Showing posts with label does p90x work. Show all posts
Showing posts with label does p90x work. Show all posts
Tuesday, September 1, 2009
P90X Critique Part 2 0f 3 - WIll you really "get ripped"?
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Does P90x work - when measured against its own claimes: does P90x get one "ripped" in 90 days? This article reviews the exercise and diet plan of P90X to get at that question - but really it's about providing a way to assess any "body transformation" or "12 week" program to see (a) if what's on the label is what's in the tin and (b) if what's in the tin matches what your goals for a program. You'll find criteria about two key components of such programs, diet, and nutrition, and how to assess the degree to which each of these components is likely to deliver the claims a program promises to deliver, and for whom.
The following therefore is more or less a worked example of applying/deriving this assessment via a critique of P90x - a program billed as an "extreme" workout (+ diet) specifically designed for practitioners to 'get ripped.' It's pretty detailed, so long. It looks at the exercise program first and then the nutrition program in the context of its promised results.
Context
In Part 1 of this reflection/critique of P90x we looked at the core P90x concept of "muscle confusion". We also poked at the rationale behind a few of the "bring it" program's routines within this "muscle confusion" context. The conclusion was, based on what's known about physiological adaptations that occur in a 12 week program by novices/deconditioned athletes - P90X's target market - muscle confusion is basically a marketing gimmick.
In this second of this three part series, i'd like to look at the concept of "getting ripped" that is a key part of the P90X delivery promise.
In Part 3 we'll look at alternatives to the two core parts of P90X, but in the right order (a) diet (from places one doesn't usually think about diet - it's not just about the food) and (b) workout practices (they're both practices)
As i said in part 1 and will say so again here, there's nothing wrong with anyone wanting to do - or actually doing - P90X or similar- the routines are "not considered harmful," to draw on a computer science trope (at least not too harmful - we'll see more in part 3b).
What we might ask about P90X is does it deliver what's on the tin? Will anyone who passes the P90X fit test and is therefore deemed "ready" to do P90X "get ripped"? - and in P90X's definition, that pretty much means, at a minimum, have a six pack.
P90X suggests that if you follow it's program, you will be "transformed" from "regular to ripped" in 90 days. That's its formula: do the workouts; follow the diet. So we're going to look at each part of that formula against some objective criteria for ripped-ness.
Basic necessities of Getting Ripped by which to assess P90X capacity to deliver:
There are fortunately only two things involved in getting ripped, level of importance listed here:
RECIPE/FORMULA ASIDE for 6 Pack
If you want to skip the rest of the article here's the recipe for 6 pack abs:
As to why this is the recipe, well that's in the rest of this article.
Results from this article:
First, there are tons of 12 week programs out there, all promising grand things. Where do we get our information about what works in these programs? Usually from the programs themselves. But we saw in the first part of this series that P90X's key concept "muscle confusion" is more marketing than fact, especially in the context of deconditioned or novice trainees. So are the before and after shots for P90X's amazing transformations that seem to be portrayed also a gimmick? How can we make this assessment.
Second, i'm guessing that folks who choose to do P90X or other 12 week transformations may know about as much about how fat loss and hypertrophy really work as i did when i started the program: less than i thought i did, and so pretty accepting of the way P90X presents each of these: exercise first, diet second, bf% is just a measure of progress.
The reality, as we'll see, is very much different: diet has to be first, exercise is second and bf% is, in the context of "getting ripped" a very specific target, and one that can be reasonably calculated to determine the length and intensity of a program to deliver desired results.
So to begin, let's begin with where P90X puts its energy first: exercise.
o Muscle Building Very Basic Basics.
P90X doesn't come out and say that it's a muscle building program - and that's good, cuz it's not (more on that in a moment) - but most of us think that the term "getting ripped" implies building muscle.
Likewise, those men's before and after pictures in P90X (like the ones fo JonC, left) seem to imply that muscle mass will accompany the program. Hmm.
There's a lot we don't know about how muscle growth works, but there's a couple of things we do know: to build muscle we need two things: caloric surplus and appropriate muscular stimulation to force an adaptation. In this case, that adaptation means laying down new muscle fiber and so getting some muscle growth. Muscle growth also pretty much requires eating more rather than less: we want more body mass - in these case muscle tissue - the resources for that tissue have to come from somewhere. For us, that's the right nutrients - i.e. food.
Muscle in Two Parts:
That said, here's a factoid from Christian Thibaudeau's excellent and recommended discussion of mass building: with someone (read male in this case) totally committed to muscle building, getting diet and workouts just so, the range of muscle building to expect is .25 to .5lbs of *dry* muscle per week. In the real world that non-fat weight would show up with an additional 40% from additional water/gylcogen. So ten pounds of muscle shows up more like 14lbs on the scale. But whether 10 or 14 pounds of fat free mass let's call it, at .5+ pounds a week, 2 pounds a month, that also means five to ten perfect months to get that 14 pounds.
Here's another factoid from that article - a person sitting at say 120lbs of lean mass (weight minus fat) would need to eat 2440 calories a day to start growing mass with those optimized workouts.
Even before we get to the type of workouts, a basic question we might ask is, is the diet in the program one of caloric surplus or caloric deficit? So whether you gain muscle on P90X or not will largely depend on how much of a caloric deficit - or not - you're in during the program. That discussion is below.
Generally, P90X aims to have a person in caloric deficit - without which fat loss will not occur. Period. So here's a potential contradiction, not unique to P90X, but certainly rather brushed under the carpet in this case: if muscle mass building requires caloric surplus, but the program keeps someone in caloric deficit throughout, how can muscle be built? This isn't a Zen Koan. The inverse may help: if one is eating enough for muscle building, what kind of caloric deficit is going on and what kind of fat loss is occurring?
Another question: if P90X runs a person into caloric deficit, how explain those before and after pictures that *seem* to show more muscle mass at the end of 90 days?We'll come back to these questions. First, let's look at how we might understand what kinds of muscular adaptations P90X promotes.
Kind of Strength Foregrounds Kind of Muscle
Another part of the muscle building adaptation is type of load, rest, volume and recovery. As we said above, to get new muscle fibers to be laid down, there has to be a demand for that kind of growth. As we saw in part 1, also, the type of adaptation in the first 8 - 12 weeks of a resistance program for a neophyte is mainly neurological. That means muscle that already exists is learning how to support the loads. Only once the challenge goes beyond that initial adaptation, effectively, does new muscle get laid down IF the challenge requires that adaptation. Does P90X require that hypertrophy adaptation?
o P90X: endurance training disguised with weights.
In the P90X program, 3 out of the 6 days a week are "resistance" oriented workouts (the other three are "cardio" oriented). But what kind of resistance training are we talking about? Turns out they're something known as circuits.
Circuits in general are usually about putting several exercises together, doing one set of each exercise with little rest between moves. The weights used in each of these sets has to be sufficiently light to be able to move between exercises with limited rest.
Indeed, in P90X resistance workouts, the rep ranges are anywhere from 7 to 12. The only instruction on how to pick a weight is so that one will "feel the burn" in the last couple of reps.
Based on the above template, we get the following in the resistance routines: 20+ minute circuits, 1 set per move, mid to high reps, critically: no rest between sets. At most, there is 60 seconds active recovery between circuits 2-3 circuits.
We've said these workouts are circuits but when rest between sets is taken out of the equation for this kind of period, we're looking at endurance or stamina training rather than muscular strength.
Let's look at how "strong" is used as a term in P90X. "Stronger" throughout the P90X program is largely defined by being able to endure, keep up, do as many reps of a move as Horton and Co perform with as little rest as possible over the course of the hour. That's endurance strength. The adaptations developed in the muscles are mainly aerobic in nature, which means that the muscles get,
Foundational. Basic. Upping oxidative capacity. Not building mass, but improving the muscle's capacity to use oxygen which means greater work capacity for longer. That sounds great for health but doesn't sound like a "getting ripped" program, though, does it? And saying that, are circuits the best way to build this capacity?
Here's an assessment of the kinds of circuits P90X uses for training:
The above Goal 3 Sounds like P90X's "resistnace" workouts (and all the other P90X workouts, too, for that matter). That latter point then is as close as P90X comes to having an effect, and it's not strength per se or muscle building. It's endurance: keep the movement going to keep the heart rate up for periods longer than 4 minutes; improve oxidative capacity (ability to burn fat).
Recap on P90X Circuits
SO what have we learned? Circuits are, at best, novice routines, or for sick or rehabbing, or obese. THis doesn't sound like the deconditioned x-jock population P90X is supposedly targeting. So, P90X, as point 3 above, has tuned the workouts for what? Fat burning. Not muscle building.
Our question at this point might be, are these kinds of circuits the best way to burn fat for a deconditioned jock AND add "lean muscle" that the diet guide says will make up for not seeing much of a change on the scale?
Consider this: in a 24 week program study designed specifically to look at the effects of single set style circuit training vs periodized multi-set program, the lean mass changes for women were 2% lean mass gain over that 6 month period vs 8% gain with the alternative protocol. Likewise percentage body fat went down by 10% in 6 months (eg, someone at 24% went to 21.6%) vs 25% with the alternative protocol (that 24% person wend to 18%).
So, these workouts are *mainly* fat burners/endurance builders, and don't seem to be necessarily the best approach to optimize fat burning or lean mass building. In part 3 we'll look at some of these alternatives in more detail.
Aside: P90X+ Let me cue up here that the P90X+ program is very similar in kind to P90X: 5 more P90X style workouts, but with fewer people on the set. These workouts are to mix into P90X. So one effectively re-does P90X, swapping out some P90X routines for the new ones. So, once more into the breach: more circuits, more little rest between moves. So, effectively, more of the P90X endurance same.
P90X - resisting muscle growth?
We now have a sense of what it takes to build muscle: caloric surplus - we need more to build more; and we need specific types of load/recovery/volume for muscles to grow. In looking at P90X, we see that the type of strength it's geared to building is endurance, not hypertrophy. The muscular adaptations are around fuel consumption - better oxidative/fat burning capacity - rather than mass building.
In sum, based on their design, P90X workouts - including the "resistance" workouts - are circuits, tuned for fat burning rather than muscle building.
Questions a person considering P90X might have at this point are therefore
Another question might be "but what about getting ripped? doesn't P90X deliver at least on that?"
At the top of this article we looked at getting ripped as body fat percentage first and muscle growth second. Ok, it's not delivering on muscle growth per se, so time to look at the diet side of P90X and we'll come back to its fat burning disguised as resistance training.
o The simple formula for a 6 pack? Body Fat Percentage
While i don't think he coined the term, colleague Rannoch Donald of Simple Strength may often be heard to say "there are no secrets." So here's a big non-secret to 6 pack abs: body fat percentage.
What P90X does not come out and say ever, anywhere, is that for a guy to begin to see his abs, he has to be at about 10% BF (in my experience of the guys i've worked with, it's actually below 10%); for gals, we have to be at about 15% or less. It's really that simple.
I wish i had known this at the time i was doing P90X. Rather than focusing on dropping 10 pounds, i might have looked into how feasible/healthy it would be to drop 10% body fat in 90 days, and how to optimize that. That *might* have helped me figure out right there if Kenpo-X and Plyo-X were the best ways to achieve that goal, or if maybe looking into diet-x might have been more profitable.
Indeed, what more and more research shows is that the only way to get to that ripped level BF% is calorie restriction. Calorie restriction (ie, diet) comes first; exercise is second. P90X of course doesn't say this fact either. It's selling "muscle confusion" first; nutrition way second.
o P90X Diet Math
This is not to say that PN doesn't get diet. PN has a diet book. And it's a corker.
What the Nutrition Plan for P90X says about the role of nutrition in getting ripped is as follows:
Please let me note again that one can gain lean mass while in caloric deficit. It's just not a lot. If one is gaining .25 lbs by eating for gain, and working out for muscular growth, how much fiber can be built when eating for loss and doing endurance not hypertrophy workouts? It's a real challenge.
So what's the P90X diet advice?
IT's amazing. Every 4 weeks, the macronutrient ratio changes - to match the demands of this incredible program:
Phase I: Fat Shredder - Days 1-28
Phase II: Energy Booster - Days 29-56
Phase III: Endurance Maximizer - Days 57-90
The above phases map to the following macronutrient ratios:
Macronutrient Goals in Each Phase
Phase I - Protein 50%, Carbs 30%, Fat 20%
Phase II - Protein 40%, Carbs 40%, Fat 20%
Phase III - Protein 20%, Carbs 60%, Fat 20%
How are these ratios achieved? By one of two ways: either follow the portion suggestions of how many portions of each type of macro nutrient to have, or by following the meal plans so even less to think about. Just eat exactly what it in the book, when it says to eat it.
Indeed, the portion approach is not unique to P90X but it is complex: Have X portions from the Protein group; Y portions from the Carbs and Z from fats.
This number of portions approach is to help avoid calorie counting. But the result also means that there are only three "sizes" of menu to fit everyone. Not exactly optimized for fat loss. Consider the following.
Calories Per Day - Three Sizes fits All
Here's how a person determines how many calories they're going to eat a day - what their Total X+Y+Z portions will equal.
Nutrition Level Chart
EA = 1800-2399 = Level I 1800 calories per day
EA = 2400-2999 = Level II 2400 calories per day
EA = 3000+ = Level III 3000 calories per day
Who is losing anything here and by how much? Hmm. This means someone who requires 2399 calories for maintenance in Level 1 will suddenly be on a 600 calorie a day deficit. In 6 days of workouts, that's 3600 calories - a little better than a fat pound. Someone who's closer to 1800 cals for maintenance will be losing far less in that week. Maybe nothing following this meal plan. And indeed, there's a real potential Achilles heal to this approach. IT's how one's Level is calculated: it assumes that ALL P90X workouts burn 600 calories.
Let's look quickly at how one figures out their energy level.
Determining Your Nutrition Level
1. Calculate your RMR
Your Body Weight x 10 = RMR
2. Calculate your Daily Activity Burn
RMR x 20% = DAB
3. Calculate your Energy Amount
RMR + DAB +600 CALS for p90x workouts = EA
Now, RMR stands for resting metabolic rate, and i have yet to find anywhere where it is simplified to body weight times 10, since it regularly takes into account height and other constants, etc, but let's set that aside and just go with this formula.
Here's an example:
1. a 140 lb gal of unknown height has an "RMR" of 1400
2. 20% is 280
3. 1400 + 280 + 600 = 2280 calories.
So that puts the person in EA of Level 1, 1800 calories a day. That would be, all things being equal, a 480 calorie a day deficit, which over 6 days, is 2880 calories, not quite a pound.
A gal at 130 is also in EA Level 1, and also told to eat 1800 calories, and that's only
1300+260+600= 2160, a difference of 360 cals a day, which in 6 days is 2160 - even further away from a pound a week.
A smaller gal at 120, 1200+240+600 = 2040 calories now at 1800, is eating only a 200 calorie a day deficit.
That's 1200 in a week, three weeks to lose a pound.
And that's IF those workouts are really 600kcals a piece. They are not. Or let's put it this way: it depends. Yoga X at about 80-90 mins is 200 calories; Kenpo-X, at 45 mins, is maybe 275 - 435. If you're totally "bringing it" maybe a bit more. So your heart rate is pushing it's aerobic envelop.
This math begins to explain the 6 pounds total i took off during my religious observation of P90X doubles - where i was keenly going for 600 cals a day from double workouts.
Special Case:
If someone is in the EA Level 3 of "3000+" of course potentially coming down from say 4250 a day to 3000, the possibility is that, all things being equal, one will be losing 2.5 ish pounds a week, 30 pounds over the 12 weeks.
o Body Fat X
P90X says that weight of course is "relatively meaningless" since a better measure is body fat percentage. Why? P90X doesn't explain in this guide why body fat percentage is more important than what's on the scale. We're simply told body fat % is the measure of progress.
So how does P90X use body fat %?
In the "relatively meaningless" way one uses weight? that it goes down? That's pretty much it. With one sweetener. It provides three body fat ranges for folks to feel really successful after completing the program:
But there's no correlation between Body Fat % and ripped. It does not come out and say that unless you hit that "Elite Athlete" bf% range, you will not be seeing that 6 pack. It's that simple.
BF% - supposedly important to P90X, but based on who and what army? A few questions a person may have at this point about a program claiming that bf% change is critical may be:
Other than just maybe/maybe not caloric restriction, the P90X diet guide seems to reflect Nutrition Confusion, perhaps to match the exercise program's muscle confusion, discussed in part 1. Over the course of 12 weeks, as said, the macronutrient ratio of the program changes 3 times. There are arguments in the data about why a person would want to start with higher protein and lower carbs and then by the end of the program invert this, but not really.
Here, the idea seems to be (it's not explicit), is that to kick starting the diet, bringing up protein and reducing carbs, will fire up fat loss. Hmm. But after that first month, because people will have been working so hard, they'll need to keep brining up the carb level to have the energy to survive it. There's a few notices about extending a given phase if one wishes, but the guidance is pretty much stick to the plan, stan.
Haven't seen the studies to support this kind of short term mix-it-up. Nutrition is complex. But a higher level fact we do have the resources to say is that fat loss happens with caloric deficit. Is that really achieved in the P90X diet plan?
And let's look at those figures again: the predicted weight loss on this program is 6-12 pounds. A half pound to a full pound a week. That's it. Unless you're in the 3000+ a day with a serious + a day. Honey, i can get you on a diet tomorrow with NO exercise involved that will guarantee to meet or double those numbers. No sweat. Literally. So what is someone doing on P90X if the goal is to get lean, to "get ripped"?
o Is What's on the Label What's in the Tin? Is this a Getting Ripped Diet?
P90X promises "getting ripped" as part of its objective.
If we can accept the premise that caloric deficit is required to reduce fat in order to see one's 6 pack, a key part of the "getting ripped" concept, we have to ask if P90X will really deliver this result?
Based on looking at the differences in caloric deficits to be achieved of just a few points of the Level I scale, for instance, it's pretty clear that the amount of caloric deficit to be achieved in following this program is likely to be highly variable, and likely at most about a pound a week for the people at the outside of the Level, and likely considerably less given that the caloric burn calculated for each workout is exaggerated.
Who will get Ripped on P90X?
Knowing that we need to get to a low body fat % to get the "get ripped" look, and knowing how much caloric deficit we need to burn FAT (as opposed to just lose weight), and knowing that there's such variation of caloric deficit with P90X and that at the most it's calculated to drop about a pound a week of fat for anyone who starts at eating 2999kcals a day, AT BEST, what does this tell us about the likelihood of getting ripped on P90X?
IF all the person needs to lose is 6-12 pounds to achieve the ripeed body fat percentage, then it's possible to get to the Ripped Place in the 90 days.
Otherwise, how can it happen?
Now, we know that *if* one gains lean mass and doesn't lose ANY body fat, their BF% goes down. True enough. But how much lean mass can one reasonably gain in 12 weeks with P90X such that it will effectively overwhelm X% of fat? So let's just put that one to bed.
Effectively, unless you're already close to that goal percentage can P90X deliver "ripped" or just the "getting" part of getting ripped?
And if the best it can deliver for the majority is the "getting" towards ripped, again, a person might ask, is P90X the best way to do it?
o Those Before and After Pictures
Given everything we've looked at above, let's come back to a few of those before and after pictures.
For Women, let's take Amanda for example.
We don't know her stats. That is we don't know her starting BF% or her final one, but what's changed in this photo? What don't we see? A six pack. The abs are angled. Is there less fat? yes. Is there more definition. Yes. Does it look like she's lost more than the 6-12 pounds? No. Has anything else, beside the expression on her face, and the sucking in of the gut changed visibly? No.
Then there is KatieV. Again, what's changed?
IS katie sucking in her gut in the day 1 photo? How about on day 90? Is she already pretty lean? Look at the waist circumference at the hips. Much change? So while the photo looks really cool, the *actual* change is not incredible. And since the arms haven't seemed to have changed, i'm guessing weight loss, a good base of fitness already, and with three days a week of endurance abs on top of all the rest of the workouts, the abs will show. Congratulations! This participant hit the sweet spot.
Is this result what any gal who passes the P90X fit test can expect? As we've seen, realistically, that would depend on a number of factors, particularly starting BF% and realistic expectation of caloric deficit over the 12 weeks. If one starts at 24% bodyfat, will P90X take a person to 14%? No. Remember in the research above 6 months of a slightly more intense workout regimen than P90X net 2% lean mass improvement, 10% bf% reduction. That's 21.4% in 24 weeks, not 12.
And with the guys?
What about their before and after photos?
Really look at the photos. From angle, to lighting, to mass, what's going on? Mainly body fat changes?
Without having access to the actual measurements from before an after we don't really have anything concrete to go on about the degree of change. What we can see is that most of the guys posted as P90X success stories already have some muscular definition in their before shots, even though pose and lighting is not optimized to show this before aspect. Look at the second gentleman in the picture above. He's plainly experienced at workouts and is already at a lower body fat %; he will likely be building lean mass out of the gate, and trimming body fat by the little he needs for the lighting in the after photo to create an effect. Nice lat flare.
The above photo crit is not to take away from anyone's accomplishments on P90X, but to put the results - and expected results - in context, and to look at these photos with a greater reality lens, based on the little detail we actually have.
Not that there aren't some rather wild whoppers on the P90x site.
"Lost 30% body fat" sounds fabulous in this picture, doesn't it? But let's put it in context. We can see some of DavidC's abs - so there's a fat level of 10% or a bit less. That means that a guy who is already skinny, as he seems to be - say at 12% minus 30% of that = 8.4 percent. Definitely in ab-seeing zone. That seems like a very high result to me for someone who's already skinny, but let's take it as true. The point is that he begins the program already close to a Ripped bf%. All the guys in the success stories seem to do so. Well they have to, don't they?
So what's going on with his shoulders that do look bigger? Gotta love all those pull ups.
As we've seen, based on what we know about muscle building, it usually requires caloric surplus AND it requires a program designed to facilitate muscle building adaptation and P90X is mainly an endurance program with a wee bit of hypertrophy-oriented training thrown in.
Since what we see is mainly in the shoulder and arms, and some fat off the waist, well, the diet might also just be at that right place where the caloric deficit was minimal to support muscular growth from the most repeated moves in the "resistance" section: pull ups and push ups (we'll come back to this in part 3). Again, well done. Unusual, but well done. Why do we so rarely see people's legs in these shots, hmm?
In general, what we do know, when we really look at these photos is that we are not seeing people make super weight loss changes OR muscle mass changes. These are relatively close to lean people, getting more lean.
Another question might be: if one is in this happy position of being within sight of lean-ness, is P90x the best way to get there?
o Summing Up: P90X and getting Ripped.
If we start with the simple premise that the main ingredient of of "getting ripped" - signified by 6 pack abs - is first to achieve a particular bodyfat% and second to have some hypertrophy of muscles to show through the skin, then we can assess P90X.
We've seen that P90X is *primarily* a circuit training program that's been tuned for fat burning, not hypertrophy - even it's Ab Ripper X program is endurance rather than hypertrophy. As such, despite the X and extreme labels, P90X workouts are conservative: rehab, novice, obese friendly. Surprising, isn't it? The very stuff of fat fit boot camps.
We've also seen that its diet plan is *very* conservative in terms of weight loss. 6-12 pounds total in 12 weeks.
Thus, we might ask,
To the first question we already have the answer: people already close to that target body fat percentage.
To the second question, we've already had some sense that P90X may not be the best way to get the results in promises. Part three will look at alternatives, which will include nutrition alternatives, as the short answer is yes, there are other what one may even call more balanced alternatives to P90X.
To the third question, well, answer two does here as well.
So what do we have?
Program assessments:
My hope is that with the above information, folks are better able not only to assess the claims and supposed results of P90X with a critical eye, but ANY workout program.
So, next time an infomercial promises you'll lose fat in just a few weeks and it's promoting a device or an exercise routine, look at where the diet plan is hiding. It's usually something like "combined with diet and rest" or something similar.
If the device or program promises muscle gains, again, look for the diet plan AND look at the type of routines being promoted. Are they hypertophy inducing, strength and power or are they, like P90X, safe, novice, fat burners, dressed up as hypertrophy or strength or power?
o Alternatives?
At the end of the day, while P90X is fine for what it is - a novice boot camp type endurance/foundation workout - it's a 12 week program. It's a package that uses bells and whistles around marketing illusions like muscle confusion, nutrition confusion, lots of moves, lots of workouts, and lots of diet changes. It seems it's got all these components to keep us busy, entertained, and hooked enough to buy the product: there's a lot of stuff in here; it must be great.
And then if we actually use the program (most people buy health dvds and don't use them, apparently), that variety is there, perhaps not only to keep us engaged but again to think we must be doing something great to achieve our goals.
As we've seen however, P90X, despite all the hoopla, is actually a conservative program. Circuits are safe; the nutrition program is safe. No major changes; no law suits from health risks. Is it the optimla approach to achieve "getting ripped" - safely?
Let's put it this way, if after looking at what's on the label and comparing it with what's in the tin, and you decide you might not want to do P90X but you still want to get lean, add some muscle, get strong etc, you may want to consider some alternatives.
In part three, i'll go over a few examples of programs and approaches both for workouts (part 3b) and nutrition (part 3a let me know what you think of this one - i'm kinda happy about it) so again, a person looking for an approach will have more information with which to assess whether a program is right for them.
See ya next time.
Related Posts:
The following therefore is more or less a worked example of applying/deriving this assessment via a critique of P90x - a program billed as an "extreme" workout (+ diet) specifically designed for practitioners to 'get ripped.' It's pretty detailed, so long. It looks at the exercise program first and then the nutrition program in the context of its promised results.
ContextIn Part 1 of this reflection/critique of P90x we looked at the core P90x concept of "muscle confusion". We also poked at the rationale behind a few of the "bring it" program's routines within this "muscle confusion" context. The conclusion was, based on what's known about physiological adaptations that occur in a 12 week program by novices/deconditioned athletes - P90X's target market - muscle confusion is basically a marketing gimmick.
In this second of this three part series, i'd like to look at the concept of "getting ripped" that is a key part of the P90X delivery promise.
In Part 3 we'll look at alternatives to the two core parts of P90X, but in the right order (a) diet (from places one doesn't usually think about diet - it's not just about the food) and (b) workout practices (they're both practices)
As i said in part 1 and will say so again here, there's nothing wrong with anyone wanting to do - or actually doing - P90X or similar- the routines are "not considered harmful," to draw on a computer science trope (at least not too harmful - we'll see more in part 3b).
What we might ask about P90X is does it deliver what's on the tin? Will anyone who passes the P90X fit test and is therefore deemed "ready" to do P90X "get ripped"? - and in P90X's definition, that pretty much means, at a minimum, have a six pack.
P90X suggests that if you follow it's program, you will be "transformed" from "regular to ripped" in 90 days. That's its formula: do the workouts; follow the diet. So we're going to look at each part of that formula against some objective criteria for ripped-ness.
Basic necessities of Getting Ripped by which to assess P90X capacity to deliver:
There are fortunately only two things involved in getting ripped, level of importance listed here:
- bodyfat percentage - known bf% level for being able to see muscle definition
- muscle density/mass - what will be seen beneath the skin once at that bf%
RECIPE/FORMULA ASIDE for 6 Pack
If you want to skip the rest of the article here's the recipe for 6 pack abs:
- Get a diet that will get you below 10% body fat if a guy and below 15% if you're a gal. See part 3a for nutrition approach suggestions
- Do either this abs hypertrophy routine as prescribed, or get this book, bullet proof abs, and do its routines. Both have been tested. But NOTHING will show without getting down to that bodyfat %.
As to why this is the recipe, well that's in the rest of this article.
Results from this article:
- Based on this assessment criteria, at the end of this article a person will have some tools with which to assess the claims of an exercise / diet program to deliver the promised results.
- With these tools the person will be able to make an informed choice about whether that program suits their goals.
First, there are tons of 12 week programs out there, all promising grand things. Where do we get our information about what works in these programs? Usually from the programs themselves. But we saw in the first part of this series that P90X's key concept "muscle confusion" is more marketing than fact, especially in the context of deconditioned or novice trainees. So are the before and after shots for P90X's amazing transformations that seem to be portrayed also a gimmick? How can we make this assessment.
Second, i'm guessing that folks who choose to do P90X or other 12 week transformations may know about as much about how fat loss and hypertrophy really work as i did when i started the program: less than i thought i did, and so pretty accepting of the way P90X presents each of these: exercise first, diet second, bf% is just a measure of progress.
The reality, as we'll see, is very much different: diet has to be first, exercise is second and bf% is, in the context of "getting ripped" a very specific target, and one that can be reasonably calculated to determine the length and intensity of a program to deliver desired results.
So to begin, let's begin with where P90X puts its energy first: exercise.
o Muscle Building Very Basic Basics.
P90X doesn't come out and say that it's a muscle building program - and that's good, cuz it's not (more on that in a moment) - but most of us think that the term "getting ripped" implies building muscle.Likewise, those men's before and after pictures in P90X (like the ones fo JonC, left) seem to imply that muscle mass will accompany the program. Hmm.
There's a lot we don't know about how muscle growth works, but there's a couple of things we do know: to build muscle we need two things: caloric surplus and appropriate muscular stimulation to force an adaptation. In this case, that adaptation means laying down new muscle fiber and so getting some muscle growth. Muscle growth also pretty much requires eating more rather than less: we want more body mass - in these case muscle tissue - the resources for that tissue have to come from somewhere. For us, that's the right nutrients - i.e. food.
Muscle in Two Parts:
- We create a demand for adaptation (more myofibrils) by the right type of stimulus: hypertrophy inducing effort.
- We then need to provide the the building blocks to support the adaptation.
- we can eat all we want to support muscular adaptation, but if we're not pushing our muscles appropriately to adapt, then they have no reason to change (grow/get bigger). The result is we'd just get fat.
- The converse is also true: even with the best hypertrophy program going, if we're not providing the right material to feed the growth, muscle building will be stymied.
That said, here's a factoid from Christian Thibaudeau's excellent and recommended discussion of mass building: with someone (read male in this case) totally committed to muscle building, getting diet and workouts just so, the range of muscle building to expect is .25 to .5lbs of *dry* muscle per week. In the real world that non-fat weight would show up with an additional 40% from additional water/gylcogen. So ten pounds of muscle shows up more like 14lbs on the scale. But whether 10 or 14 pounds of fat free mass let's call it, at .5+ pounds a week, 2 pounds a month, that also means five to ten perfect months to get that 14 pounds.
Here's another factoid from that article - a person sitting at say 120lbs of lean mass (weight minus fat) would need to eat 2440 calories a day to start growing mass with those optimized workouts.
UPDATE Sept 28 '09 - Dustin in the comments below asks why does one have to be in caloric surplus? Let me bring the reply up here. First, read Thibadeau's article above with the reference to a construction analogy for how muscle gets built.Assuming that P90X was designed to promote muscle mass gains (it isn't), at the best, a normal guy would put on 3-6 lbs of muscle plus another 1-2 ish of water/glycogen. So 5-8'ish pounds. And that's in a program where one is eating to GAIN mass combined with workouts to produce mass. Is that P90X? No.
Again, a lot about muscle building is still being worked out, but there are some basics: doing sufficient work to cause hypertrophy of whatever kind means that muscle fiber is getting damaged - torn down in the body building lexicon. That damage triggers muscle cells to signal to related cells to say we need to expand the capacity of some of these muscle fibers cuz they're being asked to do more. Without the right fuel in the system for that growth to happen, it doesn't happen. So let me continue Thibaudeau's analogy now:
Perhaps you just decide you want a bigger garage, so step 1, you knock down a wall of your garage (like what workouts do to muscle - they really do wreak havoc with muscle fibers). Now what? Perhaps that wasn't the best first step, but now you need more bricks (protein) and you need some funds (carbs) to hire workers and expertise to get the space rebuilt.
Turns out, perhaps without the best planning, you only have a set amount of bricks to do do the job - and you only have a set amount of cash right now to pay for the labour.
So effectively, you're short on cash and your short on bricks, so your project manager says "this is the best i can do" and rebuilds the wall more or less to its former level and gives you a bit more room at one end of the shed with clever use of storage and a few extra bricks it was able to scrounge.
Please NOTE. I'm not saying one can't build SOME muscle in caloric deficit. I'm saying it's NOT OPTIMAL. All things being equal it is sometimes possible to build lean mass when in a caloric deficit but it is really sub optimal.
Why should be clearer now: if our focus is to burn fat, we're going into caloric deficit, and our system is working to maintain energy levels and keep systems going. It's not going to have the resource to give over to a big construction job at the same time, when a lot of those resources that would in surplus be used for building are being used for maintenance and fuel.
Even before we get to the type of workouts, a basic question we might ask is, is the diet in the program one of caloric surplus or caloric deficit? So whether you gain muscle on P90X or not will largely depend on how much of a caloric deficit - or not - you're in during the program. That discussion is below.
Generally, P90X aims to have a person in caloric deficit - without which fat loss will not occur. Period. So here's a potential contradiction, not unique to P90X, but certainly rather brushed under the carpet in this case: if muscle mass building requires caloric surplus, but the program keeps someone in caloric deficit throughout, how can muscle be built? This isn't a Zen Koan. The inverse may help: if one is eating enough for muscle building, what kind of caloric deficit is going on and what kind of fat loss is occurring?
Another question: if P90X runs a person into caloric deficit, how explain those before and after pictures that *seem* to show more muscle mass at the end of 90 days?We'll come back to these questions. First, let's look at how we might understand what kinds of muscular adaptations P90X promotes.
Kind of Strength Foregrounds Kind of Muscle
Another part of the muscle building adaptation is type of load, rest, volume and recovery. As we said above, to get new muscle fibers to be laid down, there has to be a demand for that kind of growth. As we saw in part 1, also, the type of adaptation in the first 8 - 12 weeks of a resistance program for a neophyte is mainly neurological. That means muscle that already exists is learning how to support the loads. Only once the challenge goes beyond that initial adaptation, effectively, does new muscle get laid down IF the challenge requires that adaptation. Does P90X require that hypertrophy adaptation?
o P90X: endurance training disguised with weights.
In the P90X program, 3 out of the 6 days a week are "resistance" oriented workouts (the other three are "cardio" oriented). But what kind of resistance training are we talking about? Turns out they're something known as circuits.
Circuits in general are usually about putting several exercises together, doing one set of each exercise with little rest between moves. The weights used in each of these sets has to be sufficiently light to be able to move between exercises with limited rest.
Indeed, in P90X resistance workouts, the rep ranges are anywhere from 7 to 12. The only instruction on how to pick a weight is so that one will "feel the burn" in the last couple of reps.
Based on the above template, we get the following in the resistance routines: 20+ minute circuits, 1 set per move, mid to high reps, critically: no rest between sets. At most, there is 60 seconds active recovery between circuits 2-3 circuits.
We've said these workouts are circuits but when rest between sets is taken out of the equation for this kind of period, we're looking at endurance or stamina training rather than muscular strength.
Let's look at how "strong" is used as a term in P90X. "Stronger" throughout the P90X program is largely defined by being able to endure, keep up, do as many reps of a move as Horton and Co perform with as little rest as possible over the course of the hour. That's endurance strength. The adaptations developed in the muscles are mainly aerobic in nature, which means that the muscles get,
Endurance is an important capacity for an athlete - the ability to keep going in an activity is pretty critical. Indeed, for someone just starting out on an exercise program, endurance strength is often the first phase of a program that will eventually get to other kinds of strength, like hypertrophy, speed and power. It's foundational.
* Increased aerobic enzymes
* Increased mitochondrial density
* Increased capillaries
* More efficient contractions
* Possible changes in fiber type (e.g., fast twitch to slow twitch.
Foundational. Basic. Upping oxidative capacity. Not building mass, but improving the muscle's capacity to use oxygen which means greater work capacity for longer. That sounds great for health but doesn't sound like a "getting ripped" program, though, does it? And saying that, are circuits the best way to build this capacity?
Here's an assessment of the kinds of circuits P90X uses for training:
We can draw several conclusions from the analysis of groups of individuals who have participated in studies involving prescribed circuit training for a prolonged period of time.
* Circuit training is not optimal for increasing cardiovascular fitness when compared to High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT)
* Circuit training is not optimal for increasing cardiovascular fitness when compared to cardiovascular training when the heart rate is at the target heart rate
* Circuit training is not optimal for forcing anaerobic adaptation when compared to a strength training program
* Circuit training is not optimal for forcing aerobic adaptation when compared to an aerobic training program
* Circuit training is not optimal for increasing muscle size when compared to a hypertrophy-based training program
* Circuit training is not optimal for increasing strength when compared to HIIT or a regular resistance training program
* Circuit training is useful for burning additional calories and stimulating blood flow to the limbs
* Circuit training is useful for squeezing lots of exercise into a short time frame
In light of everything you just read, can anyone actually benefit from circuit training? The answer is yes, but obviously the benefits are not optimal for experienced athletes. Subgroups of trainees such as the elderly, young, rehabbing, novice, or obese athletes might do well circuit training optimized in the following ways:...
# Goal #3: burning calories and fat.
Since we are not able to burn fat unless we are working aerobically, most circuit training programs will not suffice unless each exercise is performed for a duration of at least 4 minutes. In this case we can only hope to burn calories, and possibly a little fat, by moving rapidly to each exercise station and maintaining a steady rhythm. Ultimately the client will be exercising not at, but close to, the anaerobic threshold.
The above Goal 3 Sounds like P90X's "resistnace" workouts (and all the other P90X workouts, too, for that matter). That latter point then is as close as P90X comes to having an effect, and it's not strength per se or muscle building. It's endurance: keep the movement going to keep the heart rate up for periods longer than 4 minutes; improve oxidative capacity (ability to burn fat).
Recap on P90X Circuits
SO what have we learned? Circuits are, at best, novice routines, or for sick or rehabbing, or obese. THis doesn't sound like the deconditioned x-jock population P90X is supposedly targeting. So, P90X, as point 3 above, has tuned the workouts for what? Fat burning. Not muscle building.
Our question at this point might be, are these kinds of circuits the best way to burn fat for a deconditioned jock AND add "lean muscle" that the diet guide says will make up for not seeing much of a change on the scale?
Consider this: in a 24 week program study designed specifically to look at the effects of single set style circuit training vs periodized multi-set program, the lean mass changes for women were 2% lean mass gain over that 6 month period vs 8% gain with the alternative protocol. Likewise percentage body fat went down by 10% in 6 months (eg, someone at 24% went to 21.6%) vs 25% with the alternative protocol (that 24% person wend to 18%).
So, these workouts are *mainly* fat burners/endurance builders, and don't seem to be necessarily the best approach to optimize fat burning or lean mass building. In part 3 we'll look at some of these alternatives in more detail.
Aside: P90X+ Let me cue up here that the P90X+ program is very similar in kind to P90X: 5 more P90X style workouts, but with fewer people on the set. These workouts are to mix into P90X. So one effectively re-does P90X, swapping out some P90X routines for the new ones. So, once more into the breach: more circuits, more little rest between moves. So, effectively, more of the P90X endurance same.
P90X - resisting muscle growth?
We now have a sense of what it takes to build muscle: caloric surplus - we need more to build more; and we need specific types of load/recovery/volume for muscles to grow. In looking at P90X, we see that the type of strength it's geared to building is endurance, not hypertrophy. The muscular adaptations are around fuel consumption - better oxidative/fat burning capacity - rather than mass building.
In sum, based on their design, P90X workouts - including the "resistance" workouts - are circuits, tuned for fat burning rather than muscle building.
Questions a person considering P90X might have at this point are therefore
- a) does the P90X workout focus on fat burning match one's goals?
- b) if so, is the P90X circuit approach the best way to achieve these goals?
Another question might be "but what about getting ripped? doesn't P90X deliver at least on that?"
At the top of this article we looked at getting ripped as body fat percentage first and muscle growth second. Ok, it's not delivering on muscle growth per se, so time to look at the diet side of P90X and we'll come back to its fat burning disguised as resistance training.
o The simple formula for a 6 pack? Body Fat Percentage
While i don't think he coined the term, colleague Rannoch Donald of Simple Strength may often be heard to say "there are no secrets." So here's a big non-secret to 6 pack abs: body fat percentage.
What P90X does not come out and say ever, anywhere, is that for a guy to begin to see his abs, he has to be at about 10% BF (in my experience of the guys i've worked with, it's actually below 10%); for gals, we have to be at about 15% or less. It's really that simple.
I wish i had known this at the time i was doing P90X. Rather than focusing on dropping 10 pounds, i might have looked into how feasible/healthy it would be to drop 10% body fat in 90 days, and how to optimize that. That *might* have helped me figure out right there if Kenpo-X and Plyo-X were the best ways to achieve that goal, or if maybe looking into diet-x might have been more profitable.
Indeed, what more and more research shows is that the only way to get to that ripped level BF% is calorie restriction. Calorie restriction (ie, diet) comes first; exercise is second. P90X of course doesn't say this fact either. It's selling "muscle confusion" first; nutrition way second.
o P90X Diet Math
This is not to say that PN doesn't get diet. PN has a diet book. And it's a corker.
What the Nutrition Plan for P90X says about the role of nutrition in getting ripped is as follows:
Why Diet Matters P90X® Nutrition Plan A large body of scientific evidence shows that diet and exercise work hand-in-hand to promote fitness and physical performance. One reason for this symbiotic relationship is the energy equation. When you expend more calories than you consume, you burn body fat (aka "stored energy") and build lean body mass—but because you need energy to exercise, every calorie you eat must be of the highest quality to get you over the hump.:Well, as we've seen, ya don't always build lean body mass just because you're burning more calories than you consume; and as we've seen, ya don't always build lean body mass when you're working out and reducing caloric intake, either. .25 - .5 pounds a week if EATING to gain that muscle.
Please let me note again that one can gain lean mass while in caloric deficit. It's just not a lot. If one is gaining .25 lbs by eating for gain, and working out for muscular growth, how much fiber can be built when eating for loss and doing endurance not hypertrophy workouts? It's a real challenge.
So what's the P90X diet advice?
IT's amazing. Every 4 weeks, the macronutrient ratio changes - to match the demands of this incredible program:
Phase I: Fat Shredder - Days 1-28
Phase II: Energy Booster - Days 29-56
Phase III: Endurance Maximizer - Days 57-90
The above phases map to the following macronutrient ratios:
Macronutrient Goals in Each Phase
Phase I - Protein 50%, Carbs 30%, Fat 20%
Phase II - Protein 40%, Carbs 40%, Fat 20%
Phase III - Protein 20%, Carbs 60%, Fat 20%
How are these ratios achieved? By one of two ways: either follow the portion suggestions of how many portions of each type of macro nutrient to have, or by following the meal plans so even less to think about. Just eat exactly what it in the book, when it says to eat it.
Indeed, the portion approach is not unique to P90X but it is complex: Have X portions from the Protein group; Y portions from the Carbs and Z from fats.
This number of portions approach is to help avoid calorie counting. But the result also means that there are only three "sizes" of menu to fit everyone. Not exactly optimized for fat loss. Consider the following.
Calories Per Day - Three Sizes fits All
Here's how a person determines how many calories they're going to eat a day - what their Total X+Y+Z portions will equal.
Nutrition Level Chart
EA = 1800-2399 = Level I 1800 calories per day
EA = 2400-2999 = Level II 2400 calories per day
EA = 3000+ = Level III 3000 calories per day
Who is losing anything here and by how much? Hmm. This means someone who requires 2399 calories for maintenance in Level 1 will suddenly be on a 600 calorie a day deficit. In 6 days of workouts, that's 3600 calories - a little better than a fat pound. Someone who's closer to 1800 cals for maintenance will be losing far less in that week. Maybe nothing following this meal plan. And indeed, there's a real potential Achilles heal to this approach. IT's how one's Level is calculated: it assumes that ALL P90X workouts burn 600 calories.
Let's look quickly at how one figures out their energy level.
Determining Your Nutrition Level
1. Calculate your RMR
Your Body Weight x 10 = RMR
2. Calculate your Daily Activity Burn
RMR x 20% = DAB
3. Calculate your Energy Amount
RMR + DAB +600 CALS for p90x workouts = EA
Now, RMR stands for resting metabolic rate, and i have yet to find anywhere where it is simplified to body weight times 10, since it regularly takes into account height and other constants, etc, but let's set that aside and just go with this formula.
Here's an example:
1. a 140 lb gal of unknown height has an "RMR" of 1400
2. 20% is 280
3. 1400 + 280 + 600 = 2280 calories.
So that puts the person in EA of Level 1, 1800 calories a day. That would be, all things being equal, a 480 calorie a day deficit, which over 6 days, is 2880 calories, not quite a pound.
A gal at 130 is also in EA Level 1, and also told to eat 1800 calories, and that's only
1300+260+600= 2160, a difference of 360 cals a day, which in 6 days is 2160 - even further away from a pound a week.
A smaller gal at 120, 1200+240+600 = 2040 calories now at 1800, is eating only a 200 calorie a day deficit.
That's 1200 in a week, three weeks to lose a pound.
And that's IF those workouts are really 600kcals a piece. They are not. Or let's put it this way: it depends. Yoga X at about 80-90 mins is 200 calories; Kenpo-X, at 45 mins, is maybe 275 - 435. If you're totally "bringing it" maybe a bit more. So your heart rate is pushing it's aerobic envelop.
This math begins to explain the 6 pounds total i took off during my religious observation of P90X doubles - where i was keenly going for 600 cals a day from double workouts.
Special Case:
If someone is in the EA Level 3 of "3000+" of course potentially coming down from say 4250 a day to 3000, the possibility is that, all things being equal, one will be losing 2.5 ish pounds a week, 30 pounds over the 12 weeks.
o Body Fat X
P90X says that weight of course is "relatively meaningless" since a better measure is body fat percentage. Why? P90X doesn't explain in this guide why body fat percentage is more important than what's on the scale. We're simply told body fat % is the measure of progress.
So how does P90X use body fat %?
In the "relatively meaningless" way one uses weight? that it goes down? That's pretty much it. With one sweetener. It provides three body fat ranges for folks to feel really successful after completing the program:
Fit, Athlete, Elite Athlete.Nice correlation implied: if you have a BF% at the third level, maybe you're an "elite athlete" (No question asked of course that if you have that BF% and you're not an elite athlete what else might you be?)
But there's no correlation between Body Fat % and ripped. It does not come out and say that unless you hit that "Elite Athlete" bf% range, you will not be seeing that 6 pack. It's that simple.
BF% - supposedly important to P90X, but based on who and what army? A few questions a person may have at this point about a program claiming that bf% change is critical may be:
- If body fat percentage is so important, and the meaningful way to measure progress, what are the expected body fat % changes on this program for men and women?
- IF it is that important why is it so cavalier about how to take these measures? The guides don't actually tell anyone how to do this - the closest it comes is to say "get a caliper"from their web site.
Other than just maybe/maybe not caloric restriction, the P90X diet guide seems to reflect Nutrition Confusion, perhaps to match the exercise program's muscle confusion, discussed in part 1. Over the course of 12 weeks, as said, the macronutrient ratio of the program changes 3 times. There are arguments in the data about why a person would want to start with higher protein and lower carbs and then by the end of the program invert this, but not really.
- Fact: we know that if you're in caloric deficit, you will lose weight.
- Fact: we know that in short term programs (8-12 weeks) that higher protein diets *throughout* the program tend to have slightly faster higher initial weight loss than other programs, but that after that period, loses level out.
Here, the idea seems to be (it's not explicit), is that to kick starting the diet, bringing up protein and reducing carbs, will fire up fat loss. Hmm. But after that first month, because people will have been working so hard, they'll need to keep brining up the carb level to have the energy to survive it. There's a few notices about extending a given phase if one wishes, but the guidance is pretty much stick to the plan, stan.
Haven't seen the studies to support this kind of short term mix-it-up. Nutrition is complex. But a higher level fact we do have the resources to say is that fat loss happens with caloric deficit. Is that really achieved in the P90X diet plan?
And let's look at those figures again: the predicted weight loss on this program is 6-12 pounds. A half pound to a full pound a week. That's it. Unless you're in the 3000+ a day with a serious + a day. Honey, i can get you on a diet tomorrow with NO exercise involved that will guarantee to meet or double those numbers. No sweat. Literally. So what is someone doing on P90X if the goal is to get lean, to "get ripped"?
o Is What's on the Label What's in the Tin? Is this a Getting Ripped Diet?
P90X promises "getting ripped" as part of its objective.
If we can accept the premise that caloric deficit is required to reduce fat in order to see one's 6 pack, a key part of the "getting ripped" concept, we have to ask if P90X will really deliver this result?
Based on looking at the differences in caloric deficits to be achieved of just a few points of the Level I scale, for instance, it's pretty clear that the amount of caloric deficit to be achieved in following this program is likely to be highly variable, and likely at most about a pound a week for the people at the outside of the Level, and likely considerably less given that the caloric burn calculated for each workout is exaggerated.
Who will get Ripped on P90X?
Knowing that we need to get to a low body fat % to get the "get ripped" look, and knowing how much caloric deficit we need to burn FAT (as opposed to just lose weight), and knowing that there's such variation of caloric deficit with P90X and that at the most it's calculated to drop about a pound a week of fat for anyone who starts at eating 2999kcals a day, AT BEST, what does this tell us about the likelihood of getting ripped on P90X?
IF all the person needs to lose is 6-12 pounds to achieve the ripeed body fat percentage, then it's possible to get to the Ripped Place in the 90 days.
Otherwise, how can it happen?
Now, we know that *if* one gains lean mass and doesn't lose ANY body fat, their BF% goes down. True enough. But how much lean mass can one reasonably gain in 12 weeks with P90X such that it will effectively overwhelm X% of fat? So let's just put that one to bed.
Effectively, unless you're already close to that goal percentage can P90X deliver "ripped" or just the "getting" part of getting ripped?
And if the best it can deliver for the majority is the "getting" towards ripped, again, a person might ask, is P90X the best way to do it?
o Those Before and After Pictures
Given everything we've looked at above, let's come back to a few of those before and after pictures.
For Women, let's take Amanda for example.
We don't know her stats. That is we don't know her starting BF% or her final one, but what's changed in this photo? What don't we see? A six pack. The abs are angled. Is there less fat? yes. Is there more definition. Yes. Does it look like she's lost more than the 6-12 pounds? No. Has anything else, beside the expression on her face, and the sucking in of the gut changed visibly? No.
Then there is KatieV. Again, what's changed?
IS katie sucking in her gut in the day 1 photo? How about on day 90? Is she already pretty lean? Look at the waist circumference at the hips. Much change? So while the photo looks really cool, the *actual* change is not incredible. And since the arms haven't seemed to have changed, i'm guessing weight loss, a good base of fitness already, and with three days a week of endurance abs on top of all the rest of the workouts, the abs will show. Congratulations! This participant hit the sweet spot.Is this result what any gal who passes the P90X fit test can expect? As we've seen, realistically, that would depend on a number of factors, particularly starting BF% and realistic expectation of caloric deficit over the 12 weeks. If one starts at 24% bodyfat, will P90X take a person to 14%? No. Remember in the research above 6 months of a slightly more intense workout regimen than P90X net 2% lean mass improvement, 10% bf% reduction. That's 21.4% in 24 weeks, not 12.
And with the guys?
What about their before and after photos?
Really look at the photos. From angle, to lighting, to mass, what's going on? Mainly body fat changes?
Without having access to the actual measurements from before an after we don't really have anything concrete to go on about the degree of change. What we can see is that most of the guys posted as P90X success stories already have some muscular definition in their before shots, even though pose and lighting is not optimized to show this before aspect. Look at the second gentleman in the picture above. He's plainly experienced at workouts and is already at a lower body fat %; he will likely be building lean mass out of the gate, and trimming body fat by the little he needs for the lighting in the after photo to create an effect. Nice lat flare.
The above photo crit is not to take away from anyone's accomplishments on P90X, but to put the results - and expected results - in context, and to look at these photos with a greater reality lens, based on the little detail we actually have.
Not that there aren't some rather wild whoppers on the P90x site.
"Lost 30% body fat" sounds fabulous in this picture, doesn't it? But let's put it in context. We can see some of DavidC's abs - so there's a fat level of 10% or a bit less. That means that a guy who is already skinny, as he seems to be - say at 12% minus 30% of that = 8.4 percent. Definitely in ab-seeing zone. That seems like a very high result to me for someone who's already skinny, but let's take it as true. The point is that he begins the program already close to a Ripped bf%. All the guys in the success stories seem to do so. Well they have to, don't they?
So what's going on with his shoulders that do look bigger? Gotta love all those pull ups.
As we've seen, based on what we know about muscle building, it usually requires caloric surplus AND it requires a program designed to facilitate muscle building adaptation and P90X is mainly an endurance program with a wee bit of hypertrophy-oriented training thrown in.
Since what we see is mainly in the shoulder and arms, and some fat off the waist, well, the diet might also just be at that right place where the caloric deficit was minimal to support muscular growth from the most repeated moves in the "resistance" section: pull ups and push ups (we'll come back to this in part 3). Again, well done. Unusual, but well done. Why do we so rarely see people's legs in these shots, hmm?
In general, what we do know, when we really look at these photos is that we are not seeing people make super weight loss changes OR muscle mass changes. These are relatively close to lean people, getting more lean.
Another question might be: if one is in this happy position of being within sight of lean-ness, is P90x the best way to get there?
o Summing Up: P90X and getting Ripped.
If we start with the simple premise that the main ingredient of of "getting ripped" - signified by 6 pack abs - is first to achieve a particular bodyfat% and second to have some hypertrophy of muscles to show through the skin, then we can assess P90X.
We've seen that P90X is *primarily* a circuit training program that's been tuned for fat burning, not hypertrophy - even it's Ab Ripper X program is endurance rather than hypertrophy. As such, despite the X and extreme labels, P90X workouts are conservative: rehab, novice, obese friendly. Surprising, isn't it? The very stuff of fat fit boot camps.
We've also seen that its diet plan is *very* conservative in terms of weight loss. 6-12 pounds total in 12 weeks.
Thus, we might ask,
- for whom is P90X likely to be a "get ripped" success story?
- is P90X the best way to achieve this result for this group?
- what are other people supposed to do who want to 'get ripped'
To the first question we already have the answer: people already close to that target body fat percentage.
To the second question, we've already had some sense that P90X may not be the best way to get the results in promises. Part three will look at alternatives, which will include nutrition alternatives, as the short answer is yes, there are other what one may even call more balanced alternatives to P90X.
To the third question, well, answer two does here as well.
So what do we have?
Program assessments:
- - Where is the Diet plan? what are its predicted deliverables?
- - how is progress measured?
- - what are the predicted changes in these measures over what period?
- - what kind of workouts/rest periods are being presented? - endurance/power/hypertrophy
- - what kind of transformations are predicted from these workouts? what are the measures?
My hope is that with the above information, folks are better able not only to assess the claims and supposed results of P90X with a critical eye, but ANY workout program.
So, next time an infomercial promises you'll lose fat in just a few weeks and it's promoting a device or an exercise routine, look at where the diet plan is hiding. It's usually something like "combined with diet and rest" or something similar.
If the device or program promises muscle gains, again, look for the diet plan AND look at the type of routines being promoted. Are they hypertophy inducing, strength and power or are they, like P90X, safe, novice, fat burners, dressed up as hypertrophy or strength or power?
o Alternatives?
At the end of the day, while P90X is fine for what it is - a novice boot camp type endurance/foundation workout - it's a 12 week program. It's a package that uses bells and whistles around marketing illusions like muscle confusion, nutrition confusion, lots of moves, lots of workouts, and lots of diet changes. It seems it's got all these components to keep us busy, entertained, and hooked enough to buy the product: there's a lot of stuff in here; it must be great.
And then if we actually use the program (most people buy health dvds and don't use them, apparently), that variety is there, perhaps not only to keep us engaged but again to think we must be doing something great to achieve our goals.
As we've seen however, P90X, despite all the hoopla, is actually a conservative program. Circuits are safe; the nutrition program is safe. No major changes; no law suits from health risks. Is it the optimla approach to achieve "getting ripped" - safely?
Let's put it this way, if after looking at what's on the label and comparing it with what's in the tin, and you decide you might not want to do P90X but you still want to get lean, add some muscle, get strong etc, you may want to consider some alternatives.
In part three, i'll go over a few examples of programs and approaches both for workouts (part 3b) and nutrition (part 3a let me know what you think of this one - i'm kinda happy about it) so again, a person looking for an approach will have more information with which to assess whether a program is right for them.
See ya next time.
Related Posts:
- P90X critique, part 1: "muscle confusion" real? yoga-x or plyo-x to be x'd out?
- P90X alternatives: part 3a: nutrition for fat burning, ripping and building
- p90X alternatives: part 3b: workout alternatives for time, variety of systems and quality
- MAKE PULL UPS FUN - rings review - they're a gas
- Athletic Bodies: what do athletes in different sports look like under their shirts?
- Cardio and Strength work: research showing they complement each other.
- Nutrition: ten habits for better eating (pdf download)
- perfect reps: not exactly a P90X concept - but huge benefit from thinking about each rep
- shorter workouts: six minutes to fitness part 1 and part 2
- help putting it together? - online training/nutrition consulting available with mc
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Sunday, August 23, 2009
Reflection/Critique of P90X review: Part 1 of 3 - muscle confusion confuses the issue
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Part 1: P90x Overview and "muscle confusion"
Does P90X "work"? That really depends on what a person means by "work." And that's why this series is going to take a look at what "work" might mean, how well P90X might "work" and whether there are alternatives. We'll look at what's on the label vs what's in the tin. This is a several-part follow up review of P90x two plus years after
completing it and learning a whole lot more than i knew then about our bodies, nutrition, health and fitness.
This critique of P90X will review the following P90X concepts:
Does p90X work - by its own terms - and if so for whom under what conditions?
If you're considering P90x as a workout program, super. If you do the program, you will feel different by the end of it. You may be a wee bit leaner, or a lot leaner depending on how much you're eating before you start with this program. So there'll be a tremendous feeling of accomplishment to accompany the exhaustion if you are one of the folks who starts it and finishes it. If you're already doing P90X and feeling great you may wonder how anyone could critique it and its wonderful variety. I know what you mean. That's why i'm doing this over several articles. But first an overview of where these are going.
P90X critique in brief:
No doubt feeling great is feeling great - especially if you feel stronger, fitter and are starting to drop weight and that's what you want. Fabulous. What we're going to unpack in this series is that P90X, despite all the variety of its workouts, is actually a cardio circuit program. That means it's privileging one energy system and one type of strength. Despite all the seeming variety with resistance and kenpo-x and plyo-x and abRipper-x etc etc, it's working on one energy system of 4 (oxidative) and one type of strength of four (endurance).
By the final part of this series we'll see why focusing just on this approach alone is, relative to our rich complexity, quite partial. So that's part of the critique too: P90X is dressed up to look like it's far more holistic than it is with all its many routines. Again, let me say that if you want to do nothing but endurance cardio, that's fine. But even endurance athletes work their different energy systems and strength types.
We'll also see in this series, there are many other ways to achieve the ripped abs of P90X that don't take as much time, and also work other energy systems, and fundamentally, are about diet. We'll also take a peek at the oft neglected nervous system, and something called the SAID principle, and see what happens if we look at bringing that into our practice deliberately.
In other words, by the end of P90X, yes folks will feel better - even feel like they're really working out, grr, while doing P90X's 7 hours a week - but not for the reasons P90X claims. You may be doing work you think is doing certain things that it isn't, and for reasons that are well, spurious.
For instance, as we'll see in this post (1) P90X's main tenant of muscle confusion as the way to keep progress happening turns out to be baseless; (2) none of its workouts will deliver more fat loss than one could get with diet alone, without better attention to diet than p90x gives it (with a sort of exception of one case considered in part 2, called EA level 3); (3) very few people who say they start the program ever come back to say they finish it; this may be why there's been little structured "after p90x" advice available until more recently. Yes, there's P90X Plus or Insanity, but suffice it to say P90X+ is 5 more variants of P90X workouts -to mix in with P90X, and Insanity is even more cardio - and in part 3b we'll look at why more of the P90X same mayn't be in your best interests.
Series Overview
In this series, in the first two parts we'll like to look at (part 1, this article) the claims of p90x like muscle confusion, (part 2) we'll look at whether the package can deliver on "getting ripped in 90 days" and for whom, from it's nutrition/diet approach to its workouts. In the last part, we'll look alternatives to P90X's nutrition (part 3a) and workouts (part 3b) that will last beyond 90 days.
The goal of this series is that if you decide you still want to "bring it," you can do so with a clearer sense of what's really in the program, how it works, what will help it work better, how to get closer to the results you want, and what alternatives you might want to pursue and why.
You may also decide there are other ways to get better results in less time. (that's part 3, to follow).
In part one of this review, we kick off with a brief overview of P90X and then consider "muscle confusion" and the special case of "Yoga-X." In the second part we'll look at the role of diet in the hunt for 6pack abs, and in the final part we'll look at completion bail outs, what happens when the track runs out at the end of P90X and alternatives.
Quick overview of p90x.
P90X contains 12 follow along DVD's of various workouts for cardio and largely bodyweight or
resistance work. The package also contains program guides for what vids to use when. And it has a small pamphlet on diet along with recipe suggestions. The review i wrote about completing p90x was until recently a top ten results for "review p90x." What happened? P90X's marketing has changed so that people who sell P90X effectively have to put up clone p90x web sites that feature "review" as their title, but aren't really. They've paid beachbody.com 40 dollars for the privilege of getting a commission from sales of P90X that go through their sites. Nothing wrong with affiliate sales, but the effect of this approach has mean that folks who just review p90x have their *real* reviews buried into about page 4 of google results. A couple of months ago the top P90x review was from a blog called "shaping my way." Where is it now??
The concept of P90x is appealing - it certainly was to me: for people who once knew what being in shape was, but they now have fallen out of shape and are keen for a "real" workout they can just DO that doesn't require going to the gym to get back in shape. That's what P90X says is on the tin. Sounds really sensible. P90X is sold largely by infomercial. And so here comes Tony Horton who developed the program. Fit guy of 47 at the time - right in the target audience zone - way better shape than most guys ten years younger. And he's saying, right, back to basics. Three days a week resistance training and plyo; three days a week various cardio/stretching/yoga type stuff. You see shots from the really basic type workouts: pull ups, push ups, jumping, lunges, curls, kicking, punching, intense yoga. Real people sweating real sweat. Looks real; looks good, looks like work. You see all sorts of real people following along at home while watching the DVD's. More reality.
Before we begin, let's tease apart a couple of the claims around P90X - do this program with intensity, and you will get stronger, build muscle and of course, based on the before and after pictures, get ripped.
Note: there is nothing wrong with following these workouts. And if having such a totally programmed plan works to get a person back onto the road to well being then fabulous. I'd just like to take a closer look at what's on the label of this tin. First up: muscle confusion.
Muscle Confusion is Confusing the Facts.
On the web site and in the infomercial Horton makes a big deal about this concept he's introducing called muscle confusion. That is after the first four weeks of the program he switches up the resistance program a bit. For the first three weeks he does chest & back/shoulders & arms; for weeks 5,6,7 he does chest, shoulders triceps/ back & biceps. and then more or less back to the first three weeks (each fourth week is a back off week of mainly cardio/yoga)
The rationale for this change up after three weeks of effort is to surprise the muscles - hit them from a different angle - so that they don't get used to the effort and stop growing, plateauing.
This concept sounded so sensible to me at the time. It turns out, though, it's kinda crap -not total crap in terms of the concept - but total crap at this level of application.
Let me explain. P90X is a 12 week program. It is specifically aimed at (marketed at) de-conditioned people. In that respect, this population is pretty much like folks who haven't trained before. Pretty much. As such what the research shows repeatedly - and this has been studied a lot - is that a deconditioned/untrained person can do ANY program for 8-16 weeks, and they will get stronger. If they're really untrained, as opposed to not having been working out for awhile hypertrophy - that body builder effect - isn't particularly likely to happen either.
Indeed, this research informing these ideas on training adaptation is so standard now it's
become part of any core text-book on the physiology of strength and conditioning. IT's a core part of training in programs like the NSCA's CSCS certification, and in physiology courses. Here's just two texts with references in google books to these concepts to see for yourself: 2002 Hoffman Physiologic Aspects of Sport Training and Performance and 2006 Donatelli, Sport Specific Rehabilitation. The research goes back to 1988, so this isn't earth shakingly new stuff.
How does muscle building work: adaptation to load.
A summary of part of the above work is that, for the first 8 weeks of any resistance program, the main adaptation is neurological: that is, the nervous system is getting used to bringing muscle fibers into play and figuring out what fibers to use. Very little if any of this period is actual hypertrophy, that is the growth of new muscle fibers.
After the first 8 weeks, what triggers growth is still adaptation to load, but between now and 12 weeks, muscular adaptation may also begin. So main point: the effort needs to keep challenging a person or adaptation ceases. That lack of challenge is the ONLY reason why adaptation ceases (until hitting optimum genetic potential- and that sure doesn't occur in a few weeks). And this is the only reason why people hit plateaus in their program: using the same number of reps at the same weight with the same number of sets gets to a point of no longer being a challenge. The body has simply adapted to that movement with that load for that period of effort. Only one of those variables needs to change to force adaptation. Note: the exercise itself does not have to change.
Alternative One: A great method to induce challenge/adaptation is used by Pavel Tsatsouline in Power to the People (two moves: a deadlift and a side press). The approach is to wave the load, over a week: up bit each day for a few days, then back a bit, then starting up the next wave with a bit more. Each week, each day's last load gets a little heavier so weight load is progressive even as it falls back. The moves don't change; volume is varied. Remarkable progress; no burn out. No confusion.
So, looking at P90X, in three weeks of a new program for a de-conditioned person, since muscle adaptation hasn't really even started to take place, why change the program?
One answer is to reduce boredom. The biggest problem a program like this faces is quitting and wanting one's money back before the 90 days are up. Here's there's a promise of change throughout the whole period. So how do you know what those four week sets are going to be like until you've tried them? Variety is the spice of continuation for a lot of us. Even so, folks who comment about the dvds on the forum find that watching the same ones over and over get a little tedious.
How much confusion, really, in P90X? If you look at the actual workouts that change, there's not *that much* that's different about them. The main thing is the arms routine of the first few weeks is broken into biceps and triceps days rather than just "arms" day on shoulders day. In other words, two workouts a week now have three specific body parts in the same length of time as did for two previously. They're just slightly different exercises that lets a person pop in a new dvd and feel like they're getting a new workout while also getting that special adaptation buster, muscle confusion.
The point of this critique is to show that muscle confusion is not really what's going on here: the muscles are not being "tricked" by new challenges to keep adapting to a routine that would otherwise cease to induce change. As we can see from standard work, the exercises themselves haven't been in play long enough to induce complete neural adaptation, never mind any kind of muscular adaptation.
At best, changing specific arm exercises is certainly one way to reduce boredom of a routine; changing the outfits and participants on the DVD set is another. Both are used here. This is not to say any of this is a *bad* thing. Boredom can be real, and if it stops a person from working out, then there's a problem.
Yes is there such a concept as muscle confusion? Google searches return numerous non-expert sites that cite the term (often pointing back to P90X). As best i can tell, Tony Horton did not invent the idea; it comes from the body building world where trainees want to squeeze every millimeter of hypertrophic growth from their muscles.
By changing up exercises to hit an already well-developed muscle from a variety of angles, the idea is that this will help to bring out every possible fiber to optimal effect. This exercise variety for muscular development is not quite the same as a belief that one has to change exercises to fight plateau/adaptation. Some attribute the body building concept of muscle confusion to Vince Gironda; intriguingly it's not a concept you'll find in the research literature for muscle physiology. Try checking "muscle confusion" in pubmed, or in the Jounral of Strength and Conditioning Research. Nada.
So what is "muscle confusion" in P90X?
Marketing.
Really. As said, there's nothing wrong with changing up exercises a bit every few weeks if it keeps you going at them, and really all beachbody wants to do is keep you invested in the program for 12 weeks to avoid giving you a refund. And because if you do anything for 12 weeks in a workout sense you will see these kinds of improvements, it really doesn't matter what they ask you to do; it just has to be something you WANT to keep doing. We'll come back to this lack of post P90X support in part three.
But in the mean time, here's a question: if anything will work to induce change in 12 weeks, and unlike Beachbody.com, you actually care about the remaining X weeks after p90x (like the rest of your life), you may want to ask
Are these the best exercises anyway? for that 12 week period?
Yes and no. Pull ups and push ups, a core part of the P90X program are solid. They're refereed to as compound movements because they involve more than one muscle or muscle group. The bodyweight legs program, also pretty good for being likewise mainly compound - though wall squats can seriously be thrown out: these are simply isometric holds and have very little transferability - in other words doing a lot of wall squats will not help build capacity to lift the coach up the stairs. In p90x, wall squats get better over time because of the other leg work; not the other way around.
See, again from the literature, for someone who has not been training, the best resistance start is with compound work, not isolation exercises. That means no biceps/triceps stuff; lots of pushes and pulls that involve the whole body. Even if big arms are a goal, especially when starting a program, compound work is the best way to go. So maybe those arm curls are in there for packaging rather than real benefit?
Another exercise to chuck: plyometrics.
The pylo workout is referred to as the "mother" of all P90X workouts. And that's what it is: a survival routine. Can you get through over an hour of jumping on one leg?
Real plyometrics are stressful to the body. An hour of them is close to insane for neophytes, and they were never designed as cardio. They were designed by eastern sports science as a finisher program for well-conditioned, well-trained athletes and NOT for people just getting back into fitness (see work by Verhoshansky from 1960's on). They are designed specifically to improve vertical jump height and speed, again, for ahtletes with a strong, pre-existing base of fitness.
Is what's on P90X really plyometrics?
MMM, maybe not. More like skipping, or what's also sometimes seen as 'submax plyos'- take a look at this section on google books about submax plyos, and you'll see pretty much the same moves this book talks about as warm ups for plyos. So calling what's on p90x plyo is a bit of a stretch - but not the right stretch to be plyometric. Let me explain.
How does plyometrics work?
Mainly be taking advantage of the elastic properties of the muscle, loading the muscle using the stretch shortening cycle. For instance, doing a big jump off a box to the ground to stretch and load the hamstrings muscle (back of the legs) and then *as fast as possible* jumping back up again so that that stored energy in the hamstrings turns into kinetic energy in the concentric contraction of the muscle tightening as one gets up again.
The key about plyos is that they're not supposed to be high rep or frequent (or for beginners):
So what's p90x "plyo" doing?
Well it's more like skipping without a rope - because p90x couldn't count on one having room for a skipping rope. It's also another higher intensity cardio workout. And it may also help with prepping the muscles and joints to take greater load. So it's not like it doesn't do anything - but mainly it's one more way to do a fatiguing, high cardio workout and call it something bigger than it is to lend it excitement.
By the way: want to improve your vertical jump? develop your squat, or swing a kettlebell - not kidding. Way better results than box jumping. We'll come back to this in part three. Now this is not to say there isn't a role for jumping about: kids once upon a time did this regularly with skipping games. Boxers and other athletes jump rope. But it's kinda sexing it up to call plyo-x plyometrics. It's endurance training via hops that are not gated to speed (no. of reps per those 20 secs for example).
And ya can skip 80 mins of Yoga-X, alas
Yoga X is a form of yoga you won't see anywhere else -a sort of faux Ashtanga first series - sort of. It clocks in at about an hour 20, one of the longest and most challenging workouts because of the massive balance/stretching work going on.
Folks on the p90x forum will comment at how much better their "yoga" work becomes as they do the program, and attribute the program to improving the stretch in the postures they achieve and the better balance. I did too.
Turns out that a lot about stretch has to do with perceived safety (reduced threat - all the nervous system can process is "is there threat? yes or no"). As these moves become more familiar, (and as the body becomes in fact stronger from doing these and the other workouts) the body perceives the move as safer to do. Consequently the muscles relax and stretch more. Look at it this way: we can all apparently do the splits when we're unconscious without any reefing of tendons or muscles. What's different when we're awake?
Do we need to do 12 weeks of 1hr:20mins of Yoga-X to achieve these results? Well, what are we doing this workout for? Horton says if he could only do one thing, it would be the Yoga-X workout. But why? What is the benefit of being able to hold a static balance posture for 30 secs?
A huge part of yoga practice is also the breath. In the book Structural Yoga Therapy, the author talks about the focus of Yoga is about the Breath, not about the stretch. Where is that focus in Yoga-X, when Horton walks around the participants commenting on how much they're sweating and working to hold a posture?
What does this sweating and working show? Neuro-muscular adaptation to a specific position. Does this balance work in this particular translation of yoga-inspired postures transfer to other activities? Horton talks about improvements in balance. Ok, where is that shown again beyond these posutres? If balance is the goal, is it the best or most efficient way to improve balance? Maybe not (see this discussion on renegade rows and options for balance practice)
Doing a few seconds (literally) to a few minutes of Z-health work (overview) can have the same stretch deepening/balance sharpening effect or more of what yoga-x delivers. It does this with way reduced threat and way improved proprioceptive, vestibular and visual coordination. It takes maybe 8 minutes rather than 80. So again, what's the point of this workout? It's not calories; max caloric burn from yoga-x is 200. In 80 mins. The other factor in Yoga-X (and other X workouts) that let's one say wow felt ick starting, but after felt great is pretty much endorphins. Lots of ways to get those triggered too.
Please note (please): i am in no way saying "yoga bad" - please see previous note on the inspiration i find in David Swenson's ashtanga performance. What i am asking is why is someone doing this particular thing, Yoga-X? do they understand why it is part of a program? or that they can get the same *effects* from other means (in less time).
If there is a particular effect that doing this particular X session gives a person great! enjoy! but (a) is it delivering what it says it is? and (b) if this is what a person wants, there are alternatives here, too, that might be even better.
And any other X?
Look you can do P90X and be happy. The only thing that comes close to being harmful maybe is plyometrics and it will likely fatigue anyone from continuing before they get hurt. And as i come to in Part 3b, the workouts may be reinforcing bad form since form isn't much of a criteria in any of these routines. And because we adapt immediately to exactly what we're doing, there's potential costs of repeatedly repeating poor form.
Just to re-iterate, the point here is that this is a great program to entertain somone sufficiently to encourage that person to workout for 12 weeks. That doesn't mean these are great routines.
Does a person need to do the above routines for as long as they are (an hour 20 a day) to get the same or how about much better results? No. We'll come back to this point in part 3b. For now, to sum up muscle confution.
Take Away on Muscle Confusion:
A big promise in P90X is getting ripped.
Most folks might take that to mean building muscle bulk rather than simply exposing muscle that's there. As we've seen, there's at most maybe four weeks (for some people) in which to begin to build muscle fiber. And at that we're not talking 10's of pounds.
Bottom line: Horton's premise though that "muscle confusion" is a big part of what makes P90X so effective doesn't stand up to what we know about how muscles begin to adapt to new demands being put upon them.
Horton's program based around tons of variety also doesn't stand up to what we know about building a foundation for what comes after 12 weeks. But that's not what P90X is about. It's about selling programs. And here the promise is that visible six pack.
Transition to Part 2: What's a six pack, really?
The thing is, we know that the only way to get a six pack is, for guys, being sub 10% body fat, and for women, sub 16% bf. If you have been working away at your abs so that there is some hypertrophy there, and you lose a lot of body fat, you can get a ripped look. Since we know that not a lot of muscle growth takes place in an initial 12 week program, the only way in 12 weeks to get to that place is to burn off the fat. And the only way to get to those bf% numbers in 12 weeks is (a) not needing to lose a lot of weight in the first place combined with (b) significant caloric restriction.
In Part 2, we're going to look how muscle building works, as well as at the understated role of diet in P90x and a bit more at how those before and after pictures happen. And we'll ask the question again, is P90x the best way to get this result? and what happens after the 12 weeks?
Related Posts/Resources
Does P90X "work"? That really depends on what a person means by "work." And that's why this series is going to take a look at what "work" might mean, how well P90X might "work" and whether there are alternatives. We'll look at what's on the label vs what's in the tin. This is a several-part follow up review of P90x two plus years after
completing it and learning a whole lot more than i knew then about our bodies, nutrition, health and fitness.This critique of P90X will review the following P90X concepts:
Does p90X work - by its own terms - and if so for whom under what conditions?
- part 1: (this post) considers muscle confusion and the various X workouts - should they be X'd? do their names really mean what's under the label?
- part 2: getting ripped and what that means in terms of 1) getting lean and 2) getting defined. We also consider who can "get ripped" when following the p90x and does one really need P90X's 7 hours a week+ to achieve that goal?
- part 3: alternatives to p90x (a) diet & p90x (b) workouts.
If you're considering P90x as a workout program, super. If you do the program, you will feel different by the end of it. You may be a wee bit leaner, or a lot leaner depending on how much you're eating before you start with this program. So there'll be a tremendous feeling of accomplishment to accompany the exhaustion if you are one of the folks who starts it and finishes it. If you're already doing P90X and feeling great you may wonder how anyone could critique it and its wonderful variety. I know what you mean. That's why i'm doing this over several articles. But first an overview of where these are going.
P90X critique in brief:
No doubt feeling great is feeling great - especially if you feel stronger, fitter and are starting to drop weight and that's what you want. Fabulous. What we're going to unpack in this series is that P90X, despite all the variety of its workouts, is actually a cardio circuit program. That means it's privileging one energy system and one type of strength. Despite all the seeming variety with resistance and kenpo-x and plyo-x and abRipper-x etc etc, it's working on one energy system of 4 (oxidative) and one type of strength of four (endurance).
By the final part of this series we'll see why focusing just on this approach alone is, relative to our rich complexity, quite partial. So that's part of the critique too: P90X is dressed up to look like it's far more holistic than it is with all its many routines. Again, let me say that if you want to do nothing but endurance cardio, that's fine. But even endurance athletes work their different energy systems and strength types.
We'll also see in this series, there are many other ways to achieve the ripped abs of P90X that don't take as much time, and also work other energy systems, and fundamentally, are about diet. We'll also take a peek at the oft neglected nervous system, and something called the SAID principle, and see what happens if we look at bringing that into our practice deliberately.
In other words, by the end of P90X, yes folks will feel better - even feel like they're really working out, grr, while doing P90X's 7 hours a week - but not for the reasons P90X claims. You may be doing work you think is doing certain things that it isn't, and for reasons that are well, spurious.
For instance, as we'll see in this post (1) P90X's main tenant of muscle confusion as the way to keep progress happening turns out to be baseless; (2) none of its workouts will deliver more fat loss than one could get with diet alone, without better attention to diet than p90x gives it (with a sort of exception of one case considered in part 2, called EA level 3); (3) very few people who say they start the program ever come back to say they finish it; this may be why there's been little structured "after p90x" advice available until more recently. Yes, there's P90X Plus or Insanity, but suffice it to say P90X+ is 5 more variants of P90X workouts -to mix in with P90X, and Insanity is even more cardio - and in part 3b we'll look at why more of the P90X same mayn't be in your best interests.
Series Overview
In this series, in the first two parts we'll like to look at (part 1, this article) the claims of p90x like muscle confusion, (part 2) we'll look at whether the package can deliver on "getting ripped in 90 days" and for whom, from it's nutrition/diet approach to its workouts. In the last part, we'll look alternatives to P90X's nutrition (part 3a) and workouts (part 3b) that will last beyond 90 days.
The goal of this series is that if you decide you still want to "bring it," you can do so with a clearer sense of what's really in the program, how it works, what will help it work better, how to get closer to the results you want, and what alternatives you might want to pursue and why.
You may also decide there are other ways to get better results in less time. (that's part 3, to follow).
In part one of this review, we kick off with a brief overview of P90X and then consider "muscle confusion" and the special case of "Yoga-X." In the second part we'll look at the role of diet in the hunt for 6pack abs, and in the final part we'll look at completion bail outs, what happens when the track runs out at the end of P90X and alternatives.
Quick overview of p90x.
P90X contains 12 follow along DVD's of various workouts for cardio and largely bodyweight or
resistance work. The package also contains program guides for what vids to use when. And it has a small pamphlet on diet along with recipe suggestions. The review i wrote about completing p90x was until recently a top ten results for "review p90x." What happened? P90X's marketing has changed so that people who sell P90X effectively have to put up clone p90x web sites that feature "review" as their title, but aren't really. They've paid beachbody.com 40 dollars for the privilege of getting a commission from sales of P90X that go through their sites. Nothing wrong with affiliate sales, but the effect of this approach has mean that folks who just review p90x have their *real* reviews buried into about page 4 of google results. A couple of months ago the top P90x review was from a blog called "shaping my way." Where is it now??The concept of P90x is appealing - it certainly was to me: for people who once knew what being in shape was, but they now have fallen out of shape and are keen for a "real" workout they can just DO that doesn't require going to the gym to get back in shape. That's what P90X says is on the tin. Sounds really sensible. P90X is sold largely by infomercial. And so here comes Tony Horton who developed the program. Fit guy of 47 at the time - right in the target audience zone - way better shape than most guys ten years younger. And he's saying, right, back to basics. Three days a week resistance training and plyo; three days a week various cardio/stretching/yoga type stuff. You see shots from the really basic type workouts: pull ups, push ups, jumping, lunges, curls, kicking, punching, intense yoga. Real people sweating real sweat. Looks real; looks good, looks like work. You see all sorts of real people following along at home while watching the DVD's. More reality.
Before we begin, let's tease apart a couple of the claims around P90X - do this program with intensity, and you will get stronger, build muscle and of course, based on the before and after pictures, get ripped.
Note: there is nothing wrong with following these workouts. And if having such a totally programmed plan works to get a person back onto the road to well being then fabulous. I'd just like to take a closer look at what's on the label of this tin. First up: muscle confusion.
Muscle Confusion is Confusing the Facts.
On the web site and in the infomercial Horton makes a big deal about this concept he's introducing called muscle confusion. That is after the first four weeks of the program he switches up the resistance program a bit. For the first three weeks he does chest & back/shoulders & arms; for weeks 5,6,7 he does chest, shoulders triceps/ back & biceps. and then more or less back to the first three weeks (each fourth week is a back off week of mainly cardio/yoga)The rationale for this change up after three weeks of effort is to surprise the muscles - hit them from a different angle - so that they don't get used to the effort and stop growing, plateauing.
This concept sounded so sensible to me at the time. It turns out, though, it's kinda crap -not total crap in terms of the concept - but total crap at this level of application.
Let me explain. P90X is a 12 week program. It is specifically aimed at (marketed at) de-conditioned people. In that respect, this population is pretty much like folks who haven't trained before. Pretty much. As such what the research shows repeatedly - and this has been studied a lot - is that a deconditioned/untrained person can do ANY program for 8-16 weeks, and they will get stronger. If they're really untrained, as opposed to not having been working out for awhile hypertrophy - that body builder effect - isn't particularly likely to happen either.
Indeed, this research informing these ideas on training adaptation is so standard now it's
become part of any core text-book on the physiology of strength and conditioning. IT's a core part of training in programs like the NSCA's CSCS certification, and in physiology courses. Here's just two texts with references in google books to these concepts to see for yourself: 2002 Hoffman Physiologic Aspects of Sport Training and Performance and 2006 Donatelli, Sport Specific Rehabilitation. The research goes back to 1988, so this isn't earth shakingly new stuff.How does muscle building work: adaptation to load.
A summary of part of the above work is that, for the first 8 weeks of any resistance program, the main adaptation is neurological: that is, the nervous system is getting used to bringing muscle fibers into play and figuring out what fibers to use. Very little if any of this period is actual hypertrophy, that is the growth of new muscle fibers.
After the first 8 weeks, what triggers growth is still adaptation to load, but between now and 12 weeks, muscular adaptation may also begin. So main point: the effort needs to keep challenging a person or adaptation ceases. That lack of challenge is the ONLY reason why adaptation ceases (until hitting optimum genetic potential- and that sure doesn't occur in a few weeks). And this is the only reason why people hit plateaus in their program: using the same number of reps at the same weight with the same number of sets gets to a point of no longer being a challenge. The body has simply adapted to that movement with that load for that period of effort. Only one of those variables needs to change to force adaptation. Note: the exercise itself does not have to change.
Alternative One: A great method to induce challenge/adaptation is used by Pavel Tsatsouline in Power to the People (two moves: a deadlift and a side press). The approach is to wave the load, over a week: up bit each day for a few days, then back a bit, then starting up the next wave with a bit more. Each week, each day's last load gets a little heavier so weight load is progressive even as it falls back. The moves don't change; volume is varied. Remarkable progress; no burn out. No confusion.
So, looking at P90X, in three weeks of a new program for a de-conditioned person, since muscle adaptation hasn't really even started to take place, why change the program?
One answer is to reduce boredom. The biggest problem a program like this faces is quitting and wanting one's money back before the 90 days are up. Here's there's a promise of change throughout the whole period. So how do you know what those four week sets are going to be like until you've tried them? Variety is the spice of continuation for a lot of us. Even so, folks who comment about the dvds on the forum find that watching the same ones over and over get a little tedious.
How much confusion, really, in P90X? If you look at the actual workouts that change, there's not *that much* that's different about them. The main thing is the arms routine of the first few weeks is broken into biceps and triceps days rather than just "arms" day on shoulders day. In other words, two workouts a week now have three specific body parts in the same length of time as did for two previously. They're just slightly different exercises that lets a person pop in a new dvd and feel like they're getting a new workout while also getting that special adaptation buster, muscle confusion.
The point of this critique is to show that muscle confusion is not really what's going on here: the muscles are not being "tricked" by new challenges to keep adapting to a routine that would otherwise cease to induce change. As we can see from standard work, the exercises themselves haven't been in play long enough to induce complete neural adaptation, never mind any kind of muscular adaptation.
At best, changing specific arm exercises is certainly one way to reduce boredom of a routine; changing the outfits and participants on the DVD set is another. Both are used here. This is not to say any of this is a *bad* thing. Boredom can be real, and if it stops a person from working out, then there's a problem.
Yes is there such a concept as muscle confusion? Google searches return numerous non-expert sites that cite the term (often pointing back to P90X). As best i can tell, Tony Horton did not invent the idea; it comes from the body building world where trainees want to squeeze every millimeter of hypertrophic growth from their muscles.
By changing up exercises to hit an already well-developed muscle from a variety of angles, the idea is that this will help to bring out every possible fiber to optimal effect. This exercise variety for muscular development is not quite the same as a belief that one has to change exercises to fight plateau/adaptation. Some attribute the body building concept of muscle confusion to Vince Gironda; intriguingly it's not a concept you'll find in the research literature for muscle physiology. Try checking "muscle confusion" in pubmed, or in the Jounral of Strength and Conditioning Research. Nada.
So what is "muscle confusion" in P90X?
Marketing.
Really. As said, there's nothing wrong with changing up exercises a bit every few weeks if it keeps you going at them, and really all beachbody wants to do is keep you invested in the program for 12 weeks to avoid giving you a refund. And because if you do anything for 12 weeks in a workout sense you will see these kinds of improvements, it really doesn't matter what they ask you to do; it just has to be something you WANT to keep doing. We'll come back to this lack of post P90X support in part three.
But in the mean time, here's a question: if anything will work to induce change in 12 weeks, and unlike Beachbody.com, you actually care about the remaining X weeks after p90x (like the rest of your life), you may want to ask
Are these the best exercises anyway? for that 12 week period?
Yes and no. Pull ups and push ups, a core part of the P90X program are solid. They're refereed to as compound movements because they involve more than one muscle or muscle group. The bodyweight legs program, also pretty good for being likewise mainly compound - though wall squats can seriously be thrown out: these are simply isometric holds and have very little transferability - in other words doing a lot of wall squats will not help build capacity to lift the coach up the stairs. In p90x, wall squats get better over time because of the other leg work; not the other way around.
See, again from the literature, for someone who has not been training, the best resistance start is with compound work, not isolation exercises. That means no biceps/triceps stuff; lots of pushes and pulls that involve the whole body. Even if big arms are a goal, especially when starting a program, compound work is the best way to go. So maybe those arm curls are in there for packaging rather than real benefit?
Another exercise to chuck: plyometrics.
The pylo workout is referred to as the "mother" of all P90X workouts. And that's what it is: a survival routine. Can you get through over an hour of jumping on one leg?
Real plyometrics are stressful to the body. An hour of them is close to insane for neophytes, and they were never designed as cardio. They were designed by eastern sports science as a finisher program for well-conditioned, well-trained athletes and NOT for people just getting back into fitness (see work by Verhoshansky from 1960's on). They are designed specifically to improve vertical jump height and speed, again, for ahtletes with a strong, pre-existing base of fitness.
Is what's on P90X really plyometrics?
MMM, maybe not. More like skipping, or what's also sometimes seen as 'submax plyos'- take a look at this section on google books about submax plyos, and you'll see pretty much the same moves this book talks about as warm ups for plyos. So calling what's on p90x plyo is a bit of a stretch - but not the right stretch to be plyometric. Let me explain.
How does plyometrics work?
Mainly be taking advantage of the elastic properties of the muscle, loading the muscle using the stretch shortening cycle. For instance, doing a big jump off a box to the ground to stretch and load the hamstrings muscle (back of the legs) and then *as fast as possible* jumping back up again so that that stored energy in the hamstrings turns into kinetic energy in the concentric contraction of the muscle tightening as one gets up again.
The key about plyos is that they're not supposed to be high rep or frequent (or for beginners):
A distinction should be made between maximal plyometrics and sub-maximal plyometrics. Maximal plyometrics are low-repetition activities where the intensity of the depth jump or rebound exercise is such that maximal or near-maximal rebound tension is produced in the relevant muscles. Just like maximal strength training with weights, these powerful impulses are not meant to be imposed on the musculature every workout, nor are multiple repetitions even possible or advisable.So plyo: low rep, low frequency - does that sound like p90x's hour of hopping?
So what's p90x "plyo" doing?
Well it's more like skipping without a rope - because p90x couldn't count on one having room for a skipping rope. It's also another higher intensity cardio workout. And it may also help with prepping the muscles and joints to take greater load. So it's not like it doesn't do anything - but mainly it's one more way to do a fatiguing, high cardio workout and call it something bigger than it is to lend it excitement.
By the way: want to improve your vertical jump? develop your squat, or swing a kettlebell - not kidding. Way better results than box jumping. We'll come back to this in part three. Now this is not to say there isn't a role for jumping about: kids once upon a time did this regularly with skipping games. Boxers and other athletes jump rope. But it's kinda sexing it up to call plyo-x plyometrics. It's endurance training via hops that are not gated to speed (no. of reps per those 20 secs for example).
And ya can skip 80 mins of Yoga-X, alas
Yoga X is a form of yoga you won't see anywhere else -a sort of faux Ashtanga first series - sort of. It clocks in at about an hour 20, one of the longest and most challenging workouts because of the massive balance/stretching work going on.
Folks on the p90x forum will comment at how much better their "yoga" work becomes as they do the program, and attribute the program to improving the stretch in the postures they achieve and the better balance. I did too.
Turns out that a lot about stretch has to do with perceived safety (reduced threat - all the nervous system can process is "is there threat? yes or no"). As these moves become more familiar, (and as the body becomes in fact stronger from doing these and the other workouts) the body perceives the move as safer to do. Consequently the muscles relax and stretch more. Look at it this way: we can all apparently do the splits when we're unconscious without any reefing of tendons or muscles. What's different when we're awake?
Do we need to do 12 weeks of 1hr:20mins of Yoga-X to achieve these results? Well, what are we doing this workout for? Horton says if he could only do one thing, it would be the Yoga-X workout. But why? What is the benefit of being able to hold a static balance posture for 30 secs?
A huge part of yoga practice is also the breath. In the book Structural Yoga Therapy, the author talks about the focus of Yoga is about the Breath, not about the stretch. Where is that focus in Yoga-X, when Horton walks around the participants commenting on how much they're sweating and working to hold a posture?
What does this sweating and working show? Neuro-muscular adaptation to a specific position. Does this balance work in this particular translation of yoga-inspired postures transfer to other activities? Horton talks about improvements in balance. Ok, where is that shown again beyond these posutres? If balance is the goal, is it the best or most efficient way to improve balance? Maybe not (see this discussion on renegade rows and options for balance practice)
Doing a few seconds (literally) to a few minutes of Z-health work (overview) can have the same stretch deepening/balance sharpening effect or more of what yoga-x delivers. It does this with way reduced threat and way improved proprioceptive, vestibular and visual coordination. It takes maybe 8 minutes rather than 80. So again, what's the point of this workout? It's not calories; max caloric burn from yoga-x is 200. In 80 mins. The other factor in Yoga-X (and other X workouts) that let's one say wow felt ick starting, but after felt great is pretty much endorphins. Lots of ways to get those triggered too.
Please note (please): i am in no way saying "yoga bad" - please see previous note on the inspiration i find in David Swenson's ashtanga performance. What i am asking is why is someone doing this particular thing, Yoga-X? do they understand why it is part of a program? or that they can get the same *effects* from other means (in less time).
If there is a particular effect that doing this particular X session gives a person great! enjoy! but (a) is it delivering what it says it is? and (b) if this is what a person wants, there are alternatives here, too, that might be even better.
And any other X?
Look you can do P90X and be happy. The only thing that comes close to being harmful maybe is plyometrics and it will likely fatigue anyone from continuing before they get hurt. And as i come to in Part 3b, the workouts may be reinforcing bad form since form isn't much of a criteria in any of these routines. And because we adapt immediately to exactly what we're doing, there's potential costs of repeatedly repeating poor form.
Just to re-iterate, the point here is that this is a great program to entertain somone sufficiently to encourage that person to workout for 12 weeks. That doesn't mean these are great routines.
Does a person need to do the above routines for as long as they are (an hour 20 a day) to get the same or how about much better results? No. We'll come back to this point in part 3b. For now, to sum up muscle confution.
Take Away on Muscle Confusion:
A big promise in P90X is getting ripped.
Most folks might take that to mean building muscle bulk rather than simply exposing muscle that's there. As we've seen, there's at most maybe four weeks (for some people) in which to begin to build muscle fiber. And at that we're not talking 10's of pounds.Bottom line: Horton's premise though that "muscle confusion" is a big part of what makes P90X so effective doesn't stand up to what we know about how muscles begin to adapt to new demands being put upon them.
Horton's program based around tons of variety also doesn't stand up to what we know about building a foundation for what comes after 12 weeks. But that's not what P90X is about. It's about selling programs. And here the promise is that visible six pack.
Transition to Part 2: What's a six pack, really?
The thing is, we know that the only way to get a six pack is, for guys, being sub 10% body fat, and for women, sub 16% bf. If you have been working away at your abs so that there is some hypertrophy there, and you lose a lot of body fat, you can get a ripped look. Since we know that not a lot of muscle growth takes place in an initial 12 week program, the only way in 12 weeks to get to that place is to burn off the fat. And the only way to get to those bf% numbers in 12 weeks is (a) not needing to lose a lot of weight in the first place combined with (b) significant caloric restriction.
In Part 2, we're going to look how muscle building works, as well as at the understated role of diet in P90x and a bit more at how those before and after pictures happen. And we'll ask the question again, is P90x the best way to get this result? and what happens after the 12 weeks?Related Posts/Resources
- P90x Critique Part 2: getting ripped - does p90x deliver? for whom? how?
- Athletic Bodies: what do athletes in different sports look like under their shirts?
- Cardio and Strength work: research showing they complement each other.
- Nutrition: ten habits for better eating (pdf download)
- z-health: yoga-x physical effects and way more with way less to do - overview
- alternative example: consider the plan of Enter the Kettlebell - overview
- shorter workouts: six minutes to fitness part 1 and part 2
- recovery when ya can't take a nap after a workout
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