Archives for May 2012

How Long Are The Insanity Workouts?

May 16, 2012 - Updated November 28, 2018

One of the things I like about Insanity is that the workouts are not too long. Most of the workouts are under an hour long. Shaun T developed the workouts so you are doing different dynamic moves that incorporate multiple muscle groups.

This way you’re not working on just one or two muscle groups at one time but instead three or more. It’s a contrast to what is done in the P90X workout where you have an hour long workout followed by a 15 minute ab workout.

First Month

You do Plyometric Cardio Circuit, Cardio Power & Resistance, Cardio Recovery, and Cardio Abs. Each one of these workouts is 30 to 40 minutes long. The Cardio Abs workout is 17 minutes long and is only done after Pure Cardio three different times. Even with the additional ab workout you will still finish all of your month one workouts in under an hour and more often around 40 minutes.

Recovery Week

You only do the Core Cardio & Balance workout six days that week. It’s about 38 minutes long.

Month Two

You do Max Interval Plyo, Max Cardio Conditioning, Max Recovery, Max Interval Circuit, Cardio Abs, and Core Cardio and Balance. The “Max” workouts are about 50 minutes long.

The first time you attempt them you’ll probably be saying “10 more minutes of this stuff. You’ve got to be kidding me.” Those max workouts do a lot of the same moves as in the first month but you are going for a longer time. It really is a challenge.

What really makes the Insanity workout a great program is it puts everything together in a short time period. Those times also include a warm up and cool down period.

P90X Fitness Test

May 15, 2012 - Updated November 30, 2018

Before you get started with the P90X workout you need to do the P90X Fitness Test. Its going to tell you where you stand right now and give you something to compare to after you finish your 90 days.

It’s also going to tell you if you should even do P90X right now or instead do something like the Power 90 workout to better prepare yourself.

It takes about 40 minutes to complete and be sure to do the exercises in order. If you bought P90X you can find the instructions on how to do the P90X Fit Test in the workout guidebook. If you lost the book then here is everything you need to know.

What Do You Need For The P90X Fitness Test?

Heart Rate Monitor
Body Fat Tester
Tape Measure
Scale
Chin-Up Bar
Timer
Dumbbells

What Are The P90X Fitness Test Moves?

Resting Heart Rate – If you don’t have a heart rate monitor than take your pulse by counting the beats on your neck or wrist for 30 seconds than multiply by 2.
10 Minute Warm Up – Jumping Jacks or a light jog in place. Enough to build up a sweat.
Pull Ups – Do as many wide grip pull ups until failure. Men should be able to do 3 and women 1. If you can’t do any which is common for a lot of people than use resistance bands instead.
Rest 1 Minute
Vertical Leap – Put your arm straight up against a wall and record the height. Then take one step back and jump up. Record the differences between the two to get your vertical leap. Men should have a leap of at least 5 inches and 3 inches for women.
Rest 4 Minutes
Push Ups – As many as you can do to failure. Men should be able to do 15 and 3 for women.
Rest 4 Minutes
Toe Touch – Measure how far you can reach past (or not) past your toes. No less than minus 6 inches for men and women.
Rest 4 Minutes
Wall Squat – Record how long you can stay in a chair position pressed against the wall. Should be able to do at least 1 minute.
Rest 4 Minutes
Bicep Curls – Do as many front facing bicep curls as you can. Should want to select a weight you think you will max out at 10-15 reps. Men should be able to do 10 curls with 20 lbs and 10 curls with 8 lbs for women.
Rest 3 Minutes
In & Outs – Raise feet off the ground. Bring knees in towards your chest and then straighten them back out. Do as many as you can without touching the floor. Should be able to do at least 25.
Rest 4 Minutes
Heart Rate Maximizer – Jumping Jacks for 2 minutes non stop with the last 30 seconds being as fast as you can go. Record your heart rate immediately after, 1 minute after, 2 minutes after, 3 minutes after, and 4 minutes after. You should be able to complete the 2 minutes of jumping jacks.

Write all of your numbers down as you will record them on day 90 also. This is the best way to compare how far you’ve come with P90X. If you did more than the minimums for each then you are ready to get started with P90X. You only need to figure out if the Lean, Classic, or Doubles routine is best for you.

If you were able to do more than the minimum on most of the moves then you’ll be able to get started with P90X. It’s normal for most people to not get a couple of them. If you did not hit the minimums on any of them then you might want to look at doing Power 90 to build up your strength and then come back to P90X.

There are people who will power through and do well with P90X even though they don’t do well with the P90X Fit Test. Keep in mind that the first month or two will probably be very challenging.

What Order Do You Do The Insanity Workouts In?

May 14, 2012 - Updated March 26, 2020

Are you borrowing or lost your calendar from the Insanity workout and need to know what order you do the workouts in? Here are pictures of my Insanity workout calendar to show you what day to do the workouts in. Hope this helps.

Make sure you create a free Beachbody account too. Click on the “Get Fit” tab after you create the account and you’ll see where you can print off other Insanity workout sheets.

Please take a couple seconds to create a free Beachbody account before you print off or write down the workouts you’re supposed to do. You’ll see free tools to help you through the Insanity workout.

Motivation – Where Did You Go?

May 11, 2012 - Updated May 11, 2012

Over the past couple of months I have been struggling to find the motivation to workout. Yes, I’ll admit it. This Beachbody Coach has been putting in the time but not nearly the amount of effort needed to get results. I’ve been thinking about what happened to cause this shift in my mindset as the previous 4 years it was given I’d be putting in the effort. I came to the conclusion that it all started after my elbow injury last fall. It really put a damper on my spirits. It hurt to do everything from throwing a softball to picking up grocery bags. When the season ended in late October I tried my best to keep up with my workouts but the pain was too much. I scaled back on working out to 3 days a week in November while preparing to do the Ultimate Reset in December. When Beachbody said it wasn’t coming out until March of this year I was kind of bummed. I still did the 3 days a week working out in December while getting prepared to do P90X2 start on Jan 2nd.

While I did finish P90X2 in 100 days I was not thrilled about my results. I was eating like I was putting in 100% effort when I was probably only at 60%. The pain in my arm was too much to do certain moves. Forget pull ups and any amount of heavy weights when doing curls. During P90X2 and the following month I lost interest in working out. I don’t know if the arm injury is what caused it but it got me thinking about what my motivation to workout really is. I get lots of emails a week from people who are over weight or out of shape and it’s because they lost their motivation or let something else take over their workout time. Was my arm injury becoming my first excuse? In the weeks following the Ultimate Reset I’ve been thinking about what my motivation to workout really was. It occurred to me that it’s changed so much over the past 10 years.

What Were My Motivations To Workout?

High School – Never really worked out. Just played sports.

College – Did what I thought was working out and stayed active.

My One Year Hiatus After College To Colorado and Germany – Ran a ton so my legs were in shape to ski every weekend.

2 Years In The Real World – Worked out at the gym to burn off some stress and to stay in shape. Ran a lot also because I was motivated to do the Detroit Marathon.

Introduced To P90X – Motivated by the challenge of doing something new.

After P90X – Motivated to see how many pull ups and push ups I could do over another two rounds of P90X.

Introduction To Insanity – Considered it another challenge.

After completing Insanity my motivation started to change towards doing the programs to see what results I could get and also to do them so I can recommend them as a Beachbody Coach. My business was established by this point so working off stress was not a motivation. I was done running marathons and my amount of reps had reached its peak in just about every workout. My motivation to keep in shape in the winter months was because I didn’t want to be dragging ass when I went out west with my buddies on our annual snowboarding trip.

In the past 3 years I was asked to play in a couple of softball leagues. It grew from playing double headers one night a week to the occasional three nights a week and am now playing tournaments once or twice a month on the weekend. My motivation the past two years was to get in the best shape I could possibly be in so I’d be an asset on the teams and help us win championships. Last summer I was probably in the best shape I’ve ever been in after finishing the Insanity Asylum workout. Our softball team ended up winning two of four championships with a runner-up.

Where The Motivation Is Lost

Once you hit your goal its easy to go back to your old ways unless you have a list of goals to continue to hit. I did not have another goal set up after helping my team win those championships so I’ve been slacking on the effort. I don’t see myself ever not working out but I’m seeing how its important to keep setting bigger health and fitness goals with small attainable ones between them. Its kind of like when people do awesome with P90X but they don’t know what to do after P90X so they put all of the weight back on. They had nothing to motivate them to keep on going.

Where My Motivation Is Not

Working out just to workout has never been a motivation of mine. It’s just not my thing. However, I do enjoy the benefits of what working out and taking care of myself brings. Better health, enjoying the activities I do much more, being able to still do the things I like to do, and never having to buy new clothes (I hate shopping) because my sizes have been about the same for the past 6 years. Working out to look good does not motivate me either. I look at it as an effect of me working towards some other fitness goal.

You Set Your Motivation Goals Or It Will Set Them For You

After I decided to take it easy on my arm my motivation became to not workout so I didn’t re-injure my arm. And that’s what I did, not workout so I wouldn’t hurt my arm. I put on some weight in that 5 month time period all while trying to not workout so I didn’t re-injure my arm. Realizing it now this should not have been my motivation. Instead I should have been focusing on working out everything else I could at 100% effort. My arm became the “I don’t need to workout because I’m already with somebody” or “I’m big boned” or “I’ll go buy a new bat (golf club) and it will do all the work for me” or one of the hundreds of other excuses people give to not take care of themselves. They are called excuses but couldn’t those also be their motivation? In the end I had let my arm injury set my motivation and goals for me and I didn’t even know it.

Moving forward I know I’m gonna have to keep setting new goals that motivate me to want to keep on pushing. I know I can’t just workout to stay in shape to enjoy the sports I play. Those are now gonna have to be a by-product of a new and bigger health and fitness goal. So now all I need to do is figure it out.

My Feet Hurt When Doing The Insanity Workout

May 8, 2012 - Updated November 28, 2018

A friend of mine came up to me recently and said his feet were killing him while doing the Insanity workout. He was excited to have lost about 20 pounds by day 45 but he was having to skip days because of the pain. He isn’t the first one to have told me this.

His brother who deals with Plantar Fasciitis actually told me the same thing when he was going through it. If there is one thing that Insanity will do is challenge your feet and knees. He was dealing with a couple of the issues I have to deal with when working out at home.

The only space he has available to do it in is a area with hardwood floors. The constant jumping and lateral movements during the workout put a lot of pressure on the bones in the lower body. His brother told me he loved the concept behind the workout but wished there wasn’t so much jumping or one less day a week of leaving the ground. This way the lower body has a chance to recover and doesn’t lead to future injuries. I agree.

What Can You Do To Stop Your Feet From Hurting?

Buy New Shoes – You would be surprised how quickly shoes get worn out. Especially when they look like they still have 6 months of life to them. I have made this mistake a number of times. I guess Im still looking for the perfect shoe.
Walk More – Do you get enough steps in every day? Its important to stand up and get the body moving.
Don’t Go From Sitting To Insanity – Its admirable you want to get your workout in after sitting at your computer for 4 hours but you’re probably stiff. Get loose first.
Go Barefoot – Walking around barefoot will strengthen the bottom of the feet. Do this around the house. Don’t do this when doing Insanity unless on carpet.
Workout On Carpet – If you have to move some stuff than do it.
Workout Outside – Weather permitting of course. I did almost all of the Insanity Asylum workout on the grass. I have to because my house is small and there just isn’t the space.
Beachbody Jump Mat – This thing has been a savior for me. I use it in almost every workout I do now. Its easy to roll up and put away along with providing just enough padding to protect my knees from being hurt. For $60 its the least you could do for your knees. Sometimes I’ll put my yoga mat under the jump mat for a little bit extra cushion.

The best thing you can do to prevent injury when doing Insanity is to practice good form. I made that mistake the first time through Insanity. You get so focused on trying to keep up with Shaun T that you forget to pay attention to what you’re doing.

When you go slower and learn the moves it forces you to do it correctly. As your strength builds up so will the speed. There will be less force applied to your knees, ankles, and the rest of your body as your muscles are now picking up the slack.

If you are having problems with your feet when doing the Insanity workout then try a couple of the tips above. Your body will thank you and results will come faster.

Day 21 – Beachbody Ultimate Reset – My Last Day!

May 4, 2012 - Updated November 20, 2018

Today was my last day of the Beachbody Ultimate Reset. Another day where I felt great. Had a softball game at night where I’m definitely not up to speed yet but I am feeling great.

Breakfast was the usual plate of fresh fruit. For lunch we had a Carrot Seaweed Medley and Microgreen Salad. Dinner was Avocado-Cucumber Soup, Roasted Veggies, and Quinoa. The soup is awesome.

I recommend checking out my full review of the Ultimate Reset where I share before and after photos, how much weight I lost, and thoughts about the entire program.