The secret to the success of the P90X program is “muscle confusion.” Most people often make the mistake of getting stuck in the same workout routine for several months at a time. P90X breaks each muscle group down throughout each of the 12, hour-long, workout videos. Each video targets different parts of the body, which does not allow the body to adapt to specific workouts. So, if your goal is to increase muscle tone, improve your overall fitness and cardiovascular endurance, and are willing to devote some time and energy, then the P90X Training System is the perfect workout program for you.

P90X’s 12 Intense Workouts:

1. Chest and Back
2. Plyometrics
3. Shoulders and Arms
4. Yoga X
5. Legs and Back
6. Kenpo X
7. X stretch
8. Core Synergistics
9. Chest, Shoulders, and Triceps
10. Back and Biceps
11. Cardio X
12. Ab Ripper X

If you have any questions or concerns about the P90X Training System, please leave a comment below and I will get back to you as soon as possible!

Read our review to learn more about the P90X Diet.

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The P90X Workout Improves Overall Fitness and Muscle Tone

So, while your body bounces around in the saddle, your core is working extremely hard to maintain proper posture as well as hold your body upright.

Below are the top five core exercises that will help strengthen and prepare your core for horseback riding. I recommend performing two or three sets of 20 to 30 repetitions. Good Luck!!

Top 5 Core Exercises To Prepare For Horseback Riding

See Matt’s series on horseback riding exercises.

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Top 5 Core Exercises to Prepare for Horseback Riding

The Missing Link

With average gym goers primarily concerned with the development of their upper body, many weight lifters forget or just neglect to train their legs. This becomes a problem with both men and women who are focusing on either building muscle or losing fat.

For men this is a problem because they are often focused on total body functional strength, or aesthetic symmetry and muscle size. For women this is a problem because they often spend too much time on endurance cardio, and end up missing the huge metabolic potential of leg training.

In order to properly integrate leg training into our routine, we need to know why, how, and when to train those wheels.

Why Train Your Legs

Your legs are the largest group of muscles in your body. By training your legs hard, you will be setting yourself up to realize the most overall strength and fat loss gains when compared to all other muscle groups.

Strong legs will allow you to:

• Pick up anything heavy off the floor or ground.

• Form the foundation of your body’s core strength chain.

• Strengthen your lower back to protect from injury.

• Lift the most weight of all muscle groups.

• Burn the most calories of all muscle groups.

• Stimulate the highest growth hormone release through training.

Think of it this way: the potential growth of any one muscle group will be directly impacted by the conditioning of the muscles in the rest of the body. Moreover, muscular imbalance in the legs could inevitably lead to injury, asymmetry, upper body over-training, and the dreaded nickname “Chicken Legs”.

Some Examples of Leg Training Goals

The best way to approach an overhaul of your workout program is to set up a series of goals for your new training plan. This will give you a focus and a method to qualify your results.

Some leg training goals might include:

• Increase overall leg, lower back, and core strength.

• Condition your cardiovascular system with high rep squats and sprints.

• Add size and girth to the legs through strength and hypertrophy training.

• Practicing and perfecting your form for these demanding compound exercises.

• Improve sprint times.

• Burn fat through the increased metabolic demands of lower body strength training.

How to Train Your Legs

The squat is arguably the best exercise that any athlete can perform. Overhead press, bench press, and deadlifts rank right up there too. Sprinting, specifically in conjunction with high intensity interval training (HIIT), is considered the most effective form of cardiovascular work.

When we train our legs with resistance training, we will be focusing on the following compound exercises:

• Squats to work our quads. Squats are #1 on the list of the 5 best leg exercises for the quads.

• Deadlifts to work our hamstrings. Deadlifts are #1 on the list of the 5 best hamstring exercises.

• Good mornings to work our glutes and lower back.

• Lunges to work our legs in a unilateral range of motion.

• Interval sprints for explosive strength and cardiovascular conditioning.

Please return for part 2 of this article Friday 2/13, when you will learn how to construct a HIIT session for sprinting and how to implement an eight-week training program to bring your lower body conditioning up to speed.

Guest Blog Series: Look for the following badge on your favorite health sites to see if they have been a featured guest blogger on DietsInReview.com. See other posts in the Guest Blog series.

If you would like to apply to be featured as a guest blogger, please contact us.

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How to Train Legs, Part I

Rather than spend oodles of your precious gym minutes working on your core, here is one yoga move that will strengthen your abs and give your arms and legs a workout, too!

Navasana, or Boat Pose, is a grounding seated posture that not only carries all of the mind-stilling benefits of any yoga posture but it also results in a strong and lean inner core.  Don’t forget to keep your breath deep and rhythmic as you do navasana posture – the deep yoga ujjayi breathing also tones the inner muscles of your core.

Here’s how to do it.

Navasana Yoga Posture (Boat Pose)

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Great Abs with One Yoga Move