The Pros and Cons of Tony Horton's 10 Minute Trainer

There are a bazillion exercise programs out there. Turn on the television and endless infomercials will stream across the screen, ripped men and women using strange looking exercise devices or dangerous looking machines for obscure reasons. People marching and leaping and bending and promising illimitable benefits if you just follow their latest exercise routine. Some of them look like they might even be legit, while others are clearly making specious claims. Question is: how to tell? One such program that requires a little more examination to make sure that it's not too good to be true is Tony Horton's 10 Minute Trainer, that claims that it will deliver startling results if you follow the 10 minute workouts. Real, or bogus? Let's take a look.
Let's examine the basic premise. 10 Minute Trainer makes the following claim: "The secret is SUPER STACKING. You're getting 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 primary areas to focus on:
Do resistance training two or three times a week, preferably not two days in a row, focusing on the same body part.
Do cardio at least two or three times a week
Get your eating habits and portions under control. You don't need to starve yourself, but you do need to eat slightly less than your body can burn off every day.
All of that sounds pretty sensible, but is it feasible? Can you get good results if you 'Super Stack'? On it's face, this sounds like a feasible proposition: if you combine squats with a military press, you are in effect doing two exercises in half the time. Any standing exercise can be augmented by throwing in squats, just as a number of ab exercises can be supplemented with chest flies or presses. So yes, I buy that you can save a large amount of time if you carefully and cleverly combine exercises so that you reap the benefit from both in much less time.10 Minute Trainer
Further, the fundamentals outlined in the three principles above all seem to adhere to basic, sound principles. Nothing revolutionary and outré there. Combine cardio and resistance training, and be careful but not radical about what you eat. That is the kind of basic advice given to any beginning fitness enthusiast, and thus seems above the level.
The question thus becomes: can you get good results in 10 minutes, even if you combine exercises? That is where the quality of Tony's exercises are called into play. Given the wide amount of respect and grudging admiration his other workout routines such as P90X have garnered, it seems clear that at the very least he is no hack. Thus perhaps the best way to examine this program is not by asking if it's the best workout program ever, but if it's an effective program for those who don't have the hour or so necessary to work out each day. Considered in that light, and given the sound principles on which it seems to be based, the answer is that it is clearly better than nothing at all, and probably sound in its own right.
If buying 10 Minute Trainer gets people who don't think they have the time to exercise to do exactly that, especially if Tony Horton is guiding them through sound and basic practices that have been 'stacked' so as to fit in the shortest period of time, than I don't see what's not to like. Myself, I prefer to dedicate more time to my exercise regimen, but were I a busy mother, business professional or any other person without time, than I would definitely turn to Tony Horton's 10 Minute Trainer as a possible way to get in my exercise as efficiently as possible.10 Minute Trainer