Mens Health Spartacus Workout vs P90X

I've finished the Shaun T Insanity workout, I've done a good bit of the P90X workout, and I've done the Men's Health Spartacus workout. Today, I'd like to compare and contrast the P90X workout with the Men's Health Spartacus Workout, and give a calorie burn for each.

For starters, you may or may not know what P90X and the Men's Health Spartacus Workout Challenge are. P90X is a 90 day total body workout system designed by Tony Horton. In this workout, you use either resistance bands or dumbbells, and a chinup bar. There are about 12 different workout sessions that are rotated on a scheduled basis, and the workout is done six days a week, with the average workout session being about sixty minutes (one hour). The cost of P90X, new, if ordered from Beachbody or an Independent Team Beachbody Coach is about $120, and can be splist into several payments.

The P90X workout has multiple daily workouts, including Chest & Back, Legs, Plyometrics, Arms, Cardio, Kenpo, Yoga, Ab Ripper and more.

My own average calorie burn and heart rate data from my heart rate monitor are so wide and varied that it isn't really fair to post as a comparison, but the numbers for each are similar.

The Men's Health Spartacus Workout Challenge is a rotation of about ten different exercises done with a kettlebell or dumbbells and your own body weight, and takes about 45 minutes to do. This workout is designed to be done three or four days a week, and the cost of doing this program is $0.

The specific exercises or stations of the Men's Health Spartacus Workut are:

• Goblet squat (which is a squat with dumbbells)
• Mountain climbers (these are what I actually used to call mountain climbers, but Shaun T calls them floor sprints, same thing)
• Single arm dumbbell swing
• T-pushup
• Split jump
• Dumbbell row
• Dumbbell side lunge and touch (to me, this is by far the toughest exercise in the routine)
• Pushup position row
• Dumbbell lunge and rotation
• Dumbbell push press

Each station is done for one minute, with a 15 second rest between each station, and the entire routine is repeated three times, with a three minute rest between each full routine rotation.

My own personal typical heart rate monitor results from the Men's Health Spartacus Workout are:

• Elapsed time – 45:24
• Average heart rate – 152
• Calories burned – 683

If cost is your only deciding factor, it's obvious which is going to be better for you, but there are a lot of other factors to consider. The first thing is that the repeatability factor of P90X makes it a much more varied workout. You can do the sessions a few times without getting overly used to the workout, and the schedule is so varied that you are constantly challenged. With Spartacus, there is one base workout, so repeatability may be an issue.

Also, it feels like to me that the Spartacus workout really is heavy on the arms and biceps, even though there are other exercises mixed in.

Overall, I think both are excellent workouts, and both can produce amazing results, if done properly. If cost is a factor, Spartacus wins out, but, if you look at the big picture, P90X comes out light years ahead.