Somebody reached the site yesterday with that exact question, “does P90X help you put on muscle?” The answer is yes. The interesting thing about P90X is that it builds muscles in places that you have probably never tried working out before. Most people don’t have a clue when they are working out. They get into this routine that they started doing back in high school and stick with it. Its what they learned and they feel like they are still getting results and keeping themselves in shape. For the most part they are but your never going to be able to build other muscles and your long term fitness will not change much. All of those muscles that you continually workout are still going to be there. As soon as you peak with a certain amount of weight you can lift or an amount of reps its time to change. A lot of people will stick with the same routine and never change it up. This causes the plateau effect. If anything the strength that you are building goes down.
Will P90X Work Through Muscle Memory?
This is kind of off topic but a good example would be your golf swing. I was watching the golf channel and they were interviewing some pros caddie and he asked the pro golfer if he worked out at all over the winter. The pro replied with no. He then asked the pro that he must at least take his clubs out to fine tune the swing. He replied with no again. The caddie said there is no way that this guy can go 3 months without swinging a club, he must be crazy. So what the caddie did was put a banana in his golf bag and personally put his pros clubs away for him. Three months later he went over to the pros house for their first tournament and went to the closet to get the clubs. When he opened it up he said it was the worst smell he had ever came across. Turns out that the pro did not take his clubs out of the bag at all and didn’t even workout once. They grabbed the clubs, ditched the banana and he went on to shoot 3 under par that day. The reason is that he has made so many swings over the years that his muscles remember that motion and they will just wake up when asked to do something. This happens with all of us. When you peak out with a weight or rep its time to switch it up.
How Will P90X Put On Muscle?
What P90X does is it teaches you what Tony Horton likes to call “muscle confusion.” When you get all 12 of the P90X dvds each one of them is a different workout that is going to challenge you. Your muscles are always guessing because the way P90X works is that you do 5 different workouts a week and after 3 weeks you enter in 3 new workout DVDs. You just continue doing this process. This will let you build some serious muscle because it never gives your muscles a time to plateau. The strength is going to be there even if it feels like you are getting weaker.
I have been doing P90X for about 6 months now and during the first 4 months I stuck to the workout plan to a T. After that I still did the workouts but in a new way. Its kind of cool now that I can take 3 weeks off from doing any pull ups and still be able to do the same or more (depending on how I feel that day) pull ups next time I do it. The reason is because i worked so hard to get to that point and when I started peaking at the end of 90 days I switched it up and started doing different non P90X workouts like swimming. I was still pushing myself and building muscle. All I have to do now is one of those P90X workouts every other week or so to maintain the muscle I had worked so hard to get while in the mean time I work on new fitness goals.
What Kind Of Muscle Will You Put On With P90X?
The kind of muscle you are going to put on with P90X will be the lean and strong kind. The majority of P90X workouts will work your muscles to their failure point while using your body weight for resistance. This cuts down on the fat and you get a “pound for pound” strength to your body which is ideal for most adults nowadays anyways. However, even if your goal is to bulk up, Tony Horton shows you what to do to achieve those results in each workout. Your not going to be doing bench presses 3 days a week so you look like one of those guys at the gym with a huge chest and chicken legs. Instead you will be working chest once a week with shoulders and back. Once you understand the reasoning behind this you will get it that you are trying to work on all of your muscles not just one in particular. You will get outstanding P90X results and you will not believe what kind of body you had stashed away under that skin for all of those years.
Brad,
I am 31, about 6′ and 210. My goal is to be about 225 with 7% body fat. I have lifted weights since high school and was not able to lose the belly fat. Will the P90X help me to lose the belly fat while gaining lean muscle? Will I be able to drop all of the body fat I want to using the system? Also do you have to buy all of the weights and resistance bands and everything sepperate? Seems really expensive.
“Abs are made in the kitchen.” – Tony Horton. P90X will help you burn the fat but what you eat is even more important. Bands or weights and a pull up bar are necessary to do P90X properly. You just need to follow the plan. Add Shakeology into the mix and you’ll start seeing results. Check out those items at the Beachbody Store.