Capacity For Strength, Technoviking, & The Predator Handshake

Lately my only consistent workout has been Friday Night Arms, an obscurity from the One on One/10 Minute Trainer series where Tony works his biceps, triceps, and forearms into oblivion in ten minutes. Why an endurance athlete, where strength to weight ratio is vital, would do this is a fair question. For the answer I present Technoviking.


No one is quite sure what the Technoviking is capable of but with arms like that do you want to find out? He’s the definition of capacity for strength.

Seriously, since my mtn bike crash in July the guns have become even smaller than the spaghetti arms I generally walk around with; not only because I focused on racing but that I was also unable to use my right hand. Coming back to climbing I’ve been feeling undo stress in my tendons because my arm muscle breaks down quicker than normal. Some added girth, especially when it’s trained for power, will alleviate stress on the tendons. All in all weight worth having.

Plus, if you don’t work your arms how else will you do the Carl Weathers/Arnold handshake from Predator? Barry Bonds may have hit more home runs than Mark McGuire but, when you think of that era, you’ve got to admit the Big Mac’s arms are what you visualize. Actors know it. The Shat, to prepare for his time on the bridge of the Enterprise, did nothing but curls. Ricardo Montalban, as his nemesis Khan, requested that he be scanity clad to show off his guns. And my friend Elijah, a very strong climber, once did an entire training program for his biceps and triceps and nothing else. Arms matter.

The name of the video comes from a time when Tony and his buddies would spend Friday nights in the gym training nothing but arms to “get girls”. And while Tony claims it didn’t work back then it does now. Late one night, while we were working on a training routine in a hotel gym a drunk girl stumbled in, mumbled something about Tony’s arms being “kind of a turn on,” and hung around staring until her wine glass had apparently been empty too long. We laughed but there’s a reason both Tony and Elijah love to kiss their biceps. It’s because they know that when one day Carl Weathers appears before them in a third world jungle bar, they’ll be ready for a proper greeting.

P90X: Muscle Confusion Two

This ain’t your granddaddy’s weight training program. It’s too early to explain just what they are, exactly, but one thing that comes to mind consistently while doing the mc(muscle confusion)2 resistance workouts is a line Tony says in the preview to one of the P90X resistance workouts, “It’s just good old fashioned weight training.” P90X mc2 decidedly isn’t that, so today we’ll preview its weight training workouts.

In fact P90X wasn’t really old fashioned either. One of the things that make it so successful is that its workouts are complex. It takes a while for most anyone to master it and that keeps your progression curve heading skyward. This, of course, is part of our overall strategy for the program. By creating some amount of what our marketing team coined “muscle confusion” your body keeps adapting, and this prolongs the period of time it takes before you master the program and start to plateau.

But compared to mc2, 90x is old fashioned. Not only have we designed workouts that keep you adapting longer, they also target laser-specific weakness in the body that occur across a broad spectrum of the population. In the most laymen of explanations, this means that your muscles will not only grow and get strong, but they will do it in a way that’s forcing your body to use them more effectively. So as your muscles grow they are also going to work better from a biomechanical perspective. This means, quite simply, that beyond just improving how you look you are going to get better at doing stuff.

The first time you go through these workout it’s going to feel strange to most of you. At times you’re spending so much focus on holding the various positions that you may hardly move any weight. As your balance improves so will your ability to move more weight but, more importantly, you’ll be moving it with a more harmonious kinetic chain. This you’ll notice in your movements as everything you do in your daily life that requires you body to move will become easier. It’s the kind of feeling that’s addicting in an “I never thought this was possible” sorta way. Once you’ve felt it you’ll never want to go back, which challenges us to keep coming up with new and better stuff.

If this seems like a brush over of nearly half of the program’s workouts, consider that it’s really all you need to know. Decide, commit, and you’ll succeed beyond what you realized was possible.

pic: sure granddaddy was big but could he move?

Plyocide: Up Close and Personal

Would a rose by any other name smell as sweet? Seriously, Plyocide is the best name for a workout I’ve ever heard. I’m not sure which one of our crew coined it but I wish it were me. Marcus’ first comment was “I haven’t had a chance to look this over yet but love the name.”



If you've got the One on One dvd you’ve got a pretty good idea of the moves involved but we’ve re-cut the workout so that you’ll hardly recognize it, and not only because Tony’s black eye has healed. Many of the movements to this workout came from a guy nicknamed “the dunkmaster” because he claims that he can teach anybody to dunk. Given that, along with the most perfect workout title ever, we felt a burden of responsibility to create a masterpiece.

I thought we had one on my first run-through, which was brutal. But we kept tweaking until we were sure, and this was confirmed yesterday at our first live showing of the re-mastered, re-edited Plyocide. Beachbody’s own Steph Saunders (Advice Staff Too on the Message Boards and creator of “the Saunders Cycle” in 90X Kenpo) stated, “I’d done the One on One version a few times and found it kind of light, but this utterly destroyed all of us.”

Plyocide, you’re now ready for your close-up.

P90X2 Core: The Opening Engagement

I’m not necessarily going to post these workouts in sequence but mc2 Core is going to be the first workout on the schedule. This will remind those who’ve done P90X Lean of opening with Core/Syn but this workout is even more applicable to the journey of this particular program.

To talk about what’s right with this workout I need to begin by explaining what’s wrong with us. We are out of balance, which is not just because we watch too much TV and don't exercise enough(I explained yesterday most injuries are due weakness in hip and shoulder stability). Our general lifestyle activities create imbalances because certain muscles in your kinetic chain take over movements that were once done by other, smaller muscles. The longer this goes on the worse it gets, and training can even exacerbate the situation by making the active muscles stronger, thus creating greater imbalances.

To combat this we’re changing the platform that you train on to create instability in order to force these forgotten muscles back into action. When you free these stabilizer muscles to fire it allows the muscles that were doing double duty to work more efficiently and, thus, your performance increases even before you’ve seen tangible muscle strength increase. Furthermore, for those only interested in how you look in the mirror, this forces your body back into the alignment it was born with so that you’re appearance will improve as well.

The keywords you’ll hear in this workout are open and engagement—especially if Steve Holmsen’s cueing rubs off on Tony (and they spend a lot of time together so this only makes sense). In order to keep your body stable you’ll be forced to engage areas that may be foreign to you, which is all designed around getting your body to open up. We tend to get smaller by doing the things that function as life and training the wrong way can exacerbate it more as you force your body to finish exercises without good form. As your muscles contract you get smaller, and our natural tendency is to continually force them at expense of our posture. So a cue you’re going to hear a lot about is staying open during a movement.

To answer a couple of inevitable questions: it’s called a core workout because you are learning to engage your core in every movement that you do. If you learn to properly engage you core, and stay open as you move, your body’s potential for improvement will dramatically increase.

The next inevitable question:is this going to get me pumped and force me to bring it? In a word: yes. While you do spend a lot of time balanced in precarious stances there’s plenty of resistance movement to make you sweat and even have you screaming to finish off sets. At least that’s how it is for me.

vid: boudering legend malcomb smith describes the importance of staying open.

P90X2: Buying Into The System

One of my favorite things to do is structure a training program and watch it work. I guess this comes from my coaching days, where you lay out a big picture template for the program you’re in charge of and then try and motivate your players to buy into your scheme. It’s a different challenge from training an individual, where you’ll adjust everything on the fly based on how the training is going. To create an athletic program you need to create a system that works for a group. This is our challenge at Beachbody and I like to think we continue to get better at it.

Creating P90x was somewhat easy, at least from my perspective. Selling it was a whole other can of worms but that’s why my bosses all have marketing backgrounds. As the fitness guy I had enough experience in training different levels of athletes that I knew how the P90x structure was going to work before we tested it.

This doesn’t mean it was all smooth sailing. Our first test group tried to mutiny after 30 days when they weren’t getting the results they thought they should—or even would with more basic Power 90. I had to draw up some periodization graphs to confuse them enough that they’d stop thinking about it and just trust me. Luckily, while they were still harrumphing over it Tony said, “I’m with him,” which sealed the deal. Eventually, all were pretty ecstatic that they decided to buy into the system.

Structure is only one aspect of a training program. It’s the actual workouts that dictate the structure. But good workouts and faulty structure can lead to failure just as easily as great structure and bad workouts. It’s a bit like when you see a talented group of players fail because they’re on a team that lacks a solid system. Programs are all encompassing, which is why Beachbody doesn’t sell diets, workouts, or supplements as one-offs. We make fitness programs.

But mc2 is raising the bar and it wasn’t as simple to me as a basic periodizational structure. To get a handle on we should do this I spent a lot of time at P3, both consulting with Dr. Marcus Elliott, observing athletes and going through their progression charts to learn about common weaknesses that we could apply over a broad base. I also spent a lot of time with various physical therapists, including Mike Swan and my late friend Kevin Brown. Tony’s always working on his game as well and when he fell in with functional trainer/extreme skier Steve Holmsen –a marriage in kick-ass training heaven—he began thinking in the same direction. The resulting schedule came back with an a-ok from Carl and the ultimate typically understated approval from Marcus: “This makes a lot of sense.”

So here’s the overview, with a lot left out lest start thinking that you don’t need the guide.

Phase One: Foundation

Not foundation as in “base training” but as in your attachment to the earth. Working on the “you can’t shoot a canon from a canoe” philosophy the aim of this program is to build you from the ground up. You may think you have a good base from P90X but, I assure you, we are going to find some weak areas and improve them. The two major areas of weakness in the human body, which leads to probably 90% of sports injuries, are shoulder and hip instability. Solve this and non-contact injuries will virtually disappear.

Phase Two: Strength

This will feel more familiar to most of you as it’s similar in structure to P90X. The workouts, however, will keep your body evolving. Functional is the key difference as almost every movement is done from an athletic position designed to improve your body’s ability to move better.

Phase Three: Performance

Finally we’ll take what we’ve learned and target your engrams (neuromuscular patterns) to fire efficiently. At this stage we leave “do you best and forget the rest” behind. We’re now walking a razor’s edge of human performance. Push your body to 100% with perfect form. When your form fails, you’re done. The force loads are excessive but the philosophy here is that if you can’t handle force in a controlled situation you won’t be able to handle it when it’s forced upon you. Congratulations, whether you’ve ever played a sport in your life or not, you are now as athlete.

pic: the application of science; an evolution of scientific complexities whittled down to the only graph most people care about.

Previewing P90X2

Last weekend Tony Horton, Steve Holmsen, and I put the final touches on the mc2 workouts. Today we begin our cast rehearsals, where we’ll make sure we’re not going to kill anybody, leading up to our shoot in March. Over the next couple of weeks I’m going to run through each of the new workouts and provide some insight as to what to expect in the new program.

Those of you who subscribe to Tony’s One on One series already have some idea of what to expect. That series gives you a great idea on the movements you’re going to get but the actual workouts have evolved a lot since then. We got quite functional in our warm-up and cool-downs, each movement was tweaked until we felt we were using the most modern applied science approach, and the sequencing is, to quote Arnold from Pumping Iron, “to a point. Wait when you see it.”

Back when we were designing P90X all we were trying to provide was a sequel to our basic training programs, like Power 90 and Slim in 6. We used athletic principles but it never occurred to us that real professional athletes were going to be using the program. Shoot, most people in the home fitness industry didn’t think we had a prayer of selling it to anyone. But with its success we’ve raised the bar of our target audience which, in turn, has allowed us to apply more cutting edge science to the program.

But you needn’t worry about it become sterile training lab. Tony’s leading the show and that means it’s going to be fun. Just because we’re applying some science doesn’t mean we’re checking personality with it. That's not how Tony rolls. Training, even at the highest levels, should be presented with panache if it’s going to breed enthusiasm. And P90X was successful because we, mainly Tony, made it accessible.

As an athlete, and all of you who’ve done P90X (even if you’ve never participated in a sport) are athletes, mc2 (name still pending) is going to greatly raise the bar. You’re going to feel better. You’re going to perform better.

Tomorrow I’ll begin by addressing the structure, and then I’ll take each workout one and one and describe why we’ve made it, what it feels like to do, and what you can expect it to do for you. I hope you’re all as excited as I am. As a trainer, the ability to create things like this for people is pretty much a dream job.

The Science Behind P90X2

“I’m excited,” said Marcus last night as we put the finishing touches on P90X mc2’s final third phase workouts. “We’re going to do a lot of good for people.” Apparently I was pretty amped, too, as I awoke in the middle of the night with a head full of possible scenarios that might challenge the periodiztional flow of mc2. A couple of hours later, with no obvious holes uncovered in our logic, I fell back asleep.

From a scientific standpoint P90X was easy. Our development team needed only to bring what they already knew worked to the table. The big unknown was whether or not the public would buy in to the concept of hard training. Now, with the world watching, the accountability bar has risen. To meet the challenge we’ve enlisted the help of Dr. Marcus Elliott, whom if you’re a Straight Dope follower you’ve been reading a lot about.

Elliott’s training facility, P3, works only with serious athletes. Their approach is based on the latest applied science and, in fact, is so far ahead of the curve that they are defining what the cutting edge in athletic training is. What we’re doing at Beachbody is taking this knowledge and distilling it down to the everyday athlete. By analyzing the data from a broad spectrum of athletes we can find common deficiencies that lead to breakdown and anticipate this in our structure so that it best suits almost everyone. Mc2 is our first foray into this arena—actually; if you subscribe to Tony Horton’s One on One series you’ll see the actual first in our mc2 preview PAP workout.

Last week P3’s blog published an article on Post Activation Potentiation and how they apply it to their athletes. Since it’s about to get applied to you, too, I would call this required reading for anyone interested in understanding why your training works the way it does. Here's the rub:

At P3, a major route to improving performance is through the application of “complex training,” which involves combining high load strength movements with biomechanically similar plyometric/ballistic movements as a means of taking advantage of Post Activation Potentiation (PAP), a phenomenon that refers to enhancement of muscle function as a result of its contractile history. P3 has found that complex training is far superior in developing athletic power to either resistance training or plyometric training alone, and while there are other mechanisms involved in P3 complexes, the successful manipulation of PAP plays an important role.

Sciency, huh? That's what you get when you work with a bunch of brainiacs. So you’re going to see these complexes in mc2 but not until the third phase. The reason is that you need to build up to them. At P3 they substantiate this with testing:

To measure the effects of PAP on vertical and horizontal jump performance we had athletes perform Depth Jumps and Skaters off of our custom made force plates. For all of these tests, the vast majority (75%) of athletes performed significantly better post loading. It is important to note the athletes who were tested were all experienced P3 power trained athletes and that studies have shown there is a lot of individual variability in terms of when the potentiation effect occurs.

And we, in turn, get to use their data to project how this will work on a less conditioned general public. Not that anyone who’s done two phases of P90X lacks conditioning. In fact, the base conditioning it provides is elite, which has been proven in how many professional athletes are using it. But when it comes to scientific training there is traditionally fit and, then, there is the next level. And that’s where we—and ultimately you—are heading.

Complex training and the utilization of PAP have and will continue to give athletes many advantages. Unfortunately, general strength exercises paired with aerobic conditioning is still the norm, even at the highest levels of sport. These old school forms of training rarely take into account individual needs and the need for power in movement. Eventually teams and performance coaches will begin to conduct more precise and individualized sports specific programs. Until this transformation takes place, it is paramount that athletes understand their own performance and physical needs, as well as the proven methods that exist.

Return of Gadfly: The Inside Dope at Beachbody

We used to have a gossip column in our newsletters, written under the pseudonym of Gadfly. While I can’t promise to be bringing him (or her/it) back here at TSD my insanely busy schedule has dictated that I explain some of what’s been going on around the office because I’ve been too busy to write about anything else.

Let’s start with Asylum, which is on the top of the list because I’m going over the cueing on the final (yes, should be soon) round of edits. As soon as I check this off we’ll officially be on the final road to release. For you folks who just can’t get enough of Insanity I’ll just say this: that program is like a warm-up for Asylum.

And speaking of upping the ante, we’re into the nitty gritty of the Tony Horton One on One previews for MC2 (if you’re not getting these you might want to start now). Why I say this is that we’ve got a host of outside experts pushing Tony out of his comfort zone. Since Tony’s always pushing you out of yours it’s probably nice to hear that he’s human. What we’ve got on tap—all shooting in November—are three workouts that are far different than what you’ve seen before from Tony.

First we have a new Core/Synergistics where Tony teams up with his ski buddy/trainer extraordinaire Steve Holmsen. Tony’s been training with Steve for years for you’ve seen some of his handy work already but we’re looking at this one as the next level.

Next, we’ve taken a huge step in upgrading Kenpo X by signing on with some of the biggest names in martial arts to create what we’re calling MMX. I’ll wait to reveal the names but Tony’s actually nervous about working with them, and he’s not exactly the nervous type. Wow (inside joke on P90x development).

Finally we have PAP, which you’ve been hearing plenty about here. And while the real expert is Dr. Marcus Elliott I’ll be filling in for One on One since I’m the one who’s been working on transitioning this elite-level training to the masses.


Conversely, success of both Body Gospel and Brazil Butt Lift have starting to bring our old core (non X/Insanity/hard core) audience back and we’re making plans to offer more intro programs, including a revamped Power 90 (our first hit program) and a simple Debbie Siebers IPhone app program that should be out fairly soon.

Oh, and speaking of apps I almost forgot that thing that’s taking most of my time later: our new P90x app. Deciding we were a bit late to this market we’ve contracted the best app builder team on the planet and made it our top priority. These guys really know their stuff. Prepare to be blown away soon.

There's the alarm. Don't want to get caught gossiping. Actually, it's a meeting reminder for the app. Hmm, I didn’t even get to all of our news. Maybe we’ll have to re-enlist Gadfly as a full time correspondent.

karla mohtashemi-reese's pic is so typical: me working away, tony on TV. ha! btw, the coaches beat us (in dallas) and tony summed it up nicely: "your before pictures couldn't have done that!"

"Doc" Horton on Jim Rome

Tony stole the Jim Rome show for half an hour today, adding a breath of fitness and health to a show that I can't help but equate to the film Big Fan. Rome refers to him as Doc Horton, says he has "a PhD in Bringin' It" and is obviously very star struck with both the program and how fit Tony has kept himself at 52. I can't help but wonder how the audience of this show, generally thought of as poster boys for soda, cheap beer, convenience foods and all-you-can-eat joints will take his views on the importance of yoga and a vegan diet. Rome himself is 30 days into the program and enjoying it. Maybe he'll have some influence on his audience. We can only dream.

You can check out the interview here (you do have to wade through about 15 minutes of nonsense).

pic: perhaps vic in no cal will be our next success story.

Ball Don't Lie

“I thought he’d be the first black president,” Wetzel says. “He was Barack Obama before Barack Obama.”

My brother, a philosophy teacher and ex-ballplayer, sent this to me titled, “The best article on basketball I’ve ever read.” My take is that it’s a lot more than that. It’s a metaphor for life.

It’s long, in-depth, and analytical. It takes some thought to get through; and you’ve got to sign up for the NY Times (free) to read it. But if you’re interested in digging into your brain's trenches and looking at topics you’ve not considered, it will be well worth your time. I’m pretty busy. It took me days to get around to reading it. Once finding the time, I wished it would go on and on.

“Here we have a basketball mystery: a player is widely regarded inside the N.B.A. as, at best, a replaceable cog in a machine driven by superstars. And yet every team he has ever played on has acquired some magical ability to win.”

The storyline revolves around an analysis of why Shane Battier is one of the games most effective players. If you haven’t heard of him, or thought he was a stiff, that’s part of the catch. It goes into this, and more, and should leave you thinking not only different about basketball, but life in general. I can apply this rationale directly to any place I’ve worked, or even to how family units work together.

We live in a sensationalized world, where the squeaky wheel indeed gets the grease. But what makes it go around is not just those in the limelight, but those who seek primarily for excellence in self, no matter what others think.

The No Stats All Star
By Michael Lewis

Life After P90X

I spent the last few weeks just riding and climbing--no other training at all. Since my training is all to support a myriad of sports I don't have the same issue as many of our members, which is what to do once they've reached their fitness goals. Conversely, I need to shelve my sports when I make a commitment to train, or at least sacrifice doing them at a high level.

Athletes train in order to facilitate their sports. This means that most of their intense training is done in the off-season. Training builds base fitness and increases the capacity for more improvement once their training transitions to entirely sports specific stuff.

Most of our members began training in order to lose weight or gain back fitness that they had in their youth. There is no goal or agenda other than getting their body to look good or, perhaps, become healthier. So what to do once they reach that point is often a quandary. This was an ongoing topic between one of our original success stories once he'd completed two rounds of the X. He was busy, with little interest in finding a sport or hobby that would take more of his time, and was so fit that his improvements were minimal each time he completed a new training cycle. With nothing specific to train for, he was rather sad.

Of course, this is a dream scenario for most of our clients. But if you stay motivated it's one that will happen to almost everyone. It happens in sports, too. After about a decade of full-time climbing I would train an entire year to improve a letter grade, which is something imperceptible to most people observing the sport. It began to seem silly. At some point you can't help but consider the other things in life you're missing. When training is not your job it becomes hard to find rational in continuing in such a devoted manner. There is a lot to do out there in the world. And not all of it is dependant upon having a six pack.

My advice to our members is always to take a break and enjoy life. See what kind of dreams or ambitions get conjured up in your head. It's a different mindset for someone who, say, was told by their doctor prior to beginning an exercise programs that if they didn't change their lifestyle they would die to suddenly realize that they're fitter than most of the population and things that seemed crazy were now possible. With a world of new possibilities, who knows where your idle mind might lead you?

Athletic goals aren't everyone's cup of tea. If they aren't, having your body in peak condition still changes what you can do. You have more stamina and energy to pursue any endeavor of interest. And, a really cool thing, is that it's far easier to keep your body in top shape than it was to get their in the first place. Doing one round on 90X a year with supplemental exercise in between can be enough to ace every test your doctor will give you.

The type of supplemental exercise you do does matter. Using a bit of strategy, you can keep your P90X fitness at a foundation level with only around 30 minutes of exercise a day. This means that you'll keep your body, most of your strength, and will be ready to jump back into another round of X at any time.

Almost any Beachbody program will do this for you, as will a lot of stuff you can do down at the gym. But we've also designed some workouts that will do it better, because they are designed specifically for this purpose.

This is why Tony is in the process of creating a series of workouts called One on One. P90X is what Tony does to get into peak shape. One on One is how he stays this way. Unfortunately, only one has been released, so far. But as these trickle out you'll have just what the doctor ordered: short, intense workouts to fill your quiver that will help ensure you never lose your base fitness no matter what your life situation is. Next out is Tony's Road Warrior workout. This is something you can do away from home using household items for equipment. Down the line will be a shorter yoga workout and probably anything you can think of because we're releasing them based on your input. So speak up if there's something you'd like to see.