P90 X

[EIUvltr]

I'm not gonna quote stuff cuz itll take forever. So...

To Walrus: I wasn't saying you weren't motivated. I was referring to high school athletes who won't do anything in the offseason since they dont have to. Plus you said earlier that you do 2-3 workouts a day. This could simply be a sign of overtraining. Doing upper body lifting shouldn't be so stressful. And abs are just like any other muscle. If you train them for high reps at a low intensity (lotsa crunches) they will develop endurance, but not strength. This is one big reason why I dont believe in this type of training for a vaulter. Vaulters need strong abs, not conditioned ones.

To Everyone else: Rainbowgirl is right, you guys really have been away from the high school game too long. Kids nowadays don't want to do ANYTHING ever. At the high school I teach, we have trouble with gang activity which spills over onto the track, people shooting each other, etc. So trying to convince these kids to give 110% in track is almost impossible.

[nielsalofsen]

Rainbowgirl is right, you guys really have been away from the high school game too long. Kids nowadays don't want to do ANYTHING ever. At the high school I teach, we have trouble with gang activity which spills over onto the track, people shooting each other, etc. So trying to convince these kids to give 110% in track is almost impossible.

This just can't be true... I coach highschool athletes for more than a decade and have not experienced such problems. Yes, motivational problems, but not gang activity. Geez...

[EIUvltr]

Rainbowgirl is right, you guys really have been away from the high school game too long. Kids nowadays don't want to do ANYTHING ever. At the high school I teach, we have trouble with gang activity which spills over onto the track, people shooting each other, etc. So trying to convince these kids to give 110% in track is almost impossible.

This just can't be true... I coach highschool athletes for more than a decade and have not experienced such problems. Yes, motivational problems, but not gang activity. Geez...

Then you're lucky. You probably take a lot of stuff for granted. The high school I coach at is very diverse so there is a lot of racial tension and also socioeconomic tensions. The poor kids on the team are running in basketball shoes because they can't even afford running shoes. We have very poor pits, standards, and not nearly enough poles. Some of the kids are on reduced lunch due to being poor and can hardly get enough food day-to-day. And on top of all this, you have the gang stuff, deadbeat parents, the overall violence, teenage pregnancies, academic problems, etc. THEN you have to think about how in high school, pole vault usually has the last pick of the litter. The best long jumpers/sprinters who would probably make the best pole vaulters are instead running the 100,200, 400 and jumping. So our vaulters are generally the less motivated, less talented kids on the team (usually). Now a lot of you probably think this is a rarity, but I bet a lot of you vaulters (including myself) on this forum were a bit more privileged than the average high school kid in this country. I know this because just to be able to pole vault is a privilege. It takes a lot of resources to have a pole vault set-up in a high school with a competent coaching staff. Most city schools and some of the poorer suburbs around me don't even have the vault since they can't afford it.

[rainbowgirl28]

Niels, you're not in the US, so your experiences are going to be very different...

Rick Baggett already has an excellent DVD with this type of stuff on it. I sell it on my website!

[nielsalofsen]

I understand the situation and have a deep respect for both you coaches teaching polevault in such a training environment. I have still a few questions about this, but I will make another threat about it in the "general" department.

I already have the DVDs of Rick Baggett (bought it in your store Becca;)) and the DVD and book of Alan Launder.
What I mean is that the DVDs of P90X are sequenced and give day tot day exercises with all kinds of motivational tricks to workout at home. If you make dvds with polevault-home-workouts they can do in front of the tv every morning and use all the effective tricks of P90X, you have a substitute which might work.
Maybe, someday, when I have some spare time, I will dive into this project. This goes further than an exercise-dvd.

[JMP8928]

p90x is not an athletic strength and conditioning program. Far from it. your better off not wasting the energy or time, unless ofcourse your getting ready for spring break 2010.

no high intensity nervous system recruitment, no high threshold fibers activated. Skip it.

[PVR]

I'm sorry, but anyone who thinks the P90X is not a strength and conditioning program is watching it from the couch and calling that thier workout. My son and I did the complete program ( 51 and 22 years old ) and believe me, it's a workout worth looking into if you get bored with the off season workouts. You are doing different types of workouts each day, which mixes things up. I have college vaulters who are using this for their summer workouts and they have enjoyed the breakup of thier old routines and the fact that no special equipment is needed. Most have returned in better physical shape, which is a plus for coaches like myself.

Remember, the workout is dictated by what you put into it.

[EIUvltr]

I'm sorry, but anyone who thinks the P90X is not a strength and conditioning program is watching it from the couch and calling that thier workout. My son and I did the complete program ( 51 and 22 years old ) and believe me, it's a workout worth looking into if you get bored with the off season workouts. You are doing different types of workouts each day, which mixes things up. I have college vaulters who are using this for their summer workouts and they have enjoyed the breakup of thier old routines and the fact that no special equipment is needed. Most have returned in better physical shape, which is a plus for coaches like myself.

Remember, the workout is dictated by what you put into it.

It may be a good workout, but it doesn't recruit any high threshold muscle fibers, and it is primarily cardiovascularly and anaerobic/lactic intensive. It would be a better offseason program than just sitting around, but for pre-season and in-season (and even off-season really) it is not ideal.

[Lax PV]

So with all the hoopla surrounding the workouts, combined with a nagging calf injury and just kind of ‘letting myself go,’ I decided to try the P90X workouts.

So here are my thoughts…

The workouts do work, but I wouldn’t say that they should be an athlete’s workout. There are a lot of variations of traditional lifts in the program, however, most are variations of push-ups, pull ups and bicep curls. The problem that I have with the workouts (and again, understand that my problems are with it being a workout for an athlete, if you want to look good for spring break, start this guy the week after Christmas, and you will probably not be disappointed) is that many of the exercises are all single joint movements. Many people will argue for many reasons why an athlete should not do a solely single joint movement workout—but those joints do get strong. On a positive note, I can curl more than ever at this point (but that isn’t going to make me pole vault too high).

The leg workout is pretty tough. I started doing it with a weighted vest later in my cycle—that made it brutal. My problem with the leg workout is (and because it is intended to be a home workout) that every exercise is for 20-25 reps. This is not going to teach your body much about recruitment patterns, but it is going to get you in shape. Your lactic threshold will get better. My legs did get stronger over the course, but when I was done with the whole thing, running felt pretty awful.

As a whole, I was not crazy about the lifting. Being someone who has spent the last 12 years almost exclusively doing sets of 10 or less, it was a new stimulus, but I didn’t really like it. I am looking forward to my sets of 8 again.

On the positive side, I really liked the yoga, core synergistic and the plyo workouts. The yoga was an Ashtanga based routine for those of you who are familiar. It was a good workout for the legs, and I noticed an increase in my hip flexibility. I REALLY like the core syn workout, think of working everything from your knees to your armpits. These two workouts are actually the two that I WOULD suggest to an athlete on recovery days (in fact, the guys that I write programs for did them over the summer… they were surprised how hard the yoga can get).

The plyo workout was good, although it is not really plyos in the sense that I am used to. It had somewhere in the neighborhood of 1500 contacts… which is REDICULOUS if you are really creating a lot of force (high intensity plyo workouts in my humble opinion shouldn't get higher than 100 contacts--an even that is a lot of work--after that your CNS is fried). Most of the workout is ankle pop types of movements, squat jumps, etc. We’ll put it this way, going into the workout, my calf was jacked up enough that I could not complete a 3 left approach… I could do the whole plyo workout by week 5. It is a GREAT workout for your heart rate, and it does get your legs burning, but I don’t think there is a ton of GRF going on, and the SSC doesn’t appear to be put to the test either.

In summary, I think it is a great workout for someone getting back into it, or for someone who just wants to get in better shape. I would not recommend it for an athlete in general, however, I can think of a couple extenuating circumstances that I could consider it. I liked it because it gave me a sense of accountability, and I had something written out, and specific to do in the gym. I has def gotten me in better shape, but had I done it 4 years ago, I think I would have found it to be very challenging.


Thoughts from other people that have done it?

[yankee814]

I did the system for about a month before slowly decreasing out of it

first thing: the main instructor tells the viewer on most exercises to do the amount of weight and reps that pertain to their goals (8-10 for bulk and strength, 12-15 for lean and endurance). So even though the people in the video often went to 15 reps, i frequently used a higher weight and fewer reps.

Pros: variation of exercises, less chance of injury, groups muscles well, allows for full recovery, very instructional, promotes balance and flexibility (yoga, stretch x, plyometrics),

cons: not very high intensity, takes a while (once school starts I don't really have another hour that I can work out in after practice and homework, yoga is 90 minutes!), requires dedication everyday (horrible for in-season)

Also, i'm not sure if anyone has looked at the nutrition plan, but theres no where near enough calories in the diet for an athlete, especially not for a growing athlete.

The program is very good for high schoolers though because it stresses the use of body weight more than machines or heavy conventional lifts. That helps reduce the risks of stunting growth or damaging still forming muscles etc.

just my two cents.

[EIUvltr]

P90x is just another form of circuit training which has been around since the 50s. The original creators looked at traditional resistance training and realized there was a lot of standing around due to the rest periods in-between sets, so they decided that was dumb and created circuit training. Oddly enough, the biggest proponents of this were companies trying to sell you outrageously expensive equipment to do these circuits on. Beware of people who want your money.

The theory behind it is that you can train the cardiovascular system while you get stronger because you never rest in-between sets, you just jump from muscle group to another. This sounds great, except that it doesn't really work. It is in direct opposition to the SAID principle. If your body could improve linearly in all components of fitness, then every athlete on earth would be wise to train exclusively with p90x and laugh at the idiots using the conjugate sequence method (periodisation). Ironically, it hardly improves strength compared to conventional means and has minimal effect on aerobic endurance. It is somewhat effective at increasing local muscular endurance though, if that is important to you.

Yes, if you haven't been training regularly then p90x will work, but not much better than any generic workout. A novice/untrained individual will adapt to nearly all forms of exercise the same way. Studies have shown similar increases in strength in novice lifters with 30% of 1RMs compared to 90% of 1RMs over periods of upwards of 8 weeks. Think about it. So if you're out of shape and too lazy to get to the track/weight room, then p90x is better than sitting around, however if you've been training correctly with General Preparation Phases, Specific Preparation Phases, Transition Phases, Stabilisation Phases, Competition Phases, Maintenance Phases and Reconstruction Phases over the course of the last few years with very close attention paid to exercise selection, nutrition, breathing patterns, recovery periods, PNF, intensity and volume, etc. then you should never need to implement a workout as ridiculous as p90x

[achtungpv]

If anybody's interested the P90X videos and all documentation in PDF format are available on thepiratebay.org. ARRGGGHHH...