What Is The Best Beachbody Workout (Part 2)

Did you miss Part 1 of this series?  Read Part 1 here.

For an up-to-date bracket including all my recorded heart rate and calorie burn data, click here.

I’ve completed 5 weeks of the 20-week Beachbody Bracket–time for an update.  Let’s see which programs are holding their own in the competition.

The Criteria

Just to re-cap:  what makes one workout “better” than another?  These are the general criteria I use to compare similar programs:

• Level of Exertion:  I am wearing a heart rate monitor for all workouts and recording average HR, peak HR, total calories burned, and calories burned per hour.
• Excess Calorie Burn (added since Part 1):  Since total calories burned can be misleading due to the fact that it includes your base calorie burn for doing nothing, I calculate “Excess Calorie Burn” by subtracting out how many calories I would have burned anyway had I not done the workout.  I wore my HRM on several occasions for a few hours and determined my average base calorie burn is 130 calories/hour.  So if I workout for 1 hour and my HRM records 600 total calories burned, I really only burned 470 extra calories due to the workout.
• Difficulty:  A subjective estimate on how hard a workout is, measured by how many breaks I need to take, what percentage of reps I complete, etc.
• Enjoyment:  Who wants to do a workout that they dread?  Some workouts are so enjoyable that I can’t wait to get started, while others I can’t wait to finish.

Upper & Lower Body Bracket

• P90X Chest & Back over X2 Shoulders & Arms:  By all measures of exertion and difficulty P90X C&B beats X2 S&A.  It may not be a fair comparison because you will naturally do more work in a chest and back workout than an arms workouts.  But in terms of enjoyment I just can’t stand Jason Scheff singing in X2 S&A.
• T25 Gamma The Pyramid over Combat Warrior 1:  Upper Body Blowout:  Very similar workouts, I actually burned more total and excess calories in Combat Upper Body, but I felt the difficulty level was higher for The Pyramid because I completed a smaller percentage of the reps.  And without any breaks The Pyramid just makes for a more difficult workout.
• X2 Chest & Back & Balance over P90X Shoulders & Arms:  Despite higher average HR and calorie burn in Joe Bovino’s “shoulders-bi-tri” workout, I forgot just how hard it was to do pushups on medicine and stability balls.  X2 C&B&B gets the nod for difficulty and because I want another crack at some of those moves 🙂
• P90X Legs & Back over X2 Base & Back:  Higher HR numbers all around for P90X L&B, and I really don’t enjoy all the funky variations on pull ups in this X2 workout–pull ups are hard enough as it is.
• X2 PAP Lower over X3 Eccentric Lower:  Ironically I hit the same average HR and thus same calorie/hr burn rate for both these workouts, although X2 PAP Lower is twice as long as the 30-minute X3 workout.  I enjoyed them about the same but I have to give the nod to the longer X2 because it had me dripping sweat by the end while I barely broke a sweat by the time the shorter Eccentric Lower was done.

Cardio/MMA/Plyo Bracket

• Insanity Pure Cardio over T25 Alpha Cardio:  Not surprising, but at 10 minutes longer Pure Cardio wins on all counts.
• T25 Gamma Speed 3.0 over T25 Beta Core Cardio:  So far Speed 3.0 rings in at the highest average HR (148), total calories/hour (863), and excess calories/hour (733).  This sets up a match between 2 of my favorite workouts in the next round.
• Rev Abs Power Intervals 2 over X3 Agility X:  Both workouts are just about 30 minutes but I burned 50 more calories with Power Intervals 2.  Maybe this wasn’t a fair fight because Power Intervals 2 incorporates weights in a total body-like workout.  But I don’t get much out of Agility X until the very end because there are just too many breaks for what is supposed to be a 30 minute high intensity workout.
• T25 Core Speed over Rev Abs Full Throttle Intervals:  Full Throttle Intervals is a really good workout and had my average HR up to 124, but it really is no contest going up against the bonus disk Core Speed with an average HR of 138 and an excess calorie burn of 630 cal/hr.
• Insanity Plyo Cardio Circuit over Combat HIIT Plyo:  I’ll admit Combat HIIT Plyo was alot more enjoyable but didn’t get my HR up as much as the first Insanity workout in the Insanity schedule.  After this Insanity workout you know you burned some calories.

Total Body & Core Bracket

• X3 Total Synergistics over P90X Core Synergistics:  Total Synergistics can be described in one word:  efficient.  In about half the time of Core Synergistics I burned about 3/4 of the excess calories than I did in Core Synergistics and had higher average (127) and peak HR (162).  Fortunately Core Synergistics is not high on my enjoyability scale either.
• Rev Abs Strength & Endurance over Rev Abs Total Strength:  In a battle of the first and second month strength workouts from Rev Abs it should be no surprise that the second month workout is harder and more enjoyable (you burn some serious calories in this Rev Abs workout).  This sets up a very competitive matchup in the next round with Total Synergistics.
• X2 Balance & Power over Insanity Core Cardio & Balance:  I thought Core Cardio & Balance ended up in the wrong bracket but I forgot how strenuous this workout is.  I hit the same peak HR (147) for both of these workouts but can honestly say I enjoyed the X2 workout better.

Abs/Stretch/Yoga Bracket

• Insanity Cardio Abs over Insanity Insane Abs:  Insane Abs is a 14-minute add-on DVD from the Fast & Furious series that has 12 moves for 1 minute each.  Despite a higher average HR (137) and calorie burn rate (748), Insane Abs is more cardio and less abs–in fact the Fast & Furious series was the model for Focus T25 which also is more cardio and less ab-centric.  Since this is the Abs bracket I went with Cardio Abs because after the warmup and power jumps it is more direct ab work on the floor.  I still burned 166 excess calories in the workout which is alot for an ab workout.
• Rev Abs Merciless Abs over Rev Abs Mercy Abs:  Another no-contest between a Month 1 and a Month 2 workout from Rev Abs.  After 15 minutes on the floor I definitely needed my Results & Recovery Formula.
• P90X Yoga X over One-On-One Fountain of Youth:  The Fountain of Youth is a great 50-minute yoga workout if you don’t have the time (or the stomach) for 90 minutes of Yoga X.  Average and peak HR were about the same for the two workouts.  But if you have the time you will definitely feel like you accomplished something at the end of 90 minutes of Yoga X.  “It will feel like a journey you have never been on before.”
• X2 Yoga over X3 Yoga:  In a battle of the sequels, I have to give the nod to the more traditional X2 Yoga.  By more traditional I mean more like the original Yoga X where you hold the poses longer and feel the strain on your muscles, ligaments and tendons more.  X3 Yoga moves too fast to feel like I reach the proper positions, but that’s why it’s only 30 minutes.  X2 Yoga elevated my HR more than X3 Yoga also.

The Standings

For those of you keeping score at home here’s the current leaderboard:

Surprisingly X2 has fared pretty well considering it is not my favorite overall program.  The standings are a little misleading since I matched several workouts from the same program head to head.  The next 5 weeks should create some separation in the standings.

Unfortunately as far as the schedule goes I will be taking about 5 weeks off as Susan and I complete Beachbody’s Ultimate Reset cleanse and detox program (watch for a separate blog post on that when complete).  I should be able to resume the Beachbody Bracket towards the end of June and will post another update around the end of July.  Remember to Subscribe to John T Fitness and you will receive an email notification when I post.

Related Links:

What is the Best Beachbody Workout (Part 1)

What is the Best Beachbody Workout (Part 3)

What is the Best Beachbody Workout (Final)

Up To Date Beachbody Bracket with Heart Rate Data