I want to give my honest review of Shaun T's Insanity program. I started the program on April 6th. I am considering myself done with the program as of yesterday. Obviously, that is 80 days instead of 60 days, so I clearly did not follow the program perfectly as scheduled, however I believe that I followed it well enough to give it a true and honest review. So here goes:
The Insanity program is hard. It is really effing hard. When you start the program you take a fit test to see what your current level of fitness is. Then there is a series of workouts that you do, one per day, that are very rigorous. There are no weights required. You rely on moving your own body very quickly and with a lot of power to blast your heart rate up. I would definitely consider Shaun T's program a high intensity interval training (HIIT) program.
About 3 weeks into the program, following the schedule perfectly, I started to have some knee pain in my left knee. I continued to do the program, but the pain got progressively worse over the course of week 4. Luckily, week 5 is a recovery week and the workouts are not nearly as tough. They focus more on balance and strengthening the abs. During this week of "rest", we were also getting our apartment renovated and did not have use of the kitchen and I could not do my videos. So for me, the one week recovery actually turned into almost three weeks of recovery, which was good for my knee, but my eating fell off track a bit and I do believe that it derailed my progress to some extent, and that had I stuck to the program more perfectly, I would have seen even better results in the end.
I did manage to finally get back on the horse, and proceeded with the second set of videos. Not only are the second set of videos more challenging, but they are also longer. I struggled at this point to find the motivation to do the videos every day as I was supposed to. This was partly because my knee kept hurting. The intense pain started to come back pretty quickly once I got back into the routine of doing the videos daily. And this led me to start taking more rest days in between because I didn't want a serious injury. Don't let me be misunderstood in that I am not blaming the Insanity program for my injury per se. I believe if you're already a very physically fit person doing the program, that it is perfectly safe for your body. I, however, am overweight and out of shape. Therefore, I believe that is why the video started to take a strong toll on my knees. I have made an appointment to go see my doctor and now that I consider myself done with the Insanity program, I will be doing much lower impact activities to focus on burning fat before I attempt the Insanity program again in the future, which is something that I would like to do because I believe that this program has made incredible changes to my body and to my physical fitness level and I'm very impressed with the program overall.
So here is the part you've all been waiting for if you've managed to read this far. Here are my results:
Starting weight: 149.2lbs; Final weight: 143lbs; Lost 6.2lbs
Starting body composition: 34.9% fat; Final bc: 33% fat; Down 1.9%
Starting BMI: 26.4; Final BMI: 25.3; Decreased by 1.1
In terms of measurements:
-0.5in around neck
-1.25in around upper arm
-0.25in around forearm
-1.0in around bust
-1.0in around chest (under the bust)
-1.5in around anatomical waist
-1.5in around belly (just above my belly button)
-1.0in around hips
-0.75in around upper thigh
-1.0in around lower thigh (just above knee)
+0.5in around calf
No changes around wrist or ankle.
The final Fit Test:
10 more switch kicks (78 - 88)
16 more power jacks (36 - 52)
23 more power knees (67 - 90)
13 more power jumps (21 - 34)
3 more globe jumps (8 - 11)
5 more suicide jumps (9 - 14)
14 more push-up jacks (6 - 20)
34 more low plank oblique crunches (28 - 62)
So there you have it. I think Shaun T's Insanity program is fantastic. I would highly recommend it to anyone that is already in a decent state of physical fitness looking to really work hard, but reap the benefits. I have started to see definition in muscles that I only knew existed when looking at text book drawings of the human body. I am really encouraged about the future of what I can do and how I can change my body after seeing what this program has done for me. I'm moving into a period of time where I am going to focus on working harder on my arms, my abs, and doing some low impact aerobic activity to burn more fat. This will give my knees some time to recover. I do plan to do this program again in the future. Whether or not the changes I can see and feel in my body, particularly in my abs, are noticeable to others, I don't know. Take a look at my photo and decide for yourself. Please reserve any negative comments, as I know I still have a long way to go (BEFORE is on the right, AFTER is on the left).