INSANITY: THE ASYLUM is the first in-home sports-specific training program based on drills used by pro athletes. During this intense 30-day program, you’ll practice moving like a football running back, serve aces like a tennis pro, score points like an all-star guard, and more. Your instructor, Shaun T, creator of successful programs like INSANITY® and Hip Hop Abs®, will help you spike your speed, coordination, agility, strength, and power to an elite athlete level.

Why is it effective?

Shaun T built INSANITY: THE ASYLUM on three cross-training cycles. During Cycle 1, he’ll push you to master a series of core sports exercises. Once you’ve gotten those under control, the real fun begins. As you step up to Cycle 2 and Cycle 3, Shaun T challenges you to dig even deeper with more complicated sports moves and progressively tougher drills. This combination pushes you to use more muscles and develop skills that give you a measurable competitive edge.

What makes INSANITY: THE ASYLUM unique?

Elite athletes use proven sports training drills to sharpen their game-day skills and get into astonishing shape. Now with INSANITY: THE ASYLUM, you can too.
With its included Agility Ladder and Speed Rope, you’ll train with more focus, concentration, and skill—just like an elite pro athlete. After 30 days, you’ll get faster, stronger, and more agile than you ever imagined—enabling you to perform any sport or activity with eye-popping speed and skill.

How does it work?

INSANITY: THE ASYLUM combines MAX Interval Training with progressive sports drills to push you to Dig Deeper® than ever. Shaun T will lead you through sports-based exercises that get progressively harder. So you’ll burn calories, build muscle, and unleash your inner world-class athlete. In just 30 days, you’ll be ready to compete, with dramatic, measurable improvements in your athletic ability.

Shaun T is your fitness expert.

Former collegiate track-and-field star Shaun T collaborated with Beachbody® to create INSANITY®, one of the most intense workouts ever put on DVD. Now he’s helped create INSANITY: THE ASYLUM, the first in-home sports-specific training program based on drills used by pro athletes. Commit to working out with Shaun T and you’ll be working to achieve elite athlete status just like him—in just 30 days.

Who is Insanity: The Asylum for?

Insanity: The Asylum is meant for people in top physical shape who want to take their results to the next level, graduates of INSANITY, P90X®, and other advanced fitness programs, athletes and former athletes who want to improve or recapture their performance, no matter their sport or game, people who are tired of traditional cardio and aren’t seeing results anymore, cardio lovers like runners, spinners, or cyclists,  and people who want to achieve rapid, dramatic improvement in their fitness.

Who is Insanity: The Asylum NOT for?

Beginners; pregnant women; children; people who aren’t willing to work hard; people with back, neck, joint, or other injuries; or people who don’t consistently do  high-impact exercise.  I had mentioned in a previous post that Insanity might not be the best program for obese people to start with and that hold true for Insanity: The Asylum as well.  If you are obese and looking to start a fitness program you might want to read my previous post here. Some people have commented that they started with Insanity and modified the routines.  Just be sure to explore all of your options with Beachbody programs before making your decision and as always feel free to contact me with any questions and I’ll do my best to help.

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Insanity: The Asylum

Tuesday (3/29/11) Plyometric Cardio Circuit – Almost – Yesterday morning I though my allergies were acting up but it kept getting worse all day and definitely wasn’t allergies. I was feeling really bad when I got up but gave it a shot anyway. Made it through the warm-up, almost, called in to work and climbed back into bed for the rest of the day.

Wednesday (3/30/11) Pure Cardio & Cardio Abs – Slept late in the morning but tried to get through the workout at night. It was a struggle but I made it through with some longer than usual mini breaks. We followed it up with Cardio Abs even though I seem to be getting a good ab workout with the other routines. I wish I was getting cramps in my side during EVERY workout, thought that should be getting better by week three…

At least I’m starting to feel better.

Thursday (3/31/11) Cardio Recovery – We are continuing to do the workouts after work this week and this one went smoothly as usual.

Friday (4/1/11) Cardio Power & Resistance – I was a little beat after work today but got in the workout. My butt was dragging through most of it but at least I finished.

Saturday (4/2/11) Plyo Cardio Circuit – Slept late, got up and ate breakfast before working out. Waited a while before starting but I still prefer working out before a meal instead of after. The workout went OK but for the rest of the day I started feeling really bad, just like earlier in the week. I hope I didn’t push things too soon instead of taking more time off for rest.

Sunday (4/3/11) Day Off – spent most of the day in bed or on the coach but feeling better than I did Saturday night.

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Workout Review 3/28/11 – 4/3/11 Insanity, Week 3…

Monday (3/21/11) Cardio Power and Resistance – Now that I know what to expect I’m able to pace myself a little better. The jumps in this one are tough for me. Seems to really get my heart rate up.

Seems a little strange to open the window at 4:30am with outdoor temps in the low 40s but it feels good. Looks like we’re putting an air conditioning unit in the workout room this summer if we keep doing Insanity once it gets warm.

Tuesday (3/22/11) Pure Cardio – I made it through Shaun’s Insanity ‘Warm Up’ without pausing. I took my first mini break doing the Switch Kicks and by the time I got to the Level 2 Drills they breaks weren’t that mini any more. Fast push-ups during those drills are a killer and I could only make it to the second set of eight.

Wednesday (3/23/11) Plyometric Cardio Circuit – Another warm up without a break but went downhill from there. By the second level of the second circuit I was having a hard time making it past the halfway point of each exercise. Then for some strange reason the computer I use to play the videos in our workout room shut down. It restarted again but it took long enough that I was starting to cool down. All in all not my best effort. I’ll have to push a little harder next time.

Thursday (3/24/11) Cardio Recovery – Since this is a short half hour workout I hit the snooze alarm for another 15 minutes of sleep (to help with recovery, right?). I’m still struggling with staying in some of the deep squats as long as they are in the video so need to work on endurance. Other than that a nice easy morning.

Friday (3/25/11) Cardio Power & Resistance – This one is another leg killer for me showing that I need to work on my legs more especially the Vertical Jumps.

Saturday (3/26/11) Pure Cardio – Spring is here and the weekends are getting buys, but still cold… Didn’t get to the workout until 8:00pm which is a half hour before I’m usually in bed. I was supposed to follow up with Cardio Abs but was ready to call it a night. Kathy waited took this as her off day and did the workouts on Sunday which was probably the smarter thing to do.

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Workout Review 3/21/11 – 3/27/11 Insanity, Week 2…

Monday (3/14/11) Fit Test – There were several tests I had to stop before the test was up. At least it was a short test.

Tuesday (3/15/11) Plyometric Cardio Circuit – Wow, it feels like the fist time I did a Power 90 workout and couldn’t make it through a minute of jumping jacks… This is going to be a different experience than P90X.
The warm-up was a killer workout by itself. My heart rate got up to 177 which is a little higher than I’d like so I need to pace myself a little better. We pushed really hard and were totally drenched after the workout.

Wednesday (3/16/11) Cardio Power and Resistance – Took things a little slower today with some breaks during the workout. We both really felt our calves today, guess this workout is hitting things a little differently than Power 90 Master Series did.

Thursday (3/17/11) Cardio Recovery – This was a nice break, especially since both of us were still complaining about our calves. I noticed that Shaun doesn’t really have a calf stretch in the workout so we started working in the downward dog calf stretch that Tony uses in P90X.

Friday (3/18/11) Pure Cardo – This one was a little longer and less of an ramped interval workout. Legs felt better and I kept close tabs on my heart rate, keeping max in the high 160s.

Saturday (3/19/11) Plyometric Cardio Circuit – Repeat of Monday’s workout. Slept in and did the workout late morning instead of our usual time of 4:30am during the week. Not quite as intense with more mini breaks throughout than the first time through, still drenched by the end of the workout.

Sunday (3/20/11) Day Off

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Workout Review 3/14/11 – 3/20/11 The Insanity Begins…

Paul Ryan, Wisconsin’s 1st District Republican representative and former trainer, along with Bart Stupak, a Democrat from Michigan’s 1st congressional district have been leading some other members of congress in daily P90X workouts. Tony Horton has been known to stop by an occasion to work in with them.

“It’s a fantastic workout,” Ryan says of P90X, which stresses the importance of muscle confusion and cross-training. “Bart Stupak and I lead it every morning. There’s about a dozen of us who do it.”

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Members of congress reveal their own health care plan. P90X!

We decided to start things slow and work back up to where we were by doing an accelerated Power 90 program fist.

Saturday (1/1/11) Sweat 1-2 We start off with the basic cardio routine of sweat 1-2 followed by ab ripper 100. Everything goes fine for our fist day.

Sunday (1/2/11) Sculpt 1-2 Kathy is really feeling her abs today! Since being away from working out for a bit and still putting up with tennis elbow I am taking things slow and reduced the weight from our last P90X workouts.

Monday (1/3/11) Sweat 1-2 Ouch, we’re both sore. I guess I’m in worse shape than I thought. Made it through the cardio and ab ripper.

Tuesday (1/4/11) Sweat 1-2 Wow, I’m still really feeling it in my arms so don’t want to push things. We do another round of Sweat 1-2 but skip the ab ripper today.

Wednesday (1/5/11) Sweat 1-2 Still sore and not wanting to push things we do Sweat again, this time with ab ripper 100.

Thursday (1/6/11) Sculpt 1-2 Feeling fine this morning so back to weights. Sculpt circuit completed with no issues.

Friday (1/7/11) Day off. Feeling much better with just the normal soreness from a good workout!

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Workout Review 1/1/11 – 1/7/11 (Power 90)

Tuesday (1/26/10) Day off – Well, seems I’ve been pushing a little too hard.  I didn’t get any sleep last night as every time I moved the pain in my elbow would wake me up.  Looks like I’m going to have to lay off the weights for a bit and stick to cardio.  I can try some of the Insanity or RevAbs workouts while I rest my arm.  When I  get back to the P90X program I’m going to go for less weight and more reps, I’m not sure how to do that with push-ups and pull-ups though.  Typing with a wrist brace on isn’t the most comfortable thing to do….

Wednesday (1/27/10) Cardio X – I thought I’d give this workout a try as I wanted to take it easy on my arms for a few days and I hadn’t done this one yet.  It was easy compared to the other workouts in P90X and was more like a Master Series one.  It was only 45 minutes with elements of Yoga, Kenpo,  Plyo and Core.  I was easily able to do the whole thing which was nice, it showed me just how far I’d come.  Sometimes it isn’t that obvious when your struggling to do some of the P90X stuff you forgot how you struggled with the original Power 90 workouts in the beginning that are now a cakewalk. A nice moral booster.

Thursday (1/28/10) Cardio X – Yup, Cardio X twice in a row.  My wife didn’t go to the gym after work so we did this one together.  It’s always more fun to work out with someone else!  I still wanted to do something without weights and thought this one would give her a little taste of what the other workouts have.  She has done Plyo with me before, but not Kenpo yet.  She has also does Yoga classes at the gym but I think she’s in for a surprise when she does Yoga X with me.  Maybe I’ll suggest it over the weekend.

Friday (1/29/10) RevAbs  Abcentrics™ and How to Capoeira – Just to try something different I did the introductory disk to RevAbs in which Brett teaches the basic moves (and how to pronounce them) along with a little history of this form a martial arts.  He then puts them all together into a short routine.

Saturday (1/30/10) Yoga X -  My wife joined me for another workout today.  It’s always more fun to work out with someone else.  Except when they make you laugh when your already on the edge of falling over doing Yoga X…  She has done a few Yoga classes at a local gym but always says she doesn’t see how they are much of a workout.  Anyway, I made it through another one, still trying a few of the harder positions before hanging out in child pose.  Even though I didn’t think I stressed my elbow much I had to ice it down when I was done, it seems to be getting worse.  I hate to stop working out entirely but might not have much of a choice.  I really don’t want to go through another surgery for this.

Sunday (1/31/10)  Rest Day – Kathy did comment that her upper arms were a little sore after yesterdays Yoga session even though she didn’t think she was working that hard at the time.  Just shows how some of the workouts can sneak up on you.

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Workout Routines for 1-25-10 to 1-31-10

She also mentions that the program takes a certain amount of commitment.  That is right in line with the Beachbody motto, “Decide, Commit, Succeed”.  Once you Decide you want to live a healthier lifestyle and get in the best shape of your life you Commit to a workout program and a healthier diet you can’t help but Succeed with the support of others doing the same.   The support comes in the form of your Coach (like me) and the other members of the Beachbody community through the user forums and workout buddies in the online supergym.  The support system is an often overlooked but vital part of the success equation.  There are usually lots of people around you telling you how hard it looks, how your getting too thin, not eating well, all because they can’t commit to changing their lifestyle and don’t want to get left behind.  It helps to have people to talk to who have gone through the same transformation you are undertaking and understands what it takes to help you along.

Sorry to get a little sidetracked, the video segment and write up can be found at the ABC News website.

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Good Morning America Reviews P90X

I’ve completed one round of Power 90 and one round of Power 90 Master Series and am on my second week of P90X (but I started the first week about a month ago).

Saturday (1/16/10) Chest and Back – After a little break it was harder getting through the entire routine with the same weights and reps I had been up to, got about 3/4 of the way through before hitting a wall. Hope next week I can push through and be back on track.

Sunday (1/17/10) Plyometrics (Plyo X) – I had recorded the new P90X infomercial and sat down to watch it with my wife who blew off the gym today. A little more than half way through she said “Let’s go work out”. The workout room has the baseboard radiators closed off so it’s usually cold with the sub 30 degree (F) New England temps and she thought it was freezing and too cold to work out. Once the warm-up was done I asked if I should open the window as it felt pretty hot and we were starting to sweat… She made it about half way through before getting nauseous and calling it a night. I wasn’t far behind her.

Monday (1/18/10) Shoulders and Arms – I made it a little more than half way through (to the first round of Two-Angle Shoulder Flyes) when my elbow started to hurt. I’ve had surgery for persistent Lateral Epicondylitis, or tennis elbow and still get pain when I push it. I don’t want to go through another surgery and months of recovery so I tend to be more cautions now.

Tuesday (1/19/10) Yoga X – This goes way beyond the Power 90 yoga that was mixed in with the workout routines! This is the first time I’ve made it through the whole hour and a half yoga workout. More or less. I didn’t do the Crane or Wheel pose and had some trouble with some of the others but definitely saw an improvement.

Wednesday (1/20/10) Well, what was supposed to be Legs and Back day turned into a day off. What started out as a mild headache in the morning turned into a full on migraine by the end of the work day. Took a Treximet (sumatriptan and naproxen sodium) when I got home and was asleep by 6:00pm.

Thursday (1/21/10) Legs and Back – My legs were still a little sore from doing Yoga X two days ago but nothing too bad. I didn’t finish the whole thing but made it further than last time. I track everything with an OpenOffice.org spreadsheet (I’m a big fan of open source software) and made it up to the Sneaky Lunges.

Friday (1/22/10) Kenpo X – Glutes are really sore from the previous few days. Pushed through it anyway and finished Kenpo X without a problem.  This is one of the easier workouts for me.

Saturday (1/23/10)  Day off – Well if you consider a day off to be tearing a dishwasher apart, re-assembling, re-installing to find it still doesn’t work, remove, disassemble, trouble shoot (found the broken magnet in  the motor time) search for (discontinued) parts on line……..

Sunday (1/24/10) Day off – Target shooting (airgun field target) in 35 degree weather.

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Workout Routines for 1-16-10 to 1-24-10

“The issue is already front and center at schools like Wayzata, where computers track fitness, and a new approach to physical education includes yoga, dance, ultimate Frisbee and even P90X — the training system you might have seen on TV.

“They’re encouraged by the newest technology,” said Wayzata Health and Physical Education teacher Kris Jones, “and some of those kinds of things that push them in another way. And P90X, in terms of the ab workout routine, is something that’s really caught on and grabbed their attention, so they’re willing to do it.”

The entire article can be found here.

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Schools Embrace P90X to Help Teach Fitness