Katie O’Reilly ’14: The winter months are filled with snow, ice, and a seemingly never-ending gray sky. During the month of January most people set New Year’s resolutions that revolve around the idea of creating a healthy lifestyle, such as setting weight-loss goals or eliminating certain items from their diet. By February, that motivation and willpower tends to disappear. With shorts, tank tops, and bathing suits replaced with winter coats, chunky hats, and wool gloves, it is difficult to find motivation to lace up your Nike training shoes, put on your Lululemon workout gear, and get to work.
The Episcopal Academy faculty and staff stay in good shape during the mundane winter months by doing P90X or INSANITY workouts before school. These systems have become an effective way to take workouts indoors. Some may think that exercise discs are just women dancing around to music from the ’80s in leotards but, in reality, the home fitness disc world has changed in recent years thanks to Beach Body, a company that has mass-produced cardio-killers and muscle building exercise workouts on DVD.
P90X is designed to allow individuals to put on muscle in a way that will work for their own bodies, whether they want to increase the size of their muscles or create a more lean body shape. The program focuses on challenging the body by building up strength, coordination, flexibility, and balance, which in turn produce undeniable results.
INSANITY focuses more on cardio, plyometric, and core workouts that are between 30-40 minutes long and are similar to professional athletic training.
EA faculty and staff meet at 6.00 am Monday-Friday to do either Tony Horton’s P90X exercise DVDs or Sean T’s INSANITY DVDs. L. Hamiliton Clark, Head of School, leads this group, which consists of Lower, Middle, and Upper school faculty as well as some EA parents.
Clark noted “The group started with P90X video workouts, but shifted this fall to Sean T and his ‘INSANITY’ videos, and we occasionally go back and forth between the two.”
The dance studio on campus provides the perfect space for them to workout. Clark explained how this workout regimen began, recalling, “A year ago I joined a few other teachers in the fitness center at 6.00 am for what has now become a daily routine.”
Clark commented, “I enjoy sharing my pain with others and find that hour best to make sure I get a daily workout in.”
Brian Zappala ’14, who works out in the fitness center every morning, noted “I get up early to get my workout in and I see the group of teachers together…maybe one time I may join them.”
Upper School learning specialist and history teacher Anna McDermott is also a fan of the group P90X workout.
She stated, “It is more motivating to do it together and having other people around makes you more accountable, it can almost be like taking a group fitness class at the YMCA.”
A daily runner, McDermott believes, “You can easily plateau with running, but with this national phenomenon you can switch your workout up and it is so simple you can just pop the DVD into your computer and you are ready to transform your body.”
The human body grows stronger with change and, according to McDermott, “The same workouts every day are not going to cut it.”
V Form Dean and history teacher Jackson Collins is also a fan of the discs and typically likes to do them sometimes in the afternoon with other members of the EA faculty.
Collins stated, “P90X is a great workout and it is good having friends motivating you.”
Tony Horton, the creator of P90X instructs each video with an incredible amount of energy and humor that makes the workouts are fun and effective.
Collins noted, “He is annoyingly funny, but he also really knows what he is doing.”
McDermott noted, “He is kind of dorky but has great energy which makes the workout so convenient because you can do it anywhere and it is really fun.”
Horton builds his program around the idea of muscle confusion, which allows the body to actually change because it reduces the “plateau effect.”
The P90X exercise program also provides a diet guide of foods that will help to allow people to shred fat, boost energy, and maximize their endurance.
“It is easy to take the tips from the diet guide to incorporate into your every day diet,” said McDermott. She continued, “I also get e-mails from Beach Body about new nutrition and fitness articles.”
This distinct exercise and nutritional science builds throughout the program as a person gets stronger and stronger.
Of the twelve P90X discs, Cardio X, Kenpō X, and Plyometrics are specifically designed to burn calories through heart pumping cardiovascular exercise, which is a critical part of the program.
Cardio X consists of a little bit of yoga to get the breath going, plyometrics and kenpo karate to get the body sweating, and core moves to work the abdominal area. Kenpō X uses power-fighting martial arts moves, which allow people to enjoy themselves while torching calories.
Plyometrics uses the advanced technique of jump training to work the total body.
Yoga X and X Stretch specifically focus on improving both calmness of mind and flexibility, which in turn also increase strength and coordination.
The Core Synergistic and the Ab Ripper discs focus on allowing a person to tighten up their abdominal section through exercises that engage all the core muscle groups.
The remaining DVDs use weights and bands to focus on developing strong muscles in specific parts of the body.
As the fitness industry expands, Collins mentioned there may be a new rival to P90X called “Crossfit,” stating, “This may be something that competes with P90X and some EA faculty and staff are beginning to like doing it.”
No matter what workout you choose, whether it’s P90X, INSANITY, Crossfit, or your own personal regime, find motivation to stick with it through the winter in order to see positive results by summertime.

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