Insanity - Day 1 - Fit Test

Remember how the first day of school used to feel? It was easy to wake up at 5am, hop out of bed, put on the new clothes and ride the bus? Everything was slightly new and your little body was running on an adrenaline kick. Everything was interesting and nothing was difficult.

Insanity Day One is much like that ... except for the "difficult" part.

The first DVD consists of two segments - Dig Deeper and the Fit Test. Dig Deeper is an introduction to the program, its philosophy and the four main movements that are incorporated into training.

The face of Insanity is Shaun T. He's ripped, he's encouraging, and he is very nice to look at. No offense Bob Harper and Billy Blank... but Shaun T wins my vote for cutest workout video dude.


After the introduction, you are run through a battery of 8 tests. Each are 60 seconds, and you get 30 seconds of rest. The goal for each is to see how many repetitions of the exercise you can do in that minute.

Biggest issue I had right away: SPACE. This is the kind of workout you need atleast two arms/legs lengths around you free. Our workout area at my parents house has a treadmill, bike, elliptical and weight bench. It's great for all those exercises, but I definitely had to pay attention to not hitting things with my arms and legs as I lunged around.

Nevertheless, the Fit Test kicked my butt. I found myself doing well on some workouts (switch kicks, power planks) and bad on others (globe jumps, suicide jumps/burpees). At the end of the 25-minute session I was exhausted! I had warmed up for a mile, and the cooled down for two. I had no desire to push my cooldown pace faster than 9:30/mile. I was beat.

Here are the results for the first day of Insanity!

1-mile warm up and video-guided warm up
Switch Kicks (russian kicks) - 100
Deep Jacks (squat jumping jacks) - 41
Power Knees - 61
Power Jumps (squat jumps) - 30
Globe Jumps (box jumping) - 6
Suicide Jumps (burpees) - 10
Push Up Jacks - 17
Power Planks - 39
2-mile cooldown