What Is the Insanity Workout?
Table of Contents
According to the Insanity website, this is perhaps the hardest home workout you will ever attempt! The Insanity workout program has developed a huge following worldwide and is continuing to grow so fast that it could be an epidemic! Trainer Shaun T takes you through 10 grueling workouts full of strength, cardio, power, resistance abs, and core moves. This is exactly what you need to get super fit, lean, and more defined!
What Do You Get with Insanity?
When you buy Insanity, it comes in a nice glossy box with all the content inside which you get;
- 10 intense workout DVD’s;
- Dig Deeper & Fit Test
- Plyometric Cardio Circuit
- Cardio Power & Resistance
- Cardio Recovery
- Pure Cardio & Abs
- Cardio Abs
- Core Cardio & Balance
- Max Interval Circuit
- Interval Plyo max
- Max Cardio Conditioning & Abs.
- Elite Nutrition Manual
- Fitness Guide
- Fit Test Tracker
- Workout Calendar
Insanity Workout Nutrition Guide
In my experience, any nutrition guide that accompanies a product such as this tends to be very basic and it tends to follow traditional dogma based on incorrect nutritional principles. By this, I mean that they tend to advocate following a low-fat diet. The Insanity Nutrition plan to some extent does this too which is a shame. It advocates avoiding trans fats (which is great!) and avoiding saturated fats (new research shows that natural saturated fats actually are not bad for you). So, they recommend you take the yolks of eggs out and buy low-fat milk and yogurts. But when you do this, you will probably start to feel hungrier sooner than if you had the full-fat options.
This is the only real criticism I have of the nutrition plan, however. My choices are to eat the full-fat options as long as they are quality such as free-range organic or grass-fed products. Everything else about the nutrition guide is great, however. The menu is varied, interesting, and tasty. It also recommends you use body measurements instead of just relying on weight as your body composition can change while your weight remains the same. Calories unfortunately are relied upon throughout this program but on the positive side, they actually recommend increasing your energy intake as your workout intensities increase.
If you get to a stage where your results start to plateau it could be worth avoiding grains from this program as they tend to lead to fat retention in many people.
Overall Thoughts
My first impressions were of the packaging. It comes in a nice thick box, almost like a big book. You open up the “pages” and there are 2 DVDs per page and a glossy picture of one of the Insanities cast on the opposite side. It feels sturdy and the DVDs are well protected.
The extras such as the calendar are easy to understand and track your progress and you just play the appropriate DVD according to the calendar.
The nutrition guide is surprisingly good despite my comments about the calories and fat previously.
The workouts definitely look tough. It is recommended that you do 1 workout per day for 6 days in a row and have 1 day’s rest each week. While this is possible for many people if you are unconditioned or just getting back into exercise this may be too much for your body to cope with at the start. They do allow rest during the program (even the crew needs to take rest at times) and encourage you to come back in shortly after.
Shaun T is a great motivator and so are the guys in the background doing it. It is not too cheesy either which is refreshing!
Who should buy this program?
If you are determined to change your body and you are committed to getting great results then look no further. I recommend you do this if you already have a base level of fitness. It will require a lot of dedication to do this program every day.
Who is this program not suited to?
If you have a medical condition, get yourself checked by your doctor before trying this program as it is very intense. If you are the sort of person who gives up easily then this probably isn’t for you. There is quite a bit of jumping involved so if you have joint problems then this may be initially too much (although losing some excess weight will ultimately take the pressure off your joints).
Overall, this program looks great. While the price tag may seem high think of it like this- if you joined a gym you would end up paying more while probably not working out as hard. Therefore, you will get better results with this program than you would at the gym at the same time.
