Insanity Exercise

Thirteen weeks of P90X got me here. I was as fit or more than I had ever been in my life. Several more weeks of the regimen got me here. Though I was in the best fitness and shape of my life, I wanted more. I had worked hard enough, for long enough, that I felt I deserved that damn six-pack ab section. I wasn’t satisfied with just “wow, what a transformation” and “better than ever.” I wanted to take my body all the way to “hot damn!”

But I’ve apparently been on a plateau with P90X, for several weeks, now. So I started giving consideration to another Beachbody workout regimen called Insanity. Several aspects of this regimen sell it to me:

• No equipment — no more pulling out and putting away my weights and pull-up bar nearly every night.
• 30-60 minute workouts — quicker than the 60-90 minutes of P90X.
• Sixty days — even faster than P90X.
• “The hardest workout ever put on DVD” — after taking on and beating the P90X challenge, I want to test myself on this, too.

From all I’ve read about this workout set, it’s not really a next level up from P90X, it’s just different — and just as extreme. P90X has a lot of weight training and muscling up; Insanity is all cardio and leaning down. After my rounds of P90X, I’m muscled up as well as I want, (I was never going for the Schwarzenegger look). Now I just want to lean down a little bit more.

Before I started P90X, I never would have thought I would reach 170 pounds and think, “I need to loose another couple pounds.”

So, I ordered and received my set of Insanity DVDs. I went through the first fit test and found the effort exhilerating. Here’s a Youtube video of the fit test exercises, (this is not me; this is Brad Gibala —  http://workoutjourney.com/):

The info in the Insanity set doesn’t give a goal for the fit test, but here’s what I “scored”:

Number of reps in 60 seconds, for each exercise

• Switch Kicks: 58 (two kicks = one rep)
• Power Jacks: 40
• Power Knees: 72
• Power Jumps: 25
• Globe Jumps: 7 (series of four jumps = one rep)
• Suicide Jumps: 9
• Push-up Jacks: 20
• Low Plank Oblique: 28 (two knee ups = one rep)

Most of those exercises I’ve never seen, much less performed. That beginning test was last Sunday. I’ve now completed my first week of Insanity, and I can say, “Wow! Holy &%^#^*&!” The workouts are incredible. Harder than P90X? I’d say, “Yes, but not because the individual exercises are harder.” The main difference is the intensity and pacing.

I couldn’t conceive of a more intense or faster paced workout than P90X before I started Insanity. But DAMN! Even the cast in the Insanity videos have to stop from time to time and take a breather in the middle of some exercises. It actually helps me get through when I take a break, hands on my knees, sweat dripping from my chin, lungs pumping like bellows, to look at the screen and see that a couple of the twelve or so cast members are also taking a pause. After a few seconds, I get back into the workout, so do the resting cast members — but then another one or two break down for a few seconds.

Whatever my results after this 60-day regimen of Insanity, I’ll be done with the daily workouts. Whether I get that set of washboard abs or not, I’ll just drop back to, and keep up, a good, solid maintenance workout schedule — 3 days a week. This is my promise to myself and my family. If I can’t get that ultra lean, totally ripped body with all this, then it’s just not going to happen for me, now, over 40 years old. I can accept that, but only after I’ve tried to get it.

Bullgrit