P90X2 Asylum Hybrid - Phase 1 Review

If you have been following me recently, you will know that I started a P90X2/Insanity: The Asylum hybrid back in late April. I had just finished my first round of P90X2 and upon completion of that, I took a couple of weeks off to recharge and recover from the intensity of the prior 90 days. This new en devour is being taken on with several other friends/coaches that went through P90X2 in the now infamous X2 Crew Challenge Group! As a member of this group called; The X2 Asylumites, it has been a huge motivation factor and the amount of support that everyone offers to each other is just incredible. We all push each other to our own limits each and everyday, which can only make us better!

In case you haven’t seen the schedule for this hybrid, you can find it here at the Workout Sheets.

The first phase is broken down as such: 3 weeks of intense core and foundation work, followed by a 1 week recovery period. This the typical structure of nearly all traditional schedules that accompany just about any of the Beachbody workout programs.

Quick Tip

I was a complete nubie to the Asylum program going in, so I had really no idea how difficult they were or how well I would perform in each routine. I previewed the first routine on the schedule, Speed & Agility, a couple of nights before…

Watching these routines before doing them for the first time is very valuable. If give you a chance to see the pace of the routine and exactly which exercises will be performed. That being said, it DOES NOT do any justice to give you a sense of how YOU will be able to keep up or perform each exercise. Now, this is true with any program really, so keep that in mind the next time your get your hands on a new program/routine that you haven’t attempted. Take some time to watch the routine before you actually attempt it.

Speed & Agility

Speed & Agility introduces the agility ladder. This comes with the program and it likely pretty familiar to you in sports like football or soccer. This piece of equipment is used pretty much throughout the entire routine and many times did I find myself getting pretty frustrated and yelling at that seemly harmless piece of plastic and nylon straps. I really felt like I was simply uncoordinated during my first attempt at this routine. But each time I went through it, I progressively got better and the routine grew on me.

Strength

The other Asylum routine that was mixed into the first phase was called; Strength. This is a fairly simple routine that takes your through progressively more challenging dumbbells rotations throughout. Because I had not attempted this routine previously, I wasn’t sure what weight I wanted to try and use with each exercise. I decided to use 25# dumbbells. Man…was that a tough workout. There is very little rest in between each rotation and while you are only doing 8 reps, you are really doing 24-40 different moves. Each dumbbell rotation is a combination of 3-5 different exercises, so by the 8th rep, if you aren’t feeling that burn, you picked the wrong weight! This is another pretty awesome routine that does not bore you with traditional dumbbells exercises and is very fast paced.

The other routines that were mixed into the first phase of the P90X2 Asylum Hybrid were standard P90X2 routines; Total Body, Ploycide and X2 Yoga. All of these are great foundation style workouts that allow you to focus on building up your core strength and balance. With this hybrid, I decided to incorporate a weighted vest on some of the routines. For the first phase, I didn’t want to use the vest for any routine that I hadn’t previously completed, so no vest on any of the Asylum workouts. However, I did go ahead and strap up the vest for the Total Body and Plyocide routines from P90X2.

Challenges

The X2 Asylumites is no ordinary group…We may be the craziest group out there, but that should be taken as a compliment to anyone who is a member of this group. The day before each routine (except for Yoga), we try and come up with some kind of challenge for that routine. This typically consists of something a little extra at the end of the workout or perhaps something extra in the middle. This could be something like; perform these 4 moves at the end of the workout for 2 minutes and see how many reps you can manage. Another option may be to simply increase your weight/rep count for every exercise in a given routine.

No matter what that days challenge may happen to be, it is something that generates a lot of buzz and camaraderie in the group. We all want to see how well we performed against others in the group and the competition only drives each and everyone of to get the most out of each routine. If you are in a Challenge Group and these daily challenges aren’t being issued, give it a try and watch how everyone involved in the group becomes excited about them, THERE ARE AWESOME!

I have posted some of my challenge attempts on my P90X2 Results YouTube channel. Check them out for an idea of what I mean.

Summary

All in all, the first phase of the P90X2 Asylum Hybrid has been pretty awesome! I am just finishing up the first week of the Strength Phase and can already tell that I am going to like this next phase as much, if not more, the first. The strength phase will last for about 6 weeks and then we will finish the hybrid up with 3 weeks in the performance phase. I’ll be sure to post my review of the final two phases as I complete them.

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