Insanity Day 1 and 2

Posted on August 19, 2011 by Freeky8

After finishing two rounds of separate P90x/Insanity routines, I have decided to just do Insanity for my next round. On Wednesday I did Plyometric Cardio Circuit and I actually did pretty well half way through the workout without having to stop for a break. I was pretty impressed that I had lasted so long because I usually get fatigued or my legs just really burn. I pushed through even though I felt my legs burning but I knew I could do it, it was just mind over matter.  The second half I also did good but I did have to stop to rest several times, which is not unusual for anybody who is doing Insanity. I know my legs in this pure Insanity routine are going to kill me but in the end I know my legs will be a lot stronger and my cardio conditioning will definitely be improved as well as hopefully getting to my initial weight loss goal.

As far as my weight loss goal, I am just 13lbs away from my initial goal and I have lost a total of 34lbs so far.  I am finally trying to take my nutrition more seriously as I am starting to learn more about nutrition and watching/counting my calories. I am sure if I were to have a very good nutritional diet I would have reached my initial goal already but it is still amazing that even though I didn’t really change too many things up with my diet, I was still able to lose 34lbs, so I can only imagine where I would be with a better eating habits and a more nutritional diet. Also I plan on doing an all P90x/P90x Plus/Tony Horton 1on1 workout routine after Insanity. Although I had been mixing it up with several workouts for P90x and Insanity, I think the purpose for both programs are different and although I know that the P90x cardio workouts are not as intense as the Insanity workouts, I still do get a good workout and burn a lot of calories. The reason I burn a lot of calories with the P90x cardio workout is because for one they are not as intense so I do not really need to stop yet I am sweating the whole time, where as the Insanity workouts I do stop to rest many times and I think that takes away from the total workout a little bit. Only thing different I will be including with my current and future workouts is doing Yoga. I had never got into the p90x version of Yoga because it was kinda hard, repetitive and a very long session.

 

Here are the stats I am keeping track of on my cardio days:

Time in zone – 19mins

Avg Zone  Percentage – 84%

Max HR Reached – 98%

Calories burned – Approx. 833
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P90x/Insanity Hybrid Day 91

Posted on August 10, 2011 by Freeky8

Last night was the beginning of the last workout week of my current workout routine! I did 30 – 15 Upper Body Massacre! This was a really tough workout as always but this was my best workout since my second week of doing this same workout. I made improvements and I am getting pretty sore from it already. I did not do Killer Abs along with it which is disappointing but I don’t really know what to do, basically because I push myself through the regular workout and to do another workout after it, I just don’t feel like doing it. Is this normal? What can I do or change so I can get it done? I have read on some fitness discussion boards that it truly isn’t necessary to do stand alone ab workouts because if you are doing strength and other cardio workouts, you are using your abs. Although I do feel a little sore after I do some of the Insanity workouts because you do use your core quite a bit, I am just not sure if it is enough. In my P90x workouts, I always do one workout that is a total body workout so that is working pretty much every body part. Now, when I do stand alone ab workouts, I rarely feel that sore compared to when I do some strength training. Is being sore the definition of getting a good workout on your muscles?

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P90x/Insanity Hybrid Day 89/90

Posted on August 6, 2011 by Freeky8

 

Tonight was Max Interval Circuit and last night I did Shoulders, Arms & Triceps. Although I had skipped a day earlier during the week, I kept on with the scheduled workouts, so I am a day behind but I will continue to push. Also, this is day 90 of my workout routine, it isn’t the correct amount of days that I am actually in because I have missed days and next week will officially be the fourth week of my workout routine. I was pretty surprised how well I had done with tonight’s Max Interval Circuit workout, I was expecting to be struggling a lot through it, but I actually did pretty well and was happy with the end result. During this workout as in all of the Insanity cardio workouts, there is pretty much no way to go through the whole workout without taking little breaks during the exercises and today was no different, but towards the end I knew I was fatigued and I forced myself to get through it as long as I kept good form.

Also this week I had started to count my calories and keep track of what I am eating every day. To keep track I have been using Myfitnesspal.com and also their app for my phone so I can always keep it up to date. While doing this with the combination of better nutrition and my workouts, so far it has helped me lose 2lbs already for this week.

Here are the stats I am keeping track of on my cardio days:

(HRM start at warm-up to cool-down)

Time in zone – 38mins (previous 37mins)

Avg Zone  Percentage – 83% (previous 80%)

Max HR Reached – 97% (previous 92%)

Calories burned – Approx. 1156 (previous 1100)

 

 

 

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P90x/Insanity Hybrid Day 88

Posted on August 4, 2011 by Freeky8

 

It has been awhile since I have last updated my blog with my workouts as I had been slacking and not staying on track. Tonight I had done Plyometrics from P90x instead of an Insanity cardio workout. It was a good workout and although it wasn’t as hard as the Insanity workouts, i believe the Insanity workouts really helped me with the Plyometrics and the good thing was i burned over 1k calories! I had done about 4 or so workouts in a matter of 2 weeks so once I got back to my phase 3 workouts, it was very difficult as though I hadn’t worked out for a couple of weeks. It was very frustrating to try and do these advanced workouts that I was doing before I started to slack off, I was just not happy with my results the past 2 weeks from the amount of workouts I did. On Monday had decided to do Yoga X because I just wanted to get some type of workout in but not be too strenuous or intense. I really do not enjoy Yoga X as I have only done it maybe 3 times total, so I pretty much just lasted 30 minutes out of 90 minutes. Although it is not necessarily too hard, it is just very repetitive and that is one of the main reasons why I do not enjoy it, doing the same stretch 6 times in a row gets boring fast. But I am going to dedicate myself in my next routine to include yoga because of the overall benefits it produces.

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My Kodak ZX5 Review

Posted on July 28, 2011 by Freeky8

After doing some research on multiple HD mini cameras, I found that the Kodak ZX5 was the best overall HD mini camera for me. The only other camera that I was really considering was the GoPro HD Hero(Naked) but that was a little pricey for what I will basically be using my mini cam for. The things that I was looking for in a cam were:
1. Full HD 1080p
2. 720p 60fps
3. Waterproof
4. Ease of use
5. Overall cam capture quality
6. Memory card expand-ability

All of those features are in the Kodak ZX5 mini cam at a valuable price under $130. As this is my very first video camera, I didn’t really know what to expect once I started using it. The Kodak ZX5 has 4 different video capture settings, 1080p 30fps, 720p 30fps or 60fps, and WVGA. It also is waterproof up to 10ft in water but I have yet to use it submerged in water, I will be buying a floating strap so I will be able to use that feature. Since I have multiple Kodak products already, I knew this would be easy to use and it is once you select all the preferences you want for your video capture settings. There are different effects settings you can choose from which are: Normal Color, High Saturation, 70′s Film, B&W, and Sepia. Although those are fun effects, I am not sure how often I will be using them but at least I know they are there if I do want to use a special effect. It also features on camera editing where you can cut the starting and ending point in a video capture. Among other features it also has an anti glare LCD screen so you can view it in full sunlight and still be able to see what you want to capture, a easy one button share feature you push to share on multiple social media websites including Facebook, Youtube, and Twitter among others but you can only use this feature when it is connected to your computer. It would be nice if this camera had Wifi so you can easily upload it anywhere but that is not that big of deal to me. It has the ability to zoom up to 4x as well which is a nice little feature that I didn’t realize it had while I was recording video. I also like that is has a tripod mount and you can buy the optional remote control to take full advantage of doing your own presentation videos. This is a really good mini cam for what it is priced at, sure there are better video cameras but none that are this small, so if you want something that you want to record every day or random things, then this is a good investment for the price. To view the quality of the camera, I have a a few samples of what the video capture looks like down below. These were shot 720p@60fps.

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P90x/Insanity Hybrid Day 81

Posted on July 27, 2011 by Freeky8

Well I finally got back into it after not working out for 6 days. The previous workout I had done before tonight’s 30-15 Upper Body Massacre with Killer Abs was Max Plyo Interval and that was last Wednesday, I am basically starting last week over because I missed too many workouts and it has shown in my performance tonight. I was really struggling with my strength tonight and it certainly wasn’t very encouraging that I couldn’t get to the amount of reps from the last time I had done this same workout. So it was pretty disappointing I couldn’t get a better workout that I thought I should have. Although I didn’t really feel like I had a really good workout with my strength workout but i did get a good workout with Killer Abs in which was actually the first time I had done that workout. I wanted to try a different ab workout because I was really slacking with that part of my workouts, since I have been pushing myself so hard in the strength workouts, I really didn’t feel like I have had the endurance to do the abs after the main workout. So tonight, I made a decision that I needed to do abs since I hadn’t done a single dedicated ab workout in almost 2 weeks. Although I wasn’t doing an ab workouts I still feel like I was working my abs, especially with the insanity workouts because you are using your core a lot and i actually did feel my abs a little sore just from doing these workouts but I think the main thing for me now is to get back and stay on track with my workouts. I will also be mixing up my ab workouts so I will be getting a better overall ab workout each week.

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P90x/Insanity Hybrid Day 73/74

Posted on July 20, 2011 by Freeky8

Last Night I did 30-15 Upper Body Massacre! I don’t know but i really like this workout and it is a tough one. This second time around didn’t really get that much easier although I did make some improvements from last week on some of the exercises and not on others. Although I did plan on doing Iso abs after my workout, I didn’t do it. I don’t know what it is, if I just am that burned out r I am just lazy after the workout. I know that i got a really good workout but I think the energy is just not there because I am going all out with this last phase for my main workouts. I need to find a way to continue on with my ab workouts because I really need to focus on that as well because I still have plenty more belly to burn. Doing the Iso abs is a pretty long workout because you are really going slow, so it isn’t a speed thing. I am thinking that maybe I go back to ARX or do Insane abs. So I think basically it is all about how much time I want to spend working out and almost working out for 2 hrs is really not what I want to do. So I will have to come up with something because this is really not acceptable on my part to skip ab workouts.

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P90x/Insanity Hybrid Day 72

Posted on July 17, 2011 by Freeky8

 

Tonight I did Max Cardio Conditioning! This was a tough one although it wasn’t as bad as Max Interval  Circuit. Going into this workout my legs and rear was a little sore, so I felt some discomfort at first, but as soon as I got into it past the warmup I felt good to go. This is close to Pure Cardio except it is a little longer with a bunch of different moves and combinations. I think that I did a pretty good job as far as not taking that many breaks as it was the first time I had done this workout. Great cardio workout that burns a lot of calories and hopefully by tomorrow morning I will have reached my weekly goal of losing 2lbs this week.

Here are the stats I am keeping track of on my cardio days:

(HRM start at warm-up to cool-down)

Time in zone – 32mins

Avg Zone  Percentage – 83%

Max HR Reached – 93%

Calories burned – Approx. 929

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P90x/Insanity Hybrid Day 71

Posted on July 17, 2011 by Freeky8

 

Last night was Total Body Plus! This workout is exactly what it says, it’s a workout where it has a little bit of everything. It is a good workout and the thing that I probably do not like is the pace, it is a little bit too fast in between the different exercises because I will still be on one exercise and once they are done they pretty much start right away. This exercise is based more on how many reps you can get in the allotted time but I want to make sure I am getting a good workout, so I will keep going and eventually have to keep pausing and going back in the video so I can keep up. Although this isn’t the first time I have done it and I don’t necessarily need the video but for me it is always better to workout along with tony and the others in the workout. I was left covered in sweat and by the end of it, so it is a really good total body workout to mix in with other P90x routines.

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P90x/Insanity Hybrid Day 70

Posted on July 16, 2011 by Freeky8

Friday night was Max Interval Circuit! Wow what a tough workout this was! Going into this workout I really wasn’t feeling full of energy but that didn’t stop me from doing the workout, I just knew there were no excuses why I couldn’t do it. A little tired but i pushed myself all the way through it, fifty nine minutes later I had burned a ton of calories. There were countless times where I had to stop but I just kept pushing, and getting back into it. There were not too many hard exercises but just like Tuesdays workout, it was very tiring. I was just drenched with sweat by the time I was done and I felt accomplished. I really think kicking it up to this level of cardio is really going to help me reach my goals, no matter how many times I have to stop, I will continue to digging deep and pushing myself until the end!

Here are the stats I am keeping track of on my cardio days:

(HRM start at warm-up to cool-down)

Time in zone – 37mins

Avg Zone  Percentage – 80%

Max HR Reached – 92%

Calories burned – Approx. 1100

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