Oh man, I forgot how long these max interval workouts are! This week would have been week 6 if I had been following the Insanity schedule as written. It starts off with Maximum Interval Circuit. For me, this is the most intense of all the Insanity workouts. That could be because at 55 minutes it is the longest. That's only 10 minutes longer than plyometric cardio circuit, but that 10 minutes includes an entire circuit that is repeated thrice. The following day was Max Interval Plyo. I think this one is a little easier, which surprises me because I still consider plyometric cardio circuit from month one to be pretty tough. That's mostly because of all the upper body shit during the second circuit. Max Interval Plyo does have a few moves thrown in that don't really do much for me (like the pogo) so I get a little bit of a recovery at a few points. Also, the 3rd circuit is only gone through once. Max Cardio Conditioning is my favorite. I imagine a few Insaniacs will find that crazy. It is intense so the time goes by pretty quickly and I am stronger with cardio than I am with any thing that requires a lot of strength. There are some push ups and stuff in there but since it is just one long circuit, I do what I can and move on.
I did manage to get all of the workouts in, but I did have to make up a Max Interval Plyo at the beginning of week 8 because I had company over during the weekend of week 7. I can't stand having people watch me work out so I decided to swap a run from week 8 for the missed MIP. Anyway, I'll get in to week 8 and 9 with my next post but I will give you a hint that so far it isn't going well!
The Max workouts are hard and my muscles were pretty sore. They still are a little. I mentioned in my last post that I got a foam roller to try to workout some of the kinks and knots. I was originally using the Marathon Stick which really helped me while training for my marathon. However, it could not work my quads, glutes and hamstrings enough because those are massive muscle groups. The foam roller allows me to put a lot more pressure on those parts because it uses my body weight to apply the pressure. It still isn't enough for my hamstrings so I'll probably have to get a PVC pipe or something in the future. Anyway, YEOWTCH! If you have ever used a foam roller, you know what I'm talking about. It is almost unbearably painful at first. Especially along my IT band, which I had been neglecting with the Marathon Stick and could be the cause of some of the difficulty I've had with running lately.
I've made a few changes to my workout habits, which I feel I am able to do since I am an Insanity veteran and did the program to a T the first go round. The first change I made is a big one. The workouts are too damn long now so I skip the first round of stretching. I read somewhere that static stretching really does nothing to prevent injury and by fast forwarding through them I shave 5 minutes off the workout but still burn the same amount of calories. I do not condone skipping the warm up at all, okay? The next change isn't that big of a deal. I hate the warm up during the Max work outs, especially the floor hops side to side, so I skip that move. What is it supposed to warm up anyway? I do butt kicks now instead.
Weeks 8 and 9 are another pair of running hybrid weekends. I like to break up the workouts but so far the hybrid weeks have become excuse weeks and I've been skipping more running workouts than I should. It kind of defeats the point and makes me wonder if I should just do Insanity straight. Those are thoughts for when I finish the program.
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