Insanity Reviews: Cardio Recovery
Welcome Back to another Insanity Review. Today I’m reviewing the Insanity Cardio Recovery workout. This workout is scheduled once a week, it’s about 33 minutes long, and has NO Cardio! Now Insanity, is cardio INTENSE, so a break from that Insanity is a welcome relief. Not to mention, your allowing your body and muscles a chance to recover from all the INTENSE cardio, it’s a GOOD thing. I enjoy this workout, and even though there is no cardio, it’s still a sweatin good time. 
At the start of the DVD you get about a 3 minute warm up, staring with some good DEEP breaths, and some familiar warm up stretches. Most of the warm up and stretches you have seen on the other DVDs and should be something you are familiar with. You move on to some plank work, but nothing too stressful, or demanding. I really enjoyed this stretch and plank work, you get some good stretches in, and some nice roll ups, stretching the back and stretching your neck. Be sure to keep your back straight and your butt down while in plank. After your plank work, you stretch for a few seconds in downward dog, and then on to stretching out your hamstrings.
With about 24 minutes left in the workout you start doing some deep muscle work, starting with 16 slow wide leg squats. The moves are nice and slow, and nice and deep. At the last squat, you stop and hold. While you hold this squat, you make some short “pulses”. (Small, quick squats, without raising up completely). By the end of this sequence, your legs will feel nice and toasty! But you’re not done. Next you’ll move into a lunge on the left side, with the left leg forward. You start with some deep lunges, and at your last lunge, you stop and hold at the bottom. Nice burn in this hold position. I have to admit, when I first did Cardio Recovery, I let my leg rest, and came out of the lunge. You may have to too, or maybe not, it’s okay if you do. We are all working on improving our fitness, no matter how long or how brief we have been working out. After you hold the position, you do some pulses. You’ll repeat this same sequence on your right leg. In between your right and left leg, you do some more center wide position squats.
With about 15 minutes on the clock, you will start some Plie Yoga Stretches. Basically a wide center squat, but turn your feet outwards. Extend your arms straight out, and and lean to your left side, until your left hand rests on the floor, the right hand is straight up. Repeat on the right side.
The next exercise is called “Quad Strengtheners”. We have all seen the workout videos, where you are on the floor, with your hands and knees on the mat. You then extend one leg straight back, and you raise your leg up and down. Basically the same concept, but just a bit harder. Shaun T has you extend one leg back, but you also lift the other knee off the mat as well. Just and inch or two, but it really works your whole body and core, not just your legs. After you do each side, you will then use the same concept to work your obliques, by moving your knee to your shoulder, alternating on each side.
For about the last 8 minutes you do some yoga stretches, and final cool down stretches.
This workout is still going to be a workout, its just not the cardio intense workout like the other DVDs. You need to recover from your workouts, so please be sure to keep this workout in your rotation. I know I am always thinking, “go go go”, and try to skip these workouts. Sometimes we need to slow down and recover. When we skip these recovery workouts, we risk over training. Then your entire progress comes to a screeching halt, and we certainly don’t want to do that. Workout hard, and recover….. then you can workout hard again! I hope you enjoyed this Insanity Review. Please contact me anytime or subscribe to my blog. See you next time!
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April 7th, 2010 at 12:02 pm
Love the cardio recovery days!
April 14th, 2010 at 7:58 am
Great reviews. As this is my first time through the program, these in-depth reviews are truly beneficial for helping me get my mind right for what’s to come! Thanks so much!
April 14th, 2010 at 12:31 pm
You’re welcome Martin! Good luck and keep us posted!
April 14th, 2010 at 3:13 pm
Just finished another cardio recovery. Guess what? I can stretch longer and deeper than ever, especially with the plies. My body feels great, and my wife keeps telling others how great I look. And, Martin, congrats on finding this site, as Robert has really helped me prep for each workout with the reviews.
April 14th, 2010 at 3:57 pm
Excellent Mark! Keep up the great work!
May 14th, 2010 at 9:44 pm
Tomorrow, I’ll have finished week 3. I did a little better this week: fewer breaks and able to keep up more. I’m really spent at the end of every workout, but I’ve gotten through them okay, and I’ve surprised myself so far since I’m 53 and only in okay shape at best before starting. I’ll weigh myself again on Sunday to see how much progress this week. I’m scared for month two (given how I feel as if I’ve got nothing really left at the end of each workout now). I expect to finish the workout, but what then? I’m not really very interested in trying another workout, so if I start this one over again should I start at the beginning again? Thanks for the detailed reviews. They help a lot.
May 14th, 2010 at 9:50 pm
Jack, I’m glad you stopped by and updated us on your status. You’re doing great, hang in there! When you get finished, if you decide that you want to do Insanity again, just start over. There are some other options too, as you get closer, touch base again, and we can discuss some options. Keep us posted!
May 17th, 2010 at 11:42 am
Finished Pure Cardio and Cardio Abs this morning. About how much time should I allow between the two workouts? I only allowed around a minute but am thinking that that may not be enough. By the way, I weighed myself yesterday and seem to be down about 8 pounds in the three weeks, so I’m making progress.
May 17th, 2010 at 7:41 pm
Jack, the time delay is entirely up to you. In my opinion, if you do the cardio abs, immediately after the Insanity workout, you could almost skip the cardio abs warm-up portion. If you’re not warmed up after Pure Cardio, you never will be.
Sometimes, if I am pressed for time, I will do Pure Cardio in the a.m., then after work, come back and do the Cardio Abs. If I do that, I do the warm-up too. Hope this helps. Congrats on the 8 lbs!! Come back and keep us posted.
May 24th, 2010 at 8:49 pm
I’m into recovery week and have dropped about 12 pounds so far. I’m worried about month 2, though. Month one was tough. I also saw both the fit test and the first advanced workout for Monday beginning month 2. Any suggestions on time between the two?
May 24th, 2010 at 9:31 pm
I’ve known several people do them back to back. (Between me and you), lol. I did my fit test on the rest day, and then did the first Max workout the following day.
May 29th, 2010 at 6:19 am
I noticed that on the schedule for month 2 that on the days where they have core cardio and balance that you have the option of doing max interval sports training. What are the advantages (or disadvantages) of doing the sports training workout rather than the core cardio and balance?
May 30th, 2010 at 10:57 am
The only difference is the intensity, if you have the DVD (it’s in the deluxe version) then I’d add it when you’re ready to take it up a level. Keep me posted on how you’re doing!
June 15th, 2010 at 3:48 pm
I’m into the 3rd week of month two and am keeping up fairly (much to my surprise). I’ve dropped about 17 lbs. so far and expect to finish at somewhere between 20 and 25 lbs. I did substitute the Sports Interval DVD for the Core Cardio & Balance, and it was definitely more difficult. I’ll probably do it again the next time the opportunity for substitution comes around. I tried the Insane Abs instead of the Cardio Abs and didn’t come close to keeping up, so I may go back to the Cardio Abs (tomorrow), either that or I’ll try to do the C-sit moves without shoes. Anyway, I’ve stuck with the routine throughout, except for skipping the Fit Test yesterday. I intended to do it after the regular workout as a second workout (which would skew the results I know) because I had a terrible time keeping up with the Max Interval Circuit the first time around when I tried to do the Fit Test first. In the end, I ran out of time and didn’t do the Fit Test. I figured I’d do it today after the Max Interval Plyo–but I was pretty wasted after the workout (in which I kept up fairly well). I’ve been doing pretty well on the nutrition plan–not following it religiously but eating healthy when not eating one of the meals in the plan and keeping the calories down to around 1500 or so. Anyway, Insanity is really hard, but it certainly seems to be working for me.
June 15th, 2010 at 8:57 pm
Jack, it sounds like you are getting some AWESOME results. Way to stick with it, and it sounds like you are keeping a great attitude, adjusting when you have trouble with a harder DVD, and hanging in there. Keep an eye on your calories, I bet if you look in the nutrition guide, 1500 may be a tad low. Keep us posted. 17 lbs! Nice!
June 29th, 2010 at 11:17 am
I finished the 60-day Insanity workout. It was tough, but I didn’t miss a workout and got better as time went on. I was even able to keep up sometimes, though not always. In the end, I lost 21 lbs. I think I still have about 10 lbs. that I could lose, so I’m thinking about going through the Insanity routine one more time, after giving myself a week or so off to recover some more. Thanks for the help. I might try P90X at some time in the future.
June 29th, 2010 at 11:50 am
Awesome! Let me know what you decide to do next and you can always contact me for assistance if you need or require down the road!