I'm finishing up my second round of P90X and my experience has been interesting. Nutrition is so important to the success of this system it's mind blowing. When I was hitting my nutrition just right, I was losing weight and putting on lean muscle mass. Now... I've plateaued and cant' quite figure out why.
I can't complain too much. I've lost 40 pounds, dropped 2 pants sizes and went down a shirt size. I'm sharing clothes with my 15 year old(scary), and I'm liking how I look. But not completely happy. In the beginning of my first round I was "bulked" and now not so much. I've got muscle mass, it's just unequaled and... weird.
I did round one with a meniscus tear in my right knee. It hurt, but certain leg work outs strengthened my knee and I'm better for it. But...I injured my shoulders from doing a bazillion pull-ups, push-ups et al.
I started using other supplements to enhance my workouts, I started using preworkout drinks before lifting days. They were great. So great, I pushed through an intense(see painful) shoulder routine and injured myself so bad that I couldn't finish my first round.
And it hampered, and still does my second round.
What I found out via my inter-webz skillz was that I thought I had torn my rotator cuffs or at least exacerbated them to the point that lifting over my head was mind blowing painful. But more digging and research to find exercises for rehab lead me to find out that perhaps it wasn't my rotator cuff at all. Turns out bad posture and generally weak trapezius muscles will cause/feel like my shoulders do.
So I started doing stretches/exercises to strengthen those muscles and what do you know... pain got less and less. So I'm happy with that.
While I am/was getting more musclular, my obliques were still (and for the most part are) flabby. Not the entire v shape you want, but more like a u. :D
So I've started doing more cardio. Speed walking when my joints hurt and running/jogging when they don't. I even started doing 20-30 minutes of cardio on days when I lift.
In just the past week of doing this, my abs have responded. Who knew?
Plus keeping my diet clean doesn't hurt either.
Ok rant off. Hopefully in the next couple of weeks I can post more stuff and pics too of my progress.
