Friday, April 8, 2011

Take me to the Asylum!

April 18th cannot come soon enough for us fitness junkies who love to workout to the point of collapsing in a puddle of our sweat.


Fitness junkies who love grueling workouts are rejoicing everywhere.  The follow-up to the Insanity, the program we love to hate, is right around the corner.

Over a year ago, I ran into a late-night infomercial that would change my fitness outlook forever.  It was the infomercial for Beachbody's Insanity program, a 60 day cardio conditioning program that promised to be the hardest set of workouts ever put out on DVD.  Intrigued and unhappy about my current weight and fitness level at the time, I caved and ordered the set.  Let's just say when the infomercial voiceover promised me that this was the hardest program ever put out on DVD, that was no lie!

I never did make it to the full 60 days, but I learned about myself.  I learned that if I pushed myself hard enough, I could achieve anything.  I learned that physical pain was only temporary, but that consistency is key and  determination will get me through anything.  But most importantly, I learned that physical strength may come and go, but mental strength is what triumphs over everything else.

I may not have lost weight, and in fact ate my weight in food, but I don't lie when I say I went from a beginners-intermediate level of exercise to advanced after 30 days of Insanity.  Basically, my current level of fitness and the foundation for it was set in motion thanks to doing Insanity.  I am eternally grateful to Shaun T for that.

Being a slave to at-home fitness, I naturally caved and preordered the Insanity: Asylum basic set.  It comes with 6 DVDs: Speed and Agility, Vertical Plyo, Relief, Strength, Back to Core, and Game Day.  The set also comes with a jump rope and agility ladder, and will also feature hybrid calendars to mix-and-match Asylum with both the original Insanity program (as well as P90X).

I think what is most exciting about Asylum, other than it only promising to my whip my ass for 30 days instead of 60, is that it will take a cross-training approach.  As much as I can appreciate what Insanity did for me, it was  repetitive at times and had quite the dread factor.  There are only so many plyometric fitness routines you can pack into a program.  To base an entire 60-day program off of it is redundant, quite frankly.  It looks to me that Shaun T has created a more versatile program this time around.


For more information, visit: http://www.extremely-fit.com/insanity-asylum.html

Let the ooohs and aaahs begin!

3 comments:

davs said...

Leave the Asylum program. You might get more out of the
Turbo Fire program.

davs said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Liz said...

I already own Turbo Fire and love it. I like changing things up a bit.