To Insanity and Beyond

Today was my last day to try to get through a Pure Cardio workout without stopping. I failed.

I’ve gotten very close to completing Pure Cardio in the last few weeks but have always fallen short because of two exercises: Level 2 Drills and Push Up Jacks. Today was more of the same. Out of 15 minutes of straight cardio with no rest, I can handle all but two minutes of them. And those two minutes come at around the eight minute mark and the 15 minute mark.

I’m hoping that as I progress through the rest of Insanity that I can build up my strength and stamina enough to be able to complete this workout. I’m really not sure why I haven’t yet, but I’m more than a little disappointed in myself for not having gotten through it yet. And since this is my last time doing this workout I’m going to have to set my sights on something else to accomplish in the program.

As for Cardio Abs, I was really challenged by this workout this morning. Specifically the warm ups, because there is a lot of jumping to open the workout. And having just come out of Pure Cardio, the jumping is so much more painful and challenging than it would normally be. Still, I have continually improved in Cardio Abs and am getting very close to being able to keep up with all of the exercises. I’m still have a lot of work to do to be able to say that I can do it completely without resting, but I am way farther along now than I was just a couple of weeks ago.

I now have one more workout left in the entry section of Insanity and that workout is Plyometric Cardio Circuit. Next week is my recovery week then it is on to the Max workouts. Which I am kinda looking forward to since it’s been a while since I’ve done those and I would really like to accelerate my weight loss, which as of now has seemed to stall out completely. But I’ll post more on that later.

You know, sometimes I really hate Shaun T. Never more than on Pure Cardio days.

I’ve had it in my head that I was going to be completing a Pure Cardio program this time around in Insanity. I’ve been so close to doing it the last few times that I’m thinking for sure I’ll be able to to complete it. When I say complete, I mean handle all 15 exercises in the program without rest. So far the farthest I’ve gotten is about seven and a half minutes through – Level 2 Drills – before I absolutely have nothing left to give and I need to stop to catch my breath. Today was no exception.

I wish I knew what it was about Level 2 Drills that absolutely destroy me. Perhaps its the fact that I have ran myself into the ground for a solid seven minutes before I get to them. Or maybe it’s that the exercise before these, Power Jacks, are so leg intensive. Whatever the reason, I’m usually no good for more than about 30 seconds of Level 2 Drills.

The nice thing is I bounce back very quickly, get back on pace and handle my business until the last exercise – Push Up Jacks. Such was the case today. Push Up Jacks are another one of my nemesis exercises in Pure Cardio and once again they killed me today.

Honestly I don’t feel like I made any progress today over the last time I did this program. Well, not in Pure Cardio anyway. In Cardio Abs I do.

The warm ups for Cardio Abs are a little hard to handle after all the jumping done in Pure Cardio. That’s because about half of the Cardio Abs warm up is some form of jumping exercise. As much as I love pushing myself, the warm ups for Cardio Abs kill me. Badly.

The ab workouts themselves aren’t so bad. I can do many of them for the 30 second workout period that they are done in. The area I need the most improvement is in my hip flexors. I know this because in some cases when I am in the C-sit I can’t help but start shaking and the only thing that stops that is to ease my hip flexors.

It’s all good though. My abs are getting a great workout, I’m keeping the great sweat going from Pure Cardio and still working out my heart so I have no complaints. At the end of it all, Pure Cardio and Cardio Abs days are hard. Harder than anything you do in Insanity to this point. But they are also very refreshing and energizing.

I still want to hit my goal of being able to complete a Pure Cardio program without resting. I have one more chance left in a couple of days when I do it all over again for the last time. We’ll see how it goes. I’m pretty determined, but Level 2 Drills and Push Up Jacks seem to want to test my determination. Perhaps next time I will hand them their first defeat.

NOTE: This exercise was supposed to be done on Wednesday, June 2, but because of things going on at home and the timing of my evening, I couldn’t do this exercise until the morning of June 3.

Pure Cardio is a killer workout. Without a doubt it is one of the most challenging exercises in the entire Insanity program. It is sort of my Mount Everest of the workouts because it is the one that I want to conquer more than anything.

Primarily this is because it is the only program in Insanity that doesn’t offer any rest while doing it. I know it is only 15 minutes, but those 15 minutes feel like an eternity when you are in the throws of the workout. And so far I have been able to get through 13 of the 15 routines without having to take a rest. The two that have been the most challenging to me are Level 2 Drills and Push Up Jacks.

Today was the same thing as usual. The warm up is really starting to not be challenging at all, no matter how hard I push through. At the end of it, even after I push myself at a very high speed for the entire warm up, I am still not exhausted. I can talk at the end of it now and I am not nearly as winded as I have been. That is a good thing. I think.

I was able to push through all of the exercises, though I have to say it was challenging. I didn’t feel as spry today as I have the last few times I’ve done this program but I still managed to work out very strong. With the exception of my two nemesis routines I was able to handle the entire Pure Cardio program so I was happy.

Then Cardio Abs happened. This was particularly challenging today, partly because of how hard I worked in Pure Cardio and partly because of how much harder I was pushing myself in this program. It felt great though, to be able to push my abs harder, and at the end of the workout I was worn out, tired, and amazingly refreshed.

And now I am looking forward to the next time I do this program. I only have this combination two more times in this round so I need to get my act together if I plan on kicking butt for 15 minutes straight AND get my abs workout in.

Whoa baby, was today ever a great workout! I haven’t felt this good while exercising, or after an exercise, in a long time. I wish I could put my finger on what was different about this morning. The only thing I can think of is that I slept longer today and gave myself as much time as I needed to get moving after I woke up. I was up at about 6:30 and didn’t start to workout until about 7:15. I think giving myself that time was totally worth it to my routine today.

The warm up was really, really easy compared to past days. It seems every day I get more and more used to the warm up and that is leading me to not get the amazing cardio blast I used to get during the warm up. Still, it is doing its job as I am warmed up pretty good by the time the stretches come around. Today was a lot like that. I barely broke a sweat in the warm ups. I did start to feel warmed up during the stretching, but even then, it was not a crazy dripping sweat type warm up for me.

After the stretching was over we dove right into the exercises and I hit it hard. Of the fifteen exercises on today’s program I was able to do 13 of them without resting. The two that hammered me were Level 2 Drills and Push Up Jacks. I believe I was tortured by these two exercises the last time I did this program, but it was way worse during that program than it was today. I actually felt very accomplished today, and felt a lot closer to being able to complete an entire program by the end of week 4.

Cardio Abs was a little different. While I did lots better today than the last time I did an ab program, I was challenged today by the ab exercises. Still, I gave it my all and pushed through to the best of my ability and got a great ab workout from it.

I am really looking forward to the next couple of weeks. I want to see just how hard I can push myself in these next two weeks. I want to see if I can actually complete an entire program without resting. I know I can do it. It will be hard, but I know I can do it.

Today was an incredible struggle for me to get motivated. I think I am having a harder time than I thought I would getting acclimated to the morning routine I used to be one a couple of weeks ago. Waking up wasn’t that hard, but getting moving this morning was a fight from start to finish.

Once I got moving I was alright. I’m starting to find myself wanting more out of my warm ups now. Even when I feel exhausted I still seem to want a more rigorous warm up. And no matter how hard it seems I’m pushing through it, I still feel less than accomplished when I’m done. I may have to find a way around this before I get bored with the warm ups.

The actual Pure Cardio circuit was a different story. That captured my attention right out of the chutes, and I was able to push through all of the exercises today with the exception of Level 2 Drills and Push Up Jacks. Both of these caused me great exhaustion last time I did them. This time, though I had to rest during them, I didn’t have to rest as many times or for as long. So my workout this morning was essentially 15 minutes of beating my body into oblivion. And it felt great.

And one very nice thing about this morning’s workout was that I had an audience. My two youngest daughters decided they wanted to wake up early to watch me workout, so bright eyed and bushy tailed were they, on the couch watching me sweat this morning. I wasn’t sure how to handle that pressure. It is kinda hard to slack off when you have someone watching you.

Tonight I had set out to see exactly how hard I could push myself. I figured that if there was a program to test my limits on, Pure Cardio was the one. I was right. And I’m paying the price for it.

I was able to blast through the warm up like usual, working up an uncontrollable sweat in the process. And knowing what I know about Pure Cardio, namely that it is 15 nonstop minutes of one minute long cardio exercises without any rest between them, I was able to prepare myself mentally for the carnage that was about to ensue.

My goal for today was to keep moving at full capacity until I couldn’t physically stand it anymore. I was able to do that through the warm up and the first six and a half minutes of exercising. That means that I was able to handle 10 and a half minutes of warm up followed by:

• Suicide Drills
• Switch Kicks
• Wide Football Sprints
• Stance Jacks
• Pedals
• Hook Jumps

Once again my greatest deficiency, an extraordinary weakness in me quadriceps, reared its ugly head and midway through Power Jacks I had to take a rest. Level 2 Drills were the next exercise and those also caused me to take a lot of rest. But after that I was back on track, nailing all of the following exercises without a need for rest:

• Frog Jumps
• Power Knees
• Mountain Climbers
• Ski Downs
• Switch Feet
• Suicide Jumps

The last exercise, Push Up Jacks, also caused me to take a lot of rest. There is something about holding a plank position the right way that becomes almost impossible when you’re legs are wiped out. Because of that, Push Up Jacks destroyed me today. My arms were strong enough. My entire body wasn’t.

I have to say that I am pretty excited about my progress so far. I was able to complete 12 of 15 one minute Pure Cardio exercises without resting. That was after doing the 10 and a half minute warm up. That is probably the best I have ever done on any program so far.

I also realized something today. I thought I have been pushing as hard as I can through all of the workouts so far. But I am not sure that I have been. Or perhaps I have been pushing my hardest and now, as I have developed, my hardest is way harder than ever. Whatever the case, I feel a renewed sense of purpose in my workouts and have a strange desire to destroy myself in every workout. Seriously, I want to see just how much I can handle now.

Not sure if that is the smartest thing for me to do. But the only way to know that is to test it out.