Well I asked for it! I wanted to step things up, and I got just that. This morning's workout utterly destroyed me!
I'm not quite sure what's wrong with me, but I'm pretty happy with that. My good mood was probably helped by this week's measurements;
It's not a huge improvement, but as last week was very light, I'm happy that I didn't stand still, or take a step backwards. I was careful with what I ate, and lost a little more body fat.
The madness continues tomorrow with Power Legs & Relief. It has only been a couple of months since I last did Power Legs, but I can't remember anything about it. I'm guessing there will be many squats........
Reaching the half way mark in this 12 week programme should feel like an accomplishment, but this recovery week has wound things down a bit too much for me. I'm not convinced that a recovery week was needed at this stage.
When I think about Insanity's recovery week, it made sense (at least the first time I did it anyway). The first four weeks of Insanity gradually build up in in terms of duration, whilst maintaining a fairly consistent calorie burn per minute;
That meant that the first time you did Insanity, by the end of week 4 you were pretty worn out, and needed a break before stepping up a gear in month 2.
The Hybrid is a very different workout. Firstly, it's intended for people who have already completed Insanity, Asylum and Asylum 2. I'm not an elite athlete, but after completing all three of those, I'd consider myself above average in terms of fitness, and after five weeks of the Hybrid, I'm not feeling burnt out. Secondly, both the duration and intensity of the hybrid has been dropping since week 2. Even when I pushed extra hard in week 5 (read about that HERE) I still couldn't match the week 3 numbers. Lastly, and most importantly, compared to the standalone workouts, this Hybrid has really been looking after me. Weeks 3, 4 & 5 all included at least four rounds of Relief/Recovery - That's two hours of stretching per week on top of the normal cooldown stretches!
So, how did this recovery week compare to the previous 5 weeks? As per normal, I pulled the data from my Polar H7 Bluetooth 4.0 Heart Rate Sensor and recorded totals for duration and calories burnt.
I won't be looking at the standalone workouts for this analysis, as neither Asylum workouts have a recovery week. Let's start by looking at the total duration of each of the last six weeks;
That's more than a 100 minute drop compared to the previous four weeks!
Now we look at the calorie burn;
Unsurprisingly, there's a significant drop in calorie burn.
Now if we combine the two graphs to look at the calorie burn per minute;
Now that's a bit more interesting. By throwing in a couple of proper workouts, the week's workout intensity hasn't dropped by too much.
How do I summarise this week? Initially I thought it was just a waste of time, but I clearly got some work done. I'll know tomorrow after my weigh-in and measurements what affects it has had on me physically. Mentally, I'm ready to work out, and that's got to be a good thing. I know I shouldn't look too far forward, but the next few weeks don't look quite so daunting;
Before I started this programme, I looked at the second half, and thought "Holy ####!" Now I'm thinking "Bring it on!" Was that the point of this week?
So, I have three weeks of solid Asylum/Asylum 2 ahead of me. I've done it before, and was fatter then. I'm rested, and feel like I'm in reasonable physical shape. This could be fun.
I've just added a "Totals So Far" widget to the top right of my page. It's just a little table showing what I've done, and how it's affecting my body. As my chest, arm and leg measurements have not really changed, I won't track those on the widget, but some of those other numbers look pretty good!
Thanks for reading. I'll leave you with another cool video. This week it's more humans doing awesome stuff;
I've reached the half way mark! I'd probably feel a bit better about it if a workout had been involved, but it was just relief today. Hardly any calories burned, and no sweat produced.
Recovery week is almost over! I'm looking forward to getting back into the real workouts on Saturday.
Today's Max recovery went ok. I had to back off lightly in the high/low planks to stretch out my shoulder, but am otherwise satisfied with the routine.
It's just relief tomorrow (not sure that I need to record that one), and then I'll have reached the half way point. Yay!
Day 39 took me back to Insanity's own recovery week, which is something I've not done in a very long time. The last time I did Insanity, I skipped the recovery week entirely (that's not recommended btw - you need a break before month 2 of Insanity), so although this felt familiar, it also felt somehow alien compared to the other workouts in this Hybrid.
It is a strange beast. Shaun T makes a point of telling you not to overdo the workout, which at this point is pretty hard. Unlike the Insanity workout, where month 1 slowly builds before the recovery week, this Hybrid has been oddly paced. All I wanted to do was hammer through this workout, but I knew that my body needs a bit of a break before things get mad again in a few days. I slowed things down, kept the same pace as the guys on the DVD, and really took the time to enjoy the workout. It was still a workout, I still got soaked, and it was still a challenge, but after 40 minutes it was over, and I was happy with my effort and that because of the sorter run time, I had time to sit down and have breakfast before heading into work.
It's Max Recovery tomorrow, followed by two rest days. I plan to do Relief on at least one of those days, as I feel the need to do some more stretching to prepare for week 7.
Today went pretty much as expected. X Trainer requires a level of coordination that I'll never achieve, so I'm expecting it to look like a mess (timelapse is encoding as I type). Still, it burned 900 calories, and I got a good stretch in Relief.
Apart from the coordination, there's plenty of room for improvement in X Trainer. I attempted the push up jumps, but didn't want to overdo it, so that's something. I failed to complete all the reps in the weights section, and was well and truly out of steam by the end of the workout. I only get to repeat the workout once more on day 65 (if I make it that far), which is a bit of a shame, as it was fun.
The recovery week is taking me back to Insanity tomorrow for Pure Cario & Cardio Abs. That should be nice, short and relatively easy, so I'm really going to have to watch my diet.
It's the start of what I'm going to refer to as the recovery week. It will be longer and heavier than Insanity's week of Core Cardio and Balance, but significantly lighter than the last few weeks. I'm really going to have to keep an eye on what I eat!
Today's Cardio Recovery went exactly as expected. I did have a lower calorie burn than on day 33, but that's ok. Today I just wanted to stretch.
Last week I found that mu body fat had gone up. That sparked a week of pushing myself harder to not just get that body fat percentage back down, but also to try to figure out what had caused the increase. As you know from yesterday's analysis, I've determined that it was mostly a combination of poor diet and laziness. So, how did last week affect my body?
That's a bit better. Not quite down to Day 22's body fat, but close enough for me.
Tomorrow it's Asylum 2's X-Trainer & Relief. That should be entertaining to watch, as it requires a lot more coordination than I have.
What a weird week it has been. I've had some work related stuff which has seriously affected my sleep, but due to my awesome family, and the challenge I set myself for this week's workouts, I feel pretty good at the moment (Plus we got the new Star Wars Trailer!).
As you hopefully remember from last week's analysis, week 4 was a disaster. I ate badly, did the lowest intensity week of workouts of the whole year, gained body fat, and injured my left shoulder. On Saturday, after my normal weigh-in, measurements and workout I challenged myself to turn that around this week. As this week had the exact same workouts as last week, I wanted to know if I was just being lazy, and whether I could match week 3's calorie burn.
That was a pretty stupid challenge. When I set it, I had already completed one of this week's workouts, and burning an extra 600 calories in 5 workouts would be really hard. Especially when two of them (Back and 6 Pack & Cardio Recovery) are not high calorie burners.
So, now for the moment of truth. Did I do it? No.
In week 4, I burned 4172 calories. This week I managed 4686. That's an increase of 514. It's short of my target, but I'm not hugely disappointed. If we compare the last two weeks we can see where I fell short;
I made a reasonable increase in every workout this week except for one - The one I did before setting myself the challenge. I'm still not convinced that I could have gained those extra 86 calories in Upper elite, but seeing as I managed a 79 calorie increase in Cardio Recovery, I'd have been a lot closer to my goal.
So, now that I've pushed myself harder this week, how does last week's theory that increased fitness = a lower calorie burn look? Once again, I pulled the data from my Polar H7 Bluetooth 4.0 Heart Rate Sensor and recorded totals for duration and calories burnt.
As this is the last week where we have data for all five workouts, let's see them all together. Firstly let's look at the duration;
There's no real surprise here - with identical workouts in both weeks 4 and 5 of the workout, there was no difference in time.
Now we look at the calorie burn for each of the programmes;
Now we can see those extra 514 calories!
Now if we combine the two graphs to look at the calorie burn per minute;
As week 4/5 was very slightly shorter than week 3, the difference in calorie burn per minute really tightens up. I did 12.2 calories per minute in week three, 10.75 in week 4, and 12.02 this week.
I'll find out tomorrow if pushing harder has made any physical changes. I'm hoping to have at least lost last week's body fat gain.
So did my increased fitness explain my lower calorie burn per minute last week? Maybe very slightly, but the main difference was pure laziness. I simply wasn't pushing as hard as I could. The next question is whether pushing this hard is sustainable. Only time will tell.
Next week is looking very light;
In fact, that almost looks like a recovery week! I certainly won't be setting any personal bests, but I'll push hard all the same.
Thanks for reading! I hope that this is of interest to somebody out there. As always, I'll leave you with a little treat for making it through all my waffle. If you haven't already seen this, sit down, turn up the volume and enjoy. If you have already seen this, do that anyway :)
Had a later than normal workout today, which seemed to help me push a bit harder. Was it enough to reach my target? I'll save that for tomorrow.
For now, I'd just like to concentrate on today's workout, and how it compared to the same workout last week;
A 148 calorie difference isn't too bad. That's more than half of a McDonalds Hamburger!
How did I manage such an amazing feat? I just tried to hammer through every exercise;
The top graph is last week, and today is below. I got my heart rate close to 90% in the warmup (represented by the pink bar), and managed to keep it above 80% for the whole of the Max Cardio Conditioning workout. That then carried through to a higher heart rate during Cardio Abs.
I'm happy with today's effort, and should sleep well tonight. It's rest day tomorrow, and I'll obviously be doing my normal weekly analysis, as well as revealing whether I met my target calorie burn for the week.
I'm not going to match week 3's calorie burn this week.
Here's last Tuesday's Vertical Plyo & Relief;
And here's today's;
I should be thinking that a 124 calorie increase is good, but it needed to be closer to 200 in order for me to make up the difference. Oh well :(
It's disappointing, but I'll keep pushing and see how close I can get.
Other than that, it was a pretty good workout. I modified the plyo push-ups to protect my shoulder, but tried to hammer my way through the rest of the workout.
In today's graph (the lower one) you can see that by pushing that bit harder, I was able to keep my heart rate up higher for the latter part of the workout, which then again carried through Relief.
I'm off to watch The Force Awakens trailer for the 10th time this morning :)
It's Monday morning, it's cold, it's 4AM and I'm getting out of my nice warm bed to do a workout. Why am I doing this?
Last week, my total calorie burn had dropped significantly, so on Saturday I set my self the challenge of not just beating that calorie burn, but beating it by 600 calories. The problem with that challenge is that today's and Wednesday's workouts are not high calorie burners, so the difference needs to be made in the remaining workouts. I set the challenge after Saturday's workout, which left only three to make up that difference. I've pretty much set myself up to fail.
However, I did manage to burn 54 more calories than I did last week. Not a huge improvement, but that just leaves 437 additional calories to burn over what I did last week. Is that possible? probably not, but I'll push for it anyway.
The back and Six Pack workout went OK. I think I did better than last week, though the hip flies are still a problem (I'm not yet strong enough to do them with my 10KG weights), and despite much grunting and growling, I didn't complete the final flutter kicks.
I'm actually improving in Relief. Yesterday I was able to grab my left foot in the hip flexor, and I did the same again today.
It's Vertical Plyo & Relief tomorrow. Last week it only burned 688 calories, so there is room for improvement. However, it's also the workout that screwed up my shoulder (which probably accounts for the low calorie burn), so I have to push hard, without damaging myself. Can I do it? Tune in tomorrow - same Bat-time, same Bat-channel!
Yesterday I set myself a target - Matching week 3's calorie burn. To do that, I needed an additional 600 calories. Am I going to do it? Probably not.
Here's last Sunday's Max Interval Plyo;
And here's today's;
It's better, but it's not going to be enough. I doubt I can find an extra 100 calories in tomorrow's Back and Six Pack, which means making up the difference in Vertical Plyo and Max Cardio. Those are going to be tough!
Still, I did push harder, and a 90 calorie improvement is good. Let's see where I made up the difference;
I pushed hard in the warmup, and as you can see in the lower graph (today) that kept my heart rate slightly higher during the first stretch. The next three intervals were actually worse than last week, but I got my heart rate back up towards the end of the workout. This again carried through to the final stretch and even into Relief.
So was last week's calorie drop just down to me being lazy? Probably, but let's see if I've got the energy to improve on every workout this week, or if I'll hit a wall.
Now it's time for some lunch (roasted chicken thighs) before an afternoon of ironing and watching kid's films :)
Well after last week's low calorie burn, I tried to push a bit harder, and managed to burn 30 more calories. Meh.
The workout went pretty much as expected. It's Asylum, so it's bloody hard. I was pretty much done by the time I got to Ab Shredder, so spent a lot of time stretching out my shoulders rather than doing the exercises. I also made sure that in the final low plank I didn't put too much strain on my shoulders - It seems to have worked, as nothing aches at the moment.
I did my normal Saturday weigh-in/measure before the workout;
Everything was fine until that bodyfat measurement. I went through and measured everything again just to be sure. Same results again - I'm back to day 15's body fat! Now I could blame this week's lighter calorie burn, but that's not to blame. Twice this week I ate some pudding, and on one day forgot my lunch, and ended up buying a couple of pork pies and some scotch eggs for lunch instead. My fault, so I'm going to have to push extra hard now to get back on track. If I eat right, and try to match week 3's calorie burn, theoretically I should get back to day 22's percentage. That's my target for this week.
It's Max Interval Plyo & Relief tomorrow. Last time it burned 879 calories, so I need to try to push for ~1000 if I'm going to burn the extra 600 calories I need this week.
Well that was an interesting week. It's probably the first time that this felt like a hybrid of Asylum and Insanity. There was definitely a bias towards Insanity, but the two Asylum workouts stepped things up, kicked my butt, and almost pushed me too far.
I don't blame the workout for my aches and injuries. It's a DVD. Nobody is holding a gun to my head and telling me to push myself harder than I should. Shaun T constantly says to "know your limits" and "stay within your skill level". I didn't. Whether it's because I was conscious that my efforts would be published on Youtube, or, as I keep telling my daughters, boys do stupid things just because they are boys, or some combination of those two factors, I did decide to go for it, and ended up with some shoulder/back pain and a couple of disrupted nights sleep. Hopefully that's my lesson learned, and I'll be more careful next time.
Week 4 felt like a step up from last week (more on that later), but how did it compare to the standalone workouts? Once again, I pulled the data from my Polar H7 Bluetooth 4.0 Heart Rate Sensor and recorded totals for duration and calories burnt.
Firstly, lets look at the total duration of week 4 of each of the four workouts;
The hybrid is still taking well over six hours per week. I'm getting used to it, but if you're short on time, then the standalones are probably a better option.
Now we look at the calorie burn for each of the programmes;
What happened? The hybrid was 99 minutes longer than Insanity, but only burned 129 more calories! I know there was a lot more stretching, but that's not what I'm used to seeing.
Now if we combine the two graphs to look at the calorie burn per minute;
10.75 calories per minute! That's now the lowest intensity workout week I've had out of all four workouts this year! How much of that was down to the workouts, and how much of it was down to me overdoing it is unclear for now. Next week I get to do the exact same workout schedule again, so I'll wait until next Friday to draw any real conclusions.
Next week will technically be the last week where I can compare the same week in all four workouts. Both Asylum and Asylum 2 are only 30 day programmes. What happens after that? Do the graphs just stop? I'll probably start comparing each hybrid week to an average Asylum/Asylum2 week (they're all pretty close in intensity), and see if that looks ok.
Now that I'm a third of the way through the hybrid, how have the last four weeks looked?
Length wise, the last three weeks have been pretty consistent. Long, but consistent.
Calorie wise, at the moment there seems to be a downward trend. From a brief Google search into calories burned during long distance running, it seems that two people running the same fixed distance should burn roughly the same number of calories, even if one takes longer than the other. The key difference between the two people in this scenario is fitness. A fitter person can cover the race distance in a lot less time, but the calorie burn remains the same.
If we apply that logic here, and assume that I'm getting fitter each week, then if the duration is fixed (which it pretty much is), my calorie burn should decrease each week. It's an interesting idea, but I'm just one person, with one set of data, so maybe the workouts are just taking their toll on me, and that's why my calorie burn is dropping.
But wait! I do have more data! I have the other four workouts;
To test the hypothesis, we need a workout with a fairly consistent duration. Asylum 2 looks pretty good.
It's not as extreme, but there is a similar pattern in Asylum 2 as in the Hybrid. Again, it's too small a data set to draw any conclusions, but it does give me some hope that rather than a sign that either the workout is getting easier, or my body is failing, that instead I'm getting measurably fitter? That sounds like a positive way to look at the graphs, so I'm going to delude myself with that for now.
I do have another reason to be positive. Perhaps it was just good lighting, but this morning not only could I see my bottom two ribs on each side, but there was a hint of some upper abs. There's definitely not enough to post any photos yet, but it's a sign of progress, and hopefully means that in 56 days time I'll have some of those before & after pictures that people like to show in random ads next to exercise equipment.
Again, thanks for reading. I hope someone finds this interesting. If you do, please post a comment below, or even better, share it with someone else.
As always, as a reward for making it through all those graphs, here's a random Youtube video. It made me chuckle;
Today's workout went pretty much as expected. I'm still enjoying the relative ease of the Insanity workouts, and at only 45 minutes, Max Cardio Conditioning even felt a bit too short. Cardio Abs still hurt, but it's supposed to, and my core is feeling stronger.
It's rest day tomorrow, and then week 5 is a repeat of week 4. I'll just have to take it a bit easier in Vertical Plyo so that I don't screw up my shoulder again.
I kept waking myself up last night, having rolled onto my left shoulder. As a result, my back had started to spasm which was fun! Luckily today was Cardio Recovery, so I'm feeling a lot better after a good stretch.
I'm running out of things to say about stretching. It's not that it isn't important - It's probably the most important part of the whole programme. It's just not very exciting.
It's Max Cardio Conditioning and Cardio Abs tomorrow, which finishes week 4!
This morning was cold, and I suffered because of it. My knees took ages to warm up, I snapped two resistance bands, and to top it off, managed to jar my left shoulder doing the resistance plyo push-ups. It's still aching after taking painkillers, but the rest of this week is cardio, so I should be ok to carry on.
Aside from the broken equipment and injury, the workout went OK. I'm happy that I can clear the ladder in both the standing long jump, and the side jumps, and am starting to feel a bit fitter.
It's Cardio Recovery tomorrow, which is a nice short gentle routine, and then the week finishes with Insanity's Max Cardio Conditioning & Cardio Abs - Not too bad!
Now I've just got to keep moving for the rest of the day, so that my back doesn't seize up..........
Today was the first day that I missed my morning workout. I was running late, as well as needing to get into work early. Luckily, I had time to do the workout this afternoon, so I'm still on schedule.
It was Asylum 2's Back & Six Pack followed by relief today. It was only a short one, but there were quite a few uncomfortable holds, so I certainly felt it. I'm also not strong enough to do some of the exercises with my 10KG dumbbells. The slow release hip flies took me way part my limit, and I had to drop down to a 5KG for the side plank doohickeys.
Even so, I still feel good about today's workout, and am strangely looking forward to tomorrow's Vertical Plyo, but as that's an Asylum workout, I may not be feeling so great about it in the morning.
In other news I've discovered that I can't add this blog to my AdSense account until it's been active for 6 months. In the mean time I've added some Amazon links to the Insanity/Asylum workout DVDs over on the right had side of this page (Unless you're on a mobile). If you're thinking about getting fit, have some disposable income, and don't have a heart condition, why not click on those ads, get yourself some very good fitness DVDs and join my quest.
When did I start enjoying Plyo? I used to hate the jumping workouts more than anything. But I did enjoy today.
That's not to say that I performed brilliantly - I missed a lot of the floor exercises, but after yesterday's Upper Elite, I didn't feel the need to push my shoulders too hard.
There was no real improvement in Relief. I think there's something different about how I'm balancing on my left knee that's stopping me from grabbing my foot. It's not the end of the world, and I still got a good stretch.
It's Asylum 2's Back & Six Pack tomorrow. That means lots of lunge holds and sweaty floor work :(
Well that was painful! Lots of muscles completely wiped out in Upper Elite, followed by my right shoulder completely giving out at the end of Ab Shredder. Everything feels ok now, so hopefully I've not done any damage.
I did my normal weigh-in and measurements before today's workout;
This again shows that just weighing yourself is pointless. When exercising, you're going to be burning fat, but also gaining muscle and retaining water. My scale weight went up slightly, but my waist and hip measurements dropped again. With a supposed 0.82% bot fat loss (I say supposed, because there's no way I'm at 9% body fat) that would work out at almost 1KG of fat loss.
It's Max Interval Plyo & Relief tomorrow, so that should give my shoulder a bit of a break.
It's that time of the week where I look back at the previous six days worth of workouts, and see how the whole of week 3 compared to the standalone workouts.
After last week's craziness, this week felt a lot lighter. Four of the six workouts came from Insanity, and the remaining two were the same strength workout from Asylum 1.
I enjoyed the cardio in the Insanity workouts, but what I loved was the strength workouts. And all because of one exercise - The Pyramid Row Progression;
That may only be 8 extra push ups, but those two workouts are only 72 hours apart! I'm fairly pleased with that minor achievement.
Now on to the real reason you're reading this - Graphs!!!!! Again, I've grabbed the data from my Polar heart rate monitor and have recorded totals for duration and calories burnt.
Firstly, lets look at the total duration of week 3 of each of the four workouts;
Clocking in at just over 6.5 hours, the hybrid lasted more than an hour longer than any of the standalones. What does confuse me is that this week's hybrid was only 19 minutes shorter than last week. It felt a lot shorter!
Now we look at the calorie burn for each of the programmes;
With over 4800 calories burned, the hybrid beats all the standalones by almost 1000 calories. But is 600 calories less than last week. A 600 calorie drop in 19 minutes is pretty big. No wonder it felt lighter.
Now if we combine the two graphs to look at the calorie burn per minute;
The two rounds of strength definitely reduced my calorie burn, plus the four rounds of relief knocked me down to just 12.2 calories per minute. That's a whole calorie per minute down from last week.
So how to sum up week 3? As I said in previous posts, I had a feeling that week 3 was supposed to let me recover from week 2. It was by no means a recovery week, and burning 4800 calories wasn't easy, but I feel like I'm ready to step up a gear in week 4.
Thanks for reading. Please feel free to comment on any of my posts or videos. For now I'll leave you with something inspiring. Todd over at NCFitClub.com has been doing these workouts since 2008, and this is his journey;
Balls! I left the house this morning without today's workout footage. I'll have to encode and upload the video tonight instead.
Today was Insanity's Max Cardio Conditioning & Cardio Abs. I feel like I did better than I did on Day 10, but the numbers disagree;
Not only was my calorie burn lower than last time, but that was with a higher peak heart rate. So what happened?
That's Day 10's heart rate at the top, and today's below. They look pretty similar, but as you can just about see, during the main workout (between the two low sections where I was stretching) my heart rate kept dipping below 80% max, into the 70's, shown by the green band. Now I could argue that I'm fitter than I was 10 days ago, but that's not how Insanity is supposed to work - I'm supposed to keep pushing further and further, so no matter how fit I get, it always feels hard. Must push harder!
That's week 3 completed! It's rest day tomorrow, and then week 4 looks like a beast;
Well I set myself a target - Completing 8 rounds of the Pyramid Row Progression. I did it, but some of the surrounding exercises suffered because of it. I completely missed the following set of Hip Flies, as I spent that time in a heap on the floor.
So my next target will be to complete 8 rounds, without missing any of the other exercises - That's going to be a lot tougher!
I'm not burnt out yet, but am certainly feeling the effects of the workouts. I'm tired for most of the day, and could easily take a nap at any point.
Week 3 finishes tomorrow with Max Cardio Conditioning & Cardio Abs.
My body has started to let me down. Today my left calf decided to lock up after 10 minutes. It's feeling ok after stretching, but it's a bit of a worry.......
Today's workout was Insanity's Max Interval Plyo, followed (fortunately) by more stretching in Relief. I tried stretching out my leg during the workout, but it did slow me down. I am quite pleased that I can now do the power push ups!
The stretching was fine. No real improvement, and I still can't hold my left foot in the hip flexor.
It's another round of Strength & Relief tomorrow. I'm determined to complete 8 rounds of the Pyramid Row Progression, so will need to eat lots of protein tonight and get lots of sleep.
Well that wasn't too bad. I get the feeling that whoever designed this hybrid workout knew that they'd almost killed me last week, and are now being extra nice!
Cardio Power and Resistance - ~40 minutes of jumping and push ups. It's not a doddle, but wasn't really pushing me either. I'm happy about that, as I can see that things are going to get tougher next week, so I'm treating this week as kind of a heavier recovery week.
I've got Max Interval Plyo & Relief tomorrow, so another Insanity workout featuring lots of jumping. I used to hate Plyo, so that should be interesting.
To quote Jack Bauer, "Dammit!" I was just eight push ups away from beating last week's Pyramid Row Progression! Maybe I'll get there on Wednesday when I have to do this workout again.
Other than that the workout just went ok. I'm still struggling with the second and third sets of hip flys, and had run out of steam by the chest section at the end of the workout. My stretching didn't really improve (well it has only been 24 hours), and for some reason I still can't grab my left foot in the hip flexor stretch without loosing my balance.........
It's another light Insanity month 1 workout tomorrow with Cardio Power & Resistance. It's only ~40 minutes, which is just as well, as I need to be in work early to sort a bodged projector install.........
Week 3 is off to a nice gentle start. Today was a month 1 workout from Insanity, followed by some stretching. It was a nice change of pace compared to last week, and I'm looking forward to the rest of this week's workouts.
I think I did OK, although I didn't push the plank based exercises too much, as I wanted to look after my shoulder. I'm definitely getting better at the stretches, and enjoyed all of today.
What probably helped me enjoy it was this morning's weigh-in and measure;
Normally I gain weight in the first few weeks of these workouts, and don't loose any until I start shedding retained water after the programme has finished. I know a 0.2KG drop isn't very exciting, but to me it show that this hybrid is working. Combine that with the waist and hip measurements starting to drop, and the nice steady reduction in body fat, and I might actually accomplish something!
It's Strength and Relief tomorrow, so hopefully I'll be able to push myself a bit more without aggravating my shoulder.
It's that time of the week where I look back at the previous six days worth of workouts, and see how the whole of week 2 compared to the standalone workouts.
The week really started with a bang. Day 8's Max Interval Circuit and Fit Test burned more calories in a single session than I'd ever done before. The fit test results showed a slight improvement from the previous week, but I'm still at only 76% of the level I was when I completed Insanity earlier this year.
Days 9 - 12 were all fairly average, and I feel ok with my performance so far. Day 13 however was a different story. I really don't like the Game Day, managed to tweak my left shoulder, and had a fairly horrible workout.
So the week had mostly highs and one low, but how does week 2 of the Insanity/Asylum/Asylum 2 hybrid workout compare to week 2 of each of the standalone workouts? I've grabbed the data from my Polar heart rate monitor and have recorded totals for duration and calories burnt.
Firstly, lets look at the total duration of week two of each of the four workouts;
The standalones average at ~4.5 hours, whereas the hybrid almost hit 7 hours!
Now we look at the calorie burn for each of the programmes;
All three standalones were within 57 calories of each other, averaging at ~3566 for the week. The hybrid destroyed them with over 5400 calories burned!
Now if we combine the two graphs to look at the calorie burn per minute;
For the second week in a row we see that for pure calorie burning, Insanity is still the king. The hybrid burned a lot more, but also took a lot longer to complete. However, it has gone from the lowest intensity workout in week 1, to the second highest intensity workout in week 2. Will it ever take the top spot? I hope not, as a higher calorie burn over that length of time is likely to kill me.
I'll do my weekly weigh-in and measurements tomorrow. I'm expecting my weight to creep up as I retain water (and a Chinese takeaway), but hopefully that will be counteracted by some improved tape measurements.
For those of you who made it through another incredibly boring post, here's what Predator would look like if it were a musical;
Today was Asylum's Game Day & Overtime workouts, and I'm glad I don't have to do that again until day 76. Game Day is easily my least favourite workout of all - I hate the pretend sports style exercises, and the Asylum one just seems the most stupid to me. Surfing? Really?
The workouts didn't start too well, as I did something to my left shoulder during the initial floor sprint section. That had an impact on most of my floor based exercises, of which there were many, but I felt I did better on some of the other exercises (the speed skating for example) than I had done back in June when I last did this workout.
Overtime was almost a waste of time. I was too tired to come anywhere close to keeping up with the guys of screen, but it did take me past 1000 calories burned, so it was worth doing. Especially as I had a Chinese takeaway last night, which is definitely not going to help getting any abs.
So that's week two done. I have another rest day tomorrow, and then what looks to be a week of power and plyo (jumping) based workouts starting on Saturday.
