Category: Exercise

This is not all that big a revelation, and, yeah, sometimes I’m a little slow on the uptake, but bear with me.

The key to Insanity is that you are not expected to be able to complete the workouts!

Now that I have hit upon this, I find it to be quite obvious.

The individuals participating in the videos are taking breaks, some of them many more than I am. Even Shaun T, who spends most of his time coaching, i.e. not working out, takes breaks when he jumps in to participate.

The level of exertion during these routines is huge. It’s huge by design so we will try to push ourselves as far as we possibly can.

And that, simply put, is the key to Insanity. Do the videos all the way through, pushing yourself as far as you can, but take as many breaks as you need. Stop the DVD after each interval for a longer break.

Keep trying to finish the workouts, but don’t be discouraged that you can’t. You are not supposed to be able to.

I don’t have a direct recollection of any epiphany I had regarding making time for fitness. I am busy. Every minute of my day seems to be accounted for. My life has been like that for years, and I dig it. I like to stay productive.

But at some point I decided that I needed to add time for fitness.

I don’t necessarily think it was a conscious decision. I mean, I had known for years that I needed to exercise, but I just never seemed to be able to justify the time out for a regular program. I’d walk here and there, but nothing regular.

Then I got a dog, a Westie.

She was a puppy when we got her, and she had a ton of energy. I work out of the house, so I really needed her to calm down, but she was always bothering me to play, keeping me from getting work done. I mean, could you say no to that face?

Eventually I hit upon the idea of walking her every day. (Yeah, you may have noticed that I can be slow to pick up on the obvious.) I started with a 20-minute walk, and eventually worked up to 45 minutes to an hour — and sometimes longer — daily.

Here’s the key change brought about by that decision, and it wasn’t the physical change resulting from the exercise. It was a mental change.

I had previously thought that I could not be away from my office for that long in the morning, believing I might miss something important from a client. We are a small company, so we thrive on being very responsive to our customers. However, as my dog and I went on our walks, I realized I could be away from the office. Nothing catastrophic happened. We’re still in business.

Every once in a while I did — and still do — get a phone call while we’re out walking that causes me to head straight back to the office, but that’s cool.

By walking the dog, I discovered that I could take time for exercise.

So I added more.

Now I walk the dog — only for about a half-hour now that she’s older — AND do an hour or so of Tony Horton’s P90X OR One-On-One OR Insanity AND maybe even some Ultimate Power Yoga.

Not only has my world not come crashing down around me, because I exchanged other time for fitness time, but my quality of life has dramatically improved. I feel better, look better, and just enjoy life a lot more.

How about you? Do you have trouble convincing yourself to make time for fitness? Maybe you should get a puppy.

This is very hard. I couldn’t even make it all the way through the workouts of Month One, and now the Month Two workouts are even longer.

If I were a quitter, I’d quit Insanity right now. I could even justify it, because who the hell needs to be this fit? Seriously.

But I like a challenge, so I’ll tough it out for now.

Here are the results of today’s fit test.

Not too shabby at first glance, but Suicide Jumps and Low Plank Obliques showed 0.00% and 1.75% improvement since last Fit Test, three weeks ago. So that’s annoying.

Just to clue you in, btw, in Month One, the Fit Test had its own day. It was the workout for that day. Here in Month Two, we do the Fit Test, then another hour-long workout. Yeah.

Wish me luck.

You can read all you want about how many calories are burned after your workout, whether working out after a hard day at work is a great thing to do, the benefits of getting the blood flowing in the morning. All that stuff is great, and if you can work all the best practices into your workouts, all the better.

But the fact is that the best time to workout is WHEN YOU CAN!

I am busy, and I mean busy. Just about all my time — and then some — is spoken for, whether it’s work, time with family, meals, working out, sleeping, whatever. You are probably busy, too. It’s hard to fit a workout in, but we gotta do it.

So why worry about the perfect time of day to work out? Get your workout in whenever you can do it.

I personally prefer around 10:00 or 11:00 in the morning. I’m fairly warm and awake by then. I wake up at 6:00 or 7:00, and by 10:00 have had some coffee and gotten some work done, so a workout is a good break and a way to get the blood flowing to carry me through the rest of the day.

My friend does his workouts at 10:00, too. But at night. I could never do that — I like to be winding down for bed by then — but he stays up really late. Anyway, my friend was concerned that 10:00pm was not the best time to do his thing, and it was that conversation that spurred this post.

Well, let me see. He hasn’t missed a workout in over 250 days. That tells me that his workout is scheduled at the perfect time.

How about you? Are you consistently missing workouts? Then you are not working out at the best time for you. Find your best time. Stick to it. That’s the way to get results.

Have I mentioned that Insanity is killing me? Yeah, it is.

I told someone the other day that I was doing Insanity. She said, “Cool. Do you have more energy?” My answer: “NO!”

I mean, what do you think? This stuff is hard, harder than any workout I’ve ever done. How can I possibly have more energy? I am expending all my energy during the workouts.

Of course, I recognize the actual meaning of her question. I must have more energy, right, because I am able to do more and more of the workouts each time I do them. So I do have more energy. Just no excess energy.

Insanity is so intense, that here I am at the end of the fourth week, and I still cannot do any of the workouts all the way through. Almost, but not quite. So I am essentially depleting all my energy attempting to finish the workouts, and will do so until I am done with the program.

Am I building my body and fitness? You bet! Am I dogged out all the time? You bet! Will I keep going because I know this is all helping me get stronger and more able to face everyday life? You bet!

But don’t ask me to help you move until after I’m done with Insanity. In fact, bump that … I don’t really want to help you move ever ;=)

BTW, as I said, I am at the end of the fourth week. The fifth week is a recovery week. It could not have come at a better time.