P90X Yoga X

P90X Yoga | Yoga X Review

P90X Yoga is designed to help you gain flexibility and balance, while at the same time, providing a sense of inner well-being. In fact, yoga is imperative to living a long and healthy life. If you don’t believe me, just look at all of the people who remain healthy throughout their golden years – most practice yoga daily.

Whether you want to do it or not, Yoga X will change your body. I couldn’t believe how much more flexible I was by the end of P90X than I was in the beginning. I could barely touch my toes when I first started the P90X program, but by the final day, I could easily touch the floor with the palm of my hand without feeling like I was tearing a hamstring.

It’s also a great way to help you recover more quickly from the other workouts.

How Long is P90X Yoga?

In my eyes, the only fault of P90X Yoga is the length of the workout – 1.5 hours. Yes, that is correct - P90X Yoga is 1.5 hours and could easily be cut down by a half hour. It is very easy not to want to do a workout when you know it is going to eat up an hour and a half of your life; however, every Day 5 of P90X I would remind myself that this workout was really not one to miss, since stretching is imperative to the workout program.

This is really my only complaint about Yoga X is that it really is way too long, and I think this could be the reason why so many people feel they don’t need to do it or skip it entirely. My advice is that if you do not want to do this version of yoga for one reason or another, then it is best to seek out a decent P90X Yoga alternative that burns the same amount of calories.

P90X Yoga Alternative

There are tons of yoga videos out there, so it is important to choose the right yoga video to follow if you don’t want to do the P90X Yoga DVD.  There is a seemingly endless choice of yoga DVDS, including everything from Yoga for Dummies to advanced yoga DVDs where you can burn up to 500 calories.

It is these calorie-burning yoga DVDs that you should be looking for, since P90X Yoga will make you sweat profusely and is said to burn about 600 calories. Contrary to popular belief, yoga is not easy…it is just a different kind of workout that stretches every muscle in your body while strengthening. It’s really hard to verbalize. Let’s just say that you probably will not understand what I am talking about until you try it yourself for a period of time.

If you are dead set against not doing the Yoga X workout that is included in the P90X program,  here are a couple of good Yoga X alternatives for you:

1. Fountain of Youth Yoga – This is the seventh workout from the Tony Horton One on One video series. This workout DVD is free if you buy P90X program directly for BeachBody. It can also be purchased seperately. I have gone through the workout once and it is basically Yoga X wwithout the balance postures and long cool down.
2. Core Synergistics – Alternatively the P90X Core Synergistics workout is a good replacement for Yoga X. The only time you may run into a problem is during the P90X scheduled rest weeks, were you do core synergisitics twice and Yoga txice. In this week, I would subsitute Cardio X for Yoga X or you could just suck it up and do the Yoga a couple times.

What Equipment Will I Need for Yoga X?

The good thing about P90X yoga is that all you need to complete the workout is yourself, a yoga mat, and a yoga block if you know you are not flexible. If you really don’t want to spend the money, you don’t need a yoga mat or block – but they will make the workout lot more comfortable one.

A yoga mat will prevent you from slipping in tough poses and also add some cushioning to your spine and hip bones during others. You can also find a yoga mat for a relatively inexpensive amount, although there are higher end yoga mats available like the Manduka BlackMatPro for ultimate comfort.

For the best prices on any and all yoga equipment, I like to shop on Amazon.com. By far, they have the cheap yoga mats and yoga blocks that can be used for Yoga X.

Is the P90x recovery drink needed after Yoga X?

It is recommended to have the recovery drink after any workout that has any anearobic element to it. Yoga X is one of the few P90X workouts that does not contain any anearobic movements meaning the recovery drink is not needed after P90X Yoga. If you do however feel overly fatigued at the end of Yoga X, then you may want to to consider having the recovery drink.

I personally did not drink the P90X recovery drink after getting through the P90X Yoga workout. Instead, I had 1 serving of Optimum Nutrtion 100% Whey Protein, this way I still got the muscle repairing protein the body needs, but not the extra simple carbohyrates that are not needed unless performing an anearobic workout.

Is P90X Yoga Hard?

If you’ve never done yoga before, are out of shape, and/or are not very flexible, then Yoga X is going to be pretty difficult. Like I said before, real yoga is tough. While you might think that doing yoga could not in any way make you sore, then you are mistaken. With the sequence of moves you perform throughout this workout, you will definitely feel a little shaky during some moves – especially after you’ve done the same sequence several times adding slight variations each time.

This is what Yoga X is like - you repeat the same moves you begin with, but with each repeated sequence of moves, a new pose or movement is added at the end of the previous sequence to make things harder. The result is a heart-pounding workout…until the last 45 minutes of the workout when things change up a a lot.

The second half of Yoga X is mainly balancing poses and stretching, which quickly slows down your heart rate. I always thought of the second half as an extra long cool-down. During this segment of the workout, you do a bunch of balance poses and postures. While it seems pretty lame while you are doing it, it really does help you gain coordination of your body. I’m not going lie I did stop my P90X yoga workout numerous times after the first half of the DVD.