Tony Horton’s New Variety-Stacked Program Will Boost Your Strength, Muscle Mass, and Endurance
The fitness legend focuses on serious strength in Triple Threat: Dynamic Gains.
Tony Horton is back on Tonal with a new four-week program: Triple Threat: Dynamic Gains. But this time the fitness legend is bringing something new to the table–a program focused on building big-time strength.
In his other popular 20-in-20 programs, including Shred and Sweat, Pump up the Volume, and Ignite, Horton serves up high-energy hypertrophy work featuring lighter weights and higher reps. In his newest offering, you’ll get a chance to move some heavy weight mixing in Eccentric mode and adding a healthy dose of Chains for building power.
How it Works
Each day of this action-packed program has a unique training emphasis, focusing on either strength, hypertrophy, or stamina. The program, designed in collaboration with Tonal’s performance experts, consists of 12 total workouts meant to be completed three times per week over four weeks. You’ll power through two days of upper-body workouts and one lower-body workout per week, in sessions typically lasting between 35 and 40 minutes.
The program’s rep ranges vary from week to week, using consistent straight sets in Weeks 1 and 3 while incorporating ascending and descending rep schemes in Weeks 2 and 4.
“The way that we use varying rep ranges throughout each week is a very efficient type of programming,” says Jenna Moore, a certified strength and conditioning coach and Programming Specialist at Tonal. “It allows you to get a lot done in a little bit of time.” The changing emphasis in training sessions also makes the program accessible to people with a range of goals.
Triple Threat: Dynamic Gains follows a two-week format: You’ll see the same workouts—which focus on pulling exercises—repeat during the first two weeks so your body can adapt to the movement patterns. Then you’ll shift the focus to pushing movements in Weeks 3 and 4. “We focus on specific muscle groups in Weeks 1 and 2 and supplement other muscle groups in the accessory movements. In Weeks 3 and 4, we switch and those accessory muscle groups become the main feature,” says Moore. You’ll save time while still hitting every major muscle group and get in plenty of accessory work.
The two weekly upper-body sessions have separate goals: One features heavier loads and lower reps (around 6 to 10 reps), putting an emphasis on eccentric training, which loads the muscle with more tension during the lengthening (or lowering) portion of a movement. Research shows eccentric training can stimulate increased strength and muscle. The other session focuses on power and endurance, using medium-to-high rep ranges (between 10 to 15 reps) and incorporating Chains mode, which gives you a chance to attack the power meter with velocity.
The weekly lower-body workout is more variable. You’ll encounter low-rep compound lifts, such as the racked squat and barbell deadlift, with the addition of high-rep accessory movements to drive hypertrophy. “It’s not all strength-focused or all hypertrophy-focused or all power-focused,” Moore says. “It’s got a little bit of everything.”
Who It’s For
You can consider Triple Threat: Dynamic Gains a standalone spinoff of Horton’s other popular programs–unique in its emphasis on lower reps and heavier loads. But each day should feel unique and unexpected. “It’s definitely one that your body is constantly going to be challenged by,” Moore says. “Most of Tony’s programs have been hypertrophy-based. This program is the opposite. There’s going to be a little more weight and we’ve never done that with a Tony program before.”
Head’s up: Triple Threat: Dynamic Gains is an intermediate program geared for someone that wants to improve both strength and build muscle efficiently but isn’t hyper-focused on just one goal. With training focuses that vary day-to-day, Moore says this program is perfect if you like feeling like you can’t predict what’s coming next.
How to Do It
Just like all of Horton’s programs, you can join Triple Threat: Dynamic Gains on demand and work through the sessions on your own time. Moore suggests following the recommended cadence, completing the sessions three days a week with prescribed rest days in between (Monday/Wednesday/Friday, for example). Even though there are two off-days and a lower-body session sandwiched between the upper-body workouts, “there’s a lot going on in these [workouts],” she says. “Your body needs to be able to go into the next session with a recovered central nervous system and fresh muscles.”
Here’s one last critical piece of advice from Moore: “Expect to have some fun. Horton gets serious in this one because of the amount of work that we pack in a short period of time. But he’s still Tony and he’s going to make it an exciting ride along the way.”
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