>Hi,
>Other than all the push ups and pull ups in P90x what other
>upper body work is included and is it as intense as the pushup
>and pull up work? Thanks.
I might not remember them all, but :
for chest: mainly various types of push-ups (though I subbed some incline dumbbell presses for variety);
for back: in addition to pull-ups/chin-ups and/or pull-downs, there are one-arm rows, and rows for the upper back.
for shoulders, there are various types of presses (one arm at a time with rotation, seated rear then side flyes, "scarecrow" moves where you start with the arms in a "goalpost" position, then lower the forearms, maybe some others I'm not remembering);'
for biceps, there are many variations on bicep curls (hammer, hammer to regular, regular to hammer, concentration, doing 4 reps with one arm while holding the other arm static at 90-degrees, probably 3 or 4 more);
for triceps, there are dips, one-arm overhead extensions done while lying at an angle (very effective! I was able to get up to 15# on these! A personal best for 1-arm tricep work!), one-arm side-lying tricep push-ups (Cathe does these in HC), kickbacks, and a couple of more that I can't recall right off hand).
What's really effective about P90X, IMO, is that the exercises are arranged in either a push/pull superset fashion (chest alternating with back, for example) or a mini-circuit (first shoulder, then biceps, then triceps) with long enough breaks in between to change exercises and write down what weights/reps were used, but not the long breaks you have to take if you do one body part to exhaustion with one body-part-specific move after the other. Also, there are nice dynamic stretch/water breaks after every few exercises. I am certain that these breaks integrated with the hard work really allow for recovery so that each set can be done with more intensity. It makes me really not like the "let's work body part X to exhaustion before moving on to body part Y" all that much any more, because it is less time-efficient as well as less effective for me.