New to You Cross Training Challenge - February

As with everything lately, I feel like I'm just getting stuff done in the nick of time - luckily for me there's an extra day in February this year so I can squeeze this post in today!    I had some really grand plans for cross training this month, but they didn't really pan out.  So, my February submission will be an at home workout that has been collecting dust on my shelf for far too long...

We've had P90X in our house for over a year.  Up until this month I have only done the X stretch, Core Synergistics and Ab Ripper X workouts.  Last week I tried out Kenpo X, Cardio X and Shoulders and Arms.   Since I can count any of these for my February workout, I'm going to talk about Kenpo X because it's the one I liked the most.

This is what the manual has to say about Kenpo X:
The word Kenpo means "law of the fist," and that's exactly what you'll be throwing during this cardio-intense workout.  That and a whole bunch of kicks, elbows, knees and forearms.  You'll learn a highly effective way to defend yourself, while at the same time getting one heck of a total-body, super-cardio workout.

Here are my thoughts after doing this workout for the first time:

The Good:

• The warmup and cool down.  P90X really emphasizes proper warm up and cool down.  In a 58 minute workout the first 11 minutes are spent warming up/stretching.  I also like that a lot of yoga moves are incorporated into the warm up.
• The workout is fun - who doesn't love kicking/punching/getting your aggression out?
• The instruction is great - most moves are explained well, easy to follow (even for someone like me who gets her rights and lefts confused!)  One good tip he gave was to not  "bang your joints" - meaning to kick, but don't hyperextend your legs during the kicks.  In other kickboxing classes I've done I definitely have a tendency to do this on my back kicks and it makes them painful, so I was grateful for the reminder.
• There are 5 rounds in this workout with water breaks in between.  I used the water break time to do more kicks and punches and kept moving - but if you need breaks they are there.
• Great core workout - all the kicks really force you to use your core to keep proper form.  It's something you have to concentrate on, but I was feeling it in my sides for sure.

The Bad:

• The warmup.  Ok, I know I said the warmup was a good thing - and I do appreciate that this (and all the P90X workouts I've done) emphasizes proper warmup - but I think 11 minutes is pretty long.  I was anticipating the workout to be an hour of cardio - but with the warmup (and cool down) it's only about 45 minutes.
• The intensity.  I was just expecting this workout to be harder.  I'm sure if I was doing P90X the way it is intended to be used (6 different workouts a week for 90 days) then I'm sure it would be more than sufficient - but as a stand alone cardio workout, it wasn't as intense as I had hoped.

So that's my February Cross Training Challenge!  Thanks again to Kim for hosting the challenge and getting me to try new things.  Hopefully next month I'll have something a little more exciting to report!