R6 Insanity:Asylum 1.1 – Speed And Agility

What can I say, I feel a little humbled writing this. The fit test was fine, but today after Speed and Agility I feel like I did the first day I did insanity which is to say I am wondering how I am going to make it through if every day is like this.

Rather than try Shaun T at this time, I realized that I would have to be at least 20lbs lighter if I was going to try some of the stuff I had read about. However, the lure of the shiny box was too much and halfway through Kenpo (which I now no longer find fun, but rather boring) decided that I would put the Plyometric Insanity disc in and see what the big deal was. Ten minutes later my heart rate was at around 160 bpm and I thought my heart was going to explode. Shaun T’s warmup had reduced me to a quivering mess and as I lay on the floor soaking in my humility I realized that indeed I was looking at the future.

A large part of the success of Insanity and Insanity:Asylum I think is the warmup. It truly is a warning of what is to come and I am certain that for many, halfway through the warmup is the time they decided that Insanity isn’t for them. I remember feeling defeated because the warmup seemed too hard for me. As I finished the warmup for I:A I felt that same familiar feeling of defeat washing over me. However, I figured that I had conquered everything that BeachBody had thrown my way so far, there is no reason I couldn’t do this. I was (almost) right. The Speed and Agility workout is tough, it’s variety and speed and control and everything I was looking for. In fact, it was the content I was hoping for to vindicate my choice to spend the money. So the details, let me just say I didn’t do the full workout. I wasn’t able to keep up with everything and although I never pushed pause and I started every exercise I finished around 50% of them.

The bear crawls were the easiest part for me but also the part that I think caused me a very sore back for several hours after. The agility ladder agility moves are also pretty simple but the problem is that the compound movements require concentration, accuracy and patience to master. Speaking of patience, the warmup is in fact the part I had the most difficulty with. The problem is that I cannot, and have never been able to skip with a rope. I was quick to decide that the rope they included was garbage, turns out in fact that it was the user that was the problem. I bought a nylon rope to replace the one they shipped and as I  became slightly more proficient with the stupid thing I was quick to realize that the one they had sent was exactly what you need. Apologies, then, to the brains at BB.

The warmup then was the most frustrating and humbling exercise I have come up against since the first time I did Turkish Get Ups with the 45lb Kettlebell. That was a frightening evening, and day 1 of I:A was just as frightening as I came face to face with my own lack of competence! However, as I tell my girls at gym on a daily basis, it’s OK to be scared, but do it anyway!

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