Shut-Ins Can CrossFit, Too

More than a few readers have mentioned that they can’t do CrossFit workouts because they don’t live near a CrossFit affiliate. But worry not, folks: CrossFit can be done at home.

For those who aren’t familiar with CrossFit, here's a quick introduction:

At its core, CrossFit is a fitness approach that incorporates – among other things – Olympic weightlifting, plyometrics, bodyweight resistance exercises, kettlebell training, gymnastics, running, rowing, and jumping/climbing rope. It focuses on improving each of ten fitness “domains”: endurance, stamina, strength, flexibility, power, speed, agility, balance, coordination and accuracy. The point is not to specialize (i.e., perform off-the-charts in one or two of these areas but suck at others), but to become a well-rounded athlete. CrossFit is "open-source" in that it freely incorporates user modifications and feedback, and allows anyone to modify its recommended workouts.

From Wikipedia:

CrossFit has been "variously portrayed as a fitness company, a grassroots health movement, a nascent sport, a fad, a publishing business and sometimes, disparagingly, a cult." Classes at affiliated gyms typically include a warm-up, a skill development segment, and a high-intensity workout that lasts around ten to twenty minutes. Affiliates create a new workout each day called the "Workout of the Day" or "WOD". Affiliates often use scoring and ranking systems to transform workouts into sport. Some CrossFit athletes use the free workouts and instructional videos available at the CrossFit, Inc. website, in lieu of attending an affiliate.

There are two ways for a beginner to get started with CrossFit:

• Go work out in a licensed affiliate gym with a certified CrossFit trainer; or
• Go work out on your own.

When I started CrossFit last month, I had the luxury of choosing between three different CrossFit affiliates, all located within a 3-mile radius of my house. There's a fourth opening soon in the neighborhood, and there are three other affiliates near my office. But I live in Northern California – the birthplace of CrossFit – so the glut of CrossFit affiliates in this area isn’t surprising.

But what do you do if you’re flying solo? CrossFit’s HQ recommends “three distinctive approaches, depending on your fitness experience and available facilities:”

(1) If you are largely familiar with the stable of CrossFit exercises, then start with the WOD (Workout of the Day) [which is posted daily on CrossFit.com]. If you've had exposure to Olympic weightlifting, powerlifting, and gymnastics, jump right in. If an exercise is unfamiliar, acquaint yourself with the movement through the video clip for the movement on the exercises section of the site. This option is for those athletes with an extensive experience in athletic strength and conditioning -- jump right in.

(2) If some or many of the exercises are unfamiliar to you and you are only modestly acquainted with elite athletic training, we recommend that you follow the WOD and substitute other exercises for those where you don't have either the equipment or skill and then devise a plan for acquisition of the necessary skills or equipment needed to participate completely. We are developing a Substitution Chart in the FAQ for replacing exercises for which you've not developed the skills or don't have the equipment.

(3) If many or most of the exercises are relatively or completely unknown to you, then we recommend that you begin learning the movements for a month or two until you can either perform our common exercises or have substitutions worked out for those movements under development. This is a great place to begin for anyone with little or no experience with serious weightlifting or gymnastics.

So if you want to do CrossFit but don't have an affiliate nearby (or don't want to pay the fees), do it at home.

There's lots of great information available online about how to get started. Each CrossFit affiliate maintains its own blog, and the main CrossFit site contains a lengthy FAQ as well as a link to the CrossFit Journal, which offers to subscribers a ton of information about the program's training methodology. And check out the CrossFit Message Boards, too.

If you’re reading this blog, it’s probably because you’ve done (or are doing) P90X, Insanity, or one of the other Beachbody home workout programs. You’re likely in better shape than you used to be, and able to do lots of things you didn’t or couldn’t before, like pull-ups (assisted or not) and intense bursts of lung-busting interval work. If you decide to do CrossFit at home, your Beachbody experience will no doubt help you get through a bunch of the WODs.

But you’ll still be shocked by the new challenges presented by CrossFit. The WODs don’t look so bad when you see them on the CrossFit.com website, but they are a whole new level of crazy when you attempt them “as RX’ed” (prescribed) by CrossFit HQ. Trust me: They are fucking hard.

So scale down the workouts. Lift lighter loads, reduce your reps and sets, or go for a shorter duration. The goal isn’t to commit suicide by slavishly throwing yourself into the WODs without modification. Work hard, but don’t hurt yourself trying to match or beat the firebreathers who post their results on the CrossFit site. Be safe, do progressions, and learn how to do the moves properly before maxing yourself out. This is particularly true for those who are working out at home, without the benefit of feedback from a trainer or coach. In order to give ourselves a fighting chance at improvement, us rookies need to keep our asses out of the hospital.

For information on how to outfit your home gym for CrossFit workouts, check this out.

Tuesday's Workout

I woke up with sore hamstrings, so I decided to go easy on my legs this morning. After scouring my One-on-One set for a workout that requires zero lower body work, I popped in Tony Horton's "Diamond Delts" DVD.



Diamond Delts consists of three circuits of three shoulder exercises -- and each circuit is done twice:

Circuit One (2x)

• Pike Presses
• Military Presses
• 6-Direction Shoulder Flies

Circuit Two (2x)

• Pike Presses (again)
• Seated Shoulder Flies
• Bent-Over Shoulder Flies

Circuit Three (2x)

• Deep Swimmer's Presses
• Upright Row / Y-Presses (sort of like a dumbbell clean and jerk, if you were to muscle up the weight instead of exploding down below it)
• Lying Rotator Cuff Backhands

This was the first time I'd done this workout, but quickly concluded that depending on one's fitness goals, Diamond Delts is either a fantastic shoulder workout or a totally efficient way to kill a half-hour. In some ways, this workout is illustrative of one of the key differences between Tony Horton's Beachbody programs and CrossFit, in that P90X, P90X+ and the One-on-One series are focused primarily on getting you "ripped," while CrossFit prioritizes general fitness over physical appearance.

Yes, Tony also talks a lot about the importance of functional fitness, and a bunch of his workouts do more than just make you look good. For instance, P90X Plyo certainly helps develop power and speed, and Yoga X is awesome for building balance, flexibility and strength. But P90X and its progeny also rely heavily on isometric moves and advocate doing reps to exhaustion -- methods that are terrific for bodybuilding (i.e., developing muscle size and definition), but not necessarily optimal for building power and strength. Instead, the aim is to spend 90 days getting that "ripped" look when you take the "after" photo.

Diamond Delts fits right into this training approach. It's a thirty-minute session devoted entirely to shoulder exercises, and the reps per set that Tony recommends are all in the 8 to 12 range. When Tony flexes his back and shoulders for close-up shots (which he does repeatedly on this video), he's making his point clear: Do what he does, and you can get shredded like him.

And that's fine. Tony doesn't pretend to be ego-free, and I'm not going to, either. I'll readily admit that personal appearance plays a role in my decision to keep exercising regularly.

But keeping up appearances isn't -- and shouldn't be -- the ultimate goal. Getting "ripped" is a nice side benefit to enhancing fitness, but it's not enough to keep me motivated. For me, working to develop my general athleticism--  including skills, agility, speed, power, accuracy, endurance and strength -- is a much more sustainable and satisfying approach to exercise.

Don't get me wrong: I don't regret being introduced to the gateway drug to exercise otherwise known as Tony Horton. But these days, a workout focused exclusively on getting my delts to swell up like a bodybuilder's isn't exactly what I want to accomplish. So I found today's session to be a little disappointing -- mostly because it didn't resonate with me given my current goals. (But also because I'm kind of tired of Tony's and Mason's schtick.)

Why Not Do Another Round of P90X Classic?

"Are you ever going to do P90X all the way through again?" M asked me after finishing tonight's workout. At long last, after doing months of ChaLEAN Extreme (and sprinkling in a mix of Insanity, P90X, P90X+, and Jillian Michaels DVD routines), M's thinking about starting her first 90-day round of P90X Classic. I guess she wanted to see if I might want to join her.

"I don't think so," I replied.

But her question got me thinking. Why not do another round? Plenty of P90X grads have repeated the program several times and continue to see improvements in their overall fitness. And God knows I haven't yet mastered all the moves introduced by Tony Horton -- especially the twistiest ones in Yoga X. So why didn't I repeat P90X immediately after finishing Round 1? And why don't I have plans to do another 90 consecutive days of P90X?

I can think of five reasons.

Insanity Fit Test (Part Deux)

I hadn't revisited the Insanity Fit Test since starting Round 2, mostly because I'm deathly afraid of it. As you might recall, I barely made it through my first attempt at the Fit Test. But now that I've completed my 90-day P90X/Insanity Hybrid, I was curious to see how much (or even if) I've improved -- before all my gains disappear with the onset of laziness and inertia.

My post-Round 2 Fit Test results, after the jump...

What Happens Next?

Now that I'm just about done with Round 2, I'm starting to plan for Round 3, though I'm not yet sure what that's going to look like. Pavel Tsatsouline's RKC Kettlebell training, P90X+, One-on-One with Tony Horton, Craig Ballantyne's Turbulence Training -- all are presently under consideration. But ideally, I'd like to cobble together a Frankenstein-monster of a hybid routine, picking and choosing from exercises and workouts in P90X, Insanity, and some (but probably not all) of the programs above.

For Round 3, to stave off boredom, I'm determined to add more variety. So while I'm not sure I can mash up a bunch of different workout programs into a cohesive whole (especially without the risk of overtraining), I might try to do it anyway.

More to come...

Round 2 / Day 66: P90X Shoulders & Arms + Ab Ripper X

Even after upping my weights today, I found Shoulders & Arms to be a lot less challenging than it used to be. Or maybe I'm just tired of it.

One of P90X's strong points is that there's enough variety in the wokouts to keep most of  the routines fresh over a 90-day period. (Sadly, the shelf life of Tony's jokes is much, much shorter.) But I've been regularly doing P90X workouts for close to six months now, and while adding Insanity into the mix has helped stave off the tedium a bit, I'm definitely in autopilot mode now with P90X. I'm looking forward to the end of Round 2 not because I'm too exhausted to keep going, but because I can't wait to do something different.

Functional Training: On the Rise

As the Washington Post's MisFits blog notes, isometric gym workouts using machines and weights (think: leg press machines) are increasingly on the outs, while functional, compound exercises (think: squats, lunges) are in:

As they do every January, people are cramming into gyms to lose weight. But this year, some gyms are also working to slim down -- by excising rather than exercising. Instead of love handles and jiggling arm flesh, their problem area is the equipment loaded with stacks of hefty plates meant to work a single muscle.

"The day of isolated movements on machines is over," predicts Doug Jeffries, owner of Results Gym, which has four locations in Washington.

This dovetails nicely into what I've been doing. Although a few P90X workouts (essentially, any session focusing on arms -- "the glamor muscles," according to Tony H.) focus on isometric moves more than I'd like, for the most part, P90X and Insanity workouts are chock-full of compound movements. This approach has been working well for me, though I'm considering trying something new (but still in the functional category) -- just to mix it up a bit. I need to figure out whether I'm going to stick with some P90X/Insanity mash-up, or move to an entirely new routine using kettlebells or CrossFit.

The Next Phase: P90X / Insanity Hybrid

So here's my plan:

Starting tomorrow, I'm starting my second round of P90X -- only I'm going to sub in Insanity DVDs on the second, fourth, and sixth days of the week (in place of Plyo, Yoga X and Kenpo X respectively). On my rest day, I'll either do Yoga X or X Stretch.

Let's see how long I can keep this up.

The Insanity Fit Test

Holyfuckingshit.

Perhaps it's because my level of cardio fitness is crap, but the Insanity fit test is several orders of magnitude more difficult than anything -- ANYTHING -- I did on P90X.

Wielding a stopwatch, Shaun T marches you through the eight fit test exercises like a friendly, encouraging drill instructor, while two of his trainees, Tania and Chris, perform all of the moves along with you. The fit test itself is just 25 minutes long. Sounds easy enough, right?

Wrong. First of all, Chris and Tania (especially Tania) are -- in Shaun T's words, "MACHINES." They hustle like squirrels on speed, popping up after each set of exercises to flash their big fucking smiles. And the moves themselves aren't just insane -- they're IN-FUCKING-SANE. You're asked to perform each of them as many times you can in one minute, with good form.

Shaun T begins with a 2-minute warm-up: You jog, do jumping jacks, Heismans, butt kicks, high knees, mummy kicks -- nothing terribly difficult if you're used to doing P90X Plyo, but then again, this is just the warm-up.

Afterwards, there's a quick stretch, and then Shaun T turns to Tania and Chris -- both of whom have already completed a round of Insanity -- and leads them through the fit test exercises. After each move, they announce how many reps they cranked out, along with how many they originally did when they first took the fit test pre-Insanity.

I can be pretty competitive, so my goal -- however unreasonable it may have been -- was to try to kick Tania's and Chris' asses. And during the first few moves, I was feeling pretty damn good about myself; I was keeping up with Tania and Chris, and even beating them in reps in a few of the exercises. But three-quarters of the way through the fit test, my chest started hurting. And then both of my thighs cramped up. I could barely stand, and had to pause the DVD to catch my breath. I threw up a little bit of yogurt and banana in my mouth. After a three-minute break, I finished the finished the fit test, but I feel more battered than I ever did after a P90X routine.

After the jump, see how I fared on the Insanity fit test.

Post-Day 90 Fit Test Results

My pre-P90X fit test results (the ones I remembered to write down, anyway) were as follows:

Pull-ups: 7

Vertical leap: 20 inches

Push ups: 45

Toe Touch: +2 inches

Wall Squat: 2 minutes, 30 seconds

Bicep Curls w/Dumbbells: 13 reps @ 30 pounds

In & Outs: 25

Now, one day after finishing my first round of P90X, my results are:

Pull-ups: 18

Vertical leap: 21 inches

Push ups: 100

Toe Touch: +5 inches

Wall Squat: 3 minutes, 39 seconds

Bicep Curls w/Dumbbells: 33 reps @ 30 pounds

In & Outs: 77

My vertical leap didn't change much, but I'm pretty happy with my other numbers. I hope to God, though, that I'll never again have to perform 100 push-ups in a single set. My arms feel like they're going to fall off, and I already know I'm going to have trouble brushing my teeth and combing my hair tomorrow.

My Interview with Pam the Blam - Part Four

Have you caught up with Parts One, Two and Three of my conversation with Pam the Blam? If so, click below to read the final segment of her interview, in which Pam discusses her fellow onscreen trainers and life after P90X.

Day 82: Legs & Back + Ab Ripper X

Over the past 12 weeks, I've formed a love/hate relationship with Legs & Back.

On the one hand, when performed in conjunction with Ab Ripper X, Legs & Back is one of only two P90X videos that offers a holistic, head-to-toe resistance workout. (The other is Core Synergistics, but it doesn't offer as much in the way of lower body resistance exercises.) And now that I'm done with Legs & Back -- actually, with all resistance-focused P90X workouts -- part of me is going to miss its full-body-blasting intensity.

On the other hand: NO MORE FUCKING PULL-UPS!!!*

*Until Round 2, that is.

What's Next?

If all goes smoothly, I'll be done with my first round of P90X in about two weeks, so I'm starting to give some thought to what I should tackle next. Here's what I'm thinking:

Option 1: Do another round of P90X. Despite my occasional sniping at Tony & Friends, I've obviously gotten a huge kick out of P90X, and I'm reluctant to abandon the workouts entirely. If it ain't broke, why fix it? On the other hand, P90X is an enormous time-suck, and the workouts will likely get stale if I don't shake things up a bit. Come to think of it, I can't stomach the thought of hearing the same hacky jokes from Tony for another three months. Besides, isn't the whole point of "muscle confusion" to keep surprising your body with new exercises?

Option 2: Do a round of P90X Doubles. "Doubles" is the same as the classic P90X routine, but adds three to four extra cardio sessions per week during Phases 2 and 3. The good news? I already have all the necessary DVDs and equipment, so my bank account is safe.  The bad news? I'd have to spend up to TWO-AND-A-HALF HOURS per day with Tony. Pass.

Option 3: Do a round of P90X+. Beachbody evidently rushed "Plus" into production when P90X exploded in popularity; as a result, reviews of the "Plus" videos are mixed.  In fact, while some sessions look good-to-great (e.g., Interval X Plus, Total Body Plus), even some Beachbody coaches have proclaimed the Kenpo Cardio Plus workout to be "terrible." Smells to me like an inferior, overpriced product.

Option 4: Do a round of P90X, but replace some of the longer sessions with shorter "One-on-One with Tony Horton" videos. Beachbody's subscription-based "One-on-One" series is a stripped-down version of P90X featuring Tony working out alone in his home gym. A new video is shipped every month to subscribers, and each DVD runs roughly 30 to 45 minutes long. Some of the workouts (like "30-15 Upper Body Massacre" and "Fountain of Youth") look like they'd be a nice change of pace from Chest & Back and Yoga X, but I'm not crazy about the cost of the subscription service. For instance, Volume 1 of "One-on-One" (a 12-disc set) is twice as expensive as P90X, but contains far fewer total minutes of exercise instruction. I'm not the most frugal guy, but this sounds like a shitty deal. If I ultimately decide to go this route, I'll probably just pick up a couple of individual discs rather than subscribing to the series.

Option 5: Do an entirely different home fitness program like Shaun T's "Insanity."  While P90X focuses primarily on building strength and endurance, Insanity -- another Beachbody product -- is all about crazy-intense cardio.  According to the Beachbody site, Insanity is "is the most challenging cardio program ever put on DVD ... with 10 workout discs packed with plyometric drills on top of intervals of strength, power, resistance, and core training."  I want to maintain my P90X strength gains, so I'm not sure I want to commit to a 60-day routine that doesn't include weights or pull-ups.  Still, the Insanity reviews I've read are glowing (see here and here), and the infomercial makes the program look mighty tempting:

Option 6: Do some hybrid of the above (e.g., P90X resistance training plus Insanity cardio training, alternating every other day, and throwing in some yoga on the rest day). This would involve a lot of planning, but could be a nice way to introduce some variety (and max interval cardio training) without abandoning the strength-focused P90X workouts.

Option 7: Take a break from home fitness DVDs, and hit the gym once again. My gym membership is still active, so I might as well get my money's worth.  On the other hand, my workouts at the gym have never come close to producing the results I've achieved via P90X.

Option 8: Sit on my ass and do nothing. A shitload of TV shows on my DVR have yet to be watched, and a ton of snacks in my pantry are just begging to be eaten.

I'm leaning towards Option 6 or Option 4, but haven't yet landed on a course of action. Feel free to drop me a note if you have any thoughts or additional ideas.

P90X Day 23: Core Synergistics

I was getting a little cocky, thinking that Week 4 -- "Recovery Week" -- wasn't going to be intense enough for me. I even told myself that I was going to try to work in a few sessions of Ab Ripper X or do some resistance training (either lifting or working out with my trusty old TRX Suspension Trainer) this week, so as not to lose the momentum I've built up since starting Phase 1 of P90X.

After this morning's Core Synergistics workout, though, I've learned that the "recovery" in Recovery Week doesn't mean "relaxation." Some of the exercises in this workout (yes, I'm looking at you, Prison Cell Push-Ups and Plank-to-Chaturanga Runs) are killer, and I'm thankful that I didn't try to squeeze in a round of Ab Ripper X or weight training yesterday. Core Synergistics is a great combination of chest, back (without the pull-ups!), legs, plyo and ab work, and I'm pretty sure I'm going to keep coming back to this particular workout even after I'm done with the P90X program.

P90X Day 6: Kenpo X

I got through Kenpo X this morning, but feel vaguely unsatisfied. It's not that the hour of punching and kicking wasn't a vigorous one, or that I didn't break a sweat (because I always do). It's that I don't feel Kenpo X is all that different from any other cardio/kickboxing/Billy Blanks-esque home video workout, except for the energetic-but-smug (energetically smug?) presence of Tony Horton. The fact that my legs were achingly sore from the previous day's Legs & Back session made Kenpo X feel slightly more "EXTREME," but otherwise, this workout was just okay. I'm not going to bother listing the different Kenpo X moves here; there was nothing particularly innovative or surprising on the list of jabs and kicks and blocks, so use your imagination -- you're not likely to be far off the mark.

On the plus side, unless my eyes deceive me, my body's already starting to show some improvement. It's only been a week, and I can already see some definition (albeit slight) returning. It's impossible to have built any new muscle this soon after starting P90X, so I'm sure the P90X Phase 1 "Fat Shredder" super-low-carb diet is behind this.

Tomorrow is an optional workout: X Stretch (or is it Stretch X?). (As an aside, shouldn't they just call it "Stretch"? As with Yoga X, how "EXTREME" could stretching possibly be?) I might skip it in favor of a half-hour on the elliptical followed by 15 minutes of Ab Ripper X. We'll see -- it's my only rest day before Week 2 of P90X begins, so it's also possible that I'll just sleep in for the first time in a week. Waking up at 5:30 a.m. to work out is decidedly un-fun, especially for someone who's used to being a night owl.