Vice presidential candidate?Paul Ryan credits P90X, an intense 90-day home workout routine, for his ripped abs and lean build. So do Hollywood heavyweights like?Ben Stiller, Ashton Kutcher?and?Demi Moore. ?
The flood of unsolicited celebrity endorsements is one reason why Beachbody, the Santa-Monica based company that produces the workout DVDs, doesn't have to pay for Hollywood's stamp of approval.
Instead, the company relies on word-of-mouth and infomercials. That tactic seems to be working.?Paul Ryan's free praise of the extreme workout plan is just the lastest proof.??
Since the program was introduced in 2005, Beachbody has sold around 4 million copies of P90X DVDS, according to The New York Times. In 2010,?P90X made up half of Beachbody's sales, CNBC's Darren Rovell reported.?
The?basic P90X package?sells for $119.85 and comes with 12 workout DVDs, a nutrition plan with recipes and meal schedules and a fitness guide that shows you how to do each exercise.?
But the boot-camp style workout regime, which uses a theory called "muscle confusion" to whip even the fluffiest bodies into sculpted specimens, isn't only for high-powered politicians and movie stars. ??
"Our audience is everybody," 54-year-old P90X creator Tony Horton says. "From folks in their 70s to their teens, male and female, professional, collegiate, high school athletes and government officials."?
We spoke with the fitness guru about the development of P90X and the impact of Paul Ryan's much-talked-about obsession with the workout regime. ??
Business Insider: What is P90X??
Tony Horton: P90X is based on a theory called "muscle confusion." This is a modern version of periodization training. I did not reinvent the wheel, but what I did was was combine weight training with yoga, pilates, karate and core exercises. The focus and desire was to make sure that people would have a 90-day plan and have routines that focused on their strengths and their weaknesses. ?Because of the variety ? there are 12 different workouts ? your body inevitably must change because of the fact that you're working on your weaknesses.?Some people describe it as a "90-day bootcamp." I think it's more than that. It's a 90-day re-education of what's required to get in the best shape of your life regardless of where you are: an ex-athlete, a mother of five, whether you're 25 or 45. ?
BI: Is there enough space to do this in my small apartment and what other equipment do I need?
TH: The program is designed to be done in your home. You need resistance bands, some dumbbells, a pull-up bar [which is optional] and a mat. That's it. The space you need is not much bigger than the size of a dining room table.?Most of the routines, more than 50 percent, are body-weight exercises, so you don't even need equipment for a lot of it.?
BI: Does this mean I should end my gym membership once I order the program??
TH: There's no one-size-fits-all answer.?A lot of people will put their gym membership on hold and when the 90 days are up, some of them will go back to the gym and do their traditional machine work and integrate those with P90X routines. Other folks will just quit the gym all together because they love being able to get better results in their house. It really depends. Some people really love the atmosphere of the gym. I like the gym and try to go once in a while when I'm traveling to different cities.
BI: Can you continue past the 90 days??
TH: There are three versions of P90X: Classic, Lean, and Doubles [the workouts use the same 12 DVDs, but in a different order and schedule]. A lot of people go back-and-forth. I know people who have done more than 20 rounds of P90X.?I also created P90X2 for people who have done several rounds and want to go to the next level.?P90X is indoor training for the outside world. I'm trying to focus on feeling good, performing well and functioning better as opposed to using P90X solely as a means to change your physique aesthetically. ??
BI: What's the history behind the P90X workout program??
TH: Back in the mid-80s and 90s I was a personal trainer, like a lot of people in Los Angeles. I was working over at 20th Century Fox and training my boss. My boss introduced me to Tom Petty and from there I started training a lot of celebrities and rock 'n' roll folks like Annie Lennox, Bruce Springsteen, Sean Connery and Ewan McGregor.?When you're working with folks like that, they have a lot of people around them who have high expectations. I figured out a way early on to try and get and these folks motivated without getting frustrated. The goal was to get results so that I could keep working and keep getting hired by other celebrities.?You want to avoid three things: boredom, injuries and the plateau effect. People saw results they had never seen before when using P90X. In the early stages I was getting up around 4:45 a.m., meeting my first client, then driving all over the city and finishing at 10 p.m. I was probably making $25 to $40 an hour. It seemed like a lot at the time.?
BI: Who is your audience??
TH:?Before P90X, there was a product called Power 90.?When we created P90X, our customers were our Power 90 customers and the folks that had been going to the gym and not getting results.?Everybody in our industry thought were were wasting our time because it [P90X] was too difficult for the average American, whom we were asking to think and act like an athlete.?I thought, if we make it fun and entertaining then our audience would probably be my demographic ? somewhere between 25 and 55. It ended up being much greater than that.?
Suddenly a lot of celebrities and people in government were talking about it. The audience opened up because they were seeing the people that they knew and respected in the public eye, who were of all shapes and sizes, doing it.?We don't pay anybody a penny to endorse P90X, but there was a lot of legitimacy to it.?Before you knew it, I'd go on the Home Shopping Network and sell out to grandmothers. I've been to the Philadelphia Eagles facility where the conditioning coach uses P90X with his players. I've been to Walter Reed Army hospital where men are using the routines.?
BI: Have you seen an increased interest in P90X since Paul Ryan's?endorsement??
TH: It certainly helps, as much as Michelle Obama [the First Lady is also a P90X convert]. It's a bi-partisan act to move and to eat better. It's not really for Democrats or Republicans, the elderly or high school kids. It's for anybody and everybody that wants to change.?Paul Ryan was a trainer when he came out of college, so he understood the concept of muscle confusion and why P90X works.?I don't know if it equates to sales, but it certainly does lead to a lot of interviews. Our Web traffic has doubled.?
BI: Is it possible for Paul Ryan to have 6 to 8 percent body fat? (Slate's Bill Gifford recently questioned this claim.)?
TH: I would claim that's probably true. He is very, very, very lean. I know what 6 to 8 percent body fat looks like, and there's no fat anywhere on the man. I'm around 9 percent and he's much leaner than I am.?I could show you thousands and thousands of regular folks who did P90X and have dropped down to that range. If you're working out 6 days a week and all you eat is fruit, vegetables and proteins you'll get down there. Most athletes don't eat as well as Paul Ryan or Michelle Obama.?
BI: Is that body-fat percentage healthy? ?
TH: Is it healthy for everybody to climb Mount Everest? Scuba dive? Run half marathons? It depends on the person.?There's no one-size-fits-all answer. You have to consider countless different factors like body types, genetics and blood pressure.?
BI: Besides results, why is P90X so popular?
TH: I think the reason anything is popular is the delivery system. One of the reasons P90X works is because I make the process of working out entertaining. Some people find me funny, others find me obnoxious ? but hopefully more people find me funny than obnoxious.?I do my?Arnold Schwarzenegger?and pterodactyl?impressions and I have funny tips for the day.?
Some trainers treat fitness like rocket science. Others take on a drill sergeant mentality. I make hard-core entertaining and silly. That's a nuance that puts it over the top.
More Health:
Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/tony-horton-p90x-inventor-paul-ryan-fitness-2012-9
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