Spike your heart rate and build muscle with 20-in-20: Shred and Sweat.
Coach Tony Horton’s exclusive Tonal programs—20-in-20: Ignite and 20-in-20: Pump Up the Volume—are two of the most popular options among members seeking quick and effective workouts. Now, the fitness celebrity and creator of the P90X program is back with a new set of workouts, 20-in-20: Shred and Sweat. This four-week program will get your heart rate up and your muscles burning, all in around 20 minutes per workout.
Why This Program Works
Designed in collaboration with Tonal coach Jackson Bloore, the new 20-in-20 program follows the principles of push-pull training and consists of 20 workouts meant to be completed in four weeks. Each week, you’ll tackle one cardio core session plus four full-body workouts: two devoted to push exercises and two devoted to pulling moves. Bloore explains that this method allows you to target different muscle groups each day while also giving them time to rest in-between, which prevents overtaxing your muscles and central nervous system.
“We’re really focused on hitting all aspects of the body,” says Bloore. “The idea is to hit every single muscle twice a week. That’s what the research shows tends to be best for producing gains and not setting yourself back. The push-pull split allows us to work out every day without hitting the same muscle group two days in a row.”
Full-body workouts force you to work harder than sessions focused on individual body parts, and limited rest in between sets keeps your metabolism fired up. “This is going to amp up your heart rate and give you a good sweat,” says Bloore. “It’s for anybody who wants to burn body fat while building muscle at the same time.” As always, you’ll have Coach Tony’s expert guidance (as well as his signature jokes and fun personality) to help you get through the challenge.
The rep count for each exercise (mostly around 8 to 10 in the first half of the program, progressing to 12 to 15 in the second half) ) keeps the focus of the workouts on hypertrophy and metabolic change. As Horton told Tonal, “Higher rep counts mean more time under tension, so that’s a longer timeframe in which you can build muscle without having to add a whole bunch of extra weight or resistance.”
The program follows a two-week pattern, which means you’ll perform similar moves during weeks one and three and weeks two and four. Repeating the exercises allows you to become familiar with the movements and perfect your form. Then you’ll increase the number of reps and up the intensity with advanced Tonal lifting modes such as Chains, Burnout, Smart Flex, and Eccentric in the second half of the program to keep the workouts challenging and engaging. “It’s a way of easily changing things up to keep you on your toes and make it more interesting,” adds Bloore.
Who Should Take This Program
Although 20-in-20: Shred and Sweat builds on the previous 20-in-20 installments, Bloore says you don’t need to have completed those before jumping in. “It’s kind of like The Fast and the Furious franchise,” he says. “You don’t have to watch the first one in order to understand the fifth one, but it certainly helps.”
Just keep in mind that there are some advanced movement patterns such as barbell front squats and decline pushups, so you’ll want to have a solid foundation of strength before tackling these workouts or be ready to make small modifications. It’s technically an advanced-level program, but Bloore says, “the intermediate member can always take longer rest periods in between the exercises or in between the rounds as they level up.”
How to Do it
Like Horton’s previous programs, you can finish 20-in-20: Shred and Sweat in four weeks with five workouts per week. If you have more time or prefer longer workouts, Bloore says you can opt to stack two workouts together on the same day. He recommends combining a push and a pull workout (the first and second sessions of each week or the fourth and fifth) and keeping the core cardio workout separate.
Bloore’s advice for getting the most out of this new program? “Bring the energy. Be ready to sweat and push yourself.”
