
Packing the moves into 30 minutes has the psychological
advantage of being unthreatening. In the time spent watching
a sitcom, you can instead burn 200-500 calories. Which is
important, given that the commitment is to six days out of
seven. But these 30 minutes are hard. There is no time to muck
around.
It would be almost as exhausting to outline all the moves as
to do them, so let’s take a close look at some of the author’s
favourites.
In the cross fit arena, there is Agility X. This routine uses a light
weight and splits dynamic movement with balance moves. You
may be asked to stand on one leg and lift a dumbbell from one
shoulder to the other, or to do side-skips across the room. This
routine is designed to promote overall strength and power.
For pure fat-burning goodness, there are several alternatives.
Probably the most fun –though admittedly stupid-looking- is
MMX. This is a mixed martial arts hybrid where kicking and
punching an imaginary enemy is used to get the heart rate
roiled. Unless the user has a background in karate, it is hard to
perform these moves with any grace at all, especially after the
halfway mark when exhaustion creeps in. But it does the job
and is rather fun in an embarrassing sort of way.
Stripping away fat is great, but there has to be something
By Timothy Mottram