P90x Day 58: Intervals Plus+

(originally posted March 6, 2009)

So last night I tried out another of the supplementary P90x Plus+ workouts that I ordered a couple of weeks ago in place of my normal Plyometrics routine. Specifically I tried my hand at Intervals Plus+. It's around 40 minutes long instead of 1hr, so I think that I was somewhat hoping for it to be a little bit easier since Plyo is probably the hardest of the normal P90x workouts, or "the Mother of all P90x workouts" as Tony might say. Well, that certainly wasn't the case! Intervals is a bear!! I was pouring, and i mean pouring sweat before the halfway point.

The routine plows through about 12 move sequences of mostly one minute starting with a 20 second setup (or slow intensity) moving to intermediate for the next 20 seconds and going all out the last 20 seconds. Then, after completing all 12 moves, there's a very short water break, and then you do all 12 moves again in reverse order. The key on interval training or HIIT, is to start with a slow set (like a 30 second jog) and then push to 90%+ of your maximum speed (i.e. 30 second sprint) forcing a dramatic body tempo constrast and shift in heart rate that shocks your metabolic state. The contrast in P90X Interval is not as dramatic as traditional HIIT sprinting or stationary biking since it takes a few seconds to switch from one move sequence to the next. But what this workout may lack in contrast, it makes up for in intensity and good design flow between the moves.

The bottom line is that HIIT (High Intensity Interval Training) is a must if you want to see radical improvement. It basically is cardio performed at such an intense level that your body will spend the rest of the day expending energy to recover from the butt-kicking you gave it. Apparently this effect is referred to as EPOC (excess post-exercise oxygen consumption) and it means that you consume a great deal more oxygen recovering from the exercise bout than you would have if you'd just done a steady-state workout.

This means that you will be burning up to nine times more fat while sitting on the couch later that night than you would have if you'd spent an hour on the treadmill at a moderate pace. For those of you reading my little updates who aren't doing P90x, try to start incorporating some HIIT into your workout schedule to take things to the next level.