Insanity Day 1 - Fit Test

The alarm went off at 4:45 this morning.

The dogs immediately jumped out of their deep sleep (how do they DO that??) and proceeded to lick my face and wedge their cold, wet noses under my arms and hands.

Ugh. I’m up. I’m up.

Did I really commit to 60 days of insanity?

Literally. Insanity. As in Shaun T’s 60 day Insanity/Beach Body program.

The first 30 days consists of 30-40 minute (ridiculously insane) rotating workouts (the three minute warm-up leaves you dripping with sweat and gasping for air).

So technically, since this first workout is only 30 minutes long, I shouldn’t have to crawl out of bed at 4:45 to start a workout that I want to be finished with by 6:00.

Technically.

But in the real world, I need those extra 30-45 pre-workout minutes to come to terms with crawling out of my warm fleece pajamas, put on my shorts, t-shirt and shoes (and stare in shock and dismay that the bottle of self-tanner did not perform as promised), let the dogs outside, have a tiny cup of coffee to jump-start my brain, let the dogs back in…and then start the DVD.

It’s like a whole day of work before I even get started. I can’t imagine what time I’ll have to get up when the workouts reach 60-80 minutes. For the love.

I shoved the dogs out of the living room since they jump when I do jumping jacks, they lick my face when I go down for crunches or push-ups, they try to trip me when I do lunges…you get the picture.

The DVD goes in. Today is day one – the Fit Test. One minute to do as many reps of each exercise.

Shaun T is annoyingly upbeat and his two workout sidekicks are amazingly ripped. I remind myself that’s exactly why I’m doing this…something I’ll need to remind myself of again when I want to lay on the floor and die halfway through the fit test. We start with the warm up – three minutes of crazy cardio and a couple stretches thrown in so you can catch your breath.

Fit Test Exercise #1 starts. One minute of as many switch kicks as you can do. Not too bad – my coffee is my energy at this point. I’m feeling pretty good.

30 second rest while you record your number.

Exercise #2 – Power Jacks. Kind of like a jumping jack but you land in a deep squat then push off from that position for the next jack, landing back in a squat. My quads start screaming that it is way too early for this kind of punishment.

Another rest to record your reps and drink some water.

Exercise #3 – Power Knees. This was actually easy, but I kept losing my balance. You would have thought the dogs were in the room.

Rest. Record. Sweat. Drink water.

#4 – Power Jumps. Like power jacks, but in reverse. The goal is apparently to bring your knees to shoulder height while you’re in the air. I almost died.

Rest. Resist temptation to lay on couch. Record number. Wipe sweat out of eyes.

#5 – Globe Jumps. These just bite. I hate these with the fire of a thousand suns. This is the equivalent of four power jack/power jump combinations where you jump to the right and land in a squat, then backwards and land in a squat, then left, then forwards. That’s ONE rep. I almost screamed “Are you KIDDING me???” at the TV, but remembered Matt was still asleep upstairs.
I gleefully reminded myself that he gets to experience this tonight when he gets home. Ha.

At this point, I almost didn’t care about writing down my number. I wanted to lay on the floor and cry out to Jesus.

#6 – Suicide Jumps. Ah, old-school 8th grade gym class. I knocked out more than I thought I would and told my screaming legs to shut up. I rock at suicides. Or at least I want to rock at suicides.

Recorded my number. Took a couple sips of water and noticed there was only 10 minutes left to go on this workout. Sweet. I can do this.

#7 – Push-up Jacks. Ok. I’ll admit – I can’t do a boy push-up to save my life. But push-up jacks make a regular push-up not so bad. You start in push-up position and when you ease down, your legs jump out like a jumping jack. Come back up while bringing your legs back to the starting position. A little difficult, but kind of fun and different.

Rest. I feel some energy coming back, which surprised me. A good surprise though – I wanted to finish strong and make this count.

#8 – Low Plank Obliques. If anything, these just hurt my elbows on the hardwood floor. I’ll need a towel or my exercise mat next time. You get into plank position, then bring your left knee up as far as you can to your side (think armpit area), return your left leg to starting position, then bring your right knee up. Repeat as fast as you can. Total abs killer!

Fit Test #1 Results:
Switch Kicks: 87
Power Jacks: 39
Power Knees: 60
Power Jumps: 25
Globe Jumps: 8
Suicide Jumps: 15
Push-up Jacks: 12
Low Plank Obliques: 50

Not as bad as I thought they’d be. According to the program, we do the Fit Test every two weeks to see how we’re improving. I also took my weight and measurements, even though this isn’t really a weight-loss thing – inches lost and muscle gain is the goal.

Matt does his Fit Test tonight. I can’t wait to see what he thought. He asked me this morning how I liked it and if I had any advice, and I just told him to watch out for the ceiling fan in the middle of the living room. Those power jacks will take you right into it. :)

Tomorrow is day 2 and on the schedule is some sort of evil-looking plyometric cardio torture.

Can’t wait.

Florida Obsession

Off season, how you make my emotions go crazy.

On one hand, it's fantastic to have time off together. On the other, a bored husband will either 1) drive you crazy, or 2) find creative ways to run up your credit card bills.

Mine likes to do a little combination of the two.

I got the heads-up one week before New Year's Eve. The next thing I know we're in the truck for 11 hours on our way to Pensacola to escape the single-digit temperatures of Missouri-turned-Antarctica.

Fireworks on the beach for New Year's? Wearing flip-flops in December/January? I'm in.



Even though Pensacola was only in the 60's while we were there, it felt like the tropics to us. Floridians were walking around with gloves and scarves while Matt and I ran around in shorts and t-shirts.

We got lots of "are you crazy??" looks.

Actually, those looks could have been the result of the locals finding out that we don't eat seafood. Ever. Even on the coast where it is shoved in your face in gleeful abundance. So if that makes us crazy, we embrace it wholeheartedly.

That brings up another thought, which completely takes me off topic of this whole post. I still can't fully bring myself to enjoy meat anymore. If it lived, breathed, had a heartbeat and a brain, I just can't justify eating it. It turns my stomach. It might also be in part because of my anatomy classes and fully realizing that every hunk of chicken or slab of beef is nothing more than a merger of muscle, tissue, flesh, veins and arteries. I can't bring myself to sink my teeth into that.

I bought a really fun cookbook off of Amazon called "Better than Peanut Butter and Jelly - Quick Vegetarian Meals Your Kids will Love." After a quick read-through, I'm convinced this cookbook is true to it's word. Quick, easy and so good! If you're interested in trying out a meat-free diet, I'd highly recommend starting with this cookbook. Yum.

Ok. Back to the main point of this post. While in Florida, Matt happened to see an infomercial on TV (#2 coming back into play from the "bored husband in the off season" list) for a workout program called Insanity. It's supposed to be a harder workout than P90X with the added bonus that you don't need any weights or equipment to do the workouts. The promise is a ripped, cut beach body if you follow all of the workouts for 60 days. Matt thought it sounded like the best thing ever, and even I was intrigued by the before-and-after photos the infomercial highlighted. (Completely real, I'm sure.) We talked about it and decided that if we got it we'd do it together, checking each day off on the wall-size workout calendar that came as part of the package.

Matt grabbed the phone and his credit card, I'm sure much to the glee of the infomercial people. That's marketing at it's best, people.

He ordered the program.

It came in the mail.

It's sitting on our counter, and I'm scared of it.

Matt's in Dallas right now for a baseball coach's conference and will be back on Sunday. We're planning on starting Insanity on Monday, and I'm very intimidated. I'll admit it - I'm a little weirded out about working out in front of my husband. I'd like him to think I'm stronger than I am, and I'm afraid his pre-conceived expectations of me are about to be dashed into little bits. I guess if anything, working out with him right beside me will only cause me to push myself and (according to the promise of the infomercial) burn through 600-800 calories in one workout.

I'm very excited about that part.

I'm going to try to post updates on our progress if I'm not too sore to type. If you don't hear from me in a week or so, call for medical help immediately.

So here we go. Me working out alongside my husband (the obsessive, perfectionist coach that he is) who has already told me he's going to encourage and push me to do my best.

I have a feeling that #1 in the "bored husband list" is about to rear it's ugly head.