A month of small cardio work had me geared for bigger and better things. It was a short and sweet workout that I tried to make as intense as possible. Here was the layout of my cardio workout that anyone can try to get more core and cardio power: (Keep in mind that there were no breaks in between any moves or any phases)
The Bike N' Go 40
Phase 1
9 minutes of moderate paced cycling
1 minute of fast cycling
Traditional crunches to exertion
Phase 2
9 minutes of moderate paced cycling
1 minute of fast cycling
Bicylcle kicks to exertion
Phase 3
9 minutes of moderate paced cycling
1 minute of fast cycling
Traditional crunches to exertion
Phase 4
9 minutes of moderate paced cycling
1 minute of fast cycling
Bicycle kicks to exertion
I would do this cardio at least three times a week and would also throw in two occurrences of a two mile run each week as well. While I feel this workout really helped me lose weight and increase my endurance, your body eventually adapts. I don't like adaptation. I want to keep my body guessing and change things up. I wanted something different. A light appeared when the Insanity workout was recommended to me by my cousin, Luke. Thanks for the sweet advice, my man!
Let me give you my expectations and goals of what I had in mind for doing this "insane" workout. I expected that the workout would be tough, but I thought that I would of been able to jump right into it with no problem. The main reason of my logic here being the fact that I have never really struggled getting into the flow of working out, which was true. Or at least, it was true. I struggled incredibly during my first day of Insanity. The first day is a fit test in which you do maximum reps of various cardio exercises that are a minute each. Some of these different exercises were switch kicks, power jumps, power jacks, suicide drills and oblique push-ups. I personally found the push up jacks to be the toughest. Perhaps a reason I felt this way was because they were right in the middle of the workout. By this point, I'm normally already gassed. However, I knew I was in the most trouble when I was DYING within the first minute of the warm up (and it is short too)! The sad thing about this workout is that I no longer have the workout sheet logged anywhere so the data is missing. I do however, still have the remaining fit test days (this exercise was performed once every two weeks).
My goals were pretty straight-forward: lose weight and tone up the abs and other muscles. At this point of my life, I wanted to lose my gut mainly and transform it into a whole new gut: a sexy, chiseled stomach.
In order to achieve my goals I knew I had to do a several things and I tried to keep it basic at first:
- Dedication: Just show up every day and give it my best shot and I would at least feel no guilt of not trying my best.
- Nutrition: Keep it simple to start off. My beginning diet was to slowly work off the weight watchers diet and expand into a balanced diet with protein, carbohydrates and vegetables to provide balance. Eventually, I ate about 2200 calories a day while doing Insanity. I understand that this is a little light, however, I was looking to lose weight. If I was looking to gain muscle, I honestly probably wouldn't of done Insanity.
- Endurance: I went from not working out at all and being completely out of shape to doing a 60 day intense cardio workout. Therefore, I knew the importance of trying to stay focused steadily. I thought to myself that I better pace myself well and not wear myself out. Therefore, I needed lots of rest and recovery and oodles of energy to do this workout.
I knew this workout would be difficult, but I also knew that the rewards would be that more beneficial. So I continued to do my best throughout the first week. My body did not like my mind during the entire first week. Talk about soreness! However, I knew that I could continue to hammer my body relentlessly with the right amount of nutrition and rest.
