“Insane Days” Insanity: Day 38 of 60

Today is my third Fit Test.  Day 38 is the first ‘recovery day’ of the Max Phase of Insanity, or Phase II.  I didn’t do the Fit Test on Saturday when it was due because, after reading some of the experiences of people who did the Fit Test and Max Circuit…they were trashed.  I also read that the weekly Recovery workout was very light.  So I opted to do the Fit Test on recovery day.  I then did Fast and Furious just to round out the 40 minutes I wanted to devote to the exercises.

The Fit Test went real well.

Insanity: 36 Day Fit Test
0:15:36

SwKcks: 58:61:65
PwrJks: 63:70:65
PwrKns: 86:118:120
PwrJmps: 44:54:65
GlbJmps: 12:13:13
SuiJmps: 17:19:21
PshUpJks: 39:48:40 (no break day yesterday burned this one I guess)
LowPlnkObl: 61:73:75

Not bad. I don't think I can Globe Jump any faster without falling down. Next time there is a break day before the test and I WILL hit 60 PushUpJacks. And I am going to go back and personally count the PowerKnees for that little girl because she must be breaking form or added 10 when I didn't look....damn!! lol

I am powering along on Insanity but have a few observations.

I don’t like how many of the routines are laid out.  The exercises don’t mix well in terms of allowing for recovery from the last exercise.  If there was more focus on that, the workouts would be more efficient.  At some point, I would love to do a mash-up of the routines and re-assemble the order.  In fact, let’s put a little ‘to do’ check mark next to that one.

Another annoyance is the exercise circuits themselves.  If no one in the damn video can do them, how are you supposed to get through them at home?  I am in pretty good shape.  My fit test kind of shows that.  With that said, why structure a circuit that no one can finish?  If the idea is to really plow through, recover, go intense, and recover…wouldn’t it make sense to have exercises that people can actually do?  It’s a little frustrating.  So…in typical fashion for me, I have made personal adjustments to the routines that allow me to finish and maximize each one.  I think it’s working, it’s showing up in the Fit Test.

Lastly, the people in the video are so focused on going at Shaun T’s pace (not the pace he actually ‘does’, the pace he sets when he is walking around) that they all routinely violate form.  It’s hard to do the exercises in proper form while watching people with such BAD form.  I’ll give you an example.  There is one exercise set where you go Sprint and drop to low plank.  When he is not doing it, he literally gives you no time to sprint and you spend the routine dropping to low plank and hopping back up.  That’s just one example, but there are many.

Look, no routine is perfect.  The bottom line is, do the work, follow the form, sweat, and modify so that it is right for you.

Til tomorrow!

"What the hell am I doing? Part 2" Insanity: Day 37 of 60

(from yesterday)

I had to take some drastic steps to rehydrate.  I immediately sat down and slowly got about 12 ounces of Gatorade in me.  I ate half a banana and a kosher pickle with it.  I needed to get the sodium and potassium levels up.  I then made up my usually recovery drink of Creatine/Protein and had that too.  All of this over an hour’s time…you can’t just pour this stuff into your body.  I sat in front of a fan and waited for everything to absorb and my body’s heat to go down.  It did…but it took time.  When I walked around, I was a little light headed and seriously out of steam.  I headed up to take a cold shower.

I stripped off my sweat soaked clothes and turned to look in the mirror.  I could see my cheek bones and my face was drawn tight.  My skin was white…drained of blood.  My body was still sweating.  It hurt me just to stand up.  That’s when it hit me.

I looked at the fifty year old man staring back at me and said to him, “What the hell are you doing?”

(continued)

It was a real question.  I was really at a physical breakpoint.  I don’t think there are many times when I have exercised so hard that I literally depleted my system.  When I was in the Army, back in 1985, I went to the NCO Academy in Bad Toelz, Germany.  It was a two week school for future Non-Commissioned Officers.  The final day, we did a road march in full gear plus packed ruck sacks.  It started at 6AM and went to 8PM.  We did over 30 miles that day.  That may have been the toughest outing of my life.  This was kind of close to that but not entirely the same.  That day was long and physically tiring, but I never thought I had passed a physical endurance point.  I was just physically tired.  Saturday morning was different from the perspective that I pushed until I couldn’t give anymore.  Why?

The other reason I asked myself that question is, simply, I’m fifty.  What am I trying to prove?  No one else my age is doing crap like this.  Other than me, who really cares?

So I took my shower and went back downstairs to relax.  As I started to come around, I started to really think about the questions.

I thought about the workout on that DVD.  I bet the oldest person was 35.  I saw a lot of them not doing the exercises.  They were dropping out along the way.  There were moments when I looked up and they were standing still.  But not me.  There I was grinding away.

Who cares?  I guess it was a good question.  I thought about that one for a moment.  I’ve spent the better part of my life trying to achieve things with very little regard for ‘who cares.’  I set a course and give it my all.  Work or play, it doesn’t matter.  I like putting the goals in front of me and then testing myself to see if I have the discipline and drive to complete them.  It’s a challenge.  I’ve always been of the mindset that, if we are not challenging ourselves, then what are we doing here?

It would be real easy at this point to just not do this anymore.  Seriously, I could get about 6 hours of my life back every week.  When you consider prep and recovery and shower, hell, maybe I could get closer to 12 back.

The problem with those hours are, I like them.  I look forward to them.  I’ve gotten to the point where exercise is something I love doing for the sake of doing it.  I like talking with people about their health.  I like sharing the experiences with those who also have had life changing transformations.

That’s really it.  The transformation.  I like the new person.  I like the new person a lot better than I liked the old one.  The new person is actually a bit more reserved.  A bit more tolerant.  Not completely, but changed a little.

Who cares?

Who cares about this damn blog?  I know there are many who follow it and read it…and there are some who read it from time to time when the title strikes an interest.  But, who  cares what I think?  I have to look back at the hours I’ve spent doing them and say, “I don’t care what anyone thinks.”  I honestly didn’t do them for anyone but me.  I did them hoping that they could help others but really, you do it because you like (or love) doing it.

Which brings me to the answer to my question, “What the hell are you doing?”  The answer is, I don’t really know.  I know I like it.  I know I am getting healthier (in spite of Saturday’s results) because of it.  I know I feel better than ever.

It feels great, so I am going to continue.  I’m not going to be one of those who sits back and talks about his ailments.  I am going to be moving, I hope, for a long time.

I may have overdone it on Saturday, but I’m still here.  I also made it through Sunday’s workout in much better shape than Saturday, because I was ready.

I am going to just keep doing what makes me happy.  In the long run, if it makes me happy…well…good.  Sounds selfish but it I don’t make sure I am happy, being the opposite way for the rest of my life sounds downright dreary.  So I choose happy.  Happy and fit.

"What the hell am I doing? Seriously." Insanity: Day 35/36 of 60

This past Saturday, about 1PM, for the first time since I started Beachbody programs, I was asking myself that question.  I did P90X for 104 days and then got right into Insanity.  The last five weeks of Insanity have been hard but they are what I’ve come to expect from the products.  I started Week 6 (or day one of Phase II) of Insanity on Saturday.  Let me tell you something, that’s what had me asking myself the serious question.

I started the workout knowing it was going to be harder.  I’ve learned my lessons about starting new programs and went to Team Beachbody to look at some message boards.  I knew the routines were longer.  The DVD said, “Fit Test and Max Interval Circuit.”  The time on it was something like 63 minutes on the schedule, so I thought that was for both.  It was a stretch but I figured that I could handle it fine.  I also thought, since the Max Recovery was reviewed by so many as being very light, I would do the Fit Test then.  So, since I was doing no Fit Test on Saturday…I’m thinking, “That time for the whole routine should be considerably shorter.”  So, like I had been doing the last 5 weeks, I did my Ab Ripper X routine first.

ARX took about fifteen minutes.  I have actually been able to do it so well that I don’t even pause between sets.  I put the DVD in and start into the routine…by the time the DVD gets set and goes through the normal pre-workout junk, I am already on the Cross-legged Situps.  So the whole thing takes me about 15 minutes.

That done, I popped in the Insanity DVD for Max Interval Circuit.  Two routines on the disc as I expected.  I wasn’t doing the Fit Test, so I hit the hit the regular program.  Oh God.  I think it says 58 minutes.  What the hell.  Okay, no sweat.  I have been working out for 15 minutes already…I can do this.

Mathematically I was about to exercise for an hour and 15 minutes.  Insanity is about 40 minutes in Phase I.  Today was going to add 35 minutes to that pace.

My breakfast had been my usual Oatmeal mix and I had drunk about three cups of coffee…which was more than usual.  The heat has been brutal, so my hydration felt low and the temp in my family room basement was unusually high at about 74 degrees.  The dehumidifier was going non-stop and was adding to the heat.

So, given all the elements, I dove right in.

The workout started fine.  I kept up with all of the routines.  I will say, from a muscular perspective, this routine was a lot more physical than the cardio intense stuff we had been doing.  I enjoyed that part, but I hadn’t been expecting it.

I was sweating like crazy.  More than usual in Insanity, and that was saying something.  I went through a 24 ounce container of water in the first 30 minutes.  I had to push pause just to run back upstairs to get more water.  That’s when it hit me.  As I went through the door to the kitchen upstairs, it was actually cooler than the basement.  That NEVER happens.  The basement has always been the coolest room in the house.  I grabbed the water and quickly hopped down the stairs.  Oh my God.  The thermostat said “78.”  The temp in the room had gone up 4 degrees in thirty minutes.  My body temp and the intensity of the workout actually was raising the room temp!

I pushed play and just kept rocking.

Another 15 minutes went by and I started to notice something.  Even though I had taken in another 24 ounces of water (total of 48 now), I had stopped sweating.  I was in the middle of an exercise and I could feel the heat coming off of my face.  I looked at the room thermostat.  81 degrees.  My body was tingling from my head to my waist…a very weird sensation if you have never experienced it.  I was more burnt out at that point than I had ever been in 139 days.  I recognized the physical signs though…I was experiencing heat exhaustion.  The tingling was because my electrolytes were gone.

If you ever get to this point, you need to be concerned.  This is the point  at which your system begins to shut down.  It can actually cause your heart to palpitate oddly and can be very serious.

Okay.  Enough.  Time to stop.  I left about three minutes of the routine out.  I dropped the last set of the last circuit.  I went straight to the stretch and cool down and finished. 

I had to take some drastic steps to rehydrate.  I immediately sat down and slowly got about 12 ounces of Gatorade in me.  I ate half a banana and a kosher pickle with it.  I needed to get the sodium and potassium levels up.  I then made up my usually recovery drink of Creatine/Protein and had that too.  All of this over an hour’s time…you can’t just pour this stuff into your body.  I sat in front of a fan and waited for everything to absorb and my body’s heat to go down.  It did…but it took time.  When I walked around, I was a little light headed and seriously out of steam.  I headed up to take a cold shower.

I stripped off my sweat soaked clothes and turned to look in the mirror.  I could see my cheek bones and my face was drawn tight.  My skin was white…drained of blood.  My body was still sweating.  It hurt me just to stand up.  That’s when it hit me.

I looked at the fifty year old man staring back at me and said to him, “What the hell are you doing?”

(to be continued tomorrow)