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Originally Posted by -King-
Can you give a detailed review? I'm thinking of doing Insanity which is a little bit tougher than P90X but I'm not all the way sure. My weight range is about 179-183ish and I'm 5'10. So I'm not really trying to lose weight, just lose some fat and tone up.
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I did Insanity as well and absolutely hated it. It is pure cardio where neither P90 program are. There is cardio incorporated into P90X and P90X2, but Insanity is nothing but cardio (unless you count pushups or Level 1 and 2 drills (basically burpees) as resistence training). Comparing the two is apples and oranges to me, so tougher is relative.
P90X is all about push ups and pull ups with some cardio exercises mixed in. You'll use dumbbells or bands in most other excercises (curls, shoulder presses, tricept extentions etc..) The cardio in P90X often incorporates some weight in the form of dumbbells or resistance bands too(think weighted lunge type stuff). The most pure cardio routines in P90X are Plyometrics (which will kick your ass for a good while) and Kenpo X (basically a kicking and punching cardio routine). You also have Yoga X mixed in. Yoga X is really tough for the first half, but just as you're ready to give up it gets better. My biggest beef with it was that it's 1.5 hours....too long some days and tough to fit in a schedule. Most P90X routines are about 1:15 including Ab Ripper X. You can modify the routines to fit your fitness level and will most likely have to unless you're in really good shape and used to the movements involved. There are also other discs that are less intense. You can sub Cardio X for Plyo if it really kicks your ass. X Stretch and Core synergistics are mixed in on your recovery weeks or recovery days. P90X has a weekly schedule.
P90X2 is kind of similar to P90X. The differences are that it incorporates an exercise ball (a medieval torture device) and while this one is also about push ups and pull ups, it has a huge emphasis on the core. Adding in the exercise ball is a whole other animal when doing push ups and dumbbell work outs (I've never felt as uncoordinated as I did in some of these). P90X2 also focuses on balance more also encorporating the exercise ball and doing various exercises on one leg or in different positions. You get updated versions of the Cardio routines too. Plyometrics is now Plyocide which is hard core, but coming from P90X wasn't as horrible as Plometrics was at first. If you start with P90X2 I'd imgine it would be pretty bad too though. Ab Ripper X is now X2 Ab ripper and it is a lot more core focused as well. I'll be honest and say that I only did X2 Yoga once or twice simply because of the time it took (68 minutes). Overall P90X2 routines are a bit shorter than P90X though. Also updated in P90X2 is there are no scheduled recovery weeks (you can add them where you feel you need them). Recovery time is incorporated sort of on day 7 with Recovery and Mobility, but I typically ran or rested on these days. P90X2 is phase based (2 phases) where you move on to the next phase when you feel you've mastered one.
You can google the work out routines, but here are some links to get an idea.
P90X workout schedule.
P90X2 Workout Schdule
I liked both P90X and P90X2, but it's tough to pick which I liked better because they are a little different. If you want more toning I would go with P90X2 as the core stuff really makes you sweat and of course is in my opinion more toning based all the way around. You will get toned with P90X, but it has more traditional pure strength moves IMO. Neither is going to gain you a lot of bulk, but I don't think you're looking for that.
It's been about a year since I did P90X and probably 6 months since I did P90X2, so my review probably could be a little better but I'm going off of memory.
Now about Insanity. I mentioned it, but I will again...I HATED it. It was novel for a couple weeks, but the non stop cardio was far from what I wanted to be doing. Some may dispute this part, but I felt I lost some of the muscle I gained through the P90 programs because Insanity simply isn't about that. Shawn T can claim crap like if you want arms like this do this exercise, but WTF ever. Any resistance training you're getting involves your body weight only.
Now it is hard as crap and makes you really sweat and kills your lungs (cardio speaking), so if that's what your after then it's great for that. It's also a good bit shorter than P90 so that part was nice as well (30 and 45 mins). Bottom line it was a great really intense cardio program (the MAX period is INSANE)....I just hated with a passion.
Here's a link to a
Insanity Routine PDF.
Hope this helps.