How many people do you know that have tried P90X or Insanity workouts? And how many of them have stuck with it and gotten real, lasting results?
A recent New York Times article takes a look at how Tony Horton, the face and muscles behind P90X, successfully marketed a not-so-unique workout method.
On televisions across America, Tony Horton is selling a burning-sweat vision of physical fitness, and these days, a lot of people are buying. He is the pitchman and wise-cracking star of a brutal, make-it-stop workout called P90X, and he has won converts from Hollywood to Capitol Hill. The singer Sheryl Crow, the sportscaster Erin Andrews, the former NFL quarterback Kurt Warner, Representative Paul Ryan and a dozen or more of his Congressional colleagues, and the list goes on and on.
P90X fans swear by the workout, a mix of jumping, yoga, martial arts and strength training that, in fact, isn’t all that revolutionary. But the secret of P90X’s success is the marketing: Mr. Horton and his business partners say they have built a $400-million-a-year empire on what, to many, might seem like a foundation of schlock: TV infomercials.
According to the article, a few factors accounted for P90X's success:
The idea that the workout program was so hard, it dared viewers to try it.
Before-and-after photos in the infomercials.
A workout that could be done in the comfort of your living room.
So does P90X really work? It’s certainly a tough program. You’re supposed to work out six days a week and follow a standard cut-the-carbs-and-junk diet, which may be harder than the workouts themselves.
The guiding principle is to mix up routines and “confuse” the muscles so as to avoid hitting a plateau. So some days are devoted to dumbbells or resistance bands, in addition to old-fashioned push-ups and pull-ups. Other days are reserved for yoga or cardiovascular workouts that involve a lot of jumping and squats.
But Robert Marting, a personal trainer who sells his own exercise videos, says that “muscle confusion” is a time-tested principle of bodybuilding, and that the idea has been around since the early days of Joe Weider, a creator of the Mr. Olympia contest.
Says Mr. Horton: “I never said I reinvented the wheel. I just made the wheel faster, better.”
