P90XvsME vol.1 – Does this P90x stuff really work?
It may seem weird that one of the more drunken staff members of Monsters vs. Me is doing a story on fitness, but one of the goals of this site is to show that life is about more than waking up hungover next to a naked stranger. It also gets much more difficult to find people willing to sleep with you when you look like Roseanne, so this little project seems relevant on more than a few fronts.
I had noticed in the past six months that trying on clothes had gotten more depressing than usual. What normally was a case of not being able to afford what I like, turned in to also no longer fitting in to it. I was getting slightly nervous that in very little time I would be stuck shopping at a big and tall store, picking through Hawaiian print button ups and pleated pants.
Luckily (or sadly, depending on how you look at it) our resident video game nerd Mike Malysewich was going through the same thing, and had decided that in the famous words of the Owen Hart, enough is enough, and it was time for a change. Mike went out and picked up a copy of the infamous fitness set P90X and decided to return to his boyish figure of his early twenties. I had heard a few nightmare stories about this routine, but at the rate my chins were expanding I figured it was in my best interest to join Mike on his quest to get sexy.
Over the next few months I will chronicle our experiences with trainer Tony Horton and his P90X death machine. I am currently three weeks through, and can tell you that death machine is the nicest description possible for this program. I’m not sure I’ll survive the fitness boot camp, but worst-case scenario I’ll have the most ripped corpse in the morgue.
The program consists of six, one-hour workouts per week and one rest day. They alternate between weights and cardio, with a separate 20-minute ab workout added on the weight days as an extra “fuck you” from Tony. Besides the workout DVD itself, you also need dumbbells or fitness bands, and pushup bars are a plus (but not needed). We here at Monsters vs. Me also suggest having one of those “I’ve fallen and I can’t get up” buzzers on hand because this dude is the devil and he pushes you to the brink.
Three weeks in I can tell you without a doubt that Plyometrics is the worst hour you will experience in your lifetime. Loosely translated Plyometrics stands for Nazi Work Camp jump training, and consists of an intense cardio workout that focuses on the legs. It is literally an hour of jumping and squatting that will make you sweat yourself blind.
There is also a diet portion that goes along with the workout but I’m not Hulk Hogan, so we’ll just be tackling the exercise part this time around. If we manage to finish this Insanity, we’ll be skinny sometime around late August. Check back with Monsters vs. Me to see if we live, and better yet, grab a copy of P90x and jump in to the deep end with us. We’d love to hear your results, and will post your success stories on the site.