Jesse Blows Up!

I love to see big results from “hardgainers” because it takes a lot of work to build muscle.  P90X can definitely get it done, but you have to give 100% to both the workouts and to fueling yourself to achieve the muscle gains. A few months ago I featured Derrick, who did just that.  And little did I know that Jesse was taking notes and planning his own transformation to do what Derrick did.  Well, 90 days later, here he is!  Jesse pulled it off!  Congrats Jesse!  I love the huge change in the arms.

Jesse Andersen

Operation Scrawny to Brawny started on August 22. I’ve never really worked out my whole life and have always eaten whatever I wanted while staying lean. I lived a completely sedentary life – no sports, no exercise, no stretching – and my back and knees were in pretty lousy shape. I blew out my lower back at age 20 and have always had lower back pain.

After my boss started eating an organic diet and going through P90X, he encouraged all of us in the department to consider a more healthy lifestyle, so I started by eating healthier. I had already determined I was going to start working out at the end of the summer and with round 2 starting around that time for a group of guys, I jumped in.

This was a modified workout plan put together by my boss and it worked a lot of Tony Horton’s One-on-One routines in the mix. They’re a bit more intense, but the pacing is much slower than P90X routines, so we sacrificed a bit of cardio conditioning for muscle gain. We also alternated between several yoga routines, only doing Yoga X one time, and began substituting Insanity instead of Cardio X and Plyo X. I regret to say that I only did about half of the scheduled Ab Ripper exercises and wonder how much more toned my six-pack could have gotten if I would have done all of it. I just got out of the groove and started forgetting to do it! Here’s a hit list of the exercises we did…

P90X Routines

Chest Shoulders Triceps, Cardio X, Legs & Back, Plyo X, Chest & Back

One-on-One Routines

Just Arms, Killer Abs, Core Ball Sandwich, Shoulders & Arms MC2, Chest Back & Balls, Diamond Delts, Base & Back

Yoga Routines

Yoga MC2, Patience (Hummingbird) Yoga, Fountain of Youth Yoga

My diet was inspired by Coach Wayne’s 3,000 calorie diet here on TeamRipped.com, and I did my best to reach that. I ate a lot of chicken breasts, grass-fed beef burgers, Oikos and Fage greek yogurt, fruit, Clif Builder bars, protein shakes (Walmart brand), and Ezekiel bread. At first it was a lot of lean foods so I started working more beef and fatty foods into the mix to increase my daily intake and hopefully put on the weight I was looking for.

After being faithful for 90 days, I am extremely happy with the results. I brought it every day and have gained 10 pounds, put on a good deal of muscle mass, nixed all back pain, increased my energy level, and just feel great overall. I’m thankful to Coach Wayne both directly from this site and indirectly through my boss who had been coached by him during round 1. I didn’t think my body could gain weight or bulk up, so I am thrilled that P90X proved it wrong!

P90X2 starts in January… BRING IT!!