For wonks, stars and average Joes, Tony Horton is 'the man' with the workout plan

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TV pitchman Tony Horton's keys to fitness

The counterintuitive success of Horton's grueling P90X exercise program is winning toned-up converts -- even on the Hill.

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Inside the gym, Horton had earlier adjusted the volume on his headset.

"Hello, this is God," he says playfully. "Do push-ups."

'Bringing it'

America wants fitness to be effortless. America wants to just take the stairs, get off the bus one stop early, skip the soda. America wants workout DVDs that will fit into the commercial breaks, that are described as "Easy" or better yet, "EZ."

Therefore, the success of P90X, which has sold more than 2 million sets at a steep $119.85 a pop, is counterintuitive. Its selling point is that it is really, really hard.

You have seen the high-octane infomercials, yes? In their "Before" pictures the participants are pale and fleshy, like the dough that explodes out of a Pillsbury Crescent Roll tube. In their "Afters" they are ripped: rolling pectorals and half-moon buttocks. P90X is the workout for studs -- which doesn't mean it's not for women, it's just that the women are also studs, like that mom in the DVDs who has six kids and is probably the studliest of them all.

The 12 DVDs are only a portion of P90X. The Nutrition Plan tells Xers what to eat and how much and when. The message boards teem with people who speak the P90X language, which is a language of "Bringing it," the phrase that can be affixed to the end of any declaration: Even my eyeballs hurt today. Bring it!

"I think a lot of companies that have made fitness products have underestimated people's desire to work hard," Horton says. He's sitting in a French restaurant near Eastern Market after the Results workout, avoiding the bread basket, requesting that his salad be made without cheese and his fish without cream.

At 52, he looks 32, with dark wavy hair, an unlined face and biceps that are ads for the proverbial gun show.

Horton grew up in Connecticut and Rhode Island. After studying theater and communications at the University of Rhode Island, a then-waifish Horton moved to Los Angeles, where he still lives. The wannabe actor got work as a mime and as an assistant on movie sets until his agent told him he might get more acting jobs if he bulked up. The options at his gym were boring, so he joined three additional ones for variety, cobbling together his own homemade workouts. In the late '80s, an exec at one of his jobs noticed his physical transformation and asked Horton to train him as well.

The exec later ran into Tom Petty, who remarked that he was looking newly buff; Horton soon became the rocker's trainer.

"He said, 'Hey, Tony, can you get me in shape? I got a tour in three months,' " Horton says.

Three months. The groundwork for a 90-day body revolution. Horton's initial workout program was called Power 90; P90X came in 2004 after a year of consulting with fitness experts in various fields.