There’s no denying that the P90X took the home fitness world by storm in the mid-2000s. Like a blockbuster movie, the sequel show was always considered inevitable.
As we sadly see many times with a movie sequel, there are many factors related to substance and perception that affect critical and commercial success.
The P90X2 was rumored / confirmed to be in R&D for basically two years prior to the actual product launch in late 2011. During that time, anticipation became a torrent, especially among P90X graduates. The reason was simple: P90X was popular, and many graduates had done it multiple times. They wanted more and better. To that end, early advancements for the P90X2 promised evolution and an innovative vehicle to increase your overall fitness level.
The chatter from the online forum during the introduction was fairly uniform. What the P90X veterans wanted was something fresh and new to spice up their home training, the hard work expected and now even better results.
What has happened since launch is a case study in how rare it is to achieve impressive success at the P90X level in the fickle home workout market. After using the product and taking a closer look at almost 100 online reviews, I believe that the P90X2 represents a living change, it takes hard work and it gets results. These are the same things the audience said they wanted for the years and months they spent waiting for their P90X2 to arrive.
Instead, the overall reviews have been decent to good, with the weirdest peppered into the mix. P90X, by contrast, managed a good to excellent rating on just about every reputable review site I could find.
Even with the good ratings, there have been many complaints that the P90X2 does not make people work enough, but at the same time requires the user to engage in movements (mostly poses) that are a radical departure from what it is. people were used to the P90X. Basically, P90X2 tries to be a full body workout and adheres to that creed in every phase of the program.
The science behind P90X2 is still predominantly based on the idea of creating muscle confusion, but the approach is radically different than P90X. In my opinion, this is really undermining customer service. I’ve seen it written that the P90X was popular, not just because it delivered great results, but because it met user expectations from workout to workout.
This appears to be a hole in the P90X2. People who are buying it don’t know what to expect due to a marketing message that is definitely out of focus. Sure, people are getting results. The problem is that if it doesn’t feel right every time, it creates a situation where the user feels divorced from the process. Review after review reveals that many people don’t believe in what they are doing. This is 180 degrees from the general experience for P90X users.
Does this mean that the P90X2 is doomed? No. For the person thinking of purchasing the program, keep in mind that this is a different approach with a lot of different exercises. You have to trust the people behind the creation and really judge the training without expectations or memories of the previous program.