Body Shop: Inside Insanity - Off Duty, Military Health and Fitness - Air Force Times

Body Shop: Inside Insanity

When the idea of yet another run has you ready to throw in the towel, it’s time to switch up your routine. Exercise videos can provide welcome variety and a good workout, as long as you listen to your body and use your exercise knowledge and common sense when it comes to specific moves.

Insanity by Beachbody, the makers of P90X, is a DVD cardio workout program with a legion of seemingly buff followers — if you believe the infomercials.

We put the DVDs to a two-week test and found that if you’re having trouble getting motivated — and you already have a solid foundation of exercise knowledge — Insanity may be a good supplement to unit PT.

Led by Beachbody trainer Shaun T, the 10-disc set comes with a workout schedule, fit tests, nutrition guide, online tools and progress chart, which when used together are touted to produce “insane” sculpting and cardio improvements in 60 days. The program costs $119.85 plus shipping and handling, and the only equipment needed is a machine to play the discs.

Whereas P90X focuses on resistance training with exercises such as cardio and yoga mixed in, the idea behind Insanity is to get your heart rate elevated and keep it there for longer-than-usual intervals by bringing high-intensity movements down to a level that is sustainable for longer.

Workouts consist of an intense warm-up incorporating plyometric drills — think continuous sets of running in place, high knees, butt kicks and Heisman 1-2-3s — followed by stretching, the main workout and a quick cool-down stretch.

Each DVD has a theme such as Plyometric Cardio, Pure Cario, Cardio Abs and Cardio Recovery. Three-minute intervals in the main workout progress through intense exercises that work multiple muscle groups. Recovery periods are short, and in a comparison of three DVD workout programs, the American Council on Exercise said Insanity’s work-to-recovery ratios raise the risk of excessive fatigue, compromised technique, muscle soreness and injury.

Users are advised to “push hard and dig deep” and to do their maximum number of reps for each interval but are also told to listen to their bodies, so it’s important to know your limits and abide by them. To preserve your joints, we suggest doing this workout on a soft surface such as a gym floor, carpet or mat.

Contrary to popular philosophy, Insanity incorporates static stretches right after the warm-up.

“Yes, in the Insanity workouts you are stretching after the warm-up, but this warm-up is probably more difficult than most entire workouts,” says Beachbody spokesman Mike Whitmark. “We stretch at this point in the workout because we want people to prep their bodies as thoroughly as possible for the ballistic movements to come.”

While ACE found Shaun T’s knowledge of exercise physiology lacking, we found him likable and an exceptional motivator when the workouts got tough.

Our male tester, who had never done a workout video before, believed there could have been better explanation of specific moves. Familiarity with the exercises through repetition helped him to become more confident and put additional effort into each session.

At the two-week mark, he scored 15 percent higher on all measured exercises than at the initial fit test.