What are the Fundamental Differences Between Beachbody Workouts Power90 and P90X?

Finding differences between two workouts that are as similar as Power90 and P90X is no easy chore.

To start with they are both from the same company Beachbody.com. No big deal until you consider they are from the same trainer Tony Horton.

Well you could say that many trainers have multiple workouts they sell and there is often little to no crossover.  However between Power90 and P90X it isn’t quite so simple.

What if it were the case that one of the workouts was created specifically to be the next generation and an improvement over the prior workout? 

That is really what happened when P90X was conceived and burst on the international scene nearly a decade ago. The people at Beachbody loved the basic concept of Power90. They believed strongly in the idea that you could do better if the workout cycle had a defined beginning and end. 

They also loved that Power90 mixed things up and you weren’t doing the same things over and over again. What they had found in doing market research is a large problem with people abandoning a program was the repetitive nature of many of these programs.

Daily change meant daily freshness. Daily change also meant something even more important. Exercise scientists were finding that change kept the body off balance and kept the body challenged. What was happening with greater challenge there was greater gains in a shorter amount of time.

So from Power90 sprung the concept of muscle confusion. The question begs that if Power90 was out front on these concepts, why did it need what many perceived to be an upgrade with P90X?

Well the answer to that is that it is probably incorrect to consider P90X an upgrade. More to the point, P90X addresses a different market with an approach that is closely akin to Power90.

Power90 is still viable on it’s own. Power90 comes at you with the high intensity cardio component as it works your whole body that is arguably superior to P90X. 

Power90 is even more focused in some ways because it tries to keep the workouts in the 30 to 45 minute range as opposed to the P90X workouts which run around 45 to an hour generally.

The biggest differences rest in two areas. First, Power90 is slightly easier and therefore better tailored to beginners. Second, Power90 is about $40 to $50 cheaper overall.