Round 3 / Day 51: Nothing But Legs

Another day's workout done in the silent darkness of a hotel room:

• Squats (50 reps)
• Forward Lunges (25 reps per leg)
• Calf-Raise Squats (50 reps)
• Speed Skaters (25 reps per leg)
• Wall Squat (1 minute)
• Reverse Lunges (25 reps per leg)
• Single-Leg Wall Squats (30 seconds per leg)
• Deadlift Squats (25 reps per leg)
• Lunge & Kicks (25 reps per leg)
• Sneaky Lunges (25 reps per leg)
• Chair Pose / Twisting Chair Pose (1 minute)
• Toe-Roll Iso Lunges (25 reps per leg)
• Groucho Walks - Plyo Legs version (50 reps)
• Calf Raises (75 reps)
• 80/20 Speed Squats (25 reps per leg)

Most of these moves come from P90X Legs & Back, but some are from Plyo Legs from the One-on-One with Tony Horton series. In the end, this workout didn't take long, but I know I'll be extremely sore in the morning.

Round 2 / Day 51: Insanity Max Interval Circuit

I have no idea how I managed to avoid going into cardiac arrest during Max Interval Circuit this morning.

Insanity is scheduled so that for the first four weeks (or, if you're doing my version of a P90X/Insanity hybrid, first six weeks) is spent getting your body used to daily hardcore cardio. Each session in the first half of Insanity runs about 30 to 40 minutes in length (which -- believe me -- is plenty).

After a recovery week, you put away all the DVDs that came before, and start sweating to the Insanity "Max" workouts, each of which are 50 to 60 minutes long, and kick up the intensity level several notches. I'm too scared and exhausted to peek at what's coming up, but if Max Interval Circuit is any indication, these last six weeks of Round 2 are going to be utter hell.

Details after the jump...

P90X Day 51: Core Synergistics

Although I'd already braced myself for a challenging Core Syn workout this morning, I'd forgotten all about the beast that is Plank-to-Chaturanga Run. Half of this exercise is perfectly fine; it just involves pumping your legs while in plank position -- just like the "mountain climber" move from elementary school P.E. class. But every 10 seconds, the pose switches: You have to bend your elbows while keeping them close against your sides like you're doing a military-style push-up, and hold that position (in yoga-speak, the Chaturanga Dandasana pose) while continuing to pump your legs -- only your hips now have to open up so that your knees don't slam against your arms. Like many moves that are painful and un-fun, the Plank-to-Chaturanga Run is probably a fantastic compound exercise, though the horror of it too fresh in my mind for me to wholly concede the point.