Is The Insanity Workout Worth The Hype?

Tuesday, February 21st, 2012 at 10:12 pm

decidetostayfit.com

Tried the new Insanity workout by Shaun T a while back and it may just be the hardest fitness program ever put on DVD. It definitely pushes your cardio limits as it’s packed with plyometric drills on top of nonstop intervals of strength, power, resistance, and ab and core training moves. What’s really good about it is that it uses no equipment or weights to get to your goals.

In a nutshell, this program took interval training and flipped it on its head by performing long bursts of maximum-intensity exercises with short periods of rest. In case you don’t know, interval training allows you to beat the “stress adaptation response,” which happens when your body gets used to exercising at one level of exertion and stops improving.

You perform these exercises at maximum level, during which your heart rate is raised to 80 percent or more of its maximum capacity and force your body to use fast-twitch muscle fibers not normally engaged in cardio exercise. This is followed by one of lower intensity, with the cycle repeated to achieve a cumulative effect. And so this is total-body conditioning at an extreme level, cycling between aerobic and anaerobic intervals performed at maximal throttle. That means if you’re prone to feeling woozy, then this might not be your cup of tea.

The upside: you burn up to 1,000 calories in an hour and get the most insane body in 60 days.

The drawback: not much, except after you finish the program – and you will – you have to go back to another type of training because it’s impossible to keep up this type of pace for too long. That means your results will vary as your training varies. However, smart thinking and hard work takes care of that.

As well, the Insanity program is NOT for beginners, pregnant women, obese people, those unwilling to work hard, and people who don’t consistently do high-impact exercise.