P90X Mass Building

I have heard so many people say that you cant build mass with P90X, and that just couldnt be further from the truth. And I am going to prove them wrong! So, if you are asking the question, “can you build mass with P90X?”, the answer is YES! In fact, I am going to show you exactly how I am going to do it! Currently I weigh in at 178lbs. The goal will be to gain around 6-8lbs of muscle in the next sixty days leading up to my January 2nd start date for P90X2. There are some very key things that I will be focusing on in order to gain mass and you will need to focus on these too if you want to add some muscle mass with P90X. What are those thing? I have listed the focus list below:

Critical elements to gaining mass with P90X:

1) Calorie Intake: No matter how hard I push myself in the workouts, I cant build muscle mass without a surplus of calories. I dont just want to take a bunch of weight gain powder either. So I am carefully planning My P90X Muscle Mass Gain Diet that I will be using for the next 60 days. I want to do this right, with the right foods! Below is an example of my caloric intake for specific training/rest days.

  • Lift Days (3x per week) = 3200 calories/day
  • Cardio Days (2x per week) = 3000 calories/day
  • Rest Days (2x per week) = 2800 calories/day

2) Meal FrequencyIt is going to be very important that I keep my muscles fueled with a good balance of proteins, carbs, and fats in order to ensure proper recovery and growth. I will be eating every 2.5-3 hours throughout the entire day to accomplish this.

3) Supplements:

  • Creatine – To put it very simply, creatine increases the amount of energy your muscle have. There is a common misconception that creatine is this magic muscle builder. Creatine does not build muscle, it simply aids in muscle recovery so that you are able to more of the things that build muscle. Creatine will draw water from your body and retain the water in your muscles. What this allows for is a more efficient transmission of proteins and nutrients to the muscles for repair and recovery (more energy for your muscles). When your muscles are repaired faster, you are less sore and you are more likely to be able to workout with more intensity than if you were not taking creatine. The more work your muscles can do, the more weight you’ll be able to pump and the more reps you’ll be able to bust out. It’s THIS that leads to muscle building.
  • Glutamine – This supplement is also naturally occurring in our bodies, and during intense exercise our glutamine stores are depleted, so replacing glutamine is important to giving our muscles what they need to repair themselves.
  • Shakeology – I will of course be continuing my use of Shakeology every morning for breakfast. Shakeology fills in all the nutritional gaps that even the healthiest diets cant cover. This will give me everything my body needs it can operate at 100% efficiency.
  • Result/Recovery Formula – There is a window of opportunity immediately following a workout where your body is begging to be replenished with nutrients. If I dont replenish what was lost during the workout, my muscles wont grow. Not only will this speed my muscle recovery, but the P90X Results & Recovery Formula tastes friggin amazing!
  • Pea Protein – Since plant based proteins are more easily absorbed in the body, I will be using Nutra Summa’s Pea Protein rather than whey. I want to make sure my muscle are getting as much nutrients as possible during this mass building phase.

4) Less Cardio: Doing cardio too often and too long in duration can really impede the mass building process. I dont really want my cardiovascular abilities to fade, so I will be doing two lower intensity P90X cardio routines per week (cardio-x, kenpo-x, or yoga-x). The rest of my time will be spent lifting big or resting so the muscles can GROW!

5) Heavy Weight: This isnt some P90X Heavy Weight division…I am talking about the amount of weight I am pumpin out each set. I will set a max rep limit of 8 reps. Anytime that I am able to go above 8 repetitions, I will increase the weight by 5lbs. The goal is to push until my exhaustion point is at the 8th rep. I will also be wearing a backpack with weights in it during pull-ups, with the same 8 repetition rule. As for push-ups, there are going to be lots of leg raises and modifications to make them as hard as possible to get into the 15-20 range.

6) Rest Between Sets: P90X lift days are a circuit style training with little rest in between sets. In order to make sure that I am able to pump out my reps at maximum effort, I will be using the pause button to give myself a break and let the heart rate come back down in between sets. I will probably end up adding about 8-10 minutes to the entire routine.

7) Sleep: This is going to be a hard one for me, but I am going to try and get at least 7 hours of sleep each night (as often as I can, lol). Muscles grow the most at rest, so this is going to be very important.

You stick to this plan, get lazer beam focused on your goals, and you can most definitely expect to build mass with P90X! BRING IT RIPPEDCLUB!!!

I will post an update at Day-30 and Day-60 Below in green:

Day 30:

Day 60:

 

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