Round 2, Week 7

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.

Day 3 - Cardio Power and Resistance

I was off from work for my first two days of Insanity.  That was not the case today.  My alarm went off at 5:45 AM and I had to rollllll myself out of bed because every muscle in my body was too sore for me to sit up.  I spend a lot of time looking through a microscope at work but luckily I do get to move around a fair amount so my muscles did loosen up a bit throughout the day.  However, I was drinking some tea during my lunch break and some of it went down my windpipe.  Coughing was TORTURE because of my sore abs.

I was dreading today's workout.  Cardio Power and Resistance just does not have a nice ring to it.  It actually wasn't that bad.  I'm not sure if it was because I was dogging it or because I'm just getting used to how the program is set up and learning to pace myself.  Unfortunately I forgot to turn on my damn heart rate monitor so we may never know...  It was still taking readings, so I could glance down at it now and again to make sure my heart rate wasn't too high like yesterday, but it wasn't storing the readings so I don't have my average heart rate and can only estimate my calories burned.  Usually when I checked my heart rate it was in the 170s or 180s so I was in the right range, I think.

The warm up was a little different this time with the addition of Power Jacks (in the fit test), Log Jumps which are basically sprints with some jumping side to side and vertical jumps which are exactly how they sound. (sorry, I don't have time to link videos today.  Maybe I will edit this in the future to add them).  The warm up also included jogs, 1-2-3s, butt kicks and high knees.  No problem!  I was actually starting to feel a little cocky towards the end of the warm up.

The first circuit contained Power Jumps (see fit test), Belt Kicks, Hit the Floor, and V Push Ups.  I did fine for the first three moves and I could really feel a difference in my form for the Power Jumps when compared to the day 1 Fit Test.  I was scratching my head through the first round of V Push Ups just wonder how to get in the right position but I figured it out and actually was able to do most of the other reps.  After the third set Shaun throws in some triceps dips,  one leg triceps dips and ball triceps push ups.  My triceps are non existent so this was not cool, Shaun. I did as many as I could but it felt like my triceps were about to tear so I had to get my but on the floor and do some modified dips.

The next circuit consisted of Hurdle Jumps, Globe Jumps, Moving Push Ups and Floor Sprints.  I think we've seen some of these before.  After obliterating my triceps I was not able to do one normal moving push up and ended up doing as many knee push ups as I could (not many).

Finally, the last circuit was short, a few reps of "8 hop squats/8 push ups".  Hop squats were no problem.  You get into a squat position and hop eight times.  Fun!  Then you drop and give Shaun 8!  Literally drop, there was very little time between the hops and push ups.  Again, I had to do knee push ups.  We did this a few times and then finished up with some cool down stretches.

I'm feeling better about the program after today's workout.  I think a few factors probably contributed, including working out in the afternoon after work instead of first thing in the morning, pacing myself and focusing more on form (still need a lot of work on this) and understanding the program more.  I think my cardiovascular system is in pretty decent shape from all the running I did over the past year and a half.  My main hurdle is building up my strength so my muscles can carry me through the workout.

Tomorrow is Cardio Recovery.  I like the sound of that!