Round 6: Day 26: Insanity: Core Cardio and Balance

I experienced something wacky today: my heart rate monitor went slightly nuts, registering a heart rate far higher than I've ever experienced before, and this, during a workout which is supposed to be much less intense than a standard Insanity workout. Either something's off with my body, or my chest strap battery is becoming suspect. I'll bet it's the latter.

The workout, while scheduled for Recovery Week, is still rather intense. I did sweat bullets (hopefully due to effort, and not outside temperature) and I did suffer during a couple portions of the workout: the hip flexor moves and the shoulder burnouts. There were a couple of moments during the shoulder burnouts that I had to let my arms fall to my sides for a few seconds before gathering up energy to carry on. It's strange to me that something simple, like the arm exercises during the burnout section, are capable of really causing serious shoulder fatigue, whereas during Diamond Delts, I can keep going, like the Energizer Bunny. It goes to show you that if you're working a body part intensively, all you need is that body part, gravity and time. Eventually, if you go long enough and do enough reps, you'll burn out. It's like pushups or pullups: how many can you do? It's only gravity and you. Eventually, gravity wins, because it (thankfully) never quits.

Yoga tomorrow. I can still use more stretching in my hamstrings and hip flexors. Bring It.

Round 5: Day 89: Insanity: Core Cardio & Balance

I'm definitely dealing with a minor cold, so thankfully, it's still Recovery Week. Otherwise, I likely wouldn't have the strength necessary for a resistance workout. Even so, today's workout, Core Cardio and Balance, raised my heart rate and rather tired me out, in spite of the fact that it's much less intense than a standard Insanity workout.

There are a couple of sequences near the end of the workout which really point out my weaknesses: shoulders and hip flexors. The shoulder burn-out sequence, about 3.5 minutes in duration, really does burn out the shoulders. The only way to survive it is to tighten your core, and breathe through it. The hip flexor sequence is just pure evil, starting out easy and becoming progressively more difficult as time wears on. By the end of the exercise, I'm just thankful for the opportunity to allow my foot to contact the floor.

This Round's almost done!

Round 5: Day 54: Insanity: Core Cardio and Balance

I had a vague memory of sore shoulders following this workout from the last Recovery Week. I recalled that the final three minutes of the workout were particularly tough, with flapping arm movements being the primary culprit. Today, that wasn't really much of a problem. My shoulders still felt sore, but completing the routine wasn't difficult.

There's a section of the workout which really works the hip flexors: standing on one leg, raising the other leg first in a tapping motion, then keeping that leg elevated and pulsing it up and down without the toe tap, then keeping that leg up while extending the foot out and back. The whole sequence takes about 1.5 minutes per leg, but the final motion, swinging the leg out and back while keeping the foot flexed, was very tough on my hip flexors, especially the left side.

Overall, this isn't a difficult workout, which makes it perfect for Recovery Week. It moves at a slower pace than a typical Insanity workout, and Shaun T. spends more time than usual at the start of each exercise demonstrating technique. I appreciated that, as I discovered that there was, indeed, some form tweaking to do. So far, I don't really have regrets about having temporarily exiled Core Synergistics from this Round.

Workouts in past days included Kenpo Cardio Plus and X Stretch. Tomorrow, Recovery Week wraps up with Yoga.

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.