Day 5 - Almost certifiable

DVD - Pure Cardio

No rest!

As it turns out, "no rest" meant something a little different than I thought, which was that I would be constantly admonished to work harder and keep going. I'm working as hard as I can without hurting myself and I don't need that kind of de-motivation. I've seen Full Metal Jacket too many times: I think calling it my "personal boot camp" has me half-expecting Shaun at some point to turn into Gunnery Sgt. Hartman and scream "Move Maggot!" from the TV. But this isn't the military and though it's called "Insanity", the Instructor still has to be likable.

Shaun is pretty cool about taking breaks. In fact, if your form suffers because of the speed or if it is clear you are hitting a personal wall, he tells you to stop and rest and go get some water but come right back into it. He says the same thing to his crew as he walks around motivating them. He'll look directly into the camera and say "Do what you can do. You'll get there"

So I did what I could do and tonight for the first time I made it all the way through the warm up without stopping for a few extra seconds occasionally between the scheduled rest periods between intervals. In Plyo, I was in the 2nd set before I needed an extra break. In Power & Resistance I was in the 3rd set. Because it was "no rest" tonight, there were no 30-second rest/water breaks between the warm-up intervals. Just straight through. And I made it all the way through, keeping up with the crew!

The typical stretch followed, but toward the end of the sequence, Shaun actually says "I'm nervous about what's coming up". Twice.

He's nervous?

Holy CRAP! Don't scare me like that!

I suspect that's the point, though. If they psyche us out a little about how hard it is going to be, we'll feel more accomplished when we get through it and it IS hard, but not as scary-hard (read: impossible) as they seemed to suggest. At least, that's how I feel.

This DVD was different from both Plyo and Cardio Power & Resistance. The main portion of the workout didn't contain any intervals. I was worried it would, and that it would be like the warm-up with no rest but an ever-increasing pace through successive intervals. But it was more like the Fit Test, a series of exercises, each discrete from the rest, done for a minute during which you do as many reps as you can. There were brief rests between each exercise, but because there were no intervals, there was no need for the 30-second rest between them. So, "no rest" didn't really mean "no rest", but "no intervals". Pure Cardio. No new moves here, we simply revisited moves we'd in Plyo and/or Power & Resistance.

Coming off the no-rest warm-up during which I really didn't rest, pushing myself through the main segment was tough, even after the cooling off during the stretch. I started strong through the first two exercises and then we got to one of the exercises that has you launching yourself off the floor and returning to a squat at a cardio pace. I did maybe 4 reps and then I just couldn't.

At that moment, I glanced at the TV, and Chris, the guy from the Fit Test whose initial numbers were sometimes below mine, was also coming to a stop. As was another guy behind him. Wow! These people are fitness instructors who having been doing Insantiy for over 2 weeks at the point they were videoed, and I'm keeping up with some of them!

I'm not going to lie, the next 12 minutes were a struggle. I was struggling, the crew was struggling, even Shaun was talking about how he was struggling. "This is so hard I'm forgetting the names of my moves," he said at one point. I couldn't keep up with the Pure Cardio pace without taking rests. Thank God Shaun kept telling me and his crew to do so. But for each new exercise, I would start off doing 4 or 5 reps, hit a wall, stop, pant, get water, and do 4 or 5 more. Repeat for one minute. Given the reaction of the crew who've been doing it longer, I think it's going to take me a while before I can make it more solidly through.

At this point, I have now been through all of the DVDs I will do for the first month, with the exception of Cardio Abs, which I will do for the first time the next time I do Pure Cardio. They are on the same DVD. Pure Cardio is about 38 minutes. Cardio Abs is supposed to be 20. For the rest of Month 1, I will do both of these workouts together. Tomorrow I go back to Plyo.