What Can You Expect from Tony Horton’s Home-Based Program?
You can often tell when someone finds their true calling in life because every project that they tackle seems to blossom into an overnight success. There’s actually a lot of hard work happening behind the scenes of that success, and personal trainer Tony Horton is a shining example of where passion and dedication can take you. After this celebrity personal trainer helped many celebrity clients develop and maintain envious bodies, he created a popular home fitness program known as Power 90.
Just as his personal training services have been in high demand for many years, Tony’s initial home workout program gained a massive following seemingly overnight. As his home-based students graduated the Power 90 program and demanded more, he created Power 90 Extreme, otherwise known as P90X. Released in 2004, this program remains one of the most popular workouts sold by Beachbody, even though two more programs have since been released in the Power 90 series.
You don’t need to complete Power 90 to take full advantage of P90X. Men and women from around the world and at all levels of fitness have taken up this challenge, shedding pounds as well as inches of fat in a mere 90 days. If you have a lot of weight to lose, you can complete the program in multiple cycles or move on to other Tony Horton workout programs to continue progressing toward your final health and fitness goal.
This is also an effective program if you don’t need to lose weight but want to tone up or build a muscular physique in the comfort of your home or in any other private setting. While the program makes use of body weight exercises, you will also need a set of dumbbells and a chin-up bar to complete the program. While the primary focus is on strength training, the program comes with 12 exercise DVDs that go beyond the basic power workouts. This includes sessions in the following disciplines:
• Plyometrics
• Yoga
• Cardio
• Kenpo
If you’re searching for an intense weightlifting or strength training workout that will deliver real results in as little time as possible, perhaps you’re wondering why you would select a program that also requires you to do yoga and martial arts. Tony Horton developed a training technique known as “muscle confusion.” This is a unique strategy hinged on never performing one type of workout too frequently. Those additional workouts are designed to confuse your muscles so that they’re always guessing what you may throw at them next.
Since your muscles never adapt to one predictable workout plan, you’re less likely to hit a plateau when you use Tony Horton’s home-based fitness program. You’ll also burn more fat and improve your flexibility through these added workouts, so there is an advantage beyond faster results without a plateau.
P90X is designed as a 90-day program, and the package includes a calendar that tells you which workouts to complete each day. As long as you follow that calendar, your workouts will change at the right time to prevent plateaus that can slow down your progress. You can expect to spend about one hour exercising each day, and Tony includes a three-phase nutrition plan to ensure that what you eat supports your transformation rather than interfering with your progress.
Celebrities Using P90X
Since Tony Horton worked with many celebrities as a personal trainer long before developing his first home fitness program, it’s no surprise that some celebrities continue to seek his guidance and may even use his home-based fitness routines. One of the most vocal celebrity supporters of P90X is probably Demi Moore. She’s one of those stars who seems to defy the natural laws of aging, and she has been known to tweet about P90X contributing to her rock hard body.
Demi Moore also contributed a quote in support of this home fitness program in the March 2011 issue of Self magazine along with several other celebrities. Demi’s quote mentioned several of the program’s workouts by name, and she added that she was “feeling it.” Jennie Garth contributed a quote that stated that she felt better than ever after using Tony Horton’s program. Sheryl Crow stated that a friend got her hooked on P90X while Pink detailed an exhausting workout program that included an hour with the P90X program in addition to other workouts.
It’s clear that many female celebrities turn to P90X to maintain their figures, but what about male celebrities who need to build muscle or slim down for movie or television roles? Pablo Schreiber did just that when he needed to build muscle for his role in the popular television series “Lights Out.” He used the program in his home and stated that it was the “backbone” of his workout regime. Ashton Kutcher has also made his use of the program known, and that makes sense considering he was married to Demi Moore for nearly a decade.
If you pay attention to their Twitter feeds, you’re likely to find many other celebrities sharing their love of P90X. Taylor Lautner of “Twilight” fame and Mike Tyson are two additional celebrities that come to mind.
How to Get Started
The first step to succeeding with P90X is to select the right package for your fitness goals. You can order through a Beachbody coach if you want to receive one-on-one support from that coach, or you can order the program directly through Beachbody.com. The website is a good option if you prefer to break the cost up into monthly payments. Before you make a purchase, determine which of these three packages may work best for you:
• P90X Base: 12 workout DVDs, introductory video, three-phase nutrition plan, fitness guide and a workout calendar.
• P90X Deluxe: everything in the base package plus a gym-quality chin-up bar, three resistance bands and one container of Beachbody’s recovery drink.
• P90X Ultimate: everything in the base and deluxe packages plus five additional workout DVDs, the P90X Chin-up Max system and a set of official PowerStands from Tony Horton.
If you already have dumbbells or resistance bands and a safe place to perform chin-ups, then you may find that the base package is all that you really need. If you don’t have a place to perform chin-ups, then you may go with one of the more advanced packages so that you have the chin-up bar recommended by Tony Horton. This bar hooks onto a door frame in your home, so you don’t have to worry about finding a surface that will safely hold your weight.
Once you receive your P90X package and have the basic equipment on hand, you only need a DVD player to start working out. Watch the introductory video first, and hang your calendar on the wall so that you can easily see what’s on the agenda each day. When it’s time to complete your workout, simply put the correct DVD in and follow Tony’s lead.
How to Do P90X
It’s no secret that P90X is an intense workout. You can expect to sweat and maybe even swear a time or two while following the DVDs, and your muscles may scream for days afterward. This is how you know that you’re really working your body and can expect to see results in the future. While performing P90X really is as simple as following the video and allowing Tony’s encouraging nature to push you well beyond your comfort zone, there are some additional tips that may help you exceed your own expectations with this program:
• Don’t give up when you realize that you’re not ready for some of the moves featured in the videos. Everyone has to start somewhere, and even seasoned P90X enthusiasts still have moves that they can’t perform correctly after years of training. Challenge yourself to improve in some way each time that you push play on a DVD. This personal challenge gives you something to look forward to so that you focus on what’s possible in the future rather than feeling discouraged about where you are today.
• Take pictures in addition to weighing or measuring your body. P90X focuses on muscle building, and muscle weighs more than fat. While you’re likely to shed fat with this program, you’re also going to build lean muscle that can interfere with the results you see on the scale. Fortunately, the scale isn’t the only tool that you have to measure your progress. Take weekly pictures so that you can see how your shape is changing even when the scale doesn’t reflect your hard work.
• Commit to following the P90X schedule daily. You won’t feel like working out some days, but you should do everything possible to at least start the workout. Consistency is the only way that you will see results with any fitness program, but it’s particularly important with a program like P90X due to the timing of changing the workouts to prevent plateaus.
If you apply those three tips, you’re likely to see why so many celebrities have used Tony Horton’s personal training services over the years.
P90X Resources
One of the best resources for anyone following the P90X program is something that you can download right now for free: P90X worksheets. These worksheets are printable, and each one corresponds to one of the DVDs. You record your reps and/or the weight that you lifted on each move. This serves as a reference sheet so that you don’t have to remember the numbers each time you do the workouts, but it’s also a great way to see how you’re progressing. Knowing that you can lift more than you did at the start of the program is just as satisfying as seeing that you’ve lost weight or that your muscles are more defined.
If you don’t want to use the DVD set, you can also gain access to P90X through Beachbody On Demand. You stream these workouts without a DVD player, so you can do your workouts anywhere that you have access to a computer, a tablet or a television with an internet connection and streaming capability. You can access the full P90X program through this service as well as other Tony Horton programs.
You may also want to consider taking some of Beachbody’s performance supplements in order to enhance your performance and maximize your results. You can choose from pre-workout shakes that deliver energy and allow you to work harder or for longer periods of time as well as hydration formulas and the well-balanced nutrition shake for which Beachbody is best known, Shakeology.
If you don’t want to invest in these additional Beachbody products, do pay attention to the nutrition plan that comes with your P90X program. Your results will vary depending on many factors, and what you feed your body is one of the most important of those factors. This guide will show you how Tony recommends all of his clients eat in order to reach their fitness goals.