P90X Series: Kenpo X

Tony Horton
Year Released: 2004

Categories: Boxing/Kickboxing/Martial Arts


I love kickboxing, and although I hadn't tried any of the videos in the P90X series, when I had the opportunity to borrow Kenpo X, I jumped at the chance. Instructor Tony Horton leads a mostly drill-based kickboxing workout that will really fry your upper body in particular (especially if you wear weighted gloves like I did!). The workout begins with a 12-minute series of yoga-like stretches. I didn't like how Tony jumped right into the stretching without warming up the muscles first, but I did enjoy the stretches, especially the hip openers.

The cardio portion of the program begins with a twist and pivot move: standing in fighting stance, you'll simply twist your body from side to side without throwing any punches. In fact, Tony really emphasizes the movement in your hips and torso throughout this entire workout (I could definitely feel it in my sides the next day!). For the next 13 minutes or so, he leads you through punching drills only, from simple jabs to jab-cross-hook-uppercut combinations. There's nothing too complicated here, but working on the arms alone for so long really gets them fatigued! Tony generally does 25-30 repetitions per side, sometimes performing the final 5-10 reps at a faster speed and/or with sound effects; countdown clocks on screen show both number of reps left and total workout time left. Following the punches comes the first cardio interval (there are 4 of these 1.5 minute intervals throughout the workout). Tony does jogs, jump rope, jumping jacks, and finishes with 10 power jacks (jumping into an X position).

The next 10 minutes consists mainly of kicking drills. Tony does front (ball), side, and back kicks, then combines all three. He does some kick-punch combinations and throws in some unique moves that I haven't seen in other kickboxing videos, such as a step-drag to the front, a sword/hammer move to the side, and a punch-claw move (a total time of about 3.5 minutes). There are two cardio intervals during this segment, one after the kicks only and another following the combos. The final cardio segment is a 5-minute series of blocking moves. Although I found these to be fun and enjoyable, my heart rate went down during this segment, and I couldn't follow Tony when he combined a series of blocks together. There is one more cardio interval, and then the final aerobic move in the workout is 100 vertical punches (ie, thumbs up, palms in) to the front; Tony starts these slow, eventually speeding them up and actually completely more than 100 reps.

The workout ends with a 4.5 minute cool-down. Tony does about 1.5 minutes of a gentle aerobic cool-down (eg, slow jog, kicks) and then moves into 3 minutes of yoga-like stretches, including wide-legged standing forward bend, down dog, and a standing quad stretch. The entire workout time is just under an hour, or about 58.5 minutes. Overall, I found this to be a good kickboxing workout, although I wish that the intensity level had been a bit more consistent throughout. It would probably be best-suited to those who prefer kickboxing drills and simple combos to more choreographed kickboxing routines.

Instructor Comments:
This was my first exposure to Tony, and I was surprised by how goofy he is! He frequently calls his 3 background exercisers "dude" (including the one female) and says things like "whatever turns you on." He sometimes exercises, sometimes moves around the class, and he does not mirror cue. Although I didn't have any problems with his instruction or his personality, I can definitely see how some people might find him to be annoying. I thought the music (which was barely audible at times) enhanced the workout nicely, but the DVD offers both music off and instruction off options.

Beth C (aka toaster)

03/08/2007