EFR 759: The Most Common Fitness Mistakes, Creating P90X, How to Reduce Stress, and Training Celebrities with Tony Horton

06:40 - Chase (Host) Cut. What is it, though? As someone who is 65 years old, you clearly care about this for yourself and your profession. How do you keep this passion for fitness longevity alive, decade after decade?

06:56 - Tony (Guest) Well, when I was a wee lad and I was poor and I was sad and I was depressed and I was out of shape and I was single and I was broke, I didn't like those things. You know what I mean. And I mean I had a speech impediment. That really made life hard for me when I was as a youngster and maybe through college, and then I worked at trying to eliminate that and it took some effort Reading a lot of books out loud, listening to the recordings afterward doing it. I chose acting in high school and college just as a means to learn somebody else's words, and a lot of people who have a speech impediment or stutter they can sing brilliantly, but in their normal conversation they have to sing.

07:35 - Chase (Host) Is that normal cadence? That's the issue. Yeah.

07:36 - Tony (Guest) And so I got to learn to the lines. That kind of slowed me down and so I had a lot of obstacles and I played intramural basketball and football. My father was a super jock but I wasn't. He was on the road a lot because of work, so I was in a house with my two sisters and my mom so I didn't have a brother or a father mentor and all the coaches and stuff from the 70s were all about the win-loss column. They weren't really about the quality of my life and my athleticism. They really want to work with me. Either you performed on the court or on the field or you didn't. And if you made the team or you didn't and I made the football team but it was more of a tackling dummy on Monday through Thursday than I was a player Like I would roll around during the warm-ups in the dirt and mud, so I looked like I played.

08:17 - Chase (Host) Hey, every part of the team matters, right? At least that's just what they tell all the people not playing.

08:22 - Tony (Guest) I didn't matter, I did it because I wanted to wear my jersey on Fridays, because I thought girls in school would want to date me. I did it for all the wrong reasons. So, because of all the trials, tribulations and difficulties I had as a youngster, I took a weightlifting course in college. It was a course I go, ok. Well, I'm going to learn how to do this properly, because I never had a you know. All right, what do I have to learn?

08:42 - Chase (Host) It was an actual class. It was an actual class for credits.

08:45 - Tony (Guest) It was for credits it was a single credit and I got an AA and what I liked about it was the exercise science and the kinesiology and why muscles do what they do and how to work them and how often and how many reps and range of motion and working on all those different things I didn't know about. I went oh, this is going to equate to my general athleticism as a person when I play other sports and the number one reason was the coach or the teacher. The teacher of the class was a fun, cool dude. I mean, he was just super encouraging. I had never had a mentor like that. I didn't get that from my dad. He was a tank commander in the army. He was a hard ass.

09:21 - Chase (Host) Oh, wow, that is.

09:22 - Tony (Guest) He was a hard ass. You know, it was like my way of the highway kind of thing and whatever. Everybody has their parents' story. You can get over it. So I met this guy and I got jacked and I got strong and my GPA went up that month because little bit of that and stayed jacked and strong. Well, no, I stayed jacked and strong for that course of that semester. And then, when the course was over, I had no reason to go back to the gym.

09:41 I was just back to my skinny little self again, and long story short. I moved out to California and I saw the culture out here in this place there's gyms on every corner and there's the Beach Volleyball and there's skiing in the local mountains and I went oh, wow, this is really cool and a lot of you know. I look at an aerobics class and go oh women, can I go in there? Can I go in that room? Sure, like I'm going in.

10:04 - Chase (Host) You know what I mean Like is this all women by design? Am I allowed or not?

10:07 - Tony (Guest) Yeah, I just thought because, you know, dudes were not usually taking aerobics classes and I was a single lonely guy. You know, I wanted to meet people and I'd go to clubs and bars.

10:16 - Chase (Host) And it was.

10:16 - Tony (Guest) You know, it's the usual hellscape and I just thought these are the kind of people I want to hang out with because they care about their health and their wellness and their fitness. So I joined one gym, then another, then another, then I joined World Gym and I'm watching them, taking notes, with Arnold Schwartz and Ergon Lou Frigo. Ok 47 set to chest.

10:30 - Chase (Host) Seems extreme but OK, you know if you're like all right, taking notes of what they're doing, what it looks like.

10:35 - Tony (Guest) Three and a half hours of squats with weights. Ok, I'll do it. You know what I mean, and so I mean. And then I noticed that I you know, and when you read a book like Spark John Rae Deeb's book Spark you understand the effects of physical activity on not only your aesthetics or your appearance or the numbers on the scale or whatever you think is important, which turns out not to be so important after you get to a certain age. It's really your mental and emotional state. And so I discovered a long time ago and I still work out because I like that Look at this, everybody.

11:03 You got to check out the video. That's my torn box. My man is 65 over here, my other one's better.

11:07 - Chase (Host) There's a little bit better. You got bigger biceps than I do.

11:09 - Tony (Guest) Oh man, not bad for an old cat. And I just felt better and I had more energy and I slept better and there were all these other things, these ancillary positive effects in my life and it helped me get off my ass. And then you know that, in conjunction with making some better food choices Because I was living on hot dogs and burgers and pizza and double cheese, chimichangos, you know what I mean I was just like whatever I could afford and I had 47 jobs, most of them odd.

11:33 One of them being a panamide at the pier in Santa Monica or whatever I had to do to eat, or I was a handyman and I was a general assistant manager at men's clothing store. Whatever the job needed, I was a go-go dancer at Chippendales for a summer.

11:46 - Chase (Host) Oh, can we get some footage? I need some b-roll of that. You'll have to pull that out. You're not going to find that there's no cell phone footage of that.

11:51 - Tony (Guest) You're not going to find that people You're going to have to. There were no phones back then.

11:54 - Chase (Host) You got to dig deep, you got to dig deep.

11:56 - Tony (Guest) So the bottom line is it makes me a better, more productive human being and I like the way I feel and I like the way I look and it helps me. Just it keeps my enthusiasm for life up. Without it it's down, with it it's up, and I learned later on that that works for everybody once you find the formula and you find your reason why A lot of people are doing this stuff for all the wrong reasons. And I figure I found this formula and I've transcended that to I don't know several million people.

12:30 - Chase (Host) And a few of those million people. I know the content you create and the courses and the videos and all this stuff. You reach millions of people in all walks of life. But as someone who has been at the top of the fitness game for so long, sure you have worked with some. You don't need to say any names.

12:46 - Tony (Guest) I'll say names, they don't care.

12:47 - Chase (Host) Who are some of the most known people that you have worked with and what have been the biggest barriers to getting their shit together? Staying adherent, because what I'm going for here is we're all human right and when we embark on our fitness journey.

13:02 - Tony (Guest) We all come up with the same BS. No, what you're saying.

13:05 - Chase (Host) This is my first fully AI guest Ace chase, ace space Reboot reboot. That was actually pretty good.

13:13 - Tony (Guest) Well, I was the Panama man. Take me back to the Panama man. Yeah, yeah, yeah, hello, oh shit, I didn't expect him to act. Man 25 dollars in a hat. I run to the local liquor store and I buy myself Cheerios and yogurt and live on it for three days. I did that time and time.

13:27 - Chase (Host) So were you on the if it fits your macros game. Before that was a thing.

13:31 - Tony (Guest) I was on the what.

13:32 - Chase (Host) If it fits your macros, iifym, that kind of like trend and diet culture for a while, maybe like 10 years ago.

13:37 - Tony (Guest) Yeah, my macros were Cheerios and yogurt man. I couldn't afford vitamins.

13:41 - Chase (Host) So is that what you're passing on to the celebrities?

13:43 - Tony (Guest) Macros I could afford and micros I could not. I couldn't afford them.

13:47 - Chase (Host) What about the craziest encounter with a well-known person author, celebrity, and like, what did you have to do to get them out? Here I say that huh.

13:55 - Tony (Guest) Well, you know my first. I started training my boss. I was a runner over at 20 Century Fox, a PA, a productionist.

14:00 - Chase (Host) Oh, okay, okay.

14:01 - Tony (Guest) And that was one of my many jobs and that was a real, like a real job and what was cool about it? I was auditioning and going to acting classes and I was with Second City, la and I was this was before I tried standup and I tried that for a while. This was all just trying to, you know, get my cone ace to heart. Well, what? Haven't you done in LA, I mean you just gotta do what you gotta do to eat and live and survive and not have to go back to Connecticut with your tail between your legs, you know.

14:23 So I was training this guy, harlan Goodman, and he was in the music industry, and he and this woman, julia Phillips, who was a producer, who, and her husband, john Phillips, produced Close Encounter of the Third Kind Taxi Driver with Nair, oh, wow, wow, wow. And the Sting with Robert Rudford and.

14:38 - Chase (Host) Paul.

14:38 - Tony (Guest) Newman. So you know I was with some big shots, but it was crazy. I mean, she was, she was she's passed away, but she was hard and I got fired almost every Friday because I didn't change the light bulb properly or something, or I hid the pot someplace where she couldn't find it.

14:53 - Chase (Host) Whatever it was, that I had to do.

14:57 - Tony (Guest) And Harlan was noticing my transformation as I was starting to work out, because my agent at that time I mean I had an agent. I mean big movie stars go on Johnny Carson and they have agents that I have one. So she must be a goddess. And she said you're pudgy and you're skinny and we're not gonna hire that.

15:11 Like I had a little belly and I was. You know, I wasn't working out anymore since that college course. And so I went to the gym and over the three months period, I mean, I got into it and Harlan, my boss, was like damn dude, what's going on with you? And I said you know, you let me go on auditions. And according to my agent, I look like ass. So I said, let me, what are you doing? I go, I'm doing it in my buddy's garage. So we started, I started training my boss and then I started training some, some people that worked on the lot, and I found these two doctors that I was starting to train. I went well, maybe I'm a trainer now. Of course that wasn't certified. I didn't know anything from anything.

15:43 - Chase (Host) You were just the fitness guy.

15:44 - Tony (Guest) I was just a guy I was working out and I was spying on everybody else in four different gyms and and I got Harlan to lose 35 pounds, he and I both quit at the same time. He went back to East End Management, which at that time was on Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood. And then when and I've told the story more than once, and so here comes my Tom Petty impression, get ready, here it comes. So Harlan's walking down the hall looking all spelt and gorgeous and everything else. And there's Tom Petty walking down the hall.

16:09 - Chase (Host) Not bad, not bad.

16:11 - Tony (Guest) He sees Harlan he's from Gainesville, tom and he goes holy crap, harlan, you look fantastic, I'm fat and I'm going on tour and nobody likes a fat rocker. So Tom Harlan says to Tom, you'll call Tony Horton. Oh, let me get Tony Horton's number so he writes it down. He calls up my apartment, apartment that I lived in for 21 and a half years 1438, 15th Street, number seven. So if you're watching, I lived there a long time, Same carpets the entire time. I'm assuming they've been changed since then.

16:38 - Chase (Host) The go-go dancing in his old apartment. You gotta do our research.

16:40 - Tony (Guest) Here it's gonna be a role. Good luck.

16:41 - Chase (Host) I'm gonna do some driving around after this one.

16:43 - Tony (Guest) Good luck man, and so the phone rang in my roommate, bob, who dragged me out to California. Thank God, picked up the phone and Tom goes. Oh, it's Tom and Penny.

16:54 - Chase (Host) I'm looking for Tony Horton and Bob goes dude, it's, I think, the guy's downstairs, so he hung up the phone on Tom Petty. He's like bullshitting, I go. It's not Tom Petty hang up the phone.

17:03 - Tony (Guest) It's John downstairs screwing around, and so the phone rang again. Hey, somebody we got hung up on. I got hung up on, so I go give me the phone. It was Tom and he's told me about Harlan. And I was at Tom's house the next day and I got him ready for this tour. I had him for four months. We hit the heavy bag. We were lifting weights, we were on the life cycle, we were doing pushups and whatever, and then he went off on tour. He tore all the sleeves off his shirts. He was wearing vests without shirts on. He was jacked and strided, like me.

17:27 His voice was better. The whole band was like he kept-.

17:30 - Chase (Host) I know the vest look of Tom and the Harbringers, yeah yeah, the vest look yeah Iconic.

17:34 - Tony (Guest) Yeah, you're welcome, damn, and so are you, and so are you.

17:37 - Chase (Host) Wow, the ripple effects of history that you don't know, you don't know that, you don't know about.

17:42 - Tony (Guest) Wow, you know, when Tom passed away it was a tough, tough, tough time. But then it was Tom Petty, Billy Eidel, Bruce Springsteen, Annie Lennox, Stephen Stills, Bryce Dallas Howard, Allison Janney, Octavia Spencer, Joey Fatone, I mean like- no way. There was a period there when everybody was in town.

18:02 I'd start out with this producer over at Fox, this woman, donna Dubrow, and her sister, and then I'd go to Billy's house and then from Billy's house I'd go to Tom Petty's house, and from Tom Petty's house, annie Lennox from the Erythmix lived around the corner. So I'd go to Annie's house and then I'd go to Stephen Stills' house. I couldn't help it. Stephen just didn't want to look out. I could do a book on Stephen Stills, it was so much fun. And then I finished at the boss's house. If I wasn't training Bruce, I was training Patty. So I kept rockin' and rollin'. Live from the 60s and 70s.

18:32 - Chase (Host) Literally, you're welcome. Literally, yeah. This podcast is already going a totally different direction in my mind, like I gotta get you back. This is not meant for ever for Radio. I need to create a whole new show around the things in history that you didn't know were influenced by such little nuances, weird things.

18:49 - Tony (Guest) And the second part of your question is training all of them and all their managers, and all the King's horses and all the King's men were like, OK, hey, who's this kid and where is he from, and we've never heard him before. But they saw what happened to Petty and they're like, OK, you must know what the hell he's doing.

19:03 - Chase (Host) I mean that's not a bad testimonial. It's kind of a word of mouth thing.

19:06 - Tony (Guest) But it was those training techniques and those methods and the variety that I gave them and we called it muscle confusion with P90X, which is a made up term, it just was trying to. I mean, jack LaLaine had periodization training which is his way of doing it. And we just said and Billy Idol used to call me muscle confucius.

19:22 - Chase (Host) Oh, muscle confusion, so you went confusion.

19:25 - Tony (Guest) Yes, we went.

19:26 - Chase (Host) Muscle confusion, muscle confusion, hold up, hold up, hold up, hold up. So hold up One of the most iconic whether you believe it or not terminology or terms in the fitness industry. That's the story. I'm blown right now.

19:42 - Tony (Guest) I mean I was watching it go went out and said muscle confusion is crap, it's bullshit, it doesn't, doesn't mean anything, it's a made up.

19:48 - Chase (Host) We didn't say it was made up, it was a Tony Asel I go.

19:50 - Tony (Guest) I was like I almost was going to like hey Arnold, let me tell you the story and where it came from before you.

19:55 - Chase (Host) No shit from Billy Idol, you said.

19:57 - Tony (Guest) Yeah, billy, because I would say, billy, we're going to do this Today, we're going to do this. I want you to work on your weaknesses as much as your strengths, because if you get into a pattern, you know what I mean. It's like eating broccoli breakfast, lunch and dinner. Right, it's not. You're not going to get the nutrients and the vitamins that you need from just one thing.

20:13 - Chase (Host) You're going to get bored. You're going to do the pilates.

20:14 - Tony (Guest) You need to do the yoga, you need to hit the heavy bag. You need to get on the treadmill, you need to do interval training. I mean you need to do you know fart lick stuff. You need to lift heavy, you need to high reps, you need low reps, you need bigger range of motion. You need you can do, you need cheat reps. Let's go.

20:29 - Chase (Host) And we have muscle confusion from Billy Idol. Billy Idol and Tony Hort.

20:34 - Tony (Guest) Oh my god, when we're done here I'm texting all of my fitness friends and coaches you know that's where that term came from and then give Arnold a call and tell him to stop giving him a hard time.

20:46 - Chase (Host) Fast forward to now that's your origins, to where? It's fantastic and you clearly have been doing it for yourself and for your profession for decades now. Are you finding or do you believe there is a difference in physical fitness for general training and exercise, let's say muscle building, body composition change versus longevity? You know someone who has longevity in the game now. Is your training different?

21:09 - Tony (Guest) You know, my feeling is you should probably focus on doing everything right now, because the past is history and the future is a mystery. My man, right? So what do you got? You got right here right now. So you want to train a certain way, you want to eat a certain way, you want to make sure there's a certain amount of mindfulness in your lifestyle, you want to surround yourself with the right kind of positive, upbeat people. No more finger pointers and naysayers and A-holes. You know what I mean. If they're in, get them out, because they're dragging you like an acre down to the bottom of the ocean. Right? So that's all the things that you need to do for now. Like longevity. I've been to so many long-jevity conferences where there's hack one and hack two. It's a big hackathon on how to take this or do that, or massage oil on your index finger knuckles so that you can. You know whatever.

21:52 - Chase (Host) I mean fine Wild kettlebell swimming in a cold crunch, and I've been to those events and 75% of them are overweight and couldn't climb a set of stairs if the escalator was out.

21:58 - Tony (Guest) You know what I'm saying. So my whole philosophy is let's all work on the things that we need to do that are important to you. If you want to go to Italy and you want to get on a bike tour on the Appian way, where Caesar spent some time when he built Rome from nothing you know what I mean Then you can either A exercise five to six days a week the rest of your life, eat some healthy food, a lot of vegetables. All right, you can be paleo, keto or vegetarian, vegan or whatever the heck you want to be, but let's make sure that it's not fat, sugar, salt and chemicals and it's whole grains, and it's veggies and fruits and healthy fats, et cetera, which is basically what I do. I'm a part-time vegan, so people go well, you're either an all-time vegan or part-time vegan. You can't be a part-time vegan. I can be what I want to be. Just leave me alone and you go. Bother your with yourself and so Longevii's great dude.

22:47 - Chase (Host) But I mean, I don't know.

22:48 - Tony (Guest) I could step out of the studio and go oh look, the bust took me out. I hope I live Like my number's 109. That's what I kind of feel like, because as a 65-year-old I kind of feel like a 25-year-old and I figure at 109, I'll feel like I do when most people are in their 80s.

23:05 - Chase (Host) That's what the kids are calling. Now, what is that? Boy math, boy math, it's called boy math. There's this thing going on. My wife told me about it on TikTok Girl math versus boy math. It's like that's boy math, girl math is. I spent $500 on Amazon today but I felt bad so I returned $40 of it. But then tomorrow I go buy $40 more of Amazon stuff and call it free. Cancels each other out Genius.

23:25 - Tony (Guest) That's girl math. You go girls yeah.

23:29 - Chase (Host) But I digress yes, what do you think is the biggest mistake people are making when choosing to embark upon a fitness journey? With the long haul in mind.

23:42 - Tony (Guest) And the long haul is not a bad thing. I mean, I hope that in the long time, but I mean, like I said, my message.

23:48 - Chase (Host) The long haul, being able to physically move and be active for as long as possible. Yeah, as you get past your 40s, 50s 60s, 70s, right, not trying to be a bodybuilder until I'm 90. Yeah, yeah, right.

23:57 - Tony (Guest) What was the question?

23:57 - Chase (Host) What is the biggest mistake you think or you see people make?

24:01 - Tony (Guest) The biggest mistake people are making now are the same mistakes they were making in the early aughts, the 90s, the 80s, the same mistakes. It's the same mistakes they want too much too fast, without having to do a whole lot to get there, so we haven't learned our lesson.

24:13 We haven't learned our lesson yet and there's still a lot of people in the media who have these certain products you know what I mean and they're trying to tell us and they have celebrity spokesperson and they have these testimonials real or fake, I don't know hard to say sometimes.

24:26 - Chase (Host) And we're going after with different models.

24:28 - Tony (Guest) We're getting bamboozled and lied to about what it really requires. What it requires is a reason why, right, there is a reason so important that you understand that your physical movements affect your mental and emotional state, which is really who you are as a human being like how you interact with others, how you respond to things, your level of creativity and productivity and your ability to find answers, as opposed to sit in the problem the whole time. That comes from physical movement and it's all chemical. It's all inside the temporal lobe, the hippocampus, the dentatgirus. This is like. This is where this stuff lives. You can get it from and and and oh, I keep messing with the mic. You can get it from outside sources.

25:06 Right For these little short-term moments of pleasure and joy which lead to long-term problems, typically, you know the next day, the next week, you know a shorter lifetime. Or you can find the source, you can get up and have a cup of coffee or two, and that's going to change your state. Or you can get out in your, in your boxer shorts, and do five or six sun salutations and now you're using the human body and oxygen inside of your blood that goes into your brain, that that that does so much you burn calories. You, you don't need that. You don't need the java, you don't need the caffeine. That's really up to you. One is easy, one is hard. Right, everything that you think is easy. You think there's a hack, it might, or it probably might not work out. So well, you really, and so that's it. What is your purpose and what's your plan? Like your fitness and what you eat. You got to do that in advance. You have to figure out that stuff in advance and you have to announce it to the world. This is what I work out. This is what I'm going to eat.

25:55 You go to the. You go to the. You're hanging out with your buddies and they're all eating pizza and drinking beers, and then you don't. You decide to get a salad and a and a soda and they give you a hard time. Oh, what do you keep you like? Like? What are you five? What are you in high school? Hey, fellas, look you all look like shit. You can't get up a set of stairs. You won't play ball anymore. I can do everything and I'm 10 years older than you. Make a decision. You can live. You want to live? Come with me. All right, you want to die young, keep doing what you're doing man.

26:21 - Chase (Host) Man, you're fire, you're passion, you're energy, like guys.

26:24 - Tony (Guest) I mean, I speak the truth, the whole truth. This is the goal. Yeah, this is it man Purpose plan and accountability and accountability. A lot of people can get up at six o'clock in the morning, go down to their basement it's 42 degrees in the living Minnesota and they can do plyo or yoga by themselves, and they can do it consistently. Congratulations, thank you for your service. That ain't me. I surround myself with people who want to do what I want to do and I'm always on the email and I'm always texting and I'm always calling hey, come on over. Some guy was walking down my street. Turns out he was the FBI gang member task force leader. He was just saying hello because he got some results from my tonal workouts and now he's at my house four days a week.

27:02 Oh shit, yeah, yeah, yeah. So always reach out for people who live in large. Who's living? I did a course called Live in Large, and a lot of it has to do with the company that you keep, and so if I got people that push the envelope and push me, then I'm going to get better automatically you know what have been some of, or even the biggest struggle you've had over the decades, trying to emphasize and drive home this message.

27:28 - Chase (Host) Because I agree, it's really it's not fucking rocket science what we need to do and how we need to stay adherent, right, we don't need all these breakdowns. Just look, do this shit, it works, find what works for you, be happy, be healthy for the long haul, be happy for humans and with the. Some of us are humans.

27:48 - Tony (Guest) Say Ace, go ahead.

27:50 - Chase (Host) But with this AI technology, social media, as you've seen over the years, what has been the biggest struggle you've had in navigating? Advancements in technology, air courtier, advancements in technology to keep people on track.

28:05 - Tony (Guest) Two things. One, like I said before, we are surrounded with misinformation, but in the old days it was three channels ABC, cbs and NBC. And then you get so much from that.

28:15 - Chase (Host) Get the news in the morning, and then you go to the library and you read books and you go to take a course or class or school Right.

28:20 - Tony (Guest) But now you're inundated from every angle, on every device, about things that probably don't necessarily work, because the people that are sending that message occur more about their bank accounts and their stockholders than you. And the other thing, too, which is true, and it's always been true and it'll continue to be true, is you cannot give advice to people who aren't ready for it. The worst kind of advice to give is the kind that's never been asked for in the first place, because your best intentions are received with resentment, like, hey man, I finally got in shape and I got these friends that don't buy into my parents. I go. Well, then don't help them. They're not ready. When they knock on your door or ring your bell or say, hey man, help me, because it looks like you're still living this lifestyle, then you help them. Even if it's your best friend, even if it's your wife, even if it's your kids, even if it's your parents, all right, if you can't, and if you don't have that around you, then you got to go search for it someplace else where you can have. You know what I mean Rock climbers.

29:12 Hang out with rock climbers. You know what I mean. Mountain bikers hang out with mountain bikers. They don't hang out with drug addicts and drunks. You know what I mean. They hang out with other people who are kicking ass.

29:22 - Chase (Host) I heard you mention a couple of times the rest and digest part of life. You know the chill, the mindfulness, the meditation. I think Definitely heard you say mindfulness. Is this always a part of your plan, a part of your lifestyle, or has this been a relatively new addition?

29:39 - Tony (Guest) Relatively new, but I had to get super, super sick for that to happen to me. What happened? I got Ramsey Hunt syndrome back in me and Justin Bieber, yay, and our state senator.

29:49 - Chase (Host) Is that temporary paralysis?

29:51 - Tony (Guest) Well, it's Ramsey Hunt syndrome is shingles in your brain, so the shingles usually occur visually. From the ear You'll see all the pussy nasty. It's actually called something really sexy called herpes zoster.

30:06 - Chase (Host) Yeah, you want to say Ramsey Hunt syndrome because it sounds cool.

30:08 - Tony (Guest) But if you say herpes zoster, people go ooh.

30:13 - Chase (Host) Is that like the black plague? It feels like black plague in your ear.

30:15 - Tony (Guest) It affects your sight, your smell, your taste and your balance, and so you can't really do anything. All you can do is sleep and weep. That's it. That's what I could do, you got to ride the train.

30:26 You got to ride the train and you got to take your. You know you got to go to the physical therapist and just getting out of bed and putting on your clothes and getting in the car and every time the car turns left or right, right, you can't turn your head quicker than this. So when I first started to drive again, when I got to a stop sign, I was there for like a minute yeah.

30:46 Because I got, because I would do this, in my brain would go I'm not ready yet. And and bright lights and dark rooms. Still when I walk into a dark room, still like today outside, when it was super bright and sunny. Walking in here, I could feel it. And this is six years later.

31:01 - Chase (Host) Six years, six years later so nerves are funny.

31:04 - Tony (Guest) I mean, you know anything about. You know how the body heals. Skin heals at a certain rate, bones at a certain rate, your organs at a certain rate, but nerves, some of them, never come back. People who get Ramsey Hunt syndrome almost everybody gets an after effect called bilateral vestibular hypo function. So if this is vertigo, right, bilateral vestibular hypo function it's mouthful is like this Interesting.

31:27 - Chase (Host) So you feel like you're kind of like shaking, vibrating, and whenever I you're off center off center, or I would.

31:33 - Tony (Guest) I would just stand and just tumble sometimes, but I can throw on a pair of skis and go down a double black, like I'm a teenager. So how did you get through it? I got through it the same way. I got through from being depressed and sad and broken, single, and I would get in the treadmill and I would walk for three minutes even in that pain.

31:50 No, first three months, four months, five months. First three months where I lost 25 or 30 pounds. I couldn't do anything. The physical therapy sessions were just brutal, like that big you can't see it there, but that love while paper you have on that door.

32:05 - Chase (Host) You can see it in the shot behind me. You can, yeah.

32:07 - Tony (Guest) That's what the physical therapist would make me look at while I walked on a straight line, and it was like this kind of collage, that kind of collage where the colors would kind of clash and stuff. I'm having flashbacks, hold on.

32:20 - Chase (Host) We don't. We don't need a PTSD flashback of colors here.

32:24 - Tony (Guest) But no, I had to.

32:25 - Chase (Host) Trying to get your brain to grab hold of, like the confusion I started skiing.

32:28 - Tony (Guest) about six months afterward I ran into a tree full on. I thought I broke my femur. My reaction time was way, way off. But with every passing year it gets, it gets a wee bit better. But then, I'll have these little, these little setbacks.

32:46 Like little tremors or well, they're not a tremor, it's just this. It's just I feel old, I feel weird, I feel weak and it makes me tired. I also had Epstein bar, which is no good, and I had leaky gut, which is no good, so I had all these things all around the same time all around the same time. Well, the, the Epstein bar and all that is manifested through the shingles thing.

33:04 - Chase (Host) Yeah, your immune system was probably just like an open and it was stress.

33:07 - Tony (Guest) So getting back to your, your mindfulness thing, I read John Kabat-Zinn's book full catastrophe, full catastrophe living. That's a thick book, tiny little print, but man, I just, I just learned how to meditate and I learned to breathwork and I read, I read Dave, david Nestor's David Nestor's book Breath.

33:27 - Chase (Host) I just like OK.

33:28 - Tony (Guest) James Nester. James Nester, thank you, and I'd like OK, I need answers from people who are professionals about the stuff that I'm suffering from. And you know, and when I was first coming out, I was a personal development guy. Like, if you look at my bookshelf, it was all it's all mountain climbing, mountaineering and personal development on my, on my shelf. Those are the things that I needed at that time. And so, yeah, and I think Justin Bieber had a relapse, because I don't think I think he tried to rush coming out as a recovery.

33:55 - Chase (Host) Yeah, I remember hearing he had to like cancel a lot of his tour stuff when it seemed like he was on the men but he kind of too much, too soon, kind of thing. Yep, yeah, yeah. So I'm a big mindset guy, big mental resilience guy and I can tell you, when I have slipped in the mental resiliency work, it doesn't take that long, honestly, for my physical resilience to kind of go off as well. It's just kind of like a slippery slope for me in terms of where I'm thinking, where I'm looking, goal setting, and then a slippery slope into maybe letting other things slide, habits, my training schedule. I don't think I'm alone in that. What would be your insight into someone who maybe is feeling like their physical fitness, their physical resilience is slipping but yet they're air court here doing all the right things? And let's shift to the mental resilience, the mindset. How do you go about training the mind to therefore support training the body?

34:49 - Tony (Guest) You described me prior to getting Ramsey Hunt. I was doing all the right things. I was exercising regularly, but I wasn't dealing with my stress. And that's what mindfulness is. That's what meditation and breathwork is. It's letting the pendulum swing in the other direction for just a little bit. And most of us get. Most of us would get that if we were monks on a mountain with our own vegan, our own organic farm and our own gut goats.

35:12 - Chase (Host) Truth and there was no stress, and it was always.

35:15 - Tony (Guest) It was always 72.5 degrees out.

35:17 We had the perfect life Right and there was a nice mist that came up in the morning and then you slept with with kittens, you know what I mean. Like that's just. Nobody has that anymore. Right, let me look. We'll look at what's going on in the world. And I was Tom Petty passes away. I was friends that were at the Vegas shooting that was the day before. And then my contract with Beachbody was coming to an end after 20 years of you know service, for reasons that I don't want to get into this right now, and every time I get into it on a podcast I get in trouble.

35:45 - Chase (Host) Do I need to get you and Darren on the show? Hashtag Darren Olin yeah, he's a homie. Oh no, I love Tony's. Like I'm out. No, I'm Darren's awesome man, I use one.

35:55 - Tony (Guest) I'm a big fan.

35:56 - Chase (Host) Just whatever. I say that because, like the way you connect dots in business, I'm sure it's mind blowing.

36:00 - Tony (Guest) Yeah, it's business, but but it affected me dramatically. It sent me down a horrible rabbit hole. I was freaked out. I had a mortgage, one mortgage, two fancy cars you know what I mean Like. But then I thought, oh, am I going to be like Wesley Snipes or MC Hammer? Now I mean, I thought I was going to be that guy. Um, and so, whatever you know, I found other ways to make money my own supplement line, I'm on total other things. So I got very lucky and, by the way, the relationship I had with Beachbody is because of them. It was because of Carl's, of course. Because of all that that I can sit here in this chair and tell you I had this amazing ride. They get full credit for that bang. But whatever, you know, I wish they had made a different decision, but they didn't. Um, all that was happening. And I remember there was a plio class. I'm doing a plio class at five 30. So I don't know. I know you got another session, but you're invited anytime.

36:44 And I remember everybody was just kind of effing off in the class and all these things had happened, like Tom had died the day before. I mean, I trained Tom for 32 years.

36:52 - Chase (Host) Just domino effective, just all that horrible events.

36:54 - Tony (Guest) Like right, and people in the class were like I said hey, you're all here on my time, You're not having to spend a penny and you're all chit-chat and not doing what I'm asking. So if you don't, and then I turn into my father, Right, she has F bombs and screaming and they all had like that deer in the headlight Like Holy shit.

37:15 I can imagine, and within two days I got this weird itch in my ear and then bang and exploded and so I had to go through that. I had to have that hell in pain, and now I met it. I don't do. I don't meditate as much as I did when I was going through that. In the years after that, my whole thing is breathwork. Right now it's all like body scan work.

37:34 - Chase (Host) Just you know, unpack that force, the power of breathwork. It's phenomenal. Phenomenal, please. What's been your experience?

37:40 - Tony (Guest) You're getting a lot of that brain chemistry shift that you would get, like.

37:43 If you're really having a tough time, a lot of people will sit in it Right, and they'll, they'll, they'll make it worse through whatever their behavior and their words and they'll let it festere and they'll punch walls and all the things I usually do which are things you know I used to be a fan of and I went this doesn't serve me anymore.

37:57 So I had it's hard, dude, it's hard especially when you're in the middle of it, and so I just have to put my hands on a counter or sit down and close my eyes and turn off the lights, and so you know, whatever box breathing you want to do, I'll do four by fours, I'll do four by six, by eight, I'll do whatever numbers, I'll do Big breath holds, you know. I mean, like you know this, our new program, the in power sink 60, has an amazing breath breath work session with hyperventilation, which people think is scary and bad, but if you're sitting down, it has true. I mean you can hyperventilate for a minute and then you don't have to do, you don't have to exhale for like two.

38:31 - Chase (Host) It's an amazing that I want to highlight real quick. That has been one of the most profound experiences. I've done breath work a lot and when you get to a point to where you just exist, you do not need to inhale, you do not need to exhale for trippy. I've done it, I think for a couple of minutes. It feels like that long, but probably at least a minute. Right, I'm not breathing, I'm not. It's any air in any air out. I'm just purely existing. Oh my God.

38:57 - Tony (Guest) But you don't want to do that while driving your car.

38:59 - Chase (Host) No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. I don't recommend it. No, no, no, no yeah.

39:02 - Tony (Guest) Um, but there's also other kinds of mindfulness. You know, like I always tell people what are your 10 mindfulness practices? Cranking up, rambling on from Led Zeppelin, full blast and just sitting in that, I mean that's. You know, if you're from the sixties yeah, I love it Then that's a form, because you're present, like you're present in the music. You're president Robert Plant, right, and what he's doing there I am, I'm in the yard, I was when I we have a place in Jackson Hole, I broke out the clippers, I broke out the shovel and the pickaxe and I started whacking at my ski and ski out trail and you know I'm covered in burrs and it's F and cold and and, but I don't care because it's amazing.

39:35 You know, going for a long bike ride is one Go, you know, um, hanging out with my dog Charlie is one I mean I have. You know, listening to music is one. You know. Just, you know watching, watching a reruns of I love, I love Lucy is a mindfulness practice, because you're caught up in this amazing talent from that time and you're laughing your ass off, and so anything that is the opposite of what stress does, then what you don't, you could inhale for, for, for, exhale, for.

40:01 - Chase (Host) Just be here.

40:02 - Tony (Guest) You could do that too. Just be here. But if you're in the car or if you're on the John or if you're, you know you're in a zoom call with people and you're getting information that doesn't necessarily turn you on, you can very quietly do your breath work and and and absorb the information better and retain it better, because you're you're not just, you're not just gritting your teeth and throwing your brow and gnashing your teeth. You know what I mean.

40:24 Not actually problem solving, only exacerbating your literal cortisol levels, just being in the moment, by by doing something or listening to something, or breathing in a certain way that that brings you into a, into a nice, calm state.

40:37 - Chase (Host) I know we're kind of making fun a little bit of the hacks earlier and look, I'm a hat guy, I got my things, but I give shit, so much shit, by the way.

40:45 - Tony (Guest) I, I, I. I give the hacking a hard time. There's a lot of it now that isn't even considered hacking anymore. Right, because it's it's new practices that work. Right, it's like guys I found the latest bio hack.

40:56 - Chase (Host) Apparently, you just you go to sleep at the same time and you wake up the same time, and then, when you wake up, you just you just go outside bio. No, it's called fucking every human ever for the last, the Jillian year Getting some decent sleep at the same hours every night?

41:09 - Tony (Guest) Yeah, so that your your your circadian cycle is working for you for the day Following yeah, as opposed to you know, burning the candle at both ends, staying up till two o'clock in the morning, knowing you got to get up at six, and then you're, you're, you're like, yeah, you're going to get up and do everything right and eat healthy food and have no cravings and make sure you have a kick ass workout. Not going to happen Like the number one mindfulness practice is go to bed.

41:32 - Chase (Host) Oh my God, sleep, sleep, sleep. Prioritize your sleep change your life, I promise you. But again, as someone who's been working for a long time, you know I have to leverage your, your professional history here, who has been in the fitness, the, the well-being industry, I'll say, for decades.

41:48 - Tony (Guest) You keep saying decades. I get older and older every time, hasn't it been decades?

41:51 - Chase (Host) Yeah, dude, yeah, yeah, I started training people in 80, 19,.

41:58 - Tony (Guest) By the way, it's 19, 85 or six. Okay.

42:02 - Chase (Host) So you've been doing this for as long as I've been alive, born in 85. Yeah, okay, yeah. Decades, yeah, yeah, amazing.

42:09 - Tony (Guest) Thank you very much.

42:10 - Chase (Host) Again, I got to leverage your history and your experience here.

42:15 Maybe it's awareness theory, but I feel like now kind of the hacks, the meditation, this kind of softer side of fitness is finally getting the front line attention that it deserves. Yeah, and I think is really the missing key for a lot of people. Would you agree, and is this something that you think people are maybe grabbing hold of the wrong things? How would you really navigate kind of the parasympathetic, the rest and digest part of fitness? What would be some tips you have for people to really do it right?

42:44 - Tony (Guest) Well, I think there's two sides to that coin, and one of them is there's no reason there's. If you're doing a lot of things right and you're paying attention to you know your diet and your mindfulness and the quality of the workouts that you're doing, and you know your stress is down and all these other things are really important, then you can push the envelope. I push the envelope. I have a 20 foot rope. I climb up the 20 foot rope, I do 20 pull ups and I come down into an L. You know what I mean? I don't know. I just can do that because I'm doing all the other things right. My recovery, I have a cold plunge. I think I'm going to get a better one. We're working on it.

43:19 - Chase (Host) We're working on it. I'll get this one fixed, hopefully, because they've been very kind to me and thank you very much.

43:26 - Tony (Guest) And you know, and my sleep is better now and in the Theragut and the foam rolling and everything else, so that way I can push the envelope. But at the same time you have to adapt. You know what I mean. You're not going to be hucking Corbett's Couar in Jackson Hole. It's like this elevator shaft. It's the most dangerous entrance to a ski run in America. It's just an elevator shaft with rocks on either side, and I've been in there three times. I fell in twice, humble brag, humble brag.

43:52 I've been in there three times, but most people look it and go are you?

43:55 - Chase (Host) I fell in three times.

43:57 - Tony (Guest) Yeah, I fell in twice, and one time I actually almost sort of semi-landed it, but it requires a lot of skill and a lot of cahones. But at a certain age you have to learn how to adapt. You have to age gracefully, all right. So you're going to need more mindfulness. You're going to learn how to you know. Maybe possibly it's more of a high rep day, or maybe you don't have to try to you know, you don't have to run the 10 miles.

44:18 - Chase (Host) Learn how to listen to your body and respond accordingly. Yeah, there you go.

44:20 - Tony (Guest) You said it better than I did. I did, yeah, but like I did a run and I did a run that I in Jackson Hole last week that I normally do so, instead of just running at the same pace and turning around three miles out and three miles in, I ran my regular speed for like an 80 count. I literally count one. Every double step was a rep, one, two, three, but I got the ear buds on, I'm playing the music, whatever and then from 80 to 100, I sprint. Man, it's fat. I extended my stride and then I would walk, all right, and I would jog and then I would sprint Because you just felt like that's what you needed to do.

44:54 - Chase (Host) That's what I felt like I needed, but most people.

44:56 - Tony (Guest) They're so myopic, they're so I don't want to use the word pious about how it has to be. And then if it doesn't go the way you want it to be, it doesn't match what you used to do, then you start judging it.

45:07 - Chase (Host) It's like a all or nothing, and then yeah, and then when you start judging it, you judge the experience.

45:11 - Tony (Guest) Then you didn't need. How could you enjoy the experience if you judge the experience? And now it's going to affect your desire and determination to get after it again. But if you go oh you know, I'm just going to.

45:22 - Chase (Host) I'm going to go five miles.

45:23 - Tony (Guest) Today I'm going to go four, because anything, if you're listening to your body, is always better than nothing. It always is. And then, with that philosophy, and you're consistent, because you can't work out two days in a row and take three days off in two days in a row, because you're going to end up with exercise, bipolar disorder, right, all those chemicals in your brain. And then on day three, when you take that, why am I so depressed and why is it so hard to get going again? It's because it's this thing that you've done with fitness, but you don't do it with your bills and you don't do it with food and you don't do it with work and you don't do it with with everything else, yes, all the things that we automatically always do.

45:54 we do those things so we can survive, and surviving is cute, right, that's what most people do. But do you want to thrive or do you want to survive?

46:00 - Chase (Host) If you want to thrive, come with me, I'm coming with them, I'm going with you. I do have one more podcast, but then we'll go after that, okay? So, with your new program that you have out coming out, depending on when we get this out here, what is different about this experience and why are you so excited to bring this to the world now?

46:19 - Tony (Guest) Well, you know, p90x was was revolutionary. There's nothing like I mean people still say the least.

46:25 They stopped me all the time. Still at the airport, lax was this guy who was a doc over at UFC who's teaching it. You pen now or something. I mean he's just like dude, you're like you, just he's just a dude. I'm trying to get in the car and there's a dude. He wants a selfie, he wants to tell me the story and I'm in because I love it. Yeah, and you know, I mean I could tell the story because if I just went hey, sorry man, no pictures If I'm on that kind of a ding dong, I wouldn't. You know he goes. Your your program has sent me in a direction is I would have never happened. I'm so happy and pleased with my life because of what you did, what I did I. You know, the hammer doesn't build a house. I gave you a tool you used and now you're a doctor.

46:57 - Chase (Host) Love that, I love that. I'm teaching at.

46:59 - Tony (Guest) Ivy League school, which is really, really cool. So those stories still exist. Those programs were mind bending and they've changed lives. X2 is turn, you know, division three people into professional athletes, I mean that's. You know, I didn't intend that, I was just trying to, you know, get some hell of a downstream.

47:12 Yeah, you know what I mean and so but since then I've been around a while and I've done my work and research. I've changed some things. So the pandemic was a horrible thing for a lot of people, but for me it was a time to to kind of you know, like, what am I going to do. So I started these beta programs online just to get people moving and I did free Wednesday Playa. I did free Friday yoga and I did free no yoga was Saturday. Friday was Shauna and Tony dance party.

47:38 - Chase (Host) We would just play music, you know pop and lock and having fun play, you know, I mean just to get people moving again make that interaction and we had beta one, beta two, beta three.

47:46 - Tony (Guest) So we, you know it turned into this business called Power Nation and we put out this 24 workout. Eventually, when you know, we, we all felt safe and didn't have to wear masks anymore. We shot 24 workouts for the power of four, wow. And then a good friend of yours and mine, dr Mindy Pells we're on a podcast just out, mindy.

48:03 Mindy, we love you, you're amazing and incredible. And she said you know, when I did P90X I had to change the schedule. I mean, the schedule was great for dudes because of their hormonal situation, but women's hormones are just don't operate that way. It's very, very different and, based on her research, she would, you know, it was not chest and back, it was yoga. It was not, you know, plyometrics, it was adiporex and she would just toy with it, and so rearranging all the components based on rearranging the just rearranging the schedule Central cycle.

48:28 So she got. She got to avoid the boredom and the injuries and the plateaus which are the reason why that, which are just workout kill, results kill and and that's how she was able to get through that. And she, and when she went through that she said man, I hope one day I could have a conversation with Tony Horton because he is the guy that I want to build that program with. So we had that conversation on a podcast like this. Nine months later, we shot it Like bang. That's the turn over.

48:50 - Chase (Host) That's out in the world. Action takers. I love it.

48:52 - Tony (Guest) And we've had two test groups, a hundred and something in the first one and 90 something in the other one, and these women are blown away because they're not fried, you know, they're not overly sore, they feel like the sequence. And we added we in the workouts, we added something called powering up and powering down, and when P 90 X days, we called it, you know, intensification modification. But this is just new terminology for basically the same thing. It's not muscle confusion, arnold.

49:18 - Chase (Host) Okay, pal.

49:19 - Tony (Guest) So don't give me a hard time about powering up and powering down and also what I wanted to do, because it changes. There's 11 workouts, but in the 11 workouts there's at least one, two or three stop options and the reason why a lot of people never got results in the past, because they're comparing the workout they got to do now to the hard work they used to do when they were younger and had time and whatever which kills every program.

49:40 - Chase (Host) Yeah, you don't follow the program. I got an hour and five minute plyometric session.

49:44 - Tony (Guest) I think I'll just take a nap. But no, what if I said you can go the first 15 or 20 minutes and stop and then move to the, to the cool down, and then, when you get to the first stop option later on, or maybe if you've got the energy all of a sudden you go to the second stop option and everybody feels like, oh, I mean those, that combination of those things are ultimate excuse killers and I think that's the reason why you know women in their 50s, 60s and 70s in our test group, even if they're not getting that positive reinforcement at home and a lot of them weren't. Oh God damn it, honey, you're buying another fitness thing and a diet. I'm sick and tired of wasting so much money. Just accept who you are Like. There's a lot of that crap and one woman was in tears in a Zoom call. She said you know, I've tried everything. This is the first thing that's worked. First thing 71 year old woman she wants, she wanted to lose 10. She didn't think she was going to. She lost 15. Wow.

50:33 - Chase (Host) And it's not a weight loss program.

50:35 - Tony (Guest) It's just to feel better about yourself and be able to function better in the world program. And there's, men can do it too, but men have their men's calendar. They got their testosterone calendar ready, set go.

50:46 - Chase (Host) Well, Tony, we're gonna have all of your information down on the show notes. Man, I gotta have you back again. You're just a wealth of information, good vibes, man, the stories. We got to do some more. So thank you seriously for coming on.

50:57 - Tony (Guest) We'll do a session on the wall. I'll tell you the Billy Idol stories.

51:01 - Chase (Host) The.

51:02 - Tony (Guest) Steven still stories. Give me a full 90 minutes. But then I'm gonna have to wait till they all pass away before I tell you it was an amazing. We'll get a couple NDAs and show you.

51:12 - Chase (Host) You know, you've definitely embodied it and you've talked a lot about it without actually knowing it, but you are the ideal person that I look for when I look for a guest. You continuously move forward, you learn how to move forward every day, and you don't stop there. You help others do that as well. So my last question is to live a life ever forward. When I say those two words, what does that mean to you?

51:39 - Tony (Guest) Patience, optimism, altruism, being a good listener and being open and being curious, curiosity.

51:55 - Chase (Host) No muscle confusion. No, well, there's that too, and then faith. Faith is big man.

52:01 - Tony (Guest) I mean, you know. I mean, look, you don't have to be a religious person. You can be a secular person and still have faith in what you're doing. And when you have faith with it, you'll probably stick with it. You know what I mean. And the patience is important too, because that's why we're talking earlier. That's, those are the things that where people get stuck, it's not I mean it was called P90X, not P23 days in X, you know what I mean. It's gonna, and for a lot of people was P120X.

52:22 It's just you know I mean all my programs are are minimum 60 days and longer, because you know you go from first grade. Oh, you got, you got an eight. You got all these in first grade. Let's put you in grad school. No, it takes you 12 years to get through school.

52:36 - Chase (Host) I'm giving you three months to change who you are.

52:39 - Tony (Guest) With decent exercise and diet, it's pretty. Not that hard if you really you know, put your nose to the grindstone.

52:45 - Chase (Host) You're just another again testament to what I believe and what I try to drive home, and my content on the show is that, look, we can learn some really cool nuances from a lot of different things.

52:54 - Tony (Guest) Sure.

52:55 - Chase (Host) We can learn the hacks, the tips, the tricks, but, man, the secret to life. Everybody says the same thing and it's all what you just said, man.

53:03 - Tony (Guest) What are the hacks, the trips and the tips to get through your first school, first year of med school? There ain't none man.

53:10 - Chase (Host) Embrace the suck.

53:11 - Tony (Guest) There ain't Just embrace the suck, bro, I mean you want to advance you got to decide, you know, you got to decide how hard you want to work. And this comes from a very lazy kid whose middle name I thought in school was procrastination Tony, procrastination Horton. I didn't. I didn't like pain, I didn't like, I didn't like to learn, I didn't like anything. I had ADD, ADHD, LMNOP, NYPD, blue. I had all the acronyms man.

53:36 - Chase (Host) Now look at me. I got here so anybody can. Tony, Thank you, it's been a pleasure man.

53:41 - Tony (Guest) Thank you so much Awesome.