Looking for Insanity partners

Pure cardio today to finish up week 2!

Still here. This week is week 2 of month 2. So far this week I did a lot better than last week. This week is a rough week to find time though with work being so busy. Max Interval Circuit is the absolute hardest workout period.

billutzman wrote: »

Still here. This week is week 2 of month 2. So far this week I did a lot better than last week. This week is a rough week to find time though with work being so busy. Max Interval Circuit is the absolute hardest workout period.

Yes - totally - Max Interval Circuit is unbelievable! I got to 23 mins to go this morning and I was ready to collapse! Made it though and felt great but I can't imagine anyone would find that easy!

I'd definitely recommend taking another 20-30 minutes to do the fitness tests along the way so you have a marker for your progress, if you can.

Also, I made a before/after comparison photo if anyone cares. I lost a noticeable amount of fat and gained slightly better definition. I was hoping for slightly better results, but I'm still pretty happy. I wasn't trying to lose weight at all, just a little body fat. I definitely could've dropped more if I'd tried, but I didn't want to lose any of the muscle mass I had, since there wasn't a lot there to begin with.

@cardertaxidermy I think that max interval plyo was my favorite workout, actually. Some of the plyometric exercises were things I'd never seen or done before, and they were a good challenge, so it made it fun. Definitely not an easy workout, though (but then again, none of them really were, at least for me...)

Stick with it but don't injure yourself! I tapered off the last two weeks and I'm sure I would've seen better results if I hadn't.

Congrats on getting through a tough workout! I'm definitely not a morning person, so I know how hard it can be to drag yourself out of bed that early. Nice work . But yeah, the plyometric pushups are one of my favorite exercises, although I felt like the first month didn't really prepare for that very well. It seemed like the entire program was focused on legs and then all of a sudden it throws in a really challenging upper body exercise. I did the P90X plyometrics workout today that was basically "Insanity light", and I might switch it out with the Insanity plyometrics workout instead, since that was a lot more fun for me.

P90X definitely has more strength and upper body work than Insanity does. Three days a week looks like strength training stuff (chest/back/abs, shoulders/arms/abs, legs/back/abs), while the other three days are plyometrics ("Insanity light"), yoga (90 min workout, I'm doing it tomorrow for the first time), and kenpo, which I'm guessing is similar to the HIIT from Insanity. Obviously it's too soon to tell what kind of results I may see, but I can definitely say that my upper body is being worked with P90X, which I felt was kinda lacking from Insanity. So far my only complaints with P90X are that the voices are a little quiet, he tends to count out loud (which sometimes messes up my count), and there isn't really enough time to log my reps and switch weights between sets. I have a set of Bowflex 552 adjustable dumbbells, and it takes me a few seconds to switch the weights sometimes, which cuts into my next set. I'm adjusting for this by pausing the video every couple of sets to catch up, but it's annoying. He also doesn't demo the next exercise the way Insanity does. In Insanity, Shaun will often demo the next exercise while you're resting, but that seems to almost never happen in P90X (at least from what I've seen so far). This won't be an issue once I've learned all the exercises, but for the first few times, it's going to slow me down a bit as I watch their form for a few reps before starting.

And if hour-long workouts are too long, @cardertaxidermy , I'd say look into P90X3. I've heard that it's basically "P90X light" in that each session is cut in half, and it's a little less intense with many of the exercises. I haven't personally seen or tried it, however.

I never saw Tanya drop a rep. I must've been too busy gasping for breath to notice. I'm convinced that both she and Ariel are not human.

Congrats on your first chinup, @cardertaxidermy! Since Insanity doesn't work upper body much at all, what have you been doing to work on that? Something that has helped me with my pullups and chinups has been resistance bands when I don't have the strength to do more reps. I use one of these (the green one). I hitch it over my pullup bar and then tuck a knee into it to make the reps a little easier. That company also sells a three pack that includes some weaker bands too (that's what I have, actually, but I don't use the purple or black for much yet).

If you're doing P90X next, I'd definitely recommend some bands of some sort (there are lots of options) for assisting with the pullups/chinups. I did the chest/back workout today and there are 6 different sets of pullups or chinups (out of 24). On my first set, I did 7 without bands and then 8 more with the green band I linked above, but by my last set, I couldn't do any without the band, and only did 6 with the band. If you want to see what all the exercises here, here are the worksheets or you can look at this Excel spreadsheet. I use the worksheets, since the spreadsheet seems to be missing a few things, and it's easier for me to just have a pen and clipboard where I work out, versus bringing a laptop or something in.