P90X3 - Days 3 & 4 - Workout Review

Read my review of Days 1 & 2 workouts here. 

Day 3 - Yoga:  The 3rd workout in the series is yoga. However, given the P90X3 mantra of "work as hard as you can in 30 minutes," you don't spend a lot of time in each pose. I found this to be quite refreshing as I am easily bored spending multiple breaths holding various poses.  Tony takes you through a vast range of poses: warrior, crescent, chair, tree, crow, triangle, sun salutation. And in between each pose is a vinyasa (a flow of plank, chaturanga, up dog, down dog). The workout ends with some floor work, consisting of plow, shoulder stands and a figure 4 series.

I was actually sweating at the end of the workout. I have fairly good flexibility and was familiar with almost all of the poses, but I still was challenged by several of them and have room to improve.

So far in P90x3, I have been impressed with the variety of workouts. It's nice to do something different each day. Having a yoga day definitely contributes to the enjoyability of the overall program as well as provides an opportunity for non-impact, stress reducing, flexibility enhancing, deep breathing movement - something our bodies definitely need.

Gator Girls Do Pullups

Day 4 - The Challenge: Pushups & Pullups… non stop for 30 minutes - that is The Challenge. The key to this workout is to pick a number for both exercises and hit that number of repetitions for each set of respective exercise. I picked 3 pull-ups (assisted with a resistance band) and 5 push ups (non modified).  Since those were lower numbers and you get anywhere from 30-60 seconds for each round, I had a second number of modified pull ups (12 - resistance band pull downs) and modified push ups (10) to add on after I finished my non modified exercises in each set.  I hit my numbers every single time except for the military pushups - I could only do those on my knees.  As you do The Challenge each week, you try to beat your numbers from the previous week.

The 30 minutes went by surprisingly fast, and it definitely worked all muscles in the upper body.  Doing a pull-up, even with a resistance band assisting you, makes you feel pretty bad-a$$, so I'm very much looking forward to working on that goal over the next few months. I even read today that the Marines use 3 pull-ups as their minimum requirement for their annual fitness test (for both males and females).  So I feel my goal of completing 3 non-assisted pull ups by the end of this program is pretty hard core.

4 days in… feeling good.  Who's with me on this? Anyone up for P90X3? Let's bring it!