Insanity recovery week done!

I just finished my last session of Core Cardio and Balance. In the recovery week you do that workout exclusively all 5 days. It actually does not get all that boring (at least in my opinion). The key to the workout is pacing yourself, and going slower than you are capable of on some of the exercises so you do not pound your body. That said, there were still a few points in it where I had to take breaks.

Tomorrow is a rest day, then Wed I have the Fit Test and Max Interval Circuit. The plan is to do the fit test in the morning, and MIC in the evening. That way I do not kill myself doing them back to back.

Core Cadio and Balance

Today was my first core cardio and balance workout. It is the only workout done during the recovery week, then again a couple times during month 2. I really like the workout. I would describe it as a more intense version of the cardio recovery workout. It has more jumping and less plank work than the other, but the pace is similar. The key is to not go all out on the moves so you do not wear yourself out. I found myself doing most of the moves about 3/4 speed, and that seemed to work for me. I was sweating and tired at the end, but not collapsed on the floor.

Month 1 of Insanity is Done!

I just finished Plyo Cardio Circuit. Wed will start recovery week, and then into the max workouts. I am going to do pics and measurements at the end of the recovery week so I can have a good comparison. I will post both in my message board thread on the teambeachbody website, which you can link to from my beachbody page (the link is on the left).

While I have yet to get all the way through any of the workouts without taking unscheduled breaks, I have for the most part cut them down to a few seconds to catch my breath, then I can get back into it. Also, just in everyday life I can take stairs two at a time, and hardly get winded. I am excited to see what month 2 brings.

Month one nearing completion

Insanity goes by very quickly. That is my general overall impression. This is the beginning of my 4th week. Then I have the recovery week which is just one workout (Core Cardio and Balance), then I start the max workouts. The only "new" workout I have done since my last post is cardio abs. It is Insanity's ab routine that in month 1 gets paired up with Pure Cardio in week 3 and 4.

I do cardio abs in the morning, then do pure cardio later in the afternoon before I go to work. For those who do not have that kind of schedule, I would say do cardio abs first, almost as a warm up to pure cardio, then do the other. There is only a couple minutes of high impact jumping in the ab routine, then the rest of the workout is pretty low impact. If however you try to do cardio abs after pure cardio, unless you are in phenomenal shape it will be damn near impossible. At the very least a lot harder than it has to be.

Halfway through week 2

I probably will not update this as much until I get to different workouts. I am on day four of week 2, so today will be cardio recovery again. As far as the "regular" workouts go, I can tell my strength and stamina are getting better. I can do a lot more at the beginning of the workouts, and push a lot harder. The end result is that I am just, if not more, wiped out by the end than in week 1.

I have seen people ask if you can every get "used to" the Insanity workouts, and my answer to that is yes and no. Yes, you become familiar with the movements, and your cardio will improve. However, as you can do more, if you keep pushing yourself as hard as you can the workouts are never going to get easy. I think the best example of that are the people in the DVDs, who are all very fit, and many of them were in the test group and knew what they were in for, were all collapsed on the floor by the end of the workouts. At times, Shaun T. is the only one still doing anything, and even he is stopping for water breaks.

I cannot stress enough that this is not a program you do having never worked out before or after a long lay off from working out. At the very least you have to be used to hard workouts like bootcamp type group classes or something like P90x. The moves are not as easily adapted to less intense variations like in P90x or Chalean extreme. If you have that base level though, it is a great workout.