Builtlean: Guidelines to Lose Fat, Not Muscle

[Jaywood2010]

Scisca said:

JayWood2010 said:

FrancisNobleman said:
how does this compare to p90x ?

This is a routine that will get you results regardless of what you want it to be. 

P90X is something that I do not like because they don't tell people what it is for.  While it is a good program it is targeted for people who are over weight.  IF you are a person trying to build muscle rather than lose weight then P90X is not what you want.  there is also better ways to lose weight than p90x.  It is just a program that people who don't know very much about working out buy into because of the infomercials.

Programs like that always gives like a time limit too like 3 months and you will be ripped or somethign like that.  That is also false.  that depends on the effort and ability you are from the beginning.  That 3 months is how long each cycle is.  Then you repeat it over and over again.  Building muscle also takes time.  20lbs of lean muscle a year is spectacular so the things they say in the infomercials is borderline lying.

I think you are approaching P90X with too much unjustified hostility. I seriously disagree that the program is targeted at overweight people and is mainly about losing weight - among other arguments, it wouldn't put such a strong emphasis on pull-ups if that was the case. It's a program that has the target to give you a great beach body and it delivers. I don't know where could your confusion about it come from, I don't know a single person that shares your feelings, neither do I understand why you would make such a fuss about something like that. If you want to do some bodybuilding, you have other programs from the company (like Body Beast) targeted at that, so your arguments really seem to be groundless. Just by getting through the site of Beachbody I can easily tell which program is supposed to do what. P90X doesn't cure cancer and nobody says it's supposed to.

I have done P90X and own it.  I also know the science behind  working out and how your muscles grow.  Going to a gym and doing compound movements will give you more results than you will ever see from P90X.  They have very little exercises that are for building a lot of muscle.  It however will help you lose fat.  Pushups and other body resistant workout doesn't really give you much muscle excluding pull ups which is great for you back.

Replace movements such as pushups with bench press and you will get a real workout for your chest.  Weighted squats over squats etc.

Let me explain with Brad Pitt who is an ectomorph.  Ectomorphs are slender body types who has more trouple building muscle than mesomorph's and endomorphs because of their high metabolism.  

This is Brad Pitt in Troy   He is roughly 190lbs in Troy. He is normally around 170lbs. He had to gain 20 lbs to get to this. They gave him a year to transform his body if I remember correctly You would not see him doing things such as P90X to do this



P90X is more geared for losing weight such as this



Notice that he is noticeably smaller.  In this time frame he did not gain muscle, he lost fat.  It is actually relatively impossible to lose fat and gain muscle at the same time.  He lost fat and revealed the muscle he already had

This is my main problem with P90X and programs like it.  They do not tell you these things so for ectomorphs who buy P90X will get no results what so ever due to the lack of nutrition information and lack of compound movements.  For people with High body fat percentages it is great but even then they dont really know how they got muscle due to the lack of information.  They did not gain muscle, they lost fat.  Once they lost that fat then some people want to gain muscle.  They don't because now it's a dead end routine unless you want to maintain your current bodyfat %

Here is a comment over at bodybuilding forums to show you a little more at what I'm saying.

Conclusion: I think that if you follow a good diet and do ANY TYPE of cardio for 90 days straight you will lose a significant amount of weight. I do think that P90X is the best at-home workout system you can buy without a doubt, but I think that the success of the program is based on the fact that you are watching your diet and working out for 90 days straight. The hardest thing for me is to keep the motivation, and if you can do that, you will definitely lose a lot of weight and therefore it is worth the money. Good luck man.

or this

see im not trying to loose weight im trying to gain size and strength. im a fire fighter and i know that the cardio portion would be good for me but i want some more size. does this program adress that, or is it more geared towards the loosing weight and getting fit?

Then get a gym membership, and run 5x5 or a full body routine with heavy compound movements.