Insanity: Week Five

Week five was different and interesting. It was "recovery week." A whole week of Core Cardio and Balance. Shaun T. tells us that we shouldn't feel exhausted after the video. Yeah right.

Because of our schedule, our recovery work out usually falls on Friday. Instead of doing the Core Cardio and Balance video we did the Cardio Abs video. We thought we deserved a little break I guess. Cardio Abs is shorter and not all that much cardio. We did do the cardio and balance one the rest of the week.

Aside from my getting sick at the end, it was a good workout week. At the beginning Katja brought her Wii Fit so we can all track out progress that way. It was highly entertaining. Also, I had never touched a Wii before. According to the Wii Fit, my "physical age" (based on BMI, weight, and balance?) is about 30. Funny funny.

Now the results! We have all noticed improved endurance, muscle tone, and flexibility. My calf muscles have had a hard time adjusting to the workouts, but they are getting nice muscle! My abs aren't coming along quite as nice, but I am getting some decent oblique toning. I am still fluctuating around my normal weights. As of this week, I did lose half an inch in my waist, which was unexpected because I have a pretty slim waist. I expect more changes in my hips and butt though. They were about the same but loose, if that makes sense. No change in my thighs sadly.

In case anyone is wondering about the measurements I decided to take, I should debrief you. I call myself "the great pear-shaped woman." I have almost no chest and I gained no weight in my chest or my rib cage. My waist is slim, too. Proportionally, I have larger hips and gain all my weight in my hips, butt, and thighs. Therefore, that is where my focus is. I actually was only taking my waist measurements to check my consistency.

The next month is going to be tough. The workouts are longer and all hive titles like "Max Interval so-and-so." We are a little nervous already. We also do the fit test tomorrow. I will post results.

Last week I talked a little about knee pain while working out. This week, for whatever reason, was hard on my knees. It took most of the week to learn to be careful enough to avoid hurting them. To that end, I found some good links (on Pinterest because, let's be honest, where else would I spend time online?) to help with my knees.
1. Build A Stronger Knee. Be careful with these because some of them may strain your knees if you are not.
2. Hip strengthening exercises. With these make sure you are working from the hips, not the knees. Turn your legs at the hips. Especially for us women--our wide hips can hurt our knees.

Insanity: Week Four

Yay! We made it through one month of Insanity!

For anyone thinking about doing this workout one warning: make sure you keep your body aligned.

They tell you these things in the video but you have to remind yourself. My knees and ankles began to hurt after the first couple weeks and it took me a while to adjust my movements to avoid injury.

For me this is absolutely making sure that my knees are over my ankles always. I know it may not always be very lady-like to have your knees spread so wide for those squats, but trust me: it will save your knees. I have to be most careful about this in squats, knee highs, stretches and (oddly enough) the heisman. I noticed that doing this also seems to help my ankles. Be careful out there!

So month one is over! Five weeks to go. This coming week is a new workout called "Core Cardio and Balance." And the workouts will change for the last month. Into new territory!

I have started to notice that my butt and thighs are more toned. I have always had a big butt and thighs (this is where all my weight goes). I measured today and I lost a half of an inch in my hips and my butt. None in my thighs yet. I also gained just a little weight but I think that was the fat converting to muscle. And Krissy told me that my shoulders and arms are getting bigger--she usually stands behind me for our workouts--she could see that while I was stretching. Happy day! Overall I feel very satisfied with the progress so far.

I have noticed that all four of us have lost a little weight and look more toned. We can get through the majority of the warm ups and we do pretty well in the exercises (though we all still have to take breaks). And we feel great! The soreness did start to come back more in weeks three and four but it's not so bad that we can't walk so it's all good.

With so many of us working out together our motivation stays up. It's almost like peer pressure. "Well, we're all going to work out... it is implied that you are lame if you don't..." Horrible right? But we have been enjoying our time together for snacks and hot tub afterwards. And we put 1$ per workout day into our little piggy bank! We are going to do something fun to reward ourselves after all this. Spa day, manicure/pedicure, something.

Jhenn's chalk board piggy bank for our reward! On the other side it says "Shaun T. says 'dig deeper!'"

Good luck to anybody who wants to try it! We recommend it!