P90Xperimenting, Bring It!

During this past weekend (was actually my family and I's thanksgiving because of work scheduling issues) I did a little bit of thinking about how the P90X program is setup, both the classic and doubles version.  I recognized the program only works one muscle group on the body more than once a week (except for abs), in all three phases.
 E.G.

• Phase 1 (All of list is going to be Classic)

Monday - Chest and Back + Ab Ripper X
Tuesday - Plyometrics
Wednesday - Shoulders and Arms + Ab Ripper X
Thursday - Yoga X
Friday - Legs and Back + Ab Ripper X
Saturday - Kenpo X
Sunday - Rest or Stretch X

Phase 2 is fairly similar where Mondays and Wednesdays get swapped out for a video that covers similar muscle groups as the previous DVDs, and Phase II has a back section on MWF.  That being said I decided it would be absolutely fine if I changed the phase 1 non-recovery weeks (listed above) to have Mondays and Wednesdays combined together, for a 2 hour total upper-body workout, on BOTH Monday and Wednesday.

When increasing your workload this much there are a few things you have to watch out for.

1. Protein intake - With all the resistance training and muscle breakdown, you absolutely need to be taking in a lot of protein throughout the day, but NOT all at once, as your body can only utilize so much of it at a time through the digestion process.  Try to have 4-6 high protein meals a day to help repair the muscle tissue.
2. Calorie intake - You're working out for 2 hours a day, and muscle building burns a lot of calories, you'll need to up your calorie intake in order to sustain energy throughout the day.
3. Rest - The absolutely most important part of any fitness program is to get 8 hours of rest a night.  Your body does most of its tissue repair when your body is at rest, and goes into overdrive when you sleep. More sleep = less soreness and quicker gains with less recovery time needed.
4. The final thing you need to watch for is over-training.  Over-training can lead to injury, and often times you'll notice lack of improvement in your program because your body hasn't had time to repair between workouts.  Other side effects of over-training can be your body breaking down and you start to feel sick, get congested and have cold-like symptoms.  If it gets that bad, your body is telling you to take it easy and get more rest.

I'm personally going to need to keep a close eye on over-training because there is a lot of muscle breakdown on my new setup.  I'll also be moving Ab Ripper X forward one day, so I do it on days w/ Plyo, Yoga, and Kenpo.

If anyone is looking for a workout schedule that doesn't  take a lot of time out of the day, or general tips on how to improve their results, or just general time management get in contact with me.
Everyone has time to get fit, but not everyone can get past their excuses on why they wont make the time available.

Plyo time!