Insanity Week 3 Updates

We're on week three of Insanity now. My body has at least adjusted to the early mornings--I now wake up between 6:30-7 (instead of my usual 8:00), even on days where we don't have to do the workouts. We've been finding oursevles going to bed around 9:30pm and being more conscious of what we eat for dinner, because you have to think about how it's going to feel in your stomach when you're jumping around doing a plyo workout the next morning. Chad and I have both gotten colds/fevers since starting Insanity, but that's hard to say yet if it's just because flu season germs are still going around, or if it's because our bodies are so exhausted.

The workouts themselves don't get easier; I think your body just gets more used to them. You can always go faster or harder to match the speed they are going at on the video, so as your fitness level improves on each workout, you can work harder and still be just as tired as you were in week one. Each day we do a video, we'll say "THIS is the hardest one." But we've narrowed it down to the Plyometric Cardio Circuits as the hardest/worst one, with Pure Cardio as a close second!

I have to say, I'm not a fan of a lot of the body positions Shuan T has you in. For instance, when you're doing hamstring and hip flexor stretches, he has you keep your arms straight out away from your body while you bend down. The first few days of the workout, I started having low back pain, and once I stopped holding my arms out the whole time, it got better. When I got my YogaFit certification, that was one of the BIG no-no's: having someone bend down with their arms straight out. It's usually recommended that you would do what's called a "swan dive" and bring the arms out to the sides of your body as you lower down for less strain, (i.e. shortening the lever).

I'm also not a fan of his Cardio Abs workout for that same reason: uncomfortable body positions. By the end of the 10-minute ab workout, I'm feeling it in my tailbone and hips because he has you sit in "C shape" the entire time (see below). Again, that was something we were taught as group fitness instructors; you can't have someone in the same body position for more than just a couple minutes, otherwise you start feeling the workouts in places like bones/joints, not the intended muscles.

What I do really like about Shaun T's style is his constant focus on form and the core. If we're doing high knees, he keeps stressing using your abs to pull up. His constant reminders make you focus on the whole body, not just "getting ripped" like you might expect from his personality and appearance. I treat core the same way when I instruct people--for example, even if you're doing a shoulder press, your abs should be engaged so the spine stays straight and the back doesn't arch. Constant attention and engagement of the core practically eliminates the need for standard crunches and traditional ab workouts.

That's my "review" so far. Still have to see what the dreaded month 2 brings...