There are plenty of exercise programs out there. Turn on the TV and endless infomercials will stream across the screen, muscle men and women using weird-looking exercise devices or dangerous-looking machines for obscure reasons. People who march, jump, bend over promise unlimited benefits if you just stick with their latest workout routine. Some of them even seem legitimate, while others clearly make misleading claims. The question is: how do you know? One such program that requires a little more scrutiny to make sure it’s not too good to be true is Tony Horton’s 10-Minute Trainer, which claims he will provide initial results if he follows through with 10-minute workouts. Real or fake? We’ll see.

Let’s examine the basic premise. The 10 Minute Trainer makes the following claim: “The secret is SUPER STACK. You get a cardio workout, upper body resistance, and lower body and abs strengthening all at the same time. It would have taken you 30 minutes to an hour to do this with traditional workouts. In the “Getting Started” section, the program lists three main areas to focus on:

1. Do resistance training two to three times a week, preferably not two days in a row, concentrating on the same body part.
2. Do cardio at least two to three times a week
3. Watch your eating habits and portions. You don’t need to starve yourself, but you do need to eat a little less than your body can burn each day.

That all sounds sensible enough, but is it doable? Can you get good results if you do ‘Super Stack’? At first glance, this sounds like a doable proposition: If you combine squats with a military press, you’re doing two exercises in half the time. Any standing exercise can be augmented with squats, just as a series of abdominal exercises can be complemented with chest flyes or presses. So yes, I think you can save a huge amount of time if you combine the exercises carefully and smartly so that you get the benefit of both in much less time.

In addition, the foundations described in the three principles above seem to adhere to solid, basic principles. Nothing revolutionary and out there. Combine cardio and resistance training, and be careful but not radical with what you eat. That’s the kind of basic advice given to any beginning fitness enthusiast, and therefore seems above par.

The question then is: can you get good results in 10 minutes, even if you combine exercises? That’s where the quality of Tony’s exercises comes into play. Given the great amount of grudging respect and admiration his other workout routines, like P90X, have earned, it seems clear that, at least, it’s not a gimmick. Therefore, perhaps the best way to examine this program is not to ask yourself if it is the best training program out there, but rather if it is an effective program for those who do not have the hour or so needed to exercise every day. Seen in that light, and given the sound principles on which it appears to be based, the answer is that it’s clearly better than nothing at all, and probably sound in its own right.

If buying 10 Minute Trainer makes people who don’t think they have time to exercise do just that, especially if Tony Horton is walking them through solid, basic practices that have been “stacked” to fit into the shorter period of time, so I don’t see what I don’t like. Myself, I prefer to spend more time on my fitness regimen, but if I were a busy mom, business professional, or anyone else short on time, I would definitely turn to Tony Horton’s 10-Minute Trainer as a possible way to exercise as efficiently as possible. possible.