Jumping around in your living room doing inapropiate plyometric exercises, yes.. that really is insanity. Good luck. 
I’d rather pay Wladimir klitschko my life savings to get drunk and clumsily insert rusty red hot razor blades into my uretha than tell my clients to do insanity. 
 
And it’s not because I think it’s a shit workout program (I’ll get to that in a moment), it’s mostly because I just really dislike Shaun T. 
If you haven’t stumbled upon the Insanity infomercial, ( they usually have it on very late at night and early morning, I’m presuming this is so they can catch the captive audience of guys who’ve just finished the ten minute free view on red hot milfs) 
 
Here is why I think he’s a dick (I managed about 30 seconds of this video before being sick into my own mouth. 
 
 
To me this represents so much of what is wrong with the fitness industry. 
 
Over hyped, expensive, inappropriate exercise programs promising big results, delivering very little in return, a bargain at £105.99. 
 
I have a lot to critique about Insanity, it’s success is built on marketing, it’s style over substance, it’s made millions of pounds world wide, from video sales and a franchised class. But it lacks any real application. 
 
Maybe I'm just jealous. 
 
Let’s start with the infomercial. 
 
The guys giving the testimonials? 
 
They do bodybuilding, straight up, maybe they don’t compete, but they definitely do a bodybuilding type workout. 
 
They lift weights, lots of times, hence they have muscle, which isn’t something you get with plyometrics, which is basically what Insanity is. 
 
That’s right, Insanity is mostly just plyometrics. My friend and local legend Johnny Whitely has been coaching fitness for decades, he told me he still likes to keep up with recent trends, and he saw nothing new in the insanity DVD’s, which he bought and sat through. He even checked his old Army PTI handbooks and found most of the exercises in there. 
 
And here’s the thing, plyometric are a fantastic exercise tool, I use them a lot, but they’re not really appropriate for beginners, and unfortunately that’s who these workouts seem targeted towards. 
 
The infomercial even openly challenges them and mocks them. 
 
This mostly appeals to people who are fed up with their weight, don’t want to go to a gym, and want to work out in the comfort of their lounge. They’re desperate, and they want to do something drastic. This is what Insanity appeals to. 
 
Beginners are not the types of clients I would make jump around, that kind of thing is likely to cause injury, it’s a bit of a shock to the muscles and tendons etc, which means they’re going to be walking around pretty sore for a few days. 
 
That’s my other problem. 
 
Exercise frequency. 
 
For the most part I’d take a beginner for two to three sessions a week max, I’d maybe encourage some walking, maybe a few bodyweight type stretch movements, the goal is to not overdo it, some people might enjoy being sore, but it’s not productive, it just prevents you from being able to work well the next time. Insanity has you working out 6 days a week, which is more than I or many of my Personal Trainer colleagues do. 
 
The added volume of work adds to the increased likelihood for injury in my opinion. Going from nothing to hammering it will not end well. 
And worse of all, for those who actually get through the workouts, there are plenty of people who don’t lose any weight. 
 
I’m not sure why this is, they’re being pretty active after all, I understand that Insanity comes with a free nutrition manual, I’ve had a quick glance at it on the Internet and it looks Ok, but I suspect the reason not many people follow it is because it’s kind of complicated. 
 
You need to work out your daily calorie intake and then follow a plan from there, if this was just a move more and eat less kind of plan, with en emphasis on movement and making sensible changes, then it would be better to call this whole thing Sanity, I've evene made an info mercial video to help push it Shaun T. (your welcome) 
 
 
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