Day 2 - The Insanity Begins

DVD - Plyometric Cardio Circuit

Wow. They weren't kidding. It IS hard.

It starts with a warm-up. A warm-up on steroids. 10 1/2 minutes, 7 exercises, each for 30 to 60 seconds. Jumping Jacks. Heismanns. Heismanns with steps in between. Mummy Kicks. And more. Those first 3 minutes were the longest three minutes of my life! Then a water break (30 sec). Then another set of the same 7 exercises, only more, and faster, in the same time frame. Then water again. Then a final set, more and faster still. I made it all the way through the first set of reps no problem. The 2nd was a struggle. By the third, I was having to stop for water. I chugged a little too fast and started feeling a bit nauseous.

Remember, that was just the warm-up.

Luckily, the warm-up is followed by a 7-minute stretch session where Shaun takes it down a notch or 50. By the end of the stretch, the nausea had subsided but I was covered in a not-so-fine sheen of sweat.

Warm-up plus stretch, and 18 of the 40 minutes are up! Only 22 more to go. 22 more of mostly "Max Interval Training". These are like the first 10 1/2, but with harder exercises and a lot more getting up and down from the floor. Example: Stand up. Now jump to the floor and get into plank position. Do 4 push ups. Then jump up again. Repeat to the point of failure as many times as you can in 60 seconds. And that's only 1/4 of the drill. You do that drill 3 times, in the same manner as the warm-up. Fast, faster, fastest, with 30 second water breaks in between. And then there is a whole new set of 4 exercises before you reach the cool down. I forget the name of the move I found super cool: you are essentially in the position you would be in to start a push-up but instead of lowering your chest and chin to the floor, you jump forward and to the side with your legs while your torso and arms stay as still as possible. The wall I hit came from my arms: my legs and abs wanted to keep going but after all the push-ups my shoulders didn't want to hold me up anymore.

No, I didn't make it through Max Intervals. I stopped, took breaks, but tried to keep moving to keep my heart rate up by walking or jogging around or jumping and shaking out my muscles. If I was on the floor, I went into a crouching yoga position and breathed deeply for a few moments before starting again. At no point did I just completely give up. I'm not sure my heartrate has ever been that high for a sustained period of time, and I know I've never sweated that much.

Quite honestly, my need for breaks happened more quickly than to the people in the video. But they all hit walls too, literally collapsing out of position in some cases (luckily they were close to the ground). Even Shaun doesn't do the whole workout from beginning to end. This heartens me. I feel good about my early goal, which is to increase my stamina and endurance enough to get through as much of the work-out as the people on the video. According to the dialogue, they are all in week 3, and are still at the collapse point. If I get to there from taking frequent breaks like I did tonight at the end of 2 weeks, I'll be damn impressed with myself.

So how am I feeling physically? Sore. I went into the workout feeling sore from yesterday, and started to feel more sore soon after I finished. I popped a couple of Excedrin Back & Body tabs after dinner and drew a nice hot bath. Ibuprofen or some other painkiller is recommended in the beginning while doing this workout (follow the pill manufacturer's directions) because you are going to hurt. I'm clearly using muscles in ways I haven't before, and my joints in particular are letting me know. Mercifully, the bath and Excedrin helped a lot.

So that's Plyometric Cardio Circuit in a nutshell. I'm scheduled to do this DVD 6 more times this first 4 weeks. The next time will be Saturday.