“I Hate Beachbody Recovery Weeks!” Insanity: Day 28-29 of 60

I’ll be dead honest.  I hate recovery weeks.  I know you need them.  I know you pay later if you don’t do them.  I know experienced folk are guiding you and know better.  I just can’t deal with it.  I get into a groove, and I don’t want to stop.  I want to keep going.

I’m at a place where I know the exertion that I will have to put out for each day.  At this point, I have been cycling four DVD’s and I know the strengths and weaknesses (yes, there are weaknesses) in each one.  I know where Shaun T. stretches one side of your muscles and forgets to stretch the other side.  I know when the timer on the DVD comes up short and your thirty second breaks are actually twenty second breaks.  I know when Shaun T. will stop paying attention to the strain on the exercise and will spend time around the participants trying to converse or show you proper form…leaving you hanging in a stretch or contracted position…so I adjust.

The place I am in right now also has me knowing the sweat level and the intensity.  I also have been doing Ab Ripper X, which I have moved to four days per week from three.  ARX is now M, W, F and Saturday afternoon.  I know the whole thing and can do it without the DVD…and in less time than the DVD.  I also have been using my treadmill post Insanity workout to loosen up the muscles in my legs and calves.  I do between 1.5 and 2.0 miles per session at 4.2 miles per hour.  Don’t you love the digital age…we can be so precise!

Let’s do a quick compare, since I have now done both programs, of P90X and Insanity.  P90X was not as rigorous from a pure exercise routine perspective.  It used a lot of muscles and your body literally was breaking down and building up in crafted cycles.  It was really hard because you had to work muscles until you burned them out.  Insanity is more cardio based and, while it is exhausting while you do it, does not require the post routine (as in the next day) recovery that P90X did.  When I did P90X, my body was sore the next day.  On some days, really sore.  Muscles needed 24 to 48 hours to recover.  Insanity does not require the same recovery.  Insanity is really about getting all of those ‘twitch muscles’ moving.  It is fast moving and uses muscles in an energy burning way…not in a “now I can’t lift my arms” way.

I hated my P90X recovery week too, but it was mental.  When you prepare athletically for anything, there is both a mental and physical component.  In P90X, my psyche wanted to go but my body was welcoming the rest.  The DVD’s during that recovery were different every night and that made it somewhat bearable.

So, why do I hate the Insanity recovery week? 

First, my psyched wants to go…and so does my body.  That is frustrating. 

Second, I was making progress and had gotten my body to the point where I knew both physically and nutritionally how to optimize the routines.  It took a while to figure out a few things, but I finally got there.  I figured out how much and when I need to eat.  I know now that I have to focus on hydration.  I also know that I have to stretch properly (and when I need to push pause and stretch more than the DVD says).

Last, I had just gotten all the forms right.  If I have one criticism of this program, it’s the instruction on form.  It should go into a little more detail of why you need to focus on it and the dangers of not doing them correctly.  Simply saying, “To avoid injury” is not enough.  I had to figure out a few things that, I am sure, others probably got frustrated on and quit.  Each DVD should take 5 minutes of time before the routine to cover the postures being done that day, cover the reasons you do it and tell you what your body will feel if they are done wrong.  When I finally got the form down on the various exercises, the exertion was more and the pain was less…go figure, right?

So, it’s only Monday and I have to wait until Saturday to get to Insanity Phase II.

The worst part?  Besides the mental and physical anxiety of downtime?  Recovery week in Insanity uses the same DVD for a whole week of recovery.  The Core Cardio and Balance DVD is used EVER NIGHT.  That stinks.  The exercises are the same.  The comments are the same.  The same participants (Don Cheadle lookalike) have issues and fall out.  The guys are an embarrassment night after night.  But it is just over and over again…that’s the killer.  It’s not motivating me for the next level…I am just in the “on deck circle” waiting for the next round.

Okay, enjoy your day and I will try to get myself excited about tonight’s workout.  Ho-hum.  Let’s see how I feel next Monday after a couple days of Phase II!