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Continuing with the P90 workout system, the next disc we will talk about is the Speed Series DVD. This DVD contains the following workouts: Speed Sculpt Speed Sweat Speed Abs Horton's Greatest Hits Speed Sculpt clocks in at around 25 minutes.  Tony starts the workout with his standard warm up. After the warm up, Tony takes you through two rounds of seven exercises.  Like the other workouts, each exercise is time and the times vary. For resistance, Tony has you using your own bodyweight, the bands or dumbbells.  There is a brief one minute cool down. Speed Sweat clocks in at around 24 minutes.  There is a warm up and two rounds of exercises. There are 8 moves per round and they are timed.  The Speed Sweat workout moves right into the Speed Abs workouts.  There is not a cool down.  Speed Abs clocks in at 6:55.  There are 5 moves and you are performing each move for a minute. Most of the moves in this workout are performed in the ...

Saturday Special clocks in just under 25 minutes.  It is a cardio core workout that takes you through a series of body weight moves. There are a total of 16 moves that are timed based. Tony did not preview any of the moves (like he did in the sculpt workouts) and I wish he had for this particular workouts because some of the names of the moves you had no idea what you were doing until you saw Tony and the team perform one or two reps. There is a lot of going down to the floor and getting up because there are a lot of floor based moves. Tony gives you a 30 second break 1/2 way through.  3 & 1/4 stars

P90 Disc C are your month three workouts in the P90 workout systems. The DVD menu offers the following options: Sculpt C Sweat C Ab Ripper C Subtitles Off/On Sculpt C clocks in at around 44 minutes.  The warm up is a bit longer on the Sculpt C workout than it was in either Sculpt B or Sculpt A. After the warm up, Tony takes you through three rounds of  seven exercises.  As you move through each round, Tony targets a particular muscle group. For instances, the first exercise in each of the rounds targets the chest, the second exercise the back, the third the legs etc. Each of the exercises are timed. The times vary. There is a 30 second break between the rounds. The workout concludes with a 2 minute cool down. Sweat C is around 37 minutes.  In Sweat C, you have a warm up, two rounds of exercises and a cool down.  Each of the rounds feature the same 12 exercises.  The exercises are a mixture of athletics and MMA moves and they are timed and the ...

P90 B are your intermediate level workouts or month 2 workouts if you are following Tony's 90 day rotation. The workouts on this disc are: Sculpt B Sweat B Ab Ripper B Sculpt B is about 34 minutes if you do the cool down. Without the cool down, it is 28 minutes. Sculpt B consist of three rounds of exercises.  There are seven exercises per round.  Each exercise is time based and the times vary. Essentially you are doing the same exercises across all three rounds but there are progressions and/or variations of the exercise as you move through the rounds. Class participants demonstrate each exercise in a break away segment.  After the demonstration, you return to the workout.  There is a 30 second break after each round.  Equipment includes a resistance band and dumbbells. Sweat B clocks in at around 32 minutes.  After the warm up, which about 3 minutes, you start the first round of cardio exercises. There are two rounds with a 30 second break bet...

P90 A are your beginner workouts.  On this DVD, you will find a 6 minute intro to the program and your "A" level workouts which are: Sculpt A Sweat A Ab Ripper A In the Intro: How to Hit It segment, Tony introduces you to the program and to the "H".; which is a marker he has you place on the floor and use it for some of the exercises Sculpt A is a 28 minute workout. Tony takes you through a series of weighted and non-weighted (body weight) exercises.  You will do around 10 exercises. You get a 30 second  break before starting on a next  set of exercises. Each exercise is demonstrated prior to the beginning the exercise. There is a clock that comes up for each exercise. The times of each exercise vary. Sweat A clocks in at under 25 minutes.   After the warm up, Tony takes your through a series of moves. Many of the moves are martial arts inspired.  With the MMA moves you switch leads and  repeat on the other side.  Half way thro...

This month I am going to be doing workouts from the P90 workout system.  P90 is a Tony Horton system and it is suppose to be an easier verison (introduction if you will) to his P90X series of workouts.  The version of the system I got includes 14 workouts on five DVDs.  I will review each workout disc as I do them. The system comes with two 90 Day rotations .  One rotation emphasizes sculpt and the other emphasizes cardio. There is a 6 day Shred booklet (around 14 pages) that you can use "to start your program off on the right foot". It includes a meal plan. There is a 4 Step Power Plan pamphlet that gives you more information on how to use the P90 system.  Also included is Simple Kitchen , a 64 page booklet that focuses your attention on nutrition and a resistance tube style band with a door attachment.

Disc 2 of 22 Minute Hard Corps contains the resistance workouts. The Main Menu has the following options : Cold Start Resistance 1 Resistance 2 Resistance 3 Bonus Workout  P90X3 The Warrior Subtitles The Cold Start workout on disc 2 is the same Cold Start workout that appears on disc 1. I forgot to mention the subtitles when reviewing Disc 1 but if you click on subtitles, you are given the following subtitle selections : Off English Spanish  The format is set pretty similar to the workouts on disc 1. When you select a workout, you get to choose your music setup and you get a list of what equipment you need. Tony also gives you your daily directive. Unlike the cardio workouts, the resistance workouts do contain a brief warm up that includes four exercises.  After the warm up, Tony and cast take you through a series of 5 moves for three rounds. The reps vary in each round and for each exercise. Before each exercise in round 1, Tony does have a cast membe...

Disc 1 of the 22 Minute Hard Corps system contain the cardio and core workouts.  The Main Menu of the DVD gives you the following options: Program Intro Cold Start Cardio 1 Cardio 2 Cardio 3 Core 1 Core 2 Once you select a workout, you are then given music audio options which are: Normal Off Music and cues Cues Only After you select your audio option, Tony Gives a brief introduction to the workout telling you what equipment you need and he gives you a daily directive. The daily directive is your goal for the workout. There is not a warm up for any of the workouts. Tony will tell you if you need a warm up to do the Cold Start . Cold Start clocks in at just under 10 and 1/2 minutes.  In Cold Start, Tony and cast take you through several rounds of running in place followed by some type of dynamic stretching. All the cardio workouts follow essentially the same pattern. There are seven exercises that you do for three rounds. The first round, Tony has one of t...

 Beachbody has a new system from Tony Horton. This system is called 22 Minute Hard Corps . It is based on the military approach to training.  The system gets its name in the fact that each of the main workouts are roughly 22 minutes. The workouts come on two DVDs.  Included in the kit is the Quick Start Mission Guide which is an 8 page mini-pamphlet that details four steps. The steps are:   - Step 1 Your Ration Plan   - Step 2 Your Transformation Tracker   - Step 3 Your PT Fit Test   - Step 4 Your Action Plan The pamphlet also contains a message from Tony.  The Nutrition Guide is 60 plus pages and includes meal ideas, recipes, and portion control guidelines that are based on the color coded portion control containers (i.e. green for veggies, red for proteins). There is an 8 week rotation calendar and a 7 day Hell week challenge rotation included with the system. I will review the workouts in a separate post but all the worko...

AB Ripper X clocks in at 16:07 -  So short workout that can be used as an add on. There are 11 exercises and you are doing each exercise for 25 reps. If you do all the reps, you will end up doing 349 reps. Tony adds in a few bonus reps. I felt the burn on several of the exercises. It was a nice challenge. Tony does his instructor thing. He will start the exercise and then get up to instruct. There is not a warm up, but there is a one minute cool down stretch. Equipment: mat 3 & 3/4 stars

Back & Biceps is a 52 minute workout.  The cardio portion of the warm up is 2 & 1/2 minutes.  The stretch portion of the warm up is 6 & 1/2 minutes.   The pattern for this workout is two back exercises, followed by two bicep exercises. There are a total of 24 exercises with a water break after exercise 12. The exercises are time based. One thing to note about the time, when Tony has a left and right side to do, the times are not even. It is not just this workout; I notice the uneven times in other P90X workouts as well. As an example, the time will pop as :42 for the left and then for the same exercise it will show :44 for the right.  So when you see two times on the worksheet, that is why. The last exercise is a drop set bicep curl exercise and there are four rounds and thus four different times.  The majority of the exercises are pull ups or some form of it and bicep curls. The workout concludes with at 2 & 1/2 minute cool down. Equ...

Chest, Shoulders & Triceps clocks in at 55:45. There is a long -almost 9 minute warm up, that start with cardio warm up moves before going into an extensive stretch segment. After the warm up, the workout alternates exercises  for the chest, shoulders and triceps. There are a total of 24 exercises with a water break after exercise 12.  The exercises are time based and the time varies. Please see workout sheet for the times. The thing that annoyed me about this workout was that all the chest exercises were push ups.  It was that way for the Chest & Back workout too. Is there not another chest exercise? The workout concludes with a 3 & 1/2 minute cool down and stretch. Equipment:  Push up bar, dumbbells, bands, chair 3 & 1/4 stars

Kenpo X is a 59 minute workout. It is martial arts based. After a 12 minute warm up that includes a lot of stretching, Tony takes you through a series of moves that you do with the right lead and then the left. That is my right and left. Tony doesn't mirror cue.  Each exercise you are doing for either 25 or 30 reps. There is a "count up" counter that counts each rep as it is done by the cast members. Throughout the workout, there are cardio breaks in which you are doing the following:  running in place, jumping rope, jumping jacks, and X jacks. This workout has its moments. While not my favorite martial arts workout, I do like it the best out of all the  P90X cardio workouts. 3 & 1/4 stars

Cardio X is a 43 minute workout. This workout is a combo workout. It includes moves that are in the other programs (i.e.  Yoga X, Kenpo, Core Synergistics, and Plyometrics).  It starts with an aerobic warm up of in place runs, jump ropes, jumping jacks before moving into static stretching. Then there is a yoga segment. This is followed by a kenpo segment. Next is a plyo segment and last the core segment. The workout concludes with a cool down and stretch. Equipment use: Yoga block This workout was okay. Didn't love it, didn't hate it. I didn't think there was enough cardio. Considering that most of the other workouts in the system are weight based and stretch/flexibility based, I thought this workout would of been more focuses on getting and keeping the heart rate up. 3 stars

Core Synergistics is a 58 minute total body functional style workout that focus on exercises that engage the core.  Most of the exercises are body weight exercises. There are some exercises in which the cast members use a set of weights or the bands.  Tony also mixes up the exercises where some are floor based and some are done in the standing position. So there is a lot of up and down. This has been my least favorite workout of the P90X system. 2 & 1/2 stars

X Stretch clocks in at 57 & 1/2 minutes.  While not my favorite stretch workout, it is a decent one.  The workout included some atypical stretches, that I appreciated, but it also included a lot of the traditional yoga stuff. In fact I wish there was a more vigorous warm up than the typical sun salutations that Tony included. There are over 30 stretch exercises and you are holding the stretches for a minimum of at least 30 seconds but some stretches are held for a much longer time. Tony walks around coaching the class participants after he has demonstrated the stretch.   3 & 1/2 stars

This is my second week of P90X workouts and it starts with disc 5, Legs & Back . There are 22 exercises.  For every two leg exercises, there is one back exercise. So the pattern is - do two legs and then 1 back exercise. There are a variety of legs exercises but all the back exercises are pull up/chin up exercises. There is a cardio warm up followed by a stretch.  Then you move into the 22 exercises, each of which has a time associated with it. Sometimes you are doing as many reps as you can and at other times, Tony gives you an exact rep number he wants you to perform.  A stretch cool down concludes the workout. While I was sore after this workout and felt the challenge, I really didn't care for a lot of the exercises in this workout. The workout clocks in at around 59 minutes. Equipment used:  pull up bar,  bands, weights. 2 & 3/4 stars

Plyometrics .  This means you are jumping. This means high impact. Although there were some none or low-impact exercises. The workout is about 59 minutes. The warm is about 9 minute and 30 seconds. Like the other P90X workouts that I have done, Plyometrics uses rounds as well. There are two rounds in which you are doing 4 exercises. The exercise are performed for either 30 or 60 seconds. After each round you get a water break. At the end of the workout, there is a bonus round that includes three exercises that were sports specific. The workout concludes with a 5 minute stretch and cool down. I am including a worksheet of the exercises. This is my least favorite of the P90X workouts that I have done thus far. Plyometrics just felt long.  Although I did think the soundtrack was very good and I burned a lot of calories. Equipment - towel, heart rate monitor 3 stars