P90X Review Day 2, Plyometrics

How many ways can I say “OUCH!”? When you park it in front of your TV for the P90X® Plyometrics workout, be prepared to leave your pride on the floor – along with a huge puddle of your own sweat.

Plyometrics loosely translates into “jump training”. There are also plyometric exercises for your upper body, but the really intense, fat shredding plyometric exercises are the kind done in the P90X plyometrics program, and they are primarily lower body movements.

There are numerous benefits to plyometric training, and you get a healthy dose of all of them in the P90X program. As with all exercise programs, the more you put into it, the more you’ll get out of it:

Massive calorie burn
Increased balance
Increased endurance
Increased explosive strength
Increased strength of muscles as well as all connective tissues
Massive metabolism boost from the sheer intensity of the exercises
Increased confidence in your ability to really push the limits and to make measurable progress

The program starts out in a pretty no-nonsense manner. Tony Horton runs you through a good warm up, and the warm up itself is challenging. In addition, to quickly silence the whiners who want to think they don’t have what it takes, Tony introduces the 3 people exercising with him, including one guy who has a prosthetic leg.

Yes, the guy has a prosthetic leg, and not only does he pull off the workout, but he excels at it. So, with no further excuses available to not give it 100%, the exercises begin!

Exercises during this workout include: Jump Squats, Run-stance Squats, Airborne Heisman, Swing Kick, Squat Reach Jump, Run-stance Squat Switch Pick-up, Double Airborne Heisman, Circle Run, Jump Knee Tucks, Mary Katherine Lunges, Leapfrog Squats, Twist Combo, Rock Star Hop, Gap Jump, Squat Jacks, Military March, Run Squat 180 Jump Switch, Lateral Leapfrog Squats, Monster Truck Tires, Hot Foot, Pitch & Catch, Jump Shot, Football Hero

Conclusion

Unless you are already used to high intensity cardiovascular training, the P90X Plyometrics program is going to be an extreme challenge for you the first few times you go through it. Even if you regularly do other types of cardiovascular training, this workout is very intense, and very challenging.

Once you start to get used to it, and build up your strength and endurance, you can still easily crank the intensity right back up by jumping higher or farther, and/or by speeding up the repetitions of the exercises.

Don’t kill yourself the first time out when you do this workout, but DO give it everything that you’ve got on an on-going basis. This one workout alone will probably burn more calories and do more for your cardiovascular fitness than any other workout that most people have ever been exposed to.