1. You can either buy some resistance bands from bodylastics.com (see link in the side bar) or you can buy some adjustable dumb bells. For women, I'd say adjustable to 50 pounds would be enough. For men, I've researched all the popular ones and for the money, value and dependability I would go with the ones from Ironmaster.com. They are adjustable up to 75 lbs and then you can buy an add on kit later on to make each dumb bell 120lbs. The link to their website is on the right hand side of my blog. I believe these to be the best adjustable dumb bells after a thorough comparison of several popular ones. Through a comparison you simply cannot beat their price for the product, warranty and upgrade-ability....as well as versatility. The weights even can be used with their kettle bell handle, as well as other weight lifting apparatuses available on Ironmaster's website. I encourage you to look at the reviews on the internet and at Amazon.com concerning these dumb bells.
2. I would get a yoga mat. Make sure it's a yoga mat and not an exercise mat of some kind.
3. A pull up bar for your door way, you can make one if you have a basement, you could buy a pull up station or if you buy the bodylastics bands it comes with a door anchor and you can use the bands in place of a pull up bar if need be.
4. A heart rate monitor is unnecessary in my opinion unless you have a heart condition.
5. I would buy some good quality running shoes for the cardio dvds.
6. Visit nutrabio.com and get some Whey protein ISOLATE, not concentrate. Unflavored is better because the artificial sweeteners are bad for you in general.
7. If you are on the go, then I suggest buy a Zen media player or portable dvd player if you do not have an ipod so you can watch the dvds while you are away. The bodylastic bands comes in handy in this situation also. They are very portable.
8. body fat calipers to track your progress and to make sure you are losing body fat instead of muscle mass. THIS is very important.
This is all that's really necessary. There are some supplements that are good that are in my supplement section (when I add it).
If you want to go even more extreme then you can buy a weighted vest to do push ups with and ankle weights to do pull ups with. I bought both because of the differences in strength between my back and my chest. I bought an adjustable 20 lb vest and adjustable 20 lb ankle weights to add more resistance. I believe it accelerates your strength and muscle building progress, but thats only my opinion. As far as push ups...I upped the weight from 10 to 15 pounds on my second round of p90x. For pull ups-- I'm at 8 pounds total for the ankle weights ( 4 lbs each leg) and I'll up the weight when I can do 15 unassisted pull ups for most, if not all, of the sets. Reason being is...I'm going for size and if you continue to increase your reps from 15 to 20 to 25 ect...then you are building muscle endurance and that is not my goal. My goal is losing body fat and to gain size. At the time of this writing I'm at 10 to 6 unassisted reps for all sets. I used a chair to help me pump out a total of 15 reps, which is what you should do if you want to get stronger and bigger.
I bought the gold's gym brand of ankle weights from Walmart and I bought a $25.00 20 lb weighted vest from Meijers, which they do not show online but they have in the stores. At least they do in southern Indiana.
