About Me

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I'm a busy mom, working professional, and lover of all things fitness. I've lost 20 lbs in and kept it off for the past 2 years without stepping foot in a gym. I'm all about learning to be a better ME and paying it forward. Contact me at http://fb.me/tamaragomez18 or tamara.gomez18@gmail.com

Saturday, September 10, 2011

The Next X: What's New About P90X2™

Courtesy of Team Beachbody Newsletter Issue: #235, September 09, 2011

by Steve Edwards
"How can you improve on the world's number one fitness program?" is a reasonable question that I'm often asked when I tell people I've been working on its successor, P90X2. As Hollywood has quite clearly shown, sequels rarely live up to the original. But once in a while something bucks the trend, and we're fairly certain we've made The Godfather: Part II and not Staying Alive. In this series of articles, we'll be giving you a rundown on what to expect from the next P90X®.

P90X2™—THE NEXT X: WHAT'S NEW ABOUT P90X2?

MC2

The working title of this project was MC2. That's for Muscle Confusion 2, and of course, there's going to be more of what made the original so special. But this time around, we're taking Muscle Confusion to a whole new level, maybe even times two. To understand why requires a little bit of history.
P90X was developed to answer customer requests for a program more challenging than Power 90® and Slim in 6®, Beachbody's original blockbusters. So we set out to make the type of training program that an athlete would use to prepare for a season, except the sport we chose was life in general. Combining the theories of cross-training, progressive overload, periodization, and the specificity of adaptation, we began a series of test groups to try and estimate the tolerance of difficulty that the general public could handle, or more appropriately, would want to.
Turns out this was more than we knew at the time—though the fact that we cast test group subjects because they outperformed professional fitness trainers should have given us a clue. The program was so advanced that many professional athletes began using P90X instead of their own team trainers. This we hadn't anticipated. We knew we had a solid program, absolutely, but we didn't count on athletes who make millions of dollars a year ignoring highly paid professionals and working out to a video. If we had, we might have done things a little differently.
Tony HortonKnowing that the world was watching, we began P90X2 development searching for a consultant. We traveled as high up the food chain as possible, where we found Dr. Marcus Elliott. His training facility, P3 (Peak Performance Project), is at the absolute cutting edge of sport. Using the latest in equipment and applied science, P3's client list reads like, well, the front page of the sports section. Dr. Elliott signed on as head of our Scientific Advisory Board, ensuring we had the means to raise the bar.
That's not to say we weren't already succeeding. Anyone who ordered the P90X ONE on ONE® workouts could see we'd been experimenting with many new training modalities. Tony's newfound love of training on unstable platforms, honed by his relationship with functional trainer Steve Holmson, became, literally, the foundation of P90X2.
Access to P3 and Dr. Elliott also provided challenges. Because our customers are not primarily athletes, we needed to do a lot of homework to determine how to best integrate P3's elite systems into our demographic. Research was done, numbers crunched, theories were applied and tested, and test pilots (often yours truly) were beaten into submission. In the end, the collaboration resulted in a program that we think improved on our wildest expectations.

The program

While it's still based around the periodizational principles of P90X, X2 has a broader scope. In short, it's more versatile, which is saying something, considering that P90X is by far the most versatile training program on the market today. Here are the three training phases of P90X2 and what you can expect from them.
  1. Tony HortonFoundation. The first training phase is about your foundation, as in your base, or more specifically your attachment to the ground. What we mean here is not just your legs but your entire kinetic chain. There's a saying that goes, "You can't shoot a cannon from a canoe" that relates to your base, meaning that if it's not solid, you're going to wobble like the visual this saying evokes when you attempt to do anything explosive. The goal of the Foundation phase is to help you create a solid attachment to the earth so you do all other movements without compromising your form. When this happens, you'll look better, feel better, perform better, and be much more resistant to injuries.
  2. Strength. Next, we take your strong foundation and strengthen it big time. This training phase will be most familiar to P90Xers because it's similar in structure to what you're used to. However, the individual workouts have evolved. You'll continue to work from instability or athletic positions, because this will help you integrate your strength gains more seamlessly into your real-world movements.
  3. Performance. Finally, we take all the physiological changes we've been making with your body and focus them on pure performance. The key to this phase is something called Post-Activation Potentiation or P.A.P. (which we'll explain next time), and doing repeat series of movements called complexes. These workouts will destroy you in an oh-so-beautiful way. After a few weeks of P.A.P., your body can feel more springy, loose, and young. It almost feels as if, to borrow a phrase from King Arthur of Camelot, "You don't age. You youthen."
In conclusion, we think we've created an "Oscar winner." P90X2 is a training program anyone with a decent fitness base can succeed at. It can be done by someone who has only completed one round of Power 90 and still be challenging to the world's best athletes. It's versatile enough so anyone who sees it through to its end can achieve major increases in performance. And while it won't replace P90X (or make it feel as dated as The Godfather), it should absolutely take your results to the next level.
Pre-order P90X2 NOW for guaranteed delivery before Christmas!! P90X2
Questions, email me at tamara.gomez18@gmail.com or find me on Facebook.

Friday, September 9, 2011

I'm The Most Motivated LAZY Person Ever... And Here's My Secret...


The other day someone said to me, in reply to one of my Facebook posts, "I want to be like you one day."  This person was referring to my motivation and dedication to the lifestyle that I've chosen to lead, which is basically just to be healthier in general.  People tell me that I motivate them and inspire them and it kind of makes me chuckle, cause I don't think I view myself the way others see me.  Do we ever?  We are our own biggest critics; we can never see ourselves objectively.


Here's the truth about me (in my eye) and I would take a guess that the people closest to me would agree...


If you're at all familiar with the book Personality Plus, I am a Peaceful Phlegmatic.  If you're 
not familiar with it, READ IT, it's great!  Here's the description of a Peaceful Phlegmatic:


Phlegmatic: This is the flat-type. They are easy going, laid back, nonchalant, unexcitable and relaxed. Desiring a peaceful environment above all else. 


A peaceful phlegmatic is neutral - they tend not to actively upset people, but their indifference may frustrate people. They try not to make decisions, and generally go for the status quo. They care about people and harmony. 


This describes me to a T, I think.  I'm super laid-back; I just go with the flow.  I take things in stride; in fact my favorite saying is "It is what it is".  And that will soon be a tattoo…  I'm lazy, I don't like to exert more energy or effort than is necessary.  My moods are pretty flat; I don't get overly excited one way or the other.  I'm just calm and steady.  I love to sleep, I HATE waking up early.  Anytime before noon is early in my book.  I love to eat bad foods, I would eat tacos all day every day, and I have at times.  I love to watch TV.  I often tell Syed that in my next life I want to be a cat, so I could sleep all day (a pampered cat, not an alley cat.  Just putting that out to the universe so there's no confusion).  ;-)


So how do you reconcile all of this with the person I have become more recently?  It was a choice.  All of the above mentioned, the eating and watching TV and being generally lazy, coupled with having a desk job where all that moves for 8 hours a day is my fingers, type, type, typing away, let to me being FAT, unhappy, unconfident, sluggish, sick all the time… generally just miserable.  Was I obese? No.  Was I unhealthy, YES!  And 20 extra pounds on a 5'0" frame is a lot of weight.


I made the decision that in SPITE of the above traits, enough was enough and something had to change.  I work through the barriers.  I push past the doubts.  I tell myself that I have NO limitations.  The motivation that I have comes from simply taking action and CREATING motivation.  It does not come naturally.  Do I curse every morning when my alarm goes off and I know I have to get up and work out?  Heck yes!  I do it because I HAVE to.  It's non-negotiable.  And when I'm done, the feeling of accomplishment is worth it.  I tell myself that I have worked my a$$ off for the past 2 years and there is NO WAY I'm going back to where I was.  I have created healthy habits.  That's all it is, a habit.  ANYONE can create a new habit.  Am I perfect?  No way!  I try my best to be consistent and balanced.  I get lazy, tired, worn out; there are days when I don't want to eat right or exercise.  Sometimes I give in and that's ok, we all deserve a break, and this is a work in progress.  But for the most part I do it anyway, because it's important to me.  I don't sit around waiting for motivation and inspiration, I make it happen, cause it's not going to come along and smack me in the head.


I read personal development to keep my mind filled with positivity.  I surround myself with positive people that encourage me.  People that have what I already want and so it gives me something to strive for.  And I keep myself accountable by helping others, which has become my passion and my drive in life.  For once I AM excited about something!  And on the days that I want to just be lazy… I remind myself that I have put myself out there, people are watching, and if I were to suddenly come back 20 pounds heavier again, I would be letting people down, including myself.  That thought keeps me going.  Sometimes the best motivation is knowing that others are counting on you.


So for the person that wants to be like me…  I do what I do, not just for me and for my family, but to show YOU that you can do it too… but don't try to be like me, just be the best version of YOURSELF possible.  Quit with the excuses and just get started, now!  And if you need help and a little motivation, I'm here for you… :)