Monday, November 30, 2009

Round 2 / Day 15: P90X Chest & Back + Ab Ripper X

Tony Horton spends a lot of time talking and taking breaks.


Image Source: LCD Love

After working out with Insanity for a couple of weeks, I've noticed that Shaun T doesn't waste time with meaningless jibber-jabber. He doesn't brag about how his dad "pitched a couple of no-hitters," or ramble on about how he "loves-loves-loves" one of his workouts "until daddy takes my T-bird away." Rather, Shaun T is constantly on the move, and the vast majority of his comments involve instruction or encouragement. He hustles people back from their extremely brief water breaks -- during which he's often already demonstrating the next move. Perhaps that's why the Insanity workouts -- at least the first months' sessions -- are so much shorter than Tony's P90X workouts.

I got started a little later than usual, and had only an hour to complete both Chest & Back and Ab Ripper X before the kids got up and demanded food. But I noticed that Tony was -- as usual -- spending tons of time chit-chatting between moves. This was fine (or at least tolerable) when I was a novice P90Xer, but at this point, I know how to perform a Diamond Push-Up and a Close-Grip Pull-Up, and don't need to listen to Tony's explanations for the millionth time. Nor do I want to hear Tony boast about how he can "do hundreds of [push-ups]" but has to "check on the kids."

So I grabbed my P90X Fitness Guide and just cranked out all the exercises in Chest & Back without regard to what was happening on the TV screen. I took a few breaks, but kept them as short as possible before diving right back into the next exercise. By the time I was on my last move of the workout, Tony and gang were six exercises behind. By moving ahead and ignoring Tony's mindless prattle (and by also skipping the cool-down because it's pointless), I managed to complete Chest & Back in slightly under 40 minutes, which gave me plenty of time for Ab Ripper X.

The only negative? With little-to-no rest between exercises, I had a hard time increasing my rep counts. But in the end, it was worth not having to suffer through Tony's douchetastic verbal diarhhea.