Let me start off with WOW! When I first looked at this program, I was like, I can handle this, no problem. I survived Insanity twice, Focus T25, and Asylum. Well, Asylum was a pain in the you know what, but I did it. This should be a piece of cake! Boy was I served a big piece of humble pie.
First, if you don't know the plan behind it all, this is how it works. The program is broken down into cardio routines and strength routines, using a tabata style to really get the heart pumping. Tabata style in simplest terms is to go all out as hard and fast as you can for 20 seconds, then rest for 10 seconds. So, the idea is to start off, keep a moderately high pace and keep going until your form gives out, or you need a little bit longer break than the scheduled ones. Then, get right back in it.
I have to say, that first day was the shocker for me. Maybe because I had been primarily lifting for the past 3 months, so cardio was limited and mostly reserved for the running group I was in, but to max out around 6:59 was quite the eye opener for me. I'm happy to say that by the end of the first 30 days, I was able to make it to around 15-19 minutes before I "Maxed" out. Will I ever get to 30 minutes, who knows. But, it is all about what I can do and not trying to beat the next guy or gal.
The cardio routines, "Cardio Challenge, Sweat Intervals, and Friday Fight" are pretty wild. You are going for about 10 minutes before you get your first scheduled break. Classic Shaun T fashion, you are going from lower body, to upper body, to core. When he says get ready to max out in 3,2,1... Boom! That's it. It is go time. There is no warm up, then stretch like in Insanity. It's similar to T25 that way. Personally, I prefer to stretch out a little first, so I will do some light jogging and mild stretching while the dvd is loading up. If you are not used to jumping around with jumping jacks or similar, your calves are going to feel it.
The strength routines, Tabata Power and Tabata Strength are just as intense. You still have that cardio aspect to the routines, you are just more focused on really engaging the muscles. So you are doing a lot of squats, lunges, push ups, tricep work, and core. Some of the moves are like, what the heck is he doing. You have new moves like pop up push ups or one arm knee slap burpees. I mean crazy stuff that makes you engage more than just one muscle group at a time. The cardio aspect is toned down a little, so you might find that you may last a little longer than in the other routines.
The Ab attack is 10 minutes, and it really targets all of the abs. It is nothing like Ab Ripper X from P90X, but it still gives you a good workout. Quite different from your traditional sit ups or crunches. Several of the moves you are engaging the upper and lower abs at the same time, so you will most definitely feel it.
The pulse routine is the recovery one. Those of you that have done one of Shaun T's programs knows that it is not much of a recovery. This one is about 20 minutes long, so a little shorter, lower impact, but you're still moving, and stretching it out. Whiel doing all this, you are doing these little pulse movements. So you are still engaging the muscles plenty. Like I said, not much of a recovery.
As per the norm now, there is a modifier and one of the nice additions to the menu options is you can now choose to have the modifier shown the entire time in this program. Not sure if this will be the norm for future programs, but that would be nice for those that want to challenge themselves, but not quite ready to go all out. Personally, there are a few moves I have to modify as my knees and back can not take the impact well anymore. It is usually the power jumps or X jumps.
Overall, I really like this program. For me, I feel it is quite challenging. I am no super elite athlete, so for me to make it 1/3 to 1/2 way before taking a break, that is pretty intense in my book. I have read reviews fromothers saying it is not harder than Insanity, or it's like a step up from T25. Maybe it is, maybe not. It really depends on your fitness level and how much you are willing to push yourself. They way I see it, if you get a good workout out of it, you're sweating your butt off, and you make it just a little furth than you did the last time, than you are making progress and getting one step closer to your goal. So there you have it. I hope this helps you in some way. I have a couple weeks left and I will be done with month two, and I will share with you my thoughts on that.
Have a great day everyone!
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