Insane Workouts To Consider: My P90X and Insanity Experiences as a Team Beachbody Coach
Coach Rick Karboviak
ASAPWorkouts.com
As a Team Beachbody Coach, I have had some time to do many of their most popular programs they offer, such as P90X and Insanity. I've also purchased P90X Plus, the add-on edition to the full P90X program (it blends in with selected workouts from P90X's plans), as well as Insanity: Fast & Furious and Insanity: Deluxe Edition.
I completed the full P90X plan from the end of July to the end of October in 2010, and completed 2 months of the P90X Plus series to round out the year. In January 2011, I began Insanity's program for 60 days. In all honesty, I completed the first month, then got hit with a nasty 2 week cold and ceased the workouts. I also had some heavy snowfalls to deal with at work with my job during that time frame, so there wasn't quite enough energy left over for me to even think about an Insanity workout. I went back into it for the next 2 weeks, and then I started up with my Track season as a track coach. During my track season, I do my own workouts, the same ones I put my athletes through. So, although I haven't completed the entire Insanity program in a full 60 days, I have went through the workouts, and also went through the 'Deluxe' add-on workouts you can only get from Beachbody. Here are my takes on most of the workout routines, good & bad, from my perspective. Even though I sell these programs, I can still be critical of them as I see them through my eyes as a fitness professional. People turn to me for my honest opinions on these workouts, and now, I can give them to you right here from my own trials.
P90X: I was fully impressed with this program, from Day One. Chest & Back really worked me, reminding me of my college/post college years of working out, when I followed mostly a bodybuilder type routine for a while. The only workouts I really didn't care for were the Kenpo and Yoga routines. I do not do Yoga for religious reasons, since a lot of the poses have Hindu religion roots as poses to their gods. Don't agree with putting my body into poses in the vein of 'health' when their roots are in god worship. Kenpo X was an okay workout, but I just never really have had any interest in martial arts stuff, either. I hate to put a religion spin on it too, but most martial arts stuff I've seen has people 'bow' to their master teacher, and that never sits right with me. Why should I bow to someone if they are just coaching me on how to move my body? I don't have clients bowing to me when they meet me as a trainer, so why do martial arts students bow to their instructors? This doesn't happen in P90X videos, but once again, I look at the roots of the workouts and all in all, I don't care for martial arts based stuff when it comes down to it.
The other workouts for strength training can really transform the body. There are some very functional exercises with bodyweight only which can really challenge you. I liked the Plyometrics DVD and the Cardio X workout, plus Core Synergistics. For substituting Kenpo and Yoga X days, I basically hit the track for my running workouts I typically do. P90X Plus's Interval X routine is also a good one, its like a mix of Cardio X and Plyometrics, and follows a style from Tony Horton's Power 90: Master Series video, Cardio Intervals. You do exercises in a low, medium, to high format for 30 seconds to a minute at a time. If you are even short on time, Interval X has a halftime of sorts where you at least get in a 20+ minute routine in by that point. Overall, with 5 months of P90X workouts, I gained 10 pounds of bodyweight, 8 being muscle and 2 being fat. I didn't watch my diet that well, and that's mainly because the workouts revved up my metabolism so much, I was eating a lot of food to feed the engine. My pullups and pushups improved even with that gain in bodyweight, and I also gained an inch on my arms in the first 3 months.
Now, onto Insanity: I have a love/hate relationship with this program. Yes, the workouts were good for burning and churning up calories, but I feel it was too cardio-intensive and not much on strength at all. There are workouts like Cardio Power & Resistance, but I was not impressed with the push-up variations, felt they were too awkward and just biomechanically wrong for the body to even attempt. The V push-up and Tricep Ball push ups were just too small of a range of motion and the way the body was lined up to do them, just felt like I wasn't getting anything out of it in the end. The abs routines felt too much like it was Pilates/short range of motion based, and my hip flexors were doing way too much work without adequate rest. I basically omitted those ab routines after a while because I grew so frustrated with them, and went back to the Abs/Core Plus routine from P90X Plus (one of my favorite workouts). I also felt the Cardio Recovery routine was poorly named, as it was way too many small, short range of motion moves and isometric holds for too long of time periods. It felt like Shaun T was trying to take 3 minutes to say 3 sentences worth of information before you did the next thing in the exercise. I only did this workout once because it left me in too much pain afterwards and I would be much better off with my own recovery plans of foam rolling, stretching, and well, resting in general. So, as far as the cardio routines go, it was good, although some of them were too high on the constant jumping patterns. The 2nd month routines mostly felt this way. After a while, I felt the routines were meant more to make you tired than induce a positive training effect in the end. First month: okay, 2nd month: not so great. Another annoyance was the people in the video's. After a while, you get tired of the goofy looks on their faces. One of them looks like they are constipated during the warm ups, and the form on some of them just looks sloppy and horrible. All in all, my recommendation would be this: instead of the full Insanity program, purchase the $20 Fast & Furious video first. Try that workout out, and at only 22 minutes, you'll get a solid workout in, which gives you a snapshot of the best of the workout routines, in my opinion. Then, if you wanted more routines, you could purchase the Deluxe package of Insanity, the add-on workouts to the full program, and add those routines into your training, for about $45. So, instead of $120 plus shipping for the full Insanity, you could get a smaller version of the same workouts for $65 plus shipping.
Now, in April 2011, I have just purchased Insanity: The Asylum, for $67 + shipping as a Coach. Its $90 + shipping for retail sale to the public. I am more open to this one, because there are jump ropes, agility ladders, and a pure sports performance base to the workouts, which is more of my thing as a trainer & coach. There are also pull up exercises in the routine, and a Strength routine for the program, plus a way to Hybrid the workouts with Insanity and P90X to create a 90 day program out of all 3. Since I have these workouts, it gives me a great summer training project to do in June, July & August. I'm willing to keep an open mind to this routine, and not let the bad tastes of my Insanity experience get to me.
Overall, I like the well-encompassing plans of P90X's routines, as they have 3 plans to pick from: Classic, Lean, and Doubles, and many more hybrid workout plans on Team Beachbody's forums & blogs to choose from once you complete your first 90 days. Don't like every single workout as I expressed, but a majority of the routines can fit well into most anyone's needs for fitness and even some for sports performance training. Insanity on the other hand might be up your alley if you love cardio workouts, but it might grate on you if you like strength routines in your workouts like I do. I felt that the add on workouts might work better for you if you want the 'bigger picture' plans of P90X, and wanted to sub in the Insanity add-on workouts as part of your plans in the future. I can't comment on Asylum's routines yet and how they fit into the picture, but from the poster plans of Hybrid Asylum/Insanity and Asylum/P90X routines, I have a feeling they will fit in very well together in their 30 day setups.
In most consulting settings I've had as a Beachbody Coach with my customers, I've expressed my approval of P90X over Insanity because I feel it has the better options for someone for the same price. P90X has 270 days of plans to put together (3, 90 day routines to choose from at first), while Insanity has just one, 60 day routine to follow. Since both are $120, I would spend my $120 on P90X first because it gives more options. Then, if you wanted full Insanity routines to mix in, you could go ahead and add those, or try the Fast & Furious or Deluxe workouts to mix in with P90X. That just seems like the more logical choice to me if you are looking at long-term investments in your at home training needs.
For more information on these programs, view them directly at my home page of http://asapworkouts.com, or at http://beachbodycoach.com/asaptrainer and click on the "Shop" section to view more details on the programs.
If you haven't read my review/comparison of P90X vs Supreme 90 Day, you can view that right here: