While its XXXTREME qualities are a little overblown and you can definitely modify every move based on your abilities, you’re not going to get the most out of it if you can’t do a single pull-up or push-up. This may have seemed like a concession or a weakness years ago, but with the popularity of CrossFit and its WODs nowadays, P90X remains a viable option. It’s also good for guys who (and this is why I like BeachBody products, personally) may know how to work out, but would rather have someone else tell them what to do every day. Either way, it promises gym-quality fitness without the need for a gym. Maybe you don’t live near a gym, or don’t have the money to pay a fee every month. Maybe you’re embarrassed about your current physique, and would rather no one else saw it.

As far as why that may be, the reasons are myriad. At it’s core, P90X is still designed to appeal to the person who, for whatever reason, would rather workout at home than at a gym. I revisited the programme (I’ve done it before) to see if time has been kind to it. Given that BeachBody (the company behind the programme) sold some 4.2 million copies by 2010, I’d say it worked.īut despite its history, how well does a 14-year-old home workout product hold up today? Ignoring minor quirks like the fact that it wasn’t shot with HDTVs in mind, or that some of the cast’s workout attire has no business outside a turn of the century frat house, the question is the same now as it was then: can you get results from a workout without ever leaving your living room?

Its simplicity was used to underscore a kind of sinister sales pitch: if you can’t get fit at home with minimum equipment with very explicit instruction, what chance do you have at an endless, sprawling gym? Equipment? Just some dumbbells and a pull-up bar. While hard, it’s also simple: 11 workouts, spread over a 6 days-a-week, 90-day schedule that switches things up every 30 days. This was not “6-pack abs in just minutes per day.” This was supposed to be hard. More broadly speaking, it was designed for people who were already in shape as opposed to couch potatoes too lazy (or embarrassed) to go to a gym. The “X” stands for “extreme,” after all, which I assure you was a savvy marketing ploy back in the TRL days. For starters, it was one of the first programmes of its kind to be all but explicitly targeted at men. Launched in 2003 via inescapable infomercials that every night owl at the time was familiar with, P90X (and Tony Horton, the trainer and co-creator) is now synonymous with home fitness the way long-forgotten names like Tae-Bo and Jane Fonda used to be. It’s entirely possible that younger readers haven’t even heard of P90X, and for good reason-it’s nearly old enough to be an antique.

P90x workout chart