Intense Insanity/P90X/Cycling workout program

kevinremer

So, I finished P90X a little while back, and towards the end I was doing 2 workouts per day, which I really enjoyed. I was going to start Insanity, but then had a crazy idea. I decided to do a combination of Insanity, P90X and Cycling in a 2-a-day format, broken up into 4 phases, each one 5 weeks long. The program looks like this:

http://webpages.charter.net/kevinremer/

I broke it down like this:

Insanity program in it's entirety, just every other day. This would make each 2 week segment of Insanity last 4 weeks. The 5th week of each phase would be a recovery week. On non-Insanity days, I would do P90X strength training. I fit them into the hybrid phases as such:

Hybrid Phase 1 = P90X Phase 1 workouts
Hybrid Phase 2 = P90X Phase 2 workouts
Hybrid Phase 3 and 4 = P90X Phase 3 workouts

That took care of the morning workouts. For the afternoons, I would alternate between cycling, Kenpo X and Cardio X.

Every Saturday was Yoga X in the morning and X Stretch at night.

The recovery weeks were a combination of Insanity and P90X recovery workouts.

I also gave myself the flexibility to stray from the scheduled evening workouts, provided that the morning workouts were done on the day they were to be done.

Currently, I'm almost done with week 5 of 20, and I feel great. I'm making sure to eat as many calories as I'm burning to maintain proper nutrition, I'm hydrating like a maniac and I'm supplementing with a daily multi-vitamin, and Chocolate milk+protein powder as a recovery drink.

Initial thoughts:

INTENSE!!!

My biggest concern was that I would burn myself out within the first 2 weeks, but I have not come even close. Every day I feel just as great as I did the day prior, if not better. My weight has been stable +/- 2 lbs, but I'm burning fat like a machine. In the past month, my pant size dropped again, my stomach is much more clearly defined and I just feel better all around.

This is a big deal to me because at this time last year, I was 53 pounds heavier, and content just sitting on the couch watching TV and eating myself to sleep. I find it amazing and exciting to be able to see how far I can push myself, and I just wanted to share that with all of you.

kevinremer

I have received several questions regarding this post, so I figure I would answer them in case anyone else had them as well.

1. How much of a daily time commitment is this for you/how do you fit it all in?

It varies, but it's generally 40-60 minutes in the morning, and the same at night. I try to balance the workouts so that I'm spending around the same total time each day. For the workouts at night, I tried to make sure to schedule something moderate if I had something intense planned the next morning. The morning workouts I do at around 6 am before work, the cycling I did right after work, and the other evening workouts I do about an hour before bed.

2. Do you ever run into times when you are working a muscle group 2 days in a row?

On occasion, but so does everyone when you think about it. What I tried to do was balance cardio work with the strength work for a given muscle group. For example, you're going to use your legs everyday no matter what you're doing, but I tried as best as possible to avoid 3 consecutive workouts that require copious amounts of squatting. I think I was able to blend the workouts pretty well, I have yet to feel burned out, just the normal "good" sore you get after working out.

3. Why on earth are you pushing yourself so hard? Are you training for something?

Short answer, just to see if I can But really, for me it's about getting healthy. At my last physical, my doctor commended me on improving my overall health so greatly. I told him of my plan, and he encouraged it, provided that I allow my body to recover when it says it needs to, which I have been doing. My cholesterol is finally within healthy limits, my blood pressure is normal, my body fat is down to 11% from 28% last year and my heart rate at the doctors office was 53 (it's 46 first thing in the morning).