“What’s Up With All The Contractions?” Insanity: Day 41 of 60

Okay.  Stand with your feet slightly more than shoulder width apart. Bend at the knees and rest your hands on your knees.  Now go into a squat.  Now, contract your core and round your back up.  Now release.  Keep doing it.

I don’t get it.


Contracted hip raises.  What's up with these stupid things?

I AM doing Insanity right?  What the heck is this exercise supposed to accomplish?  I’m not even sure if I am contracting right.  I have listened to Shaun T more than a dozen times and have done this exercise more than twenty times.  I keep doing it because somebody somewhere put this in the routine and it must be doing something, right?  I am doing this completely on faith.  It doesn’t feel like this is accomplishing anything at all.  Every other exercise feels like you are exerting yourself in some way, shape, or form.

Not this one.

Up.  Down.  Up.  Down.  Yawn.  Breathe.  Yawn.  Breathe.

Maybe I’m just not doing it right.  Maybe it’s just filler so everyone can rest…but we’re only stretching here!  I mean, yes, I’m sweating.  But, that’s because the warm-up really revs your metabolism.

There was a movie in the 80’s called Perfect.  It starred Jaime Lee Curtis and John Travolta and was based on a Rolling Stone article that talked about gyms being the disco bars of the 80’s.  it was crap.  The one thing I do remember is a very young, hot, and in shape Jaime Lee Curtis as the fitness instructor who used to be a gymnast.  When I watch Shaun T do these damn exercises, that’s what I think about.  She did them a little differently.  With her, it looked like work.  It also looked like training for some other profession…which was kind of the point of the movie.  Anyway…I am either doing them wrong or they are filler.  Either way…I like to work out.  I want sweat and I want to keep moving.  I want exertion.

I’m just not feeling it with these exercises.

Okay, I took a video of me doing the Ab Ripper  X.  This is for all you late-forty and early-fifty folk who think it’s too late to get in shape.  It’s also for you twenty and thirty-something folk who think it’s too hard a workout.

Why is this in here?  In my Insanity blog?  Because this is how I spend my off-days of Insanity!  I do this.

So this is an Insanity off day!

P90X: "New Exercise and Plyo...Phase III starts" Day 57/58 of 90

started Phase III yesterday.  The one thing I have come to not like is learning a new exercise set in the Adaptive phase.  I always feel like I lost a day, and I hate that.  My day one of Phase III is Chest and Back.  I never know what to do with the weight...how much weight, how many reps.  I got through it though.


On the plus side.  I have completely mastered the Ab Ripper X.  All exercises, all reps, NO PAUSE.  That took some real work to do.  Getting through the entire Mason Twist and the Pfiffer Scissors sets were always my biggest challenge and the final goal.  Done.  Did it.  I even do the situps in cross-legged position and the leg climbers with only one grab and the knee completely bent.  Feels awesome.


The Chest and Back, as with any new routine, left me feeling tight this morning.  I should have mentioned that a significant change has occurred in the "repair" after the routines...no more "sore."  I now know the areas I am working because they have an odd tightness the next day....like some wound has been spackled or something.  It is pretty cool.  I look forward to my improvements in C&B because the last half of the routine had me so burned out that the reps had practically halved themselves from the first set.  When so many of the sets are maximum reps, how are you supposed to double-down on them when you completely burn yourself out?  Someone is going to have to 'splain that one to me.


Today, my favorite, Plyometrics.  Just can't get enough of that one.  Love the intensity and love the sweat.


I find myself these days struggling to find words for this.  Mainly because it is simply a matter of doing it.  It's not painful but it can be exhausting.  It is not new...because you do the same routines over and over.  "Just push play" and keep going.  That's all I do...over and over again.  You should do that too.


Day 60 pics coming in two days.


Have a great night!