P90X: Plyometrics

This is a 58 minute cardio workout led by Tony in a dim gym set with 3 background exercisers. You will only need an optional chair for this workout. One exerciser shows modifications and Tony offers mod's & encourages resting when needed. There is a countdown timer for the workout and specific exercise duration on the bottom of the screen.

This workout includes a lot of high impact, high intensity exercises but Tony does a great job of mixing in plenty of lower impact & lower intensity exercises keeping it very doable. Each round consists of three 30 second higher intensity exercises, 1 60 second lower intensity exercise, repeated and then followed by a rest break.

Exercises include: a warmup and stretch, jump squat, skater, high swing kick, floor touch 180 jumps, circle run, plyo lunges w/ pulses, frog hops, squat jacks, long leaps, rock star jumps, lo shuffle, low 180 jumps, squat hops to floor touch, monster & normal tire run, and military march. Concludes with some sports moves: pitch & catch, jump shot, football drill, and a cooldown & stretch.

I rate this an advanced workout but not super advanced- it is very doable and there are plenty of lower intensity exercises added in. Tony is chatty but I dont find him annoying at all-actually amusing. The time really flys in these workouts and Tony keeps everything moving along smoothly. Plenty of different exercises to prevent boredom but not at all scattered.

The total time of this workout is about 59 minutes.

The music is instrumental rock. I like the P90X music. It is not very loud, and you do have the option on the DVD of turning it off and having vocals only. You also have the option of having music and cues only, which cuts out all of Tony’s chatter, or you can have cues only, which cuts out all of the music and Tony’s chatter (I happen to enjoy Tony’s chatter).

This is a very high impact aerobic video, with a lot of variety. There is a class of one woman (who completed the P90X test class), and two men. One of the men has an artificial leg (which can really put things in perspective when you feel like complaining). I like that they use real people who completed the test class in all of the P90X videos.

There are different segments. The warmup consists of marching in place, running in place, lunging drills and deep prayer squats, followed by quad and hamstring stretches. The first segment has Jump Squats, Run-stance Squats, Airborne Heisman (stepping to the side and holding one foot off the ground while pausing), and Swing Kick. Each segment is repeated. After a 30-second break, the next segment has Squat Reach Jump, Run-stance Squat Switch Pickup, Double Airborne Heisman, and Circle Run. The third segment has the Jump Knee Tuck, Mary Katherine Lunge, Leapfrog Squat, and Twist Combo. The fourth segment has Rock Star Hop, Gap Jump, Squat Jack, and Military March. The fifth segment has the Run Squat 180 Jump Switch, Lateral Leapfrog Squat, Monster Truck Tire, and Hot Foot (jumping on one foot…really works the calves!). There is a final bonus round with sports-inspired moves like pretending to pitch and catch a baseball, jump shot from basketball, and foot drills from football. This is followed by about a five-minute cooldown.

My heart rate stays up during the whole workout. Some of the moves are shown with low-impact versions, but I don’t think it would keep the heart rate up without the high-impact moves.

This is my favorite P90X workout.

This is the workout that made me love P90X. I should explain up front that I did not buy the whole system---the push-up heavy strength work did not interest me, so I split an order with a fellow VFer and got cardio, core synergistics and all the cardio ones. Kenpo X was too choreographed, Core Synergistics was not my thing, and I was about to give up whehn I gave Plyo X a try.

What a great workout! I wore a heart rate monitor and was at maximum the entire time. It is such a great structure for a routine: you do each exercise for just 30 seconds except every fourth one, which is a minute. generally I can't stand high impact, but at 30 seconds at a time, even I could manage this.

The exercises are grouped into rounds, and each round gets repeated once. The breakdown is as follows:

1) Jump squat, run stance squat, airborne heisman (lateral leaping), swing kick

2) Squat reach jump, run stance squat with direction switch, double airborne heisman, circle run

3) Jump knee tuck. jumping lunge, leapfrog squat, twist combo

4) Rock star hop, gap jump, squat jack, military march

5) Run squat with 180 jump, lateral leapfrog, monster truck tire, hot foot

6) Bonus round: pitch & catch, jump shot, football move (60 seconds each)

Some of my favourite moves were the run stance squat (squat low and pump your arms like you are running hard), the swing kick (swing your leg over a chair, I have seen this move in some of Wendilee's workouts), the moves where you jump to switch directions, the gap jump (imagine you are jumoing over a large gap) and the sports moves in the bonus round.

The fitness guide that comes with the series has a complete breakdown of every move in the workout. I usually keep it on the couch beside me when I work out, so I will always know what's left to do. The usual beachbody countdown clocks are also here, in a somewhat jazzier and mroe subdued form.

Overall, I give this workout VERY high marks. For someone like me who is klutzy with choreography and usually sticks to Leslie Sansone and the bike as a result, this workout was a giant step up intensity-wise and a very welcome change of pace. I am just thrilled with it and will probably do this workout many, many times.