“You do so many lunges you think you’re going to die,” Sayle says. The Med Ball Renegade Row exercise in Tony Horton’s P90X2 regimen (BEACHBODY) The Capitol Hill resident bought P90X in September after pledging “to be in better shape at 50 than at 40.” It’s the challenges posed by Horton’s program that seem to be making that goal a reality.
If you’re wondering who would pay to subject themselves to such a thing, meet 49-year-old lobbyist Stephen Sayle. And there are plenty of exercises Horton expects no one to be able to pull off on the first attempt, including lever pull-ups (performed with your body parallel to the ground rather than perpendicular) and a push-up variation he’s dubbed “the impossible.” “If you’re not in shape, it’ll be like climbing Everest,” says Horton, who notes that P90X2 is five days a week rather than six because anyone slogging through it will need the extra recovery time. What’s new for version two is that the cardio’s gone, replaced with workouts emphasizing a combo of speed, power and balance. P90X2 (Beachbody, $139.80), which shipped just in time for the holidays, is designed for folks craving more “muscle confusion,” a phrase Horton coined to describe the mishmash of moves designed to keep viewers’ bodies guessing. Now it’s time for an even harder workout. That 90-day, 12-DVD regimen has sold 3.5 million copies, spawned an astounding number of before and after photos, persuaded politicians from both sides of the aisle to sweat it out together at the House gym and become shorthand for “really hard workout.” “It’s like doing push-ups during an earthquake,” says Tony Horton, the 53-year-old former stand-up comedian who created the original program eight years ago.
Yes, that means having a ball under each hand and foot. To give you a sense of what you’re up against if you attempt to make it through P90X2, the sequel to the phenomenally popular P90X fitness program, here’s a sample exercise: the four medicine ball push-up.