Workout Update: Insanity Max 30/Chalean Extreme/Body Beast/P90X Hybrid Day Round 2 Day 53

Day 53 was the last day of this hybrid workout, with the last Friday Fight 2. I was able to again Max Out ten minutes in (10:36 to be exact) while mostly doing unmodified or semi-modified moves for the first ten minutes. Then I had to do a combination of modified and unmodified. 

Overall, I would say that this round went okay, but not as well as I would have liked. My big takeaway from Max 30 is there is a huge difference between how hard the modified workout is versus the unmodified. There is a reason the modifiers can make it through the workouts without maxing out or making it nearly to the end before they max out, while the people who are not modifying generally max out 6-7 minutes into the workouts. 

I have decided that for the next round of workouts I am going to do doubles, but doing a low-impact beginner's pilates as the morning workout to help with my flexibility and core strength, and then Lift 4 as the evening, intense workout. Lift 4 is a four-day workout that combines living heavy weights focused on one or two body parts for the first half of the workout and then doing HIIT cardio for the last half of the workout. The idea is to fatigue your muscles with the heavy lifting and then do intense cardio when you are already spent. I am definitely curious to see how my body will respond to that. 

The Beginner Pilates workout is a six-day-a-week workout that runs for three weeks while Lift 4 is an eight-week program. Right now, my intention is to just do the Pilates workout for the full 8 weeks that I am doing Lift 4, and then switch routines again to go back to Max 30 and see how much better I can do after doing Lift 4. 

Workout Update: Insanity Max 30/Chalean Extreme/Body Beast/P90X Hybrid Day Round 2 Day 52

Day 52 was the Max Out Power workout. This one has probably been the best workout in terms of my max-out times, even though the max-out times have been pretty steady throughout the four weeks. I have pretty much made it to the thirteen-and-a-half-minute mark every time I have done the workout, and this time was the same. 

Workout Update: Insanity Max 30/Chalean Extreme/Body Beast/P90X Hybrid Day Round 2 Day 51

Day 51 was the Max Out Sweat workout. This has been, by far, the worst workout in terms of my max-out times in this round. I generally have maxed out right out, or just around the five-minute mark through the four weeks. This time I again maxed out right at five minutes.   

Workout Update: Insanity Max 30/Chalean Extreme/Body Beast/P90X Hybrid Day Round 2 Day 50

Day 50 was the Max Out Power workout. I again made it to just over the 15-minute mark before maxing out, which is pretty much where I have maxed out in this workout since week 2. I still have not figured out what I am going to do for the next workouts, aside from knowing I am going to do one in the morning and one in the evening. I am thinking of a more cardio-based AM workout and a resistance-based PM workout, but we will see. This will also require me to increase my caloric intake quite a bit, but my other option is to do a flexibility-based workout in the and more of a circuit-based workout, so something like P90X3 and then a yoga/pilates/stretching-based workout that is less intense and will allow me to keep my caloric intake closer to where it is at now. At any rate, I will figure that out this weekend.

Workout Update: Insanity Max 30/Chalean Extreme/Body Beast/P90X Hybrid Day Round 2 Day 49

Day 49 was the max out cardio workout. For this one, I finally busted through my plateau and was able to make it halfway through the workout before I maxed out. And, I was able to do a lot more unmodified or slightly modified moves. I am still not to the point where I want to be with the max out workouts, but I have definitely made progress.

Workout Update: Insanity Max 30/Chalean Extreme/Body Beast/P90X Hybrid Day Round 2 Day 48

Day 48 was the back and biceps workout from P90x. I really have nothing new to report on this one as I can do the same amount of weight on the resistance moves as the prior week. I did decide to sit down to do the pull-down moves to make them a bit harder. It is funny, in the first P90x workout, Chest and Back, when Scotty is using bands, in the first half of the workout he is sitting and then switches to kneeling in the second half, which Tony claims is harder, and closer to a real pull-up.  I think it is the exact opposite. When you sit down there is more distance between you and where you are pulling from, so you get more resistance and the pull-downs are a lot harder. So, my overall number of reps for those moves dropped pretty significantly.

Workout Update: Insanity Max 30/Chalean Extreme/Body Beast/P90X Hybrid Day Round 2 Day 47

Day 47 was once again the Kenpo-X workout from P90x. I again wanted a bit more of an intense workout because my nutrition was not all that great on Saturday, so I wanted to burn off some carbs. I pretty much found the workout to be the same as last week, easily keeping up with the cardio, but did find my balance was a bit off on some of the kicks, mostly because of the limited space in my basement if I am not using the thick floor mats (which I avoid for some of the moves because there are depressions in it where the filling has shifted). 

Workout Update: Insanity Max 30/Chalean Extreme/Body Beast/P90X Hybrid Day Round 2 Day 46

Day 46 was Friday Fight Round 2 again. In this one, I was able to max out about five minutes later into the workout as I did last week. So, I finally feel like I made progress in the workouts. It is still very tough (although not as tough as the original Insanity workouts because those are longer and do not have any modified moves).

Workout Update: Insanity Max 30/Chalean Extreme/Body Beast/P90X Hybrid Day Round 2 Day 45

Day 45 was Max Out Strength again. As has been the case with the past few workouts, I maxed out at pretty much the same point as I did last week, during the push-up sequence. The good thing about this workout is that I can get through the warm-up and the first portion (the leg sequence) without having to modify much at all. So, I have made progress.

Workout Update: Insanity Max 30/Chalean Extreme/Body Beast/P90X Hybrid Day Round 2 Day 44

Day 44 was Max Out Sweat. Again, the workout was pretty similar to last week. I think I am currently plateauing on the Max 30 workouts, so after next week I am going to switch to a different cardio workout and then come back to Max 30 once that is complete. I have not figured out which workout I want to do yet, but I will provide an update when I do. 

Workout Update: Insanity Max 30/Chalean Extreme/Body Beast/P90X Hybrid Day Round 2 Day 43

Day 43 was Max Out Power again. I was able to make it about a minute longer than last week, so I maxed out over halfway through the workout. Although, once I get to the push-up moves I have to modify them as I currently struggle to do even one good rep of the unmodified versions.  

Workout Update: Insanity Max 30/Chalean Extreme/Body Beast/P90X Hybrid Day Round 2 Day 42

Day 42 was Max Cardio again, and it went a little better than last week in terms of my max-out time, but I was still very tired at the end and had to modify more moves than I would have liked.  

Workout Update: Insanity Max 30/Chalean Extreme/Body Beast/P90X Hybrid Day Round 2 Day 41

Day 41 was the P90x back and biceps workout. It went well, but I was not able to hit the 10-rep max for any of the exercises. So, next week, everything will stay the same with the weights.  I am trying to figure out what workout(s) I want to do once this round of Max 30 is over. I am thinking of doing a doubles program with a cardio-based program in the morning and one of the strength-focused programs in the evening, but I am still trying to figure that out.

Workout Update: Insanity Max 30/Chalean Extreme/Body Beast/P90X Hybrid Day Round 2 Day 40

For Day 40 I switched it up a bit and did the Kenpo-X workout from P90x. I did that for a couple of reasons, first I attended a birthday party the night before and did not exactly eat a great dinner, so I wanted to get a bit of a better workout in than just stretching. Second, I wanted to see how doing a couple of months of Max 30 impacted the p90x cardio workouts. And, as I kind of suspected would be the case, even though I am still struggling in the Max-30 workouts, I would almost say that Kenpo-X was easy. I barely got winded at all and was able to keep up with, and in some cases go faster than those in the video. So, it is a good measure of my progress. 

Workout Update: Insanity Max 30/Chalean Extreme/Body Beast/P90X Hybrid Day Round 2 Day 39

Day 39 was Friday Fight Round 2 again. This workout was interesting because, as has been the case for the past couple of workouts, I definitely feel that my stamina is increasing, even though I still have to take a lot of breaks and Max Out at pretty much the same point in the workout. But, I can tell that my ability to do the tuck jump and burpee moves is getting a lot better (which also makes me tired faster). So, I feel like I am making progress, even though the Max Out times do not really reflect that.

Workout Update: Insanity Max 30/Chalean Extreme/Body Beast/P90X Hybrid Day Round 2 Day 38

Day 38 was the Max Out Power workout again. It was still very hard, but I found myself being able to do more during the workout, even though I maxed out at pretty much the same point as I did last week. 

Workout Update: Insanity Max 30/Chalean Extreme/Body Beast/P90X Hybrid Day Round 2 Day 37

Day 37 was the Max Out Sweat workout. It pretty much went the same as it did last week, but I was able to get slightly farther into the workout before maxing out. The 45 seconds on ten-second rest can be helpful, but it can also be very hard depending on what moves you have to do for 45 seconds. I generally like the workout overall, but it is one that I am always totally gassed by the end of it.

Workout Update: Insanity Max 30/Chalean Extreme/Body Beast/P90X Hybrid Day Round 2 Day 36

Day 36 was the Max Out Power workout again. I was able to max out about a minute later than I did last week, but the workout is still very, very tough. I am to the point where I can get through the entire warm-up sequence in pretty much every workout without having to switch to modified moves. Although, again, my unmodified moves are most definitely slower than those of the people in the video. 

Workout Update: Insanity Max 30/Chalean Extreme/Body Beast/P90X Hybrid Day Round 2 Day 35

Day 35 was Max Out cardio again. It was a mixed bag of sorts because on one hand I could go faster and do a lot more unmodified moves at the beginning of the workout, but I also got tired faster and maxed out earlier than I did last week.  I did try not to modify as much as I could, but that meant I was taking more breaks than I did when I was doing the workout completely modified in the last round. So, I am making progress, but again not necessarily as quickly as I would like to.

Workout Update: Insanity Max 30/Chalean Extreme/Body Beast/P90X Hybrid Day Round 2 Day 34

Day 34 was the Back and Biceps workout from P90x again. For the most part, I was hitting 8 reps for weight resistance exercises, and doing anywhere from 4-10 pull-down reps with 150 lbs of band resistance. I was able to hit 10 reps for the reverse-grip bent-over rows so I will be able to bump that up to 30 lbs of resistance next week. I have three more weeks of the Max 30 workouts and I will do the P90x back and biceps workout for the next three weeks and then figure out my next workout or workouts.