I saw the Beachbody P90X informercial when I was in a hotel traveling on business. ( I did not feel like dropping 14 bucks to watch a movie on the hotel Pay Per View ).
Before seeing the informercial, I had heard of P90X but kind of thought it was a joke.
After watching the P90X infomercial I realized two things: 1) I had never watched an entire informercial before, so it was shocking that I did 2) The Beachbody P90X informercial didn't come across all cheezy like a slap chop or shamwow infomercial. Production quality was excellent. Message was clear. I ordered the P90X DVDs online when I returned home.
I think Team Beachbody is actually the affiliate marketing/MLM divisision of BeachBody. You don't have to be a member to buy the DVDs directly from Beachbody.
The DVD set came complete with a nutritional meal guide and a chart for keeping track of your progress, and a book outlining all of the workouts and explaining each one ( there are actually three - P90X lean, P90X Normal, and P90X Extreme ).
I opted for the regular P90X workout. I considered myself to be in decent shape, but wanted to drop about 15 pounds. I play softball two nights a week. I get some cardio which is immediately offset by the coors light in the parking lot after the games.
I followed the instructions and just tried to make it through as much of each workout as I could each day. The first week was brutal. I discovered I was not in the great shape I thought I was, but by the end of the first week I felt better than I had in years. Honestly, I attribute part of that to just the fact that I was getting in about an hours workout every single day. Some of P90X workouts I could not complete that first week - Plyometrics in particular, and the Ab Ripper workout which you do on the first, third and fifth day of the week was very difficult. I just pushed as hard as I could.
Beachbody P90X will definitely make you break a sweat. By week two I felt great. The recommended meals and between meal snacks ( usually nuts, or cottage cheese ) were pretty good, one or two were dogs but I just substituted other ones. I kept feeling better and better. I dropped 14 pounds in four weeks, meeting my goal easily. I probably would have dropped it faster if I'd quit drinking the coors light.
I really liked the way Beachbody layed out the meal options and how each meal hits on specific combinations your body needs like the carbs and protien in proper proportions to match your modified metabolism so you're firing on all cylinders. Working out every day definitely made me sleep better too.
You can definitely do this at a beginners pace. There is really nothing high impact. Plyometrics does have a lot of jump routines, but you can sub the cardio workout which is low impace and get similar results.
I did get kind of annoyed hearing Tony Horton's patter over and over again once I started repeating the videos each week ( you go through six a week ) but there is a setting just for the audio cues without having to hear the chatter. It was kind of funny at first in an awkward way, and much respect to Tony, but I liked it better after with my own music and just following along.
You can do the entire workouts with usually just a stretch bands. You can also do them with barbells and a chin up bar, but not required. They use a chin up bar in a lot of the workouts, but I switched to the bands, same results without having to try to overdo it with pullups.
The ab ripper is done on a mat, but you could do it just as easily on the floor with a couple of towels. Average yoga mat runs about 15 bucks.
Oh, the one workout I tossed was the Yoga. I did the Kempo twice a week instead. I think the Yoga is in there to give you a stretch and your body a rest, but I just hated it. Too slow, too much balancing and I didn't have the patience to keep doing the downward dog or whatever.
But all in all one of the best investments I ever made. Getting ready to go through the program again.