P90X creator wants Boehner to be next workout buddy

He’s amassed a slew of devotees on Capitol Hill, but P90X creator Tony Horton says there’s at least one member of Congress he’d still like to get his hands on: Speaker John Boehner.

Horton says of the Ohio Republican, “I’d like to see what the Speaker’s doing. He seems to maintain a certain level of shape that works.”

{mosads}Boehner played high school football and is an avid golfer who’s known to go on a long walk or bike ride every day. But P90X would likely test the lungs of the 62-year-old lawmaker, who is a regular smoker. 

Horton, in Washington recently for the National Press Club’s Beat the Deadline 5K race, usually squeezes in some time with members of Congress while he’s in town.

This trip was no different.

Despite a late-night vote, Horton says several lawmakers set their alarm clocks for a 6:30 a.m. workout full of “sweating and grunting” with him in the House gym.

While Horton no longer likes to reveal who’s joining him in the intense calorie-burning sessions, Republican Reps. Aaron Schock (Ill.), Kevin 

McCarthy (Calif.) and Jeff Flake (Ariz.) are known to be fans of the muscle-pumping DVD program.

And Horton’s latest workout buddies might soon be able to turn political opponents into chop suey. The California-based personal trainer, 53, taught his most recent congressional crew a new routine inspired by mixed martial arts. The morning included, “A lot of flying elbows. A few sprawls,” says Horton.

While he describes himself as a political junkie, Horton mostly stays mum on his own views, noting, “What I do is not political. It crosses party lines.”

When asked if he’d ever do anything devious to a lawmaker he doesn’t agree with politically, he replies with a smile, “Try to get one of them to twist a knee or something because I don’t believe in how they voted the night before? No, the goal here is to try to help as many people as possible.”

The ripped instructor says in the handful of times he’s beefed up with the House squad, he’s learned one thing — P90X workouts are not the time to bring up their day jobs. “We never talk politics — ever — because they’re huffing and puffing.”