P90x is a high-intensity exercise regime. To know how many calories does P90x yoga burn, read the article below.
Yoga is an ancient practice developed in India that involves meditation and breathing techniques for physical and mental well-being. This practice of over 5000 years old has gained popularity and is seen being practiced across the world. The practice of yoga has evolved and has many forms in the present day.
One such practice of yoga is the P90X Yoga developed by celebrity trainer Tony Horton. Many people vouch for it and claim to have lost considerable amount of weight after practicing it. P90X Yoga promises to transform your body in a period of 90 days. Intense practitioners, perform this form of yoga for 6 days a week for the entire period of 90 days.
A study by American Council on Exercise (ACE), shows that men burnt 440 to 700 calories per workout where as women, on an average, burnt 300 to 540 calories after each session. However, remember that the number of calories you burn will depend on your weight, intensity with which you did the workout and your age.
What Is P90X Yoga?
P90X is a 90 day workout, which is based on the principle of ‘muscle confusion’, which essentially means that the workout is so varied that it doesn’t give time to your muscles to adapt to the exercise. It comprises of 12 workout sessions, for you to practice at your home, over a period of 90 days. These workout sessions vary in length, being somewhere between an hour to 90 minutes.
Earlier lunched in the form of DVDs, can now be streamed online easily.
What’s part of the class?
The 90 minutes class starts with a talk from Horton whereon he guides four students on screen through a series of sun salutations, a sequence of poses also called asanas, which are done without stopping of what is known as the flow (Vinyasa) in yoga.
After the sun salutations, Horton leads the class on with various yoga asanas, mainly comprising of challenging and more advanced poses. You can refer the video below for a 10-minute Yoga P90X workout.
What Exactly Do You Get In The P90x System?
P90X DVD Workout Base Kit on Amazon, comprises of 12 workouts DVDs, a 3-phase nutrition plan, supplement options, a fitness guide, a ‘How to Bring It’ DVD that provides a quick overview of the system, and a calendar to track your progress.
BeachBody sells the P90X workout system, customized for your needs, based in your fitness goal, how often do you currently workout, the amount of time that you have for working-out, your favorite types of workout and what type of supplements do you use. They advertise that with their workout, you’ll lose 9 lbs in 14 days.
How Does The P90X System Work?
In the P90X Yoga workout, you move from one set of asanas to another in quick succession. This makes the practice intense and keeps the heart-rate up.
The workouts are designed such that they either focus on a particular set of muscles like your chest & back, shoulders & arms or back & biceps or are based on a particular technique like Plyometrics (intense cardio routine along with jumping moves), Yoga X (focusing on strength, balance, coordination and flexibility) and Kenpo X (high-intensity cardiovascular workout), among others.
Who Can do P90X Yoga?
P90X is an intense workout series. While its name has ‘Yoga’ in it, it goes way beyond yoga. The workouts are intense and can vary anywhere between 40 minutes to 90 minutes, with most workouts being around for an hour. You would also need equipment like dumbbells, resistance bands and pull-up bars for some of the workouts, thus making them more challenging. Also, the workouts are designed in a way that they tone up different muscle groups of your body.
With this, if you are beginner, just entering into the field of fitness, I would not suggest that you start with the P90X Yoga. It could get over whelming and might completely demotivate you from your fitness track. On the other hand, if you have been a fitness enthusiast for sometime, you could definitely pick this up. Consistency is key for succeeding in this workout, as it designed for nearly all 7 days of a week (on the 7th day you could either rest or do stretches) for a 90-day period. Thus, you would need to set aside a considerable time to do this workout.
Also remember that while some of the workout sessions would focus on overall toning of the body, there are many sessions that are designed to beef up your muscles. If you are someone who would like to pump up your muscles further, this would be a good workout.
Continue reading on to know what exactly is there in each of the 12 workouts of P90X Yoga.
What Should you Expect from Each P90X Workout?
The P90X Yoga workout is quite intense and could be challenging for those not accustomed to yoga. Before you get into it, it might be good for you to be aware of what each component comprises of and duration of each.
Workout 1: Chest and Back
This workout focuses on your chest and back muscles. It primarily comprises of two classic upper-body exercises, which are, push-ups and pull-ups. There are 12 sets of exercises included in this workout Standard Push Ups, Wide Front Pull Ups, Military Push Ups, Reverse Grip Chin Ups, Wide Fly Push Ups, Close Grip Overhand Pull Ups, Decline Push Ups, Heavy Pants, Diamond Push Ups, Lawnmowers, Dive Bomber Push Ups and Back Flys.
While performing this workout, you would complete this set once, take a little break after then repeat again. This workout helps build strength and works towards giving shaping your upper body.
Workout Duration: 53 minutes
Equipment Required: While you don’t really need any equipment for doing the push-ups and pull-ups, but if you want to increase the intensity, you would need push-up bars, chin-up bars, dumbbells and resistance bands.
You might like to read: Best Yoga Mat For DDP Yoga
Workout 2: Plyometrics
This is an intense cardio workout and includes more than 30 explosive jumping moves. It focuses on your lower body and contains 5 sets of exercises and a bonus round. Each of these sets contain 4 moves each and 3 moves in the bonus round. Once you finish these 5+1 sets, you can take a short break and then repeat again. Each set comprises of the following exercises:
- Set 1: Jump Squats, Run-Stance Squat, Airborne Heisman, Swing Kick
- Set 2: Squat Reach Jump, Run-Stance Squat Switch Pick-Up, Double Airborne Heisman, Circle Run
- Set 3: Jump Knee Tuck, Mary Katherine Lunges, Leapfrog Squats, Twist Combo
- Set 4: Rock Star Hop, Gap Jump, Squat Jack, Military March
- Set 5: Run Squat 180 Jump Switch, Lateral Leapfrog Squat, Monster Truck Tires, Hot Foot
- Bonus Set: Pitch and Catch, Jump Shot, Football Hero
Plyometrics is considered to be the most difficult P90X workout. It’s an high-impact workout that burns around 630 calories.
Workout Duration: 59 minutes
Equipment Required: Exercise Mat
Workout 3: Shoulder and Arms
As the name suggests, this workout focuses on shaping your shoulders and arms. It contains 5 sets of exercises, with each set having workout for your shoulders, biceps and triceps. You would need to complete each set twice and then move on to the next set. Before you start with your shoulder and arm workout, you would need to do a warm-up, which would comprise of marching and running in place, jumping jacks, lunges, shoulder rolls etc. Each set comprises the following workout:
- Set 1: Alternating Shoulder Press, In and Out Biceps Curls, Two-Arm Triceps Kickback
- Set 2: Deep Swimmer’s Presses, Full Supination Concentration Curls, Chair Dips
- Set 3: Upright Rows, Static Arm Curls, Flip-Grip Twist Triceps Kickbacks
- Set 4: Seated Two-Angle Shoulder Flyes, Crouching Cohen Curls, Lying Down Triceps Extensions
- Set 5: In and Out Straight Arm Shoulder Flyes, Congdon Curls, Side Tri-Raises
This is a comprehensive workout that would pump your shoulders and arms.
Workout Duration: 60 minutes
Equipment Required: Resistance Bands and Dumbbells
You might like to read: Best Heart Rate Monitor For DDP Yoga
Workout 4: Yoga X
This is an intense yoga session that focuses on complete body toning. The ‘X’ here stands for ‘Extreme’, so get ready for a grueling session! The session starts with a warm-up that would comprise of some stretches like mountain pose, forward bend, side stretch; abdomen twists and sun salutations.
The main workout has four block of asanas, which are mentioned below:
- Moving Asanas:
- Runners Pose (Utthita Ashwa Sanchalanasana)
- Crescent Pose (Anjaneyasana)
- Warrior One (Virabhadrasana I)
- Warrior Two (Virabhadrasana II)
- Reverse Warrior (Viparita Virabhadrasana)
- Triangle Pose (Trikonasana)
- Twisting Triangle Pose (Parivrtta Trikonasana)
- Chair Pose (Utkatasana) to Twisting Chair Pose (Parivrtta Utkatasana)
- Right-Angle Pose to Extended Right-Angle Pose & Grab (Utthita Parsvakonasana)
- Prayer twist from Runner’s Pose to Side Arm Balance (Namaskar Parsvakonasana)
- Warrior Three (Virabhadrasana III) to Standing Splits (Urdhva Prasarita Eka Padasana)
- Half Moon to Twisting Half Moon Pose (Ardha Chandrasana)
- Balance Postures
- Tree Pose (Vrikshasana)
- Royal Dancer Pose (Natarajasana)
- Standing Leg Extension (Utthita Hasta Padangusthasana)
- Floor Work
- Crane Pose (Bakasana)
- Seated Spinal Stretch (Ardha Matsyendrasana)
- Cat (Marjariasana) and Cow Pose (Bitilasana)
- Frog Pose (Mandukasana)
- Bridge Pose (Setu Bandha Sarvangasana) or Wheel Pose (Chakrasana)
- Table Top Pose (Bharmanasana)
- Cobbler Pose (Baddha Konasana)
- The Yoga Belly 7
- Touch the Sky (Uttanpadasana)
- Boat Pose (Naukasana or Navasana)
- Half Boat Pose (Ardha Navasana)
- Scissor Pose
- Torso Twist Hold (Jathara Parivartanasana)
- Deep Torso Twist Hold (Jathara Parivartanasana)
- Touch the Sky ( repeat again)
The session would end with stretches like Child’s Pose. Shavasana and a short meditation.
This is a fairly long session and might feel hard in the beginning, however with consistency, you would be able to master this session.
Workout Duration: 90 minutes
Equipment Required: Yoga Mat
You might like to read: How Accurate is Fitbit Yoga?
Workout 5: Legs and Back
This workout focuses on strengthening and building your leg muscles, which includes your quads, hamstrings, glutes, and calves. The workout comprises of squats and lunges, interspersed with some upper body movements to give your legs a little break, while focusing on building your back muscles.
In this work-out, you would complete two sets of leg workout and one set of back workout and repeat this sequence. Each set of leg workout will have 2 different leg exercises. With this, you would be doing a total of 23 sets of leg and back workout – 14 sets of leg workout + 7 sets of back work + last batch with 1 set each of leg and back workout, bringing the leg workout to a total of 15 and back to a total of 8.
The exercises comprise of 6 types of Lunges (balanced lunges, step-back lunges, alternating side lunges, three-way lunge, sneaky lunge, toe roll iso lunge), 5 types of Squats (calf raise squats, wall squat, single leg wall squat, deadlift squats, 80-20 speed squat), 7 types of Pull-ups (wide front pull-ups, close grip overhead pull-ups, switch grip pull-ups, wide front pull-ups, close grip overhead pull-ups, switch grip pull-ups reverse grip chin-ups) and Other leg exercises (super skaters, chair salutations, groucho walk, calf raises).
This workout is sure to test your limits and you’ll feel every muscle in your legs the next day!
Workout Duration: 60 minutes
Equipment Required: Resistance bands, dumbbells and pull-up bar
Workout 6: Kenpo X
This is a high-intensity cardio workout. While working out, you’ll be kicking and punching in the air. The workout is derived from Kenpo Karate and will help you improve your flexibility, balance and over-all coordination.
It begins with a 12-minute workout and a 30 minute main cardio workout, followed by a cool-down. The workout has a long list of kicks like Knee Kicks, High Kicks, Side Kicks, Back Kicks and punches, jabs, uppercuts and hooks. Remember the idea of this work-out is not to sharpen your Karate skills, but just to increase your mobility. This is a relatively simpler session and after having done the first 5 workouts, this would seem quite easy.
Workout Duration: 56 minutes
Equipment Required: No equipment required
Workout 7: X Stretch
This is a recovery session that helps give your muscles the required stretch. After doing the strenuous workouts above, this one is like a breather before you get into the next set of workouts. This is an optional workout. You could do an either complete rest on the 7th day or do these stretches to help your sore muscles recover.
This session starts with Sun Salutations (Vinayasa Surya Namaskara) and then moves on to stretches for your neck, shoulder, chest, back, arm and wrist. The next set of stretches target the core muscles of your abdomen and lower back. These include multiple yoga asanas like Standing side stretch, Seated side stretch (Parsva Upavistha Konasana), Camel Pose (Ustrasana), Cat Stretch (Marjariasana) and Bow Pose (Dhanurasana), to name a few.
Workout Duration: 58 minutes
Equipment Required: Yoga Mat
You might like to read: Can I Sleep After Doing Yoga?
Workout 8: Core Synergistics
This is a dynamic workout that focuses on your core as it strengthens your lumbar spine and trunk muscles. It would help develop your abs and beyond this, would also conditions your entire body. This workout has a variety of exercises that would ensure that you don’t get bored. There are 3 sets of workouts and each comprises the following exercises:
- Set 1: Stacked-foot/staggered-hands push-up, Banana roll, Leaning crescent lunge, Squat run, Sphinx push-up, Bow to boat, Low lateral skaters, Lunge & reach
- Set 2: Prison cell push-ups, Side hip raise, Squat X-press, Plank-to-chaturanga run, Walking push-up, Superman banana, Lunge kickback curl press, Towel hop
- Set 3: Reach high & under push-up, Steam engine, Dreya roll, Plank-to-chaturanga iso, Halfbacks, Table dip leg raise
You can choose to perform some of these exercises with dumbbells to increase the difficulty level of your workout. As you get more accustomed to the 90X Yoga routine, you could also take a call to switch between Kenpo X and Core Synergistics.
Workout Duration: 58 minutes
Equipment Required: Exercise Mat, Dumbbells and Resistance Bands
Workout 9: Chest, Shoulders and Triceps
This is an upper body intense workout which includes a number of presses, push-ups, flys, and extensions. The workout begins with a warm-up and then moves into 2 sets of upper body exercises. These include:
- Set 1: Slow-Motion 3 in 1 Push Ups, In and Out Shoulder Fly Chair Dips, Planche Push-Ups, Pike Press, Side Tri-Rise, Floor Fly, Scarecrow Overhead Triceps Extension, Two-Twitch Speed Push-Ups, Y-Press, Lying Triceps Extension
- Set 2: Ballistic Stretch, Side-to-Side Push-Ups, Pour Fly, Side-Leaning Triceps Extension, One-Arm Push-Ups, Weighted Circle, Throw the Bomb, Clap or Plyo Push-Ups, Slow-Mo Throw, Front-to-Back Triceps Extension, One-Arm Balance Push-Ups, Fly-Row-Presses, Dumbbell Cross-Body Blows
The workout finally ends with some cool-down postures. Note that this workout relies a lot on your core strength. If you have just begun 90X yoga, then I would advise that you swap it with another workout based on their schedule and get into this only after a month, once you’ve build your core and muscle strength.
Workout Duration: 57 minutes
Equipment Required: Exercise Mat, Dumbbells, Resistance Bands and Power Stand
You might like to read: Can You Wear Apple Watch In Hot Yoga?
Workout 10: Back & Biceps
This workout will help you tone your back and biceps. It contains a number of pull-ups, back flys and curls. If you don’t want to pump up your muscles, feel free to use lighter weights .
The workout starts with a warm-up and comprises of high-knees, running in place, jumping jacks, run lunges and some head, neck, shoulder and arm stretches.
The main workout has 24 exercises, each of which is performed only once. These include – Wide Front Pull-Ups, Lawnmowers, Twenty-Ones, One Arm Cross Body Curls, Switch Grip Pull-ups, Elbow Out Lawnmovers, Standing Bicep Curls, One Arm Concentration Culrs, Corn Cob Pull-Ups, Reverse Grip Bent Over Rows, Open Arm Curls, Static Arm Curls, Towel Pull-Ups, Congdon Locamotive, Crouching Cohen Curls, Corkscrew Curls, Chin Ups, Seated Bent Over Back Flys, Curl Up/Hammer Down, Hammer Curls, Max Rep Pull-Ups, Superman, In Out Hammer Curls, Strip Set Curls.
The session finally ends with a cool down.
Workout Duration: 52 minutes
Equipment Required: Dumbbells, Resistance Bands and Chin-up Bar
Workout 11: Cardio X
This is an interesting cardio workout that can either be used as a supplement to burn some extra calories or can be used as a substitute in case you feel tired and want to tone things down. This combines all other cardio workouts above. You’ll thus find some elements from the Yoga workout, Kenpo workout and some core exercises. It has 4 sets of exercises, mentioned below:
- Set 1: Yoga
- Sun Salutations (Surya Namaskara)
- Runners Pose (Utthita Ashwa Sanchalanasana)
- Warrior One (Virabhadrasana I)
- Warrior Two (Virabhadrasana II)
- Reverse Warrior (Viparita Virabhadrasana)
- Set 2: Kenpo Workout
- Ball Kick
- Hook, Upper, Side Kick
- Knuckle/ Ball Kick/ Back Kick
- Jab/ Cross/ Hook/ Upper
- 3 Direction Kicks
- Set 3: Plyometric Workout
- Airborne Heisman
- Swing Kicks
- Jump Shots
- Tires
- Wacky Jacks
- Set 4: Core Synergistics Workout
- Squat Cross X Press
- Steam Engine
- Dreya Roll
- Squat Run
- Superman Banana
Workout Duration: 43 minutes
Equipment Required: Exercise Mat or Yoga Mat, Dumbbells and Resistance Bands
Workout 12: Ab Ripper X
Unlike the other lengthier workouts, this is a much shorter workout that focuses on your abdomen and helps shape your abs. While short, this is still a high-intensity workout. You could do it as an add-on with other workout routines, so keep some spare time for this add-on.
It contains 11 exercises and most part of the workout involves floor exercises where you’d be doing sit-ups and leg raises. You would be doing multiple reps if each exercise.
The exercises included in this workout are Seated bicycles, Seated Crunchy Frog, Crossed Leg/Wide Leg Sit Ups, Fifer Scissor, Hip Rock and Raise, Pulse Ups, Roll Up/V-Up Combo, Oblique V-Ups, Leg Climbs and Mason Twist.
Workout Duration: 16 minutes
Equipment Required: Exercise Mat
Wrap Up
The P90X yoga involves a number of workout styles. It’s a mix of workout where some sessions focus on a particular group of muscles, where as other sessions are created for toning up your entire body.
The workout is overall intense and you would be able to make the most from it if you have some basic level of fitness. For beginners, my advice would be do as much as you can. Challenge your body but be aware of your limits.
The sessions vary from 40 minutes to 90 minutes and can help burn approximately 450-600 calories. This varies with each session and further depends on the intensity with which you perform the workout, your weight and age.
