Insanity workouts – Nancy’s excellent adventure

With all the sadness and terror last week, I thought we could do with some light hearted postings. I am going to tell you about my experience doing Beachbody’s Insanity ^(R) program. As the name implies, this is one tough program. Picture Army boot camp intensified. Only a true exercise fanatic could love something like this.

Before I started, I’m thinking, “How hard can this possibly be? It’s just a series of exercise DVDs.” Wrong!

I knew I was in trouble when the warm-up left me gasping for air. The warm-up consists of jumping jacks, sprints and burpees (aka squat thrusts). I have a flashback to gym class and the awful one piece gym uniforms. Can someone say bloomers? I thought a warm-up was supposed to be gentle movements to get the body ready for exercise, not torture exercises designed to kill you.

Next up is the stretch. Okay, I’m good at stretching. After all I do lots of yoga. Wrong again! My arms were flailing and I always tip over during the runners stretch. Why on earth is Shaun telling us to put one hand up to the ceiling? My hand on the floor is what’s holding me upright.

Now we get to the main workout. After a few weeks, I start enjoying them. I wasn’t gasping for air as much. Of course, the fact that I was doing these at 4:30 am might have had something to do with it since I’m still half asleep.

I do feel like one of the cool kids, working out the Shaun T. and crew. His crew are all very fit and look like college athletes. Of course I look nothing like them, but it’s fun to visualize. How the heck can they keep smiling through the whole workout? I’m too tired to move anything, even my mouth.

This would be a good time to insert a little video showing me doing the Insanity ^(R) workouts. That is not going to happen in this life time. There is a good reason that I work out at 4:30 am in the privacy of my own home. The key word here is privacy. I don’t even like my dear husband to see me. When he does, all I hear is some muffled snickering and mutterings like, “How come you’re not doing the same moves as they are on the DVD?” It’s a good thing I don’t I have a dumbbell in my hand, because I might be tempted to swing it. Just kidding, I’m really not a violent person. I blame it on oxygen deprivation from the hard exercise. 🙂

A good fitness program has to include a healthy eating plan. According to the nifty little nutrition book included with the program, I’m supposed to eat 1500 calories. What! I’m hungry just thinking about that small amount of food. I am disappointed to see that Peeps are not part of the healthy eating plan either. They should be, after all they are almost all sugar and sugar is a good energy source, right?

As time progresses, I actually start looking forward to my time with Shaun T. Have I told you that he is extremely easy on the eyes? Plus this man has an 8-pack abs. I’ve heard of 6-pack abs, but Shaun is more ripped than that.

I finish the 60 day rotation and I feel great. I love these workouts! So much so that I still do them after my current workouts. How insane is that?

So have you had any excellent adventures lately?