I Survived Insanity and P90X

I am proud to announce that I have just survived my first round of Insanity. Since I had previously been doing P90X and P90X + for about a year, I thought I'd write about how they compare in my experience.

During the first week of Insanity I was amazed at how hard the workouts were. Even with the rest intervals, the workouts were pretty intense, but I did my best, ending up with sweat pouring into my eyes six days a week. It wasn't all that much easier by the end of the two-month program, mind you. Still, Insanity helped me like cardio more. The increased agility it gave me motivated me to enjoy the sweatfest. I can't say that my fit test results were much better at the end than they were on my second week --they were usually between zero and five reps higher-- but the workouts did become more bearable by the end.

Insanity also helped improve my strength. I had always wanted to be able to do one-arm push-ups and I finally pulled off a few on my very last day of Insanity. Although this is not an exercise featured in the program, all the other push-up exercises in the DVDs surely had something to do with this accomplishment.

The routines in Insanity are ok, and some moves like the V push-ups, balance push-ups and the squat push-ups are very cool. (Yeah, I like push-ups). My favorite workout is Max Interval Plyo, precisely because of the creative push-ups.

However, I find that Shaun T repeats a lot of moves in the different DVDs, which made it boring for me sometimes. Having to do practically the same warm up everyday would get on my nerves, especially at the beginning. But by the end of the program I kind of welcomed the predictability of moves in the warm up and the rest of the program.

I also find the routines could've been arranged better. For instance, I would have preferred exercising different muscle groups on different days, with emphasis on upper body one day, core and abs another, legs another, etc. That's a good way to avoid injuries. I love doing push-ups, but my body tells me that if I try to churn out 100 of them on a daily basis for three consecutive days, even if they are different types of push-ups, my shoulders are going to be feeling very sore, and not in a good way. To fix this, I would go into plank position whenever I felt my shoulders were hurting too much. The plank is a very good core exercise anyway.

Exercising different muscle groups on different days is something I enjoyed about P90X. It prevented me from overworking my muscles and kept things interesting. It was also educational in a way because I learned about what exercises target certain muscles.

But the thing that blew my mind about P90X was the incredible gain in strength that it helped me accomplish. I went from doing zero pull-ups and chin-ups to doing 10. I went from being able to do one or two standard push-ups to doing 30. To be fair with Insanity, I think that the only reason I didn't see such a dramatic change in strength from Insanity was because I had already been through P90X for a year. Well, that, and the fact that Insanity is agility-oriented, not necessarily strength-oriented.  

The downside of P90X is that, contrary to Insanity, you need some equipment. After my first round using mostly 10 lb. weights, I had to graduate to 15 lb. weights if I didn't want to plateau. That's certainly not the case with the pull-up bar, although I would consider buying some ankle weights to try to increase the number of pull-ups I can do.

I must say that Tony Horton's silly humor made things a lot more interesting for me in P90X. Shaun T seems like a great guy and I liked him a lot in Insanity, but I just get Tony's humor. Making people laugh during such a tough program takes talent, in my book.

Now I am considering a variety of other fitness programs to embark on next. Among them are Rushfit, from MMA fighter Georges St. Pierre, and Tacfit. Or maybe I'll just make up my own program.