Trains the shoulders, abs, glutes and thighs<\/em><\/p>\n Stance Jacks<\/strong><\/p>\n Trains the shoulders, abs, obliques, glutes and thighs<\/em><\/p>\n **Hit The Floor<\/p>\n \u00a9 Rex Features<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Trains the abs, glutes and thighs<\/em><\/p>\n **Power Jump<\/p>\n **\u00a0Trains the abs, glutes and thighs<\/em><\/p>\n **The Heisman<\/p>\n \u00a9 Getty Images<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Trains the arms, abs, shoulders, glutes and thighs<\/em><\/p>\n Switch Kicks<\/strong><\/p>\n Trains the triceps, back, abs shoulders, glutes and thighs<\/em><\/p>\n The Insanity Workout is good, but not as great as their marketing literature would have you believe. In 1991 the\u00a0National Strength and Conditioning Journal\u00a0stated, “Is there a single, perfect workout? A workout with the best weight training, plyometric, flexibility and endurance exercises? A workout with the precise number of sets and repetitions? A workout that tells the athlete exactly how much weight to use? The answer is “No”.<\/p>\n Basically, there is no perfect workout plan. Of course the company behind the Insanity creation, the Beachbody Corporation, would beg to differ. With glowing testimonials and equally as impressive transformation stories, they claim it’s, “Everything you need to get in the best shape of your life”. But research shows the use of the word, “Everything” might be a stretch. Here’s why.<\/p>\n ‘fresh’<\/p>\n On the Insanity website it’s written, “Plyometrics for insane legs and glutes.” Let’s unravel this. Plyometric training can trace its origins back to the old Soviet Union during the Fifties. A time when the Soviet’s athletic endeavours were considered by many to be at the cutting-edge of strength and conditioning.<\/p>\n American coaches noticed that, prior to a competition, Soviet athletes were performing jumping-based drills. This seemed odd and was completely different to traditional static stretching. This was thanks to pioneering strength coach, Dr. Yuri Verkhoshansky, and a training protocol he called the, “Depth Jump.”<\/p>\n Verkhoshansky would have athletes drop off a box, land on the floor – whilst absorbing the shock – only to then instantly jump as high as they possibly could. Later labelled, “Shock Training” in reference to the body’s ability to absorb the shock\/impact, it was believed one short-term adaptation to the “Depth Jump” was a higher vertical jump compared to a static jump. Research would later reveal this was because Verkhoshansky was able to play around with the elasticity of the muscles and tendons by positively manipulating the body’s stretch-shortening cycle.<\/p>\n Essentially, this is where the muscles contract eccentrically (the muscles lengthen) which is followed by an immediate concentric contraction (the muscles shorten). This – based on research from the School of Kinesiology at the\u00a0University of Zagreb\u00a0in Croatia – has been shown to improve the concentric phase resulting in increased force production and output. This explains why during a, “Depth Jump” athletes were able to jump higher. They effectively used the ‘elastic energy’ built-up during the eccentric phase (when landing) to then use during the concentric phase (the jump itself).<\/p>\n But rarely did Dr. Yuri Verkhoshansky advocate using plyometric training as part of a circuit when the athlete was fatigued. This would be counterproductive to the sole objective to this form of training – to condition the body to produce greater power by training the muscles to contract more quickly and forcefully from an actively pre-stretched position.<\/p>\n Yes and no. But make no mistake – it’s just High Intensity Interval Training and your body doesn’t know the difference between a H.I.I.T workout on the treadmill and a heavily advertised Insanity DVD. Physiologically the result is the same. Working hard at a high intensity for short periods of time (between 30 to 80 seconds) followed by a period of low intensity training or complete rest (40 to 120 seconds) which you repeat (between 15 to 30 minutes) has been found by researchers from\u00a0Laval University\u00a0in Canada, to\u00a0burn more fat\u00a0compared to traditional cardio.<\/p>\n So, the Insanity workout is good, but it’s not revolutionary.<\/p>\n It’s also a practical training protocol if you have no equipment or are short on time. But don’t be fooled by the marketing. Your body must be continually subjected to a range of stimuli to consistently improve.<\/p>\n Essentially Zumba on steroids, Insanity fuses callisthenics (bodyweight exercises) with martial arts and plyometric work (jump variations) to make a…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":636,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[871,9],"tags":[881,908,892,904,886,903,894,902,889,872,900,873,906,891,901,896,898,899,875,884,876,887,890,895,905,878,882,893,909,910,879,877,874,888,897,883,885,880,911,907],"class_list":["post-634","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fitness","category-general","tag-edge-of-insanity-pre-workout","tag-free-insanity-workout","tag-free-insanity-workout-download","tag-insanity-ab-workout-video","tag-insanity-full-workout","tag-insanity-max-30-workout","tag-insanity-max-30-workout-calendar","tag-insanity-max-30-workout-schedule","tag-insanity-shoulder-workout","tag-insanity-workout","tag-insanity-workout-before-and-after","tag-insanity-workout-calendar","tag-insanity-workout-calendar-pdf","tag-insanity-workout-calorie-burn","tag-insanity-workout-calories-burned","tag-insanity-workout-charts","tag-insanity-workout-chat","tag-insanity-workout-diets","tag-insanity-workout-download","tag-insanity-workout-dvd","tag-insanity-workout-free","tag-insanity-workout-free-online","tag-insanity-workout-free-online-cardio-power-and-resistance","tag-insanity-workout-lengths","tag-insanity-workout-list","tag-insanity-workout-online","tag-insanity-workout-online-free","tag-insanity-workout-plan","tag-insanity-workout-program","tag-insanity-workout-reddit","tag-insanity-workout-results","tag-insanity-workout-review","tag-insanity-workout-schedule","tag-insanity-workout-schedule-pdf","tag-insanity-workout-sheets","tag-insanity-workout-torrent","tag-insanity-workout-video","tag-is-the-insanity-workout-bad-for-you","tag-watch-insanity-workout-online","tag-what-is-insanity-workout"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.coolthingsland.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/634","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.coolthingsland.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.coolthingsland.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.coolthingsland.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.coolthingsland.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=634"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.coolthingsland.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/634\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":637,"href":"https:\/\/www.coolthingsland.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/634\/revisions\/637"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.coolthingsland.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/636"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.coolthingsland.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=634"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.coolthingsland.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=634"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.coolthingsland.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=634"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
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What’s The Science behind the Insanity Workout?<\/h2>\n
Plyometric work is best performed<\/h2>\n
Can Insanity really ‘melt fat’?<\/h2>\n