Saundra

March 2012. Wow, this year is already moving super fast. There is no real order to March's rotation. I mostly filled the schedule with workouts I love to do. I have Hi Lo, Athletic Step, CardioTone, and pure strength workouts on tap. Saturday will be a bit of an Active Recovery Day. There are nine new workouts to review : Three FitPrime One CIA Two Tracie Long Two Kelly Coffey Meyer One FIRM I am looking forward to this rotation. I think I am going to have a lot of fun.

Two Systems I did this month. Insanity and Cardio Karate. I didn't really care for the Insanity System but I liked Cardio Karate a lot. I can really see several of the Cardio Karate workouts showing up in my rotation. My favorite Insanity workouts were: Max Cardio Conditioning Pure Cardio Fast and Furious My favorite Cardio Karate workouts were: Martial Arts Intervals (Disc 12) Cardio Plyo Intervals (Disc 9) Cardio Metabolic Intervals (Disc 10) Extreme Cardio Intervals (Disc 3) Cardio Intense (Disc 5)

Disc 12 is definitely my favorite of the Cardio Karate series. I just wish I knew what to call the workout. JB introduces the workout as Martial Arts Interval . The name on the disc is Martial Cardio Curcuit . The workout booklet that comes with the system calls this disc Martial Cardio Complexes. So. Um. Yeah... This workout is lead by Steve Feinberg. Along with Steve, there are two cast members. Steve (first time have worked out with him) is a bit of a chatterbox., slightly goofy and fun. However, his instruction is good. He often called out the moves or would count in Chinese. I really like the Martial Arts that Steve included in the workout. The workout booklet states that "the workout draws its influence from two styles of Kung Fu - choi lei faht (Chinese) and lama pai (Tibetan)". Like most workouts, Steve teaches you a move and then adds on. When he puts everything together, you get a flowing sequencing of moves. It was fun to do. The workout does end with som...

Fast and Furious gets in and get out. The warm is similar to the other Insanity cardio workouts except you only repeat it one time through instead of twice through. You then get a 30 second water break, about a 3 minute stretch and then the fun begins. I like this workout mostly because of its length. Shaun states at the beginning he is "giving you cardio, core and strength". Shaun uses a lot of compound exercises in this workout. Most of the moves consist of a minimum of two exercises. Along with Shaun, there are two other cast members. This is one Insanity workout that I can see myself reaching for again. 4 stars

Cardio Complexes features Amy Bento Ross as the lead and it is about 57 minutes long. The workout really is very basic. It is divided up into what Amy calls complexes (a mini routine or set of moves). Intensity is added as you repeat the complex. Amy does three iterations of each complex. First time through, no weights. Second time through, add light weights. I added my 1lb sand weights. Third time through, increase the weight. I grabbed 2lb dumbbells as I only have 1lb sand weights. Amy and cast used sand weights for the whole workout. They had 1 lb, 2lbs, and 3 lb sand weights. As you go up in weight, Amy slows down the pace of the move, allowing for proper execution. Not including core work, there was only one time that you went down to the floor for a plank move. And that was in complex 4. This workout had a somewhat different flair to it when comparing it to some of the other Cardio Karate workouts. It was a nice change up. 3 3/4 stars

Max Interval Sports Training is about 55 minutes long. Shaun takes you through specific sports inspired drills. The following sports are featured : Boxing Football Basketball Gymnastics Track This workout did have some unique moves - exercises that did not appear in other Insanity workouts. I did think I would like it a lot more than I did but I didn't dislike it. Shaun gives you a lot of rest in this workout. This is mostly due to him explaining the various exercises. You have quite a few body weight type exercises and this gives you a break from the cardio. 3 1/2 stars

Approximately 64 minutes in length, Cardio Metabolic Intervals is Disc 10 in the Cardio Karate set and it features Gay Gasper as the lead. Backing up Gay are three cast members. One cast member shows modifications during the pull up exercises. Pull ups do show up in all five pods; and they are followed by a set of push ups. Like the other two workouts that used the center mount pull up bar, so does this one. However, Cardio Metabolic Intervals was much easier to follow than Extreme Martial Conditioning 1 and 2. This mostly had to do with the fact that Gay and Cast were not jumping up to the pull up bar and jumping out of it into horse stance. In Cardio Metabolic Intervals, there were boxes position to the side. When it came time to do the pull up, the cast would go and get the boxes and position them under the pull up bars, hop up and do the pull ups. When they were done, they would put the boxes away before proceeding on to do push ups. I think the pull ups were tough for Gay. S...

Disc 9 Cardio Plyo Intervals is approximately 54 minutes in length and features Keli Roberts as the lead. In addition to Keli, there are two other cast members. I love the construction of this workout. There are about 7 pods and Keli teaches all the pods back to back. She gives you a chance to catch your breath - telling you " that is one time through and if you are keeping it short you can stop here or you continue on to do the full program ". She then goes back to the beginning and runs through all the pods a second time before moving to work the core. During the pod sections, there is not a lot of getting down to the floor in this workout which is a nice departure from some of the other Cardio Karate workouts. Keli did not do a lot of cuing or better put there were times she got really quiet. It didn't bother me. Just something I noticed. Definitely one of my favorites. 4 1/4 stars

Max Recovery is about 47 minutes in length and it is broken down into a series of workouts (i.e. workout 1, workout 2, etc). This workout is characterized by a series of breath work, plank work, stretching, strength (isometric holds) and balance moves. I thought the workout was good except for the fact it had a lot of plank work. Thus my shoulder did not really get a chance for recovery. A mat is used throughout the workout. 3 1/4 stars

Max Interval Plyo is just over 55 minutes in lengths. It consist of two intervals and within each interval there are three circuits. You finish with round of selected plyo and strength work before moving to the cool down stretch. During the circuits, you work for 3 minutes and then you get a 30 second break. The beginning of the workout (warm up section) is set up pretty much the same as the other Insanity non-recovery workouts. If there was an exercise that had not been presented in another workout, Shaun demonstrated the move for you. That gave you a little extra rest. The workout was okay. Pretty much the same as the other Insanity workouts. 3 stars

Disc 8 Extreme Martial Conditioning 2 features Gregg Cook as the lead. Besides Gregg, there is one other cast member. Extreme Martial Conditioning 2 is set up exactly the same way as Extreme Martial Conditioning (EMC) 1. Therefore, I found this workout just as awkward to do as the first EMC workout. The warm up starts with plank work and then goes into a series of balance moves. Once you get into the Pods, you get a heavy dose of pull ups. In fact, each pods starts off with pulls ups, then goes into horse stance, then some type of total body move using dumbbells, then some other type of core and/or total body move using the sand weights. You repeat each pod twice before moving on. Also, there are a lot of moves where you are getting down on the floor - either via a burpee or a single leg roll back - lots of up and down. Gregg did a good job leading the workout. He did stop once to point out some form with Robert (the cast member). However, as I stated when reviewing EMC1, unless ...

Max Cardio Conditioning is just under 48 minutes in length. The workout is similar in format to Pure Cardio in that after the warm up stretch sequence you don't get another built in break until the end of the workout. Also it is like Pure Cardio in that none of the exercises repeat themselves. You do each move for about a minute (the minute can get long) and then you move on. This workout is not just about speed. It is also about control. Several times, Shaun slows down the pace of the exercise giving you a chance to focus on form and control. Also there are a couple of "Recovery Exercises" that Shaun built into the workout. The majority of these moves do appear in the other Insanity workouts but I think because I didn't have to go back and repeat any of them, I like this workout a lot more than some of the others. There were a couple of times I got annoyed with Shaun because he didn't switch sides. I think this was with the High Low Jabs. He never told us t...

Disc 7 Cardio Kata is approximately 57:22 in length and features Gay Gasper as the lead. There are three additional cast member in this workout besides Gay, for a total of 4. I think 4 is too many. There is this big support beam on the floor that one of the cast members kept having to work around depending on the move he was performing. The format for Cardio Kata is slightly different. There are 4 pods and within each pod there is an Intensity round. So it is kind of like a Hi Lo workout or if you do Cathe workouts, similar to when when she does a "blast"after one of her combos. For that reason, this workout definitely could have benefited from a few pre-mixes. One premix would be just the Pods sans the intensity round. Second premix would be just the Intensity Rounds without the Pod combos. Third premix would be all the pods combined plus warm up and cool down. I know. I know. Wishful thinking. I am surprise JB Berns (the creator) didn't think of this. I love the...

M ax Interval Circuit is my first "MAX" workout and the longest workout in the Insanity System. It clocks in at roughly 59:49. The warm up follows the same format as many of the other workouts. This is where you do a set of moves three times through, each time increasing the speed of the move. Some of the exercises are different in this warm up. Max Interval Circuit is very similar in set up to Plyometric Cardio Circuit. However, in Max Interval Circuit, there are three circuits instead of two. The circuits are 3 minutes in length and you get a 30 second built in water break after the 3 minutes. I have just finished up 3 weeks of Insanity and overall, I am not really enjoying them. I find them really repetitive - not only within each workout - but across all the workouts. Shawn has a sample of about 25 to 30 moves, that he switches in and out with slight variations in the various workouts. I think the problem is, I don't particularly care for his exercise list. W...

Interval Core is disc 6 in the Cardio Karate System. This workout features Greg Sims. and is just under 58 minutes in length. Along with Greg, there are two other cast members. Besides the part where Greg leaves off a whole pod when taking it from the top (this happens towards the end of the workout), I thought he did a overall good job in leading the workout. However, with that said, I didn't particularly like this workout. The combos or pods just didn't come together for me. This workout seemed to lack some of the unique moves found in the other workouts. The workout is easy and simple to follow. Greg pretty much calls out the move and you go into. There is a lot of repetition for each move. There is "taking it from the top". Planks and push ups do show up. The cool down is roughly the last 10 minutes of the workout and Greg tells you and the cast behind him "just to follow him". After doing Cardio Intense with Amy who forgot a section of the wor...

Cardio Intense is a long workout. It clocks in at 1 hour and 17 minutes. The last 15 or so minutes are ab work and the stretch cool down. This workout features Amy Bento Ross as the lead. There are two background exercisers, Jill and Uchenna. I will say that most of the time I really enjoy Amy but in these workouts, she has been annoying the heck out of me. She stops in the middle of an exercise to give "tips" that seem very haphazard. She is constantly talking, I think yelling, at Jill and Uchenna. At one point in the workout, I was like "Amy, please leave Uchenna and Jill alone. They know the workout. You are the one that needs to focus on the workout". In the first Pod, while going through the combos on the right side, she left out a whole set of moves. That completely through me off because I was expecting to go into that. She did remember when she went to the other side. During the core section, Amy was trying to demonstrate a move using Uchenna, that...

Core Cardio & Balanc e is just above 37 minutes in length. If you were to follow the Insanity's Rotation you would use this workout during the recovery week. Shaun tells you that he does "want you to get your heart rate up, but he doesn't want you going all out." This workout did have a lighter feel to it than the Cardio workouts before it. The warm up uses different moves and you only move through the warm up once. There are about 13 exercises in the main part of the workout. You don't get a lot of water breaks in this workout as this workout is less intense than some of the others. The workout was okay. 3 stars

Cardio Recovery starts off with a series of breathing moves. It then moves through a series of strength moves and it ends with a series of balance moves. Many moves use various yoga poses. Some of these exercises you flow in and out of and some you hold for a static stretch. Some of the strength moves, like the plank work, I didn't care for. I was hoping to give my shoulder a break. Actually, a lot of the strength moves, I didn't care for. However, if you are looking for a bit of strength work in the Insanity series, you can get it here. There are a lot of rest periods in which Shaun takes the opportunity to explain the upcoming exercise. Once the exercise starts, he will do a few reps but then he will go and check on the cast members. My favorite section of the workout was when we did the balance poses. I like this type of work and this is what I was looking for in a Recovery workout. Unless you count the plank series, there is not any cardio in this workout at all. ...

Cardio Power & Resistance is approximately 39 and 1/2 minutes in length. It is similar to Plyometric Cardio Circuits in that there are two distinct section with a series of moves that repeat three times through. In this workout, Shaun gives you water breaks after each series of moves. I didn't really care for the resistance moves. A few of them, I did once the first time through and then substituted with another move the second and third times through. Moves that I modified were V Push ups. I grabbed weights and did a shoulder press and Triceps Ball Push ups. I grabbed weights and did kickbacks. The warm up sequence is similar to the other workouts except that Shaun changes up some of the exercises. I didn't care for this workout as much. 2 3/4 stars.

Insanity's Pure Cardio clocks in at just above 38 minutes. The workout starts off with a warm up where you do a series of 7 moves. You repeat the sequence twice more each time increasing the speed of each exercise. This is followed by an extensive stretch. The first part of the work is what he did with Plyometric Cardio Circuit. I actually really like this part of the workout. The warm up series plus the stretch ends up being about 17 minutes of the workout. I can see myself using just this part as a short get in and get out workout. In the main part of Pure Cardio you are doing 16 moves back to back with no water break. You are doing each move for just under a minute, maybe 45 seconds. There is a double clock for this workout and the time given to this section starts at 15:11 and starts counting down. You are going all out to do as many reps as you can before moving on to the next exercise - all with no breaks. Now of course. Shaun tells you take breaks if you need them a...

Disc 4 Flexible Strength Conditioning is just over 50 minutes and features Keli Roberts as the lead. Along with Keli, there are two cast members. This workout is primarily a strength workout. Keli and cast use the sand weights but she tells you that you can use dumbbells. Keli calls the various sections Sequences instead of Pods and there are 8 Sequences plus a Core section. This workout has a nice series of moves that require balance and control. If you look at the worksheet, you will see quite a few of the sequences are done on the right and then left side. There are couple of sequences where the count or numbers of reps are not the same for both sides. Keli gets confuse a bit of where she is at in the workout. Also, it seems as if she and the other cast members are struggling with some of the moves. Although, it could have been just a bad balance day for them. The only sequence I didn't care for was Sequence 1 and that was because of all the plank push up workout. It see...

Disc 3 of the Cardio Karate workouts is Extreme Cardio Interval. This workout features Gay Gasper as the lead. Along with Gay, there are three Cast Members. The workout is about 58 minutes. This workout contains a warm up, 6 pods, core and a cool down. The worksheet breaks down the moves in the pod. There is not a lot of times spent on breaking down the pods. You learn them and you move on. After you have learned all 6 pods, you get to put them altogether in a super sequence in which you run through them 4 times. This was my favorite part of the workout. I really think this workout could have benefited from a premix. It would have been awesome to have the warm up, all the combo pods, and the cool down as a mini workout to do. There is a bit of up and down in this workout - where you are going to the floor. Both Pods 3 and 6 feature a series of plank work. I felt Gay was distracting. She would stop to give form pointers. She would stop just to talk into the camera. Sometimes t...

Week 2 started off with Extreme Martial Conditioning 1 . This workout stars Gregg Cook as the lead and it is just under 60 minutes in length. Along, with Gregg, there is one other cast member and his name is Robert. This workout is Pull Up heavy. The Pull Up bar that they use in the workout is mounted in the center of the workspace from the ceiling. There is a cryptic message at the beginning of the workout saying you should not use the Portable Door Mounted Pull Up bars. My guess for that is that there are several exercises where you are hanging from the pull up bar and I can easily envision someone pulling out their trim from the door frame. This workout was cumbersome and awkward to do but only because of the Pull Ups. This workout was specifically design to the type of Pull Up Bars they have in the workout. I have the Cathe Turbo Tower. I also have bands/tubing which is an alternative method that the workout recommends. I used both methods for this workout. The problem ...

Cardio Karate Week 1 featured only one workout. Disc 1, Cardio Circuits is led by Amy Bento Ross. The workout is approximately 63 minutes in length. Along with Amy, there are two background exercisers, Jill and Uchenna. Modifications are not shown. All the ladies do the same moves. The moves are simple and basic enough so modifications really are not needed. The workout roughly breaks down as follows : Warm up Combinations Core/Abs Cool Down While the workout does not contain a chapter menu, you can skip through the workout using your remote chapter button. The main part of the workout, the combinations contain 4 pods (mini combinations). Each pod consist of 4 moves. Amy teaches each pod using the layer approach. You learn one side by adding moves, you do all moves back to back before moving to the other side to repeat the sequence. When you have learn both sides, you do the whole pod (both sides) before moving on the the next combination. After you have learned all four pods...

Insanity . Some features that all the workouts have in common are the double clock, the exercise sub-titles, and the tips sub-titles. A little bit about those features - the workouts showcase a double or dual clock. One clock counts down the total time of the workout. The second clock or timer counts down the exercise interval or rest period. Love this feature. Also the workout features sub-titles that show what exercise you are doing and while you are doing a particular exercise, tips that give you helpful hints appear throughout. I also love this feature. Insanity Week 1 . The workouts for this week were the Fit Test, Cardio Abs, and Plyometric Cardio Circuit. The Fit Test is around 25:40 in length. It has a warm up in which Shaun states the moves will be use in other Insanity workouts. The moves used in the warm up are : Jog, Jumping Jacks, Heisman, 123 Side to Side, Butt Kicks, High Knees and Mummy Kicks. After the warm up, you start the Fit Test. The Fit Test contains 8 mov...