Today I decided to try the very first P90X One on One with Tony Horton: the Plyo Legs workout (a.k.a. the skiers workout). As usual his buddy Mason Bendewald was there filming the routine and when Mason originally walked up to Tony’s house in California, he was outside jumping rope to get warmed up. Tony talked about the fact that his way of warming up is going outside and doing a little jump rope so that he’s ready for Plyo Legs. Anyways, this workout turned out to be a lot better than the super disappointing Super Cardio workout.
Although this Plyo Legs routine wasn’t even as tough as the original P90X Plyometrics, plyo workouts from Insanity, or routines in The Asylum, there were a couple tough moves. Since you do this routine for a full 60 minutes, you are going to burn calories and give your legs a good workout. Tony makes it known that this is the routine that he does to get ready for ski season, so he calls it his skiing workout and says that normally he does it with a group of about 2 to 8 other guys that he skis with.
After Plyo Legs... slightly disappointed
A low intensity plyometrics routine
At one point he discusses the fact that when he’s with that big group of guys, they all try to see who can last the longest on the wall squats. In this routine, we did wall squats for 3 minutes and single leg wall squats later for about 1 minute 40 seconds. I honestly think that the wall squats were probably the toughest part about this routine. Although Tony may act like this is an intense cardio workout, it’s really just a low intensity plyometrics routine.
I probably will refrain from doing it again in the future unless I’m feeling really burnt out and need a low intensity plyo routine. I think this workout had a lot of potential to be tough if it was all crammed into 30 minutes – then it would probably be like one of Shaun T’s Insanity routines. Since it is extended out to almost 60 minutes with Tony’s breaks and talking, I really didn’t get much cardio at all.
Doing extra reps… still not quite tough enough
I even did extra reps on most of the exercises and just thought that it wasn’t as tough as it should be for a One on One workout. Yesterday’s routine of the Upper Body Massacre was one of the toughest upper body resistance workouts that I have ever done. With that said, I’m starting to realize that Tony Horton doesn’t really do intense cardio – mostly just intense strength. And you know what? I am NOT mad at that because I think that strength is extremely important. Anyways, I’m going to break this routine down so that you get an idea of what exercises he did here. If you do this routine and were expecting a cardio blast like me, you probably will be wondering why he didn’t just cram these moves into about half the time with more reps – then this could have been an impressive workout.
One on One with Tony Horton: Plyo Legs Review
Warm Up: Jump Rope + Stretches
For the warm up, you should probably do some jumping jacks or jump rope if you want to be like Tony. I used my jump rope that I came with The Asylum and did some jump rope moves that I learned from Shaun T to get a nice light warm up going. When my little warm up was complete, I followed some of Tony’s stretches and did some of my own. For these One on One workouts, you don’t really need to follow his stretches verbatim – I recommend doing whatever you think will get you most loosened up for this workout.
Since this is a plyo legs routine, you will definitely want to make sure that you have your legs stretched out. So do some hamstring stretches, calf stretches, lunges, groin stretches, and consider some quad stretches as well – do whatever you think you need. The one thing that you should make sure you do though is get a good warm up before you start stretching. If you start stretching completely cold, there is really no point in even stretching. So get your heart rate up, get your leg muscles loosened up and do what you need to do. I would recommend jump roping for at least 5 minutes like Tony did.
Plyo Legs Workout Exercises
Tony Horton: Plyo Legs Workout (Preview) (Video)
There are a total of 20 exercises in Plyo Legs and Tony Horton goes right down the list. Unfortunately, he does take some ridiculously long breaks so that your heart rate drops down. I realize that the man is in his 50’s and he is impressive with all of his strength workouts. This routine just isn’t really as tough as it should be or could be. I love hearing Tony Horton talk and crack jokes (he’s hilarious), but in a routine like this, I thought he could have been more focused and finished these in literally under 30 minutes to really get my heart rate up. Of course now that I know the exercises I could technically do the workout on my own.
1. Calf Raise Squats (30 to 45 reps)
For the calf raise squats, you are expected to do 40 reps, which is pretty easy. If you are using proper form, you will feel your legs having to do some work though. For these, you have legs slightly wider than shoulder width, and you go down into a deep squat – keeping your chest up and touching the ground. As you come up from the squat, you reach overhead and come onto your tip toes (tippy toes). These will get your heart rate up and if your flexible enough, you can put your palms on the floor each time you go down to intensify things. When you are done with this exercise, he talks about Kobe Bryant and Allen Iverson using compression bands on their arms to help prevent muscle soreness. Then he shows that he is wearing compression shorts because they help prevent leg soreness – I wear compression shorts too; nothing else would make sense.
2. Run Stance Squats (40 to 60 reps)
To do these, you go down into fighter stance and do 5 squats, then do a quick 180 degree jump and do 5 from the other side. You keep jumping every fifth rep until you reach a total of 50. These are not very tough, but should get your legs into the routine; it will make them work a little bit. I am glad that Tony was able to at least do 50 reps – I suggest doing 60 if you are able to because this workout has plenty of talking breaks.
3. Super Skaters (20 to 30 reps each leg)
If you have done P90X, you should know what super skaters are. They involve balancing on one leg while kicking your other leg back in the air, and then bringing it up to your chest. The arm opposite the leg that kicks back also goes back when the leg goes back, and comes forward when the leg comes forward. I was able to do 20 each leg no problem. I wish I would have done 30 but Tony stopped at 20 so I followed his lead. If you don’t have good balance, these may seem tough, but with practice, you should be able to do these no problem. In case you were wondering, you do 20 total reps per leg while the other is balancing – try to avoid touching the ground if you can help it.
4. Side Long Jump with Squat (30 to 45 reps)
For this particular move, Tony sets up dots that he cut out of cardboard. They are basically just small circles that he uses as targets for his jumping. For the side long jump, you basically jump right to left, and left to right, back and forth for a total of 30 to 45 reps. I believe I ended up doing about 50 reps because I felt like I needed more of a workout than what I was getting. When you jump, it is important to realize that having control and balance is of utmost importance. So really if you do a ton of reps but don’t have the control, you are cheating yourself out of the actual exercise. When you jump to the right, you land on your right foot only (touch the ground with your right hand) as you go down into a single leg squat – keeping your left foot suspended in the air. You do the same thing on the other side and hop back and forth until Tony stops. For this I folded my ladder from The Asylum so that it was three rungs long and then did my jumps on the outside of it – this exercise worked out perfectly. Make sure you choose a jumping width that actually makes you “jump” to the side a good distance so that you get your leg moving.
5. Wall Squat (1 to 3 minutes)
This was probably one of the hardest moves in the entire Plyo Legs routine and to be honest, I had a tough time hanging with Tony here. This was personally challenging and I’m glad he included it because without this move, my ass and legs wouldn’t have felt as sore as they do now. I’m glad that Tony decided to stick it out for the full 3 minutes here and I also liked how he talked about doing this workout with his ski buddies. They all sit around during wall squats, tell stories, and see who can last the longest. I think he said that they sometimes go for 6 to 8 minutes which is super crazy or as Whitney Cummings would say, “uber cray cray.” For this move, you can shift your weight by tilting one foot switching back and forth. I tried the tilting when I was getting tired, but the burn was still there… These are wicked.
6. Superstar Lunges (30 to 40 reps)
These are also commonly referred to as Mary Katherine Lunges and you can add weight if you want. Tony uses a 4 pound medicine ball, and I decided to use a 10 pound dumbbell. To do these, you basically do lunges with a jump in between while lifting your weight above your head during the jump, swinging it around to the side of your body with the leg in front. Tony actually makes it through the full 40 reps and really picks it up when he gets to 30. I would have been fine if he had done 50. If you don’t add weight to this, it’s not going to be as intense and you may not get a very big burn.
7. Groucho Walk (50 to 100 steps with weight)
Do you remember the Groucho walk from P90X with Dreya? I do cuz “ain’t no such thing as a sanity clause.” Well Tony does something similar in this workout but adds a leg raise or kick. He wants to actually call these “Monster Grouchos” because they are more intense than regular ones. I actually felt it in my legs by the time I made it to 25 reps like Tony. I am kind of wondering if there was an error on Tony’s worksheet or something that made him write “50 to 100 steps” with weight. We only did 25 steps (5 forward, 5 back, 5 forward, 5 back, 5 forward) and I definitely felt the burn. It could have definitely been intensified with weight and more reps though!
8. Run Stance Squat Switch (30 to 45 reps)
For these, you get into run stance and do squat switches as rapidly as possible while using good form. You do a 180 degree spin after touching down for each squat switch. You are supposed to touch the ground each time with the hand on the same side of your body as the front foot when you land. Tony makes sure that you know about keeping your chest up with good form. I think if he wanted to impress people and really kick their ass, he could have done 50, 75, or even 100 reps. I would have been game for more reps for sure.
9. Deadlift Squats (15 to 30 reps each leg)
You should already know these from Day 5 P90X Legs and Back, but if you don’t, they involve balancing on one leg. You balance on one leg, reach overhead, then bend over, kick the foot in the air back while touching the ground with your hands, and then reach back up overhead. Tony lets you know that these will also work your core if you are doing the move correctly. I felt like this move was mostly working my core and that the balance was pretty easy. A cool move, but let’s face it, 50 reps per leg would have been more realistic. It was hilarious to hear about Tony’s new 10 minute trainer videos halfway through this move…haha
10. Leapfrog Squats (60 to 80 reps with weight)
For the leapfrog squats, Tony decides to use a 6 pound medicine ball. He sets the goal of doing 20 reps per side while using weight. I decided to use a 25 pound dumbbell since I knew we weren’t going to do many reps. We did 5 forward, 5 back, 5 forward, and 5 back. For these, you start with your weight on the floor in a low squat, and then hop forward bringing the weight to your heart with each jump. Even with 25 pounds, these were honestly not too difficult. Just like the last exercise, doing more reps would have been nice. He has 60 to 80 reps written on his sheet, but we did one third of that which was definitely pretty easy.
11. Chair Salutations (x2) (30 to 45 seconds)
Everyone should know how to do these chair salutations. You do a quick swan dive, then go down, sit back like you are squatting, and raise your hands overhead while looking straight ahead. You hold these twice for 45 seconds which turns out to be easier than expected. Definitely an exercise I liked though – I think he could have done these twice for a full minute and they would have been perfect. At the end of these, you get to do a little hamstring pedal to loosen up your legs before the next move.
12. Four Corners (4 Corner Jumps) (15 to 30 rounds)
Tony takes back out his cut up coasters and places them on the floor. This is just like the side long jump with squats except there are four positions on the floor where you jump. Instead of just side to side hops, you hop side to side, diagonal from back to front, and diagonal from front to back. You also change directions and these can be somewhat challenging if you set a good distance for your jumps. Landing on one foot is pretty wicked, but I think this could have been longer for sure. When he wrote 15 to 30 rounds, I’m pretty sure 1 round equals 4 hops (one to each spot).
13. Single Leg Wall Squat (1 to 2 minutes)
For these, your legs are probably still going to be tired from the first 3 minute dual leg wall squat. But the nice thing about these is that you get to switch legs every 10 seconds. Tony has us going for a total of 1 minute 40 seconds so that we work each leg equally. If you want more of a burn, try to lift the leg in the air higher while flexing or pointing your toe. I always flex it back, but Tony was doing a lot of pointing which also works. These were pretty darn tough, I was glad when I finished this exercise for sure. It was another one that built up the burn for me. I don’t know how he had lactic acid here though, but he did talk about what to do if you also have lactic acid build up during a workout.
14. Tires (Wacky Jacks) (50 to 100 reps)
It should be noted that doing one tire to the right, and then one to the left counts as one rep. So technically you are doing a total of 200 reps, but each combination left and right counts as a rep so it ends up being 100. These are basically wacky jacks, but he wants you to envision lifting your legs over 2 big tires. He also hawks up some snot and spits it outside because it he recovering from a cold. These are actually another exercise that I enjoyed because I felt like we did enough reps at 100 and I actually felt like I worked hard here.
15. Rolling ISO Lunge (30 to 50 reps each leg)
This is like doing Toe Roll Iso Lunges from the Legs and Back workout without weights. Since you do make it all the way up to 50 reps per leg, you will feel a burn in your front leg each time. For these, you basically do a long lunge and rock your back toe back and forth until you have reached 50. Tony apparently is lightheaded after these. I remember being lightheaded when I used weights during Legs and Back, but these weren’t as hard. If we added weights these would be killer – especially if we had to do 50 reps. I suggest adding weights if you think these are too easy. By the 50th rep you should be feeling some burn regardless of whether you decided to use weights though.
16. Squat Jacks (30 to 50 reps)
Tony hypes these up like they are tough, but they really aren’t very difficult. You basically do squat jacks so that when you come up from your squat, you do not straighten out your legs – you go into chair pose. So you basically are going from squat to chair pose, to squat, and using good form the entire time. I think we probably should have done like 75 of these for maximum burn, but Tony wasn’t feeling his best today so I understand.
17. Slide Lunge Reach (20 to 40 reps)
For this move, Tony decides to use the medicine ball and says you can used dumbbells or “an old skull, whatever you got laying around the house”…haha. Unfortunately I didn’t have any old skulls heavy enough to give me a challenge though so I just used my 25 pound dumbbell. These were pretty cool because they gave me a little bit of a burn and felt like a warm up move from the Day 2 of The Asylum: Strength workout. Anyways, for these, you lunge to the right, bring your weight to the ground, then bring your foot back to the center, and raise your weight up overhead. After you have raised your weight, you bring it down and do the same lunge with the weight to the other side. Tony impressed me on this one doing 40 reps; I still would have been fine with him bumping it up to 50 reps though…haha.
18. Run Stance 180 Jump Switch (20 to 40 left & right)
This is another cool move and these are basically the same as run stance squat switch, except you are touching down with the same hand each time and are maintaining the same leg in front each time. For half of the time you touch down with your left hand and keep your left foot in front and for the other half of the time you touch down with your right hand and keep your right foot in front. Pretty basic move, but what I really liked was Tony’s energy on this move… he was really bookin it. He thinks it’s the toughest move in the workout, but I totally disagree. It probably got my heart rate up more than most of the other moves, but the wall squats were tougher.
19. One Legged Speed Squats (25 to 50 reps)
For these, you basically go down into a squat, touch your fingers to the floor, and jump up as high as you can to try to touch the rafters in the ceiling. The only catch is that you use only one leg as your primary leg to push off with instead of both – the other leg is used for balance. So you do 20 reps to work one leg and then switch to the other leg for the next 20 reps or so. I would recommend doing more than Tony here because he didn’t really do much. But he didn’t let his ego get in the way of his workout because he didn’t want to get hurt, which is definitely smart and a good move. Although my ceiling isn’t the highest, I did more than the 18 reps that Tony did. Seriously, after finishing The Asylum, I don’t think I could have settled for anything less than 25 reps per side here. Tony did put on a good show though and did his best while forgetting the rest.
20. The Egan Brother (60 to 120 reps)
Apparently the Egan Brothers are part of his X team or Extreme Ski Team. Since this is his skiing workout, it is only appropriate to name one of the moves after some skiers. For this move you also use imaginary ski poles and you hop back and forth like you are slaloming on skis in a zig zag pattern. These weren’t quite as easy as I expected them to be because Tony does actually do the full 120 reps here. A pretty good way to end this workout – I thought it was cool.
Plyo Legs Review (Conclusion)
At the end of the workout, you should definitely make sure that you do some cool down stretches. After all, even if the workout seemed easy to you (as it did for me), you still worked your leg muscles for about 60 minutes. It is imperative that you make sure you stretch out after in order to help your muscles recover. Stretching afterwards is in my opinion a lot more important than stretching before a workout like this, but you should do both if you can.
The tip of the day today was “pace yourself and modify.” Tony says “don’t be a hero and try to keep up with me” and then gives a leering stare and cites “Mark Briggs, Robert Hutchins, Tracy Morrow, and Phoenix Hawk” as people who would try to keep up with him. To be honest though, I think most people who do this workout won’t have much of a problem keeping up with him – it really wasn’t that tough.
Who should do this Plyo Legs workout?
I think that the ideal candidate for this workout would be someone that wants a very low intensity plyometrics slash leg workout. The pace of this routine is nice and slow and you don’t really have to worry about being out of breath at all. Additionally, I think that this workout is ideal for skiers since it is the workout that Tony Horton uses with his ski team. It does focus on strengthening the legs and glutes without weights or a machine. I would recommend this routine for middle aged adults that want to do some fairly low intensity plyo. UPDATE: The following day after this workout, my glutes (a.k.a. my ass) is sore from these moves. I think that it’s probably from the wall squats which I am not used to doing. Looking back, I think I will try this routine again in the future because the burn was certainly there and it worked my legs. I was disappointed in the fact that it wasn’t intense cardio, but I felt soreness in my lower body, legs, and glutes so I definitely know Tony hit the nail on the head with this one.
The length of time and variety is what makes this workout good
Although this did have some moments of moderate intensity, the only reason that it ended up being an okay workout was because of the sheer length of time and the variety of different exercises. When it ended, I was sweaty, I did feel like I had done a workout, but it felt like I had done a pretty easy workout in terms of difficulty and cardio. I was going to do another full workout but decided that I shouldn’t go for cardio overkill. So what I did decide to do when this workout ended was the Killer Abs workout DVD that is also in this One on One series.
I will write up a review of that when I have some more time, but for now, hopefully you got a better understanding of what you do in this routine as well as the fact that it is easier than nearly all of the P90X plyo and leg workouts except Day 91: Cardio X (Plyometrics Alternative) (which is pretty much a joke). Based on my experience, doing the Insanity Fast and Furious 20 minute workout is probably just as tough and can be done in one third of the time or twice back to back for more of a workout than you’ll get with this One on One routine.