Here is where p90x succeeds. It is a diet and exercise program that gets people off their asses and exercising. Any exercise program that is followed is going to get some results…especially beginners.

BeachBody has million dollar investors putting out megabucks to push this thing out to the market. p90x has 2 million searches per month on google alone…think about that a second 2 million A MONTH!. Do you think you might get a couple decent before and after pics with that many people trying it out? Exactly.

Now that I have gotten that out of the way, on to the topic at hand. Plyometrics X

Plyometrics are used by many pro athletes to improve their explosive power for sports performance applications. The problem is that all too often coaches take a great concept and mutate it to get it away from it’s original purpose. They aren’t seeing the forest for the trees. “Plyos” have been especially victimized in this regard.

This is how BeachBody.com explained plyometrics

Explosive jumping cardio routine proven to dramatically improve athletic performance.

Here is the thing. Plyometrics are intended to take advantage of the myotatic reflex which in non geek speak refers to the automatic contraction of muscles done as a reaction to a quick stretch. It is like an automatic muscular reflex and it has to be very “touch and go”. Oh yeah and it has to be done for low reps. Let me illustrate the reflex analogy. You know that thing they do when you go to the doctor’s office and they whack you on the knee with a tiny rubber hammer and your knee kicks up? If they did that a bunch of times your knee would stop kicking up as high and eventually not do it at all. Plyometrics kind of work the same way and you need it to be fresh as a daisy.

You can also think of it like a ball bouncing on the floor. The force of the ground pushes the side of the ball in and the balls natural reaction is to push back out propelling it up. If it stays there it doesn’t bounce.

If you watch MMA superstar Georges St.Pierre in this video at around 2 minutes and 42 seconds you can see that he instigates the drill by first jumping over a hurdle and IMMEDIATELY bouncing up over the next one and the next one. Like I said “touch and go” and the keyword is “immediately”.

The key is “bouncing”. If you don’t bounce immediately up you lose that effect. Any time on the ground and it’s wasted. THAT is how it is used on professional athletes and as you can see it is A LOT more involved than simply jumping around your living room like a fool.

Plyometrics X is glorified aerobics made to sound scientific and cool. It doesn’t take advantage of that myotatic reflex which makes it lose sight of how plyometrics works. It’s like picking up a couple light dumbbells, doing a bunch of different curls with them and telling people you train like Arnold.

I watched the p90x plyometrics x dvd all the way through because I was curious about what they were doing. I actually laughed harder at some of the moves then I did at some of the comedies that came out this year (there really aren’t a whole lot of funny movies anymore). I can’t fathom how some people can do some of these exercises and think that’s the same thing that they are doing in NFL, NHL, NBA and UFC.

Surely they must be kidding me.

2) Running is great for fat loss. Only for a period of time. The fact of the matter is your body adapts to every thing you do to become better at it. In the case of running it adapts by becoming more efficient at it and using less energy (calories) to do so.

3) High reps for toning/Low reps for building. Sorry but when you go into higher reps you inflate your muscles with sarcoplasmic goo. That gives the muscles a bit of a bloated appearance and leads to size gains the fastest and strength gains the slowest. Low reps done with heavy weight lead to myofibrillar hypertrophy which takes much longer to build but is much stronger.

4) Squatting below parallel is bad for you knees. No it isn’t. Joints just like everything else need to be strengthened as well. I used to fall for the not squatting deep myth and had only aching knees to show for it. I can pistol squat ass to ankle with 48kgs (106lbs) now and my knees never felt better (including one that had an acl reconstruction years ago). My ego feels pretty good too.

5) Don’t lock out your elbows or knees. See above.

6) You have to confuse a muscle to make it grow. If you are constantly trying to confuse your muscles, guess what you get…stupid muscles. Would you feel good going into court if your lawyer was confused? Seriously though…when is confusion ever a good thing? Think about that one a sec.

7) Chicks dig giant muscles. No they don’t…well most of them. Go ask John Barban who wrote the Adonis Effect. They have a bunch of studies that blow this one out of the water. Girls don’t normally like it when a guy’s boobs are bigger then theirs.

nice....wait a second

8 ) You have to isolate muscles. Sorry but it isn’t really physically possible with the exception of having an extreme amount of muscle control which takes a lot of practice. I have only known one person in my life that could isolate individual muscles and that was because he was able to concentrate extremely well at it. When he uses his muscles as a team he rips chains apart with his hands. When he isolates he concentrates really hard…he doesn’t fool himself into thinking he’s isolating by only going part way up on a crunch.

9) You can spot reduce. Go to any gym or turn on tv late at night and see different people and gadgets trying to burn the fat off of their abs by doing ab exercises. As if the body works that way.

10) You can’t spot reduce. What’s this? I just contradicted myself? The fact of the matter is you can spot reduce but it is in such minuscule quantities that it isn’t worth doing.

11) Machines before free weights for beginners. Machines under train the stabilizing muscles. The stabilizing muscles are what keep your primary mover muscles safe when under a lot of pressure. This is why we do turkish getups before pressing.

12) Pulling your navel (belly button) in supports the spine. Uhm…how? Inflate your stomach and tense the abs when moving a lot of weight and try it the other way and tell me how supported you feel.

Think it would be safe for Captain Kirk to pull his navel in to support his spine when he has 1000lbs on his back?

14) A muscle needs at least 36 hours to recover. Only if you crush it every time you train. Train well below failure daily and give it a month or two and watch how much stronger you become. This crushing it and recovering started right around the same time steroids became popular in gyms. Coincidence? I doubt it.

So there you go…14 fitness fallacies. These were either created, taken out of context and taken as gospel or just born from clever marketing. Next time someone says something don’t take it as gospel, check to see if it is phallic in nature or if it actually makes sense and can be backed up.

Eric Moss out

Now a lot of this could and should be avoided with common sense and logic. For one thing look at the people that go to a real military bootcamp. Then look at the type of people that buy memberships to fitness bootcamps. The former is made up of 18 year old kids who could recover from just about anything thrown at them in an effort to prepare for war. The other can be anywhere from 20 all the way up to 70 years old looking for a way to get in shape without paying $50 per session. Do you think the same approach should be taken with both of them?

Now as you know I condemn sissiness but there is more to exercise science then hard work and all the hard work in the world won’t matter if it leaves you a debilitated mess. In my kettlebell bootcamp classes safety is a priority. Injuries don’t allow progress and that is the goal of my classes. Right now I have a bride preparing for her wedding in my kettlebell boot camp class. I wouldn’t consider myself good at my job if she went limping down the aisle or if she had to skip a bunch of sessions because my irresponsible @$$ injured her.

If it doesn’t get you results and it doesn’t get you there safely…it’s a crappy program. Those are the big differences between the right and wrong ways of doing it.

Now safety isn’t the only issue facing many of these camps. I like efficacy of training. You know I take pride in bringing people results faster then the other fitness bootcamps and that is yet another reason I chose kettlebell training. A study in Russia said this.

(Voropayev)
We studied (at the Voronezhsky Farming Institute) the influence of kettlebell
lifting on the development of fundamental physical qualities over several
years. Based on the results of the first control tests: 1,000 metre
cross-country, 100 metre run, pull-ups, standing long-jump; three study
groups were formed from the students who took part two experimental (19 men)
and one control (21 men), of equivalent capabilities. We obtained the
following data. The initial mean results in the 1000 metre cross-country, was
3 min 48 sec for the experimental groups and 3 min 45 sec for the control
group. At the end of the first year of training the results were:
experimental groups 3 min 11 sec; the control group 3 min 13 sec. After two
years of training the results were: experimental groups 3 min 2 sec; the
control group 3 min 9 sec.

The pull-up results changed in the following way. The initial mean result
over a year (in the experimental groups — 6.3 times and 6.8 times in the
control group) increased to 8.8 in the experimental groups and to 8.38 in the
control group. By the end of the second year of study the experimental
group’s results increased to 9.8 times and the control group to 9.25 times.
The standing long jump dynamics were as follows. The initial mean in the
experimental groups was 204 cm and 203.7 cm in the control group. This
increased to 211.2 cm after one year of sessions in the experimental groups
and to 207.2 cm in the control group. At the end of the second year of
training these figures increased to 213.3 cm and 210.3 cm respectively.

The results of the 100 metre tests were as follows. In the experimental
groups the initial mean result was 14.4 sec; after the first year of training
it improved to 13.62 sec and after the second to 13.44 sec. Improvement in
the control group was somewhat slower. The initial result was 14.37 sec.
After the first year of training the mean result was 13.69 sec and after the
second year 13.48 sec.

The results of the experimental groups were higher than those of the control
group in all of the tests. The absolute improvements in the tests were: 100
metre run– Kettlebell lifters, 0.96 sec; control group, 0.86 sec; in the
cross-country –experimental groups, 0.46 sec and 0.36 sec in the control
group; in the standing long jump 9.3 cm and 6.6 cm respectively; in pull-ups
3.59 times for the kettlebell lifters and 2.45 times for the control group.

If you didn’t catch all of that…it’s ok. Basically the kettlebell group whooped the control group (the ones who did standard bootcamp stuff) in every single one of the tests. Now why would I waste time with other stuff if the almighty kettlebell gives faster results?

The answer is what influenced my career….The answer is “I wouldn’t”

Yeah really? and that is good why? and I can think of at least 2 programs more extreme and at least 1 that is better written. 1)crossfit is more extreme 2)Viking warrior conditioning is harder and way better written. Here I will write a more extreme program right now. Do 2000 swings. You have 2 hours to complete that. Do that everyday. Is it extreme? Yes. Is it productive? No. You see there is more to exercise science then hard work or some marketing term like muscle confusion. Remember confusion prevents progress.

Now as far as being the best for fat loss…it isn’t. Watch this video and you will see why. 5-8 hours a week for fat loss (p90x) compared to 3 hours a week (TurbulenceTrainingAdvantage.com) for the same results. Its pretty clear the TurbulenceTraining is better for fat loss. Point made? I think so. If you refuse to see the logic with your own brain…well I done my part. You can bring a horse to water but you can’t make it drink. You can present a superior way of training to a dumbass but it wont make them think. That is why there are so many people so few results.

Now another claim about p90x is that it will make you perform better. Better then what? Try out the way I do things. Hardstyle. The hardstyle camp that I come from has some of the strongest fittest people on earth. We are pretty consistent with that too. 1 handed chins is fairly common place with us. Rolling up frying pans, pistol squats and resting heart rates of a marathon runner with the strength of an ox is the type we have. Name some p90xplorers that can do what we can, even at our most basic levels.

Now some have come back with the whole yoga is best for flexibility thing and that plyometrics are used to train pro athletes. Let me ask you something…Do you really think that that version of yoga is what the yogis do? And do you actually believe that when you are jumping around the living room like an idiot that you are really doing the same kind of program that pro athletes are doing? Face it. All it is is good marketing and so so program design. Seek out the best methods of doing things and you will find them. If you ignore them you are a mullet and whats worse is you are a mullet that is beyond help. If that is you then please leave my blog and don’t ask me stupid questions like what kind of crunch is best.

The answer is no crunch is best.

Eric Moss over and out.