Tony Horton
This series from Beachbody has five ten-
minute workouts led by Tony Horton. It is
extremely expensive for what you get. Many
VFers were interested in the set but the did
not get it due to price. I myself do agree that
it IS quite expensive and I don’t know what
pipe Beachbody was smoking when they
decided to sell it for what they are. But at the
same time, I am a huge Tony fan and I really
enjoy this sort of workout, so I decided to
purchase it for myself.
Each workout follows the same format: ten
moves, done for 1 minute each. The ab
workout features twenty exercises done for
30 seconds, but even in the other routines,
they often switch to a variation at the halfway
point anyway, whether it be changing sides if
the move only works one half of the body, or
going up to a more advanced variation. So
once you have done one workout in the
series, the others will look familiar to you
when you try them. In each routine, Tony
works one on one with either Janie or
Gretchen. Keep your eye primarily on them,
because Tony often will stop after one rep to
chat with them or coach them (i.e. Tony does
not do all the reps himself). There is also a
“trainer track” option where Tony talks more
and gives lots of instruction. I tried this once,
on one tape, and found it a distraction so I
did not attempt it with the other workouts.
The workouts come on two disks inside one
case. There is also a small booklet (which
didn’t say much), a recipe booklet, a nicely
done set of ‘on the go’ cards which features
a ten-move travel routine, a crash diet which
I did not even look at, and some resistance
bands with a door attachment and a belt.
These latter two items are only used in the
cardio routine and they are optional. You
need to have three hinges on your door,
which I do not, so I didn’t even try it.
There is also a rotation calendar. The
calendar lists three options for each day
(except the rest day, which only has yoga). In
each day, the first workout listed is the
primary or compulsory one and you can add
on one or both of the other two if you have
time. Many people on the internet seemed to
feel misled by this. They thought they could
get the promised results in only ten minutes
a day. But I understood that you are meant
to add these together, so I was fine with this
premise. I have other dvds from the Quick
Fix and Ten Minute Solution series, as well as
Gilad’s Express set and Chris Freytag’s Move
to Lose set which also use this format (ten
minute routines you can combine together to
make longer workouts) and I plan to mix and
match my other workouts into these. I
somehow find three ten-minute workouts in
a row much less onerous than one thirty-
minute workout, and find that I push myself
more in these short programs than I do in
the more traditional program.
Here are some comments on the individual
routines in this set:
TOTAL BODY: This uses the resistance band.
It has a nice mix of upper body, plus one or
two ab moves. I was worried there was no
upper body tape (unless you buy another kit)
so I was glad to see how thorough this one
was. I found the bands effective. There was
one biceps move that really relied on you
using them, but for the others, weights could
be used. However, there is not a lot of
transition time between exercises, so if you
want to put down the band and grab weights,
you’ll have to move quickly and you might
miss a few reps. I found as well that in
moves only working one side, they did not
pause the countdown while she changed
sides, so you sometimes lost three or four
seconds on the second side. That’s not
normally an issue, but when you only have 30
seconds (one minute split up between two
sides of the body) it’s more of a problem.
ABS: I found this workout to be way too
much for me. On the plus, each move is only
done for 30 seconds. On the minus, some of
them are really hard. There are two exercises
in a row which are plank-based and involve
you going into a plank and then doing
something else while you are there. Each of
these moves works one side of the body at a
time, so you are actually doing FOUR sets in
a row. Never mind core strength, I just don’t
have the upper body strength for that! And I
am not coordinated enough to manage a
plank AND something else at the same time.
I found the ab workout to be discouragingly
difficult and I am not sure how I can work up
to it. I will be dreading it when it comes up
in the schedule.
LOWER BODY: Loved it! There are some really
cool moves in there (like this great rocking
lunge with a band) and a nice mix between
actual strength moves and cardio-based
lower body moves like kick-squat combos
and a sort of squat-hop combo that I really
felt in the thighs. I will get a lot of use out of
this routine!
CARDIO: Another I really liked. It’s like a
shorter version of Plyo X! I wish they had
included another one so you could rotate, as
cardio comes up in the schedule nearly every
day. Tony had some really fun banter in this
one, and although it was a tough workout, I
really enjoyed it and found it left me
energized and proud of myself for really
pushing it. That’s what I love about this style
of training, I may still have twenty minutes of
workout left, but not on this! So it’s easy to
push harder since I know it won’t be for
long.
YOGA: As I predicted on preview, the
weakest of the set. One minute per move is
just too fast. It’s not a flowing routine like
Slim & Limber from Slim Series. It’s really “do
this, now do this, now do this.” It offer a
fairly comprehensive stretch when all was
said and done, and I felt like it covered all
the bases. But at time, I felt like Tony was
hurrying me along. Remember, the one
minute is per entire move. So if you have to
switch sides, it’s only 30 seconds per side,
and that can go by fairly quickly.
Final verdict: I love it. These are exactly the
sorts of workouts I use often, and it is nice to
have some advanced options. Most other
cardio I have found which is in this format is
either kickboxing, dance or easy. So to have
an athletic cardio which is advanced and fits
in with this mix and match style of training is
wonderful. And I enjoyed nearly all of the
other ones too, to the point of being sorry I
did not spring for the deluxe kit which has
three more routines. But I am still bitter at
the price. For what I paid, they should have
given me a few more routines so that I’d
have an easier ab routine to start with, and
enough cardio so that you’re not doing the
same ten minutes for thirty days in a row.
With the price issue aside and looking solely
at the quality of the workouts themselves
and their potential uses for me, though---I
am pleased. Very pleased. I’ll use them, and
often. And I think I will progress very well
with them.
Instructor comments:
Joanna
8/7/08