Round 5: Day 26: Insanity: Core Cardio and Balance

Finally. I managed to do an Insanity workout without pausing the DVD. Even though this is a Recovery Week workout, I'm still counting this achievement as a minor victory. The workout, 37 minutes in length (minus the miscellaneous hundredths of a second) consists of generally slower-paced and less intensive moves than a typical Insanity workout, ending with some exercises to specifically target the core. It was not as challenging as a typical Insanity workout, but I still worked up a decent sweat, managed to achieve an elevated heart rate and burned a few calories. I burned the same number of calories during this workout as I did during the Kenpo Cardio Plus workout earlier this week. I'm now interested in seeing whether Plyometrics or Intervals X Plus burns more calories. Perhaps I'll work those into the next Recovery Week.

Intensifying today's workout was the debut of my new "barefoot" shoes, the Vibram Five Fingers (VFF). I was slightly nervous about using these shoes during an Insanity workout, especially one I hadn't done before, because I didn't know how much jumping I would be subjected to and I also didn't know how my body would react to not having a big, padded sole to cushion my landings. I learned soon enough that one must be very conscious of landing on the balls of the feet, and of avoiding any heel strikes. During the simple warmup, I became modestly fatigued just doing Mummy Kicks and leg kicks. I really enjoyed the feeling of freedom my feet experienced in these shoes, especially during the ski jumps and vertical jumps. Also, it was great doing Level 1 Drills: stand, lie in plank position, do 4 pushups, pedal the feet 8 times, stand, repeat. I was particularly conscious of what my feet were doing when in pushup position and when pedalling my feet. I certainly didn't want to bend a toe.

As a result of wearing the new shoes, I'll likely feel some additional soreness in my feet and legs. Over time, I'll strengthen as I become accustomed to wearing the shoes and hopefully will achieve some benefit. I'll likely get an eye opening when I attempt to do a standard Insanity workout this way.

I'm looking forward to a little extra stretching tomorrow to close out Recovery Week.