How Insanity Improved My Gym Life

Last Friday wrapped up my first full week of gym-dom. I decided to wait a week that way I would have 2-3 days of both upper body and lower body weight lifting and 5 days of varying cardio, aka enough amo to make an adequate assessment.

Overall:  Success

Upper Body

This was a winner because of the 8136451 push ups you have to do with Insanity.  I used to have wrist problems that would flare up when I did overhead squats.  But now...oooooh man...I can do like 19463 in a row with no fatigue or pain.  I even impressed myself; I did some bent over rows and jumped down to do 10 push ups...I pushed myself up so fast even I was startled...I was so not prepared for that.  I do 50 total, 10 in between each set of whatever shoulder/back exercise I'm doing.  No pain in the wrists and I can keep good form for all 10 reps.  Pre-Insanity I could do like 7 solid ones before I could sense the world coming to an end; now I can do twice as many.  My shoulder strength also improved, obvi because of the 146 variations of push ups you do.  I can do squat press 60 lbs (I probably could do 65 lbs if the bar come in that size) for 2x8.  Pre-Insanity was 50 lbs, 2x8.

The following have also made improvements:

Biceps:  25 lbs, up 5 lbs

Triceps:  35 lbs, up 5 lbs

Rows:  70 lbs, up 10 lbs

Bent over dumbbell raises:  25 lbs, up 5 lbs

Lateral dumbbell raises:  20 lbs, up 7.5 lbs

Front & back pull downs:  85 lbs, up 10 lbs

Wrist curls:  30 lbs, up 5 lbs

So, not huge improvements, but very obvi improvements none-the-less.  And all of this without lifting a single weight in nearly 3 months.

Lower Body*

Squats:  165 lbs, up 30 lbs

Leg extensions:  145 lbs, up 30 lbs

Single leg extensions:  70 lbs, up 20 lbs

Leg curls:  70 lbs, up 10 lbs

Moving lunges:  60 lbs (barbell), 10 lbs

*weights may vary based on equipment brand

Again, not major but impressive considering these are all improvements based on lifting shear body weight for two months.

Cardio

Ok, so here's where the real improvements were.  I've been mixing it up a bit, doing some running, biking, and StairMaster over the week, and have seen major improvements.  I'm not really a fan of treadmill running, so I haven't done much of that, but I have been running in my neighborhood and I've seen some big changes in the pace I can keep for considerable distances.  I add in some high kicks, high knees, and defensive slides for flavor and I can see the difference in pre- and post- Insanity by the shear fact that I can actually do high knees in the first place.

The bike and StairMaster are the same in terms of conditioning. I did 70 flights of stairs on Wednesday on the StairMaster in 15 min. My quads felt like death and I was sweating like a klepto in a jewelry store, but I managed to make it through. Since my pace has improved so much, I've cut back on the time I spend on cardio.  Now 15 min StairMaster is just as efficient as 20 or 30. This week I'm going to up it to 30 min to see if I can survive.

Conclusions

After basically finishing Insanity and working out for a full week I can officially give Insanity an 8/10 on the Hillary Scale of Wellness, with 10 being the most fantastical program of life.  It has some obvi faults and there were certainly things I'd change about it, but it's actually quite effective. You may not necessarily see the physical changes after awhile, but you'll certainly feel them when the program is done. I'd say it's a good move if you can spare the $140.

I also say it ain't worth no damn $140, but that's a post for another day.

If I could do it again, would I? Yes.  Will I be buying anymore BeachBody, gay man Shaun, or any other workout dvds? No.  The gym > all of those but that's because I'm a gym rat. The gym is what I do; lifting is what I do.  And now that I finally get to do what I do on a consistent basis again, I can finally be at peace with myself.  Nothing makes you feel more accomplished than the Elevator Day following Leg Day.