INSANITY & Turbo Kick benefit the heart!

Cardio workouts are good for you!

INSANITY has proven to be one of the hardest cardio workouts I've ever done in my entire life. I'm in better physical shape now than when I was teaching 15 classes a week. In part,what I'm basing this statement on, is my Recovery Heart Rate. Recovery heart rate is the rate at which your heart rate returns to normal after doing cardiovascular exercise. During the high intensity portion of INSANITY, my heart rate is about 168 and around 146 during the 'recovery' drills. When I'm taking a rest period, my heart rate drops down to 104 in about 1 minute. This is between a 64 and 42 point drop. These results are much better than with my previous workouts of running, step or eliptical. I attribute this to working above my target heart rate and pushing myself to do more. In both INSANITY and Turbo Kick you have more maximum intensity cardio with less ability to 'fudge'.. if you will. This is a SLACK FREE ZONE! Why this is important: Your heart is a muscle and will respond just like any skeletal muscle in that it will become stronger through conditioning. If your heart muscles are stronger, then your heart rate will decrease. In other words, your heart will be putting out less effort to pump the same amount of blood. The recovery heart rate of an out of shape person will drop slower while the heart works harder to return to normal beats per minute. Pushing the heart makes it better. It makes you better! How to measure your recovery heart rate and what it means: 1. Accelerate your heart rate through running, biking, or other method to an anerobic level (INSANITY or Turbo Kick) (a pace you can do for only 20-30 seconds... such as a full sprint) 2. Measure the heart rate with a monitor at the end of the sprint. 3. Recover for 60 seconds by walking or biking slowly (do not stop moving!) 4. Measure the heart rate after 60 seconds and subtract that number from the peak.   POOR less than 12 Beats Per Minute (BPM) recovery FAIR 12-20 Good 20-30 Excellent 30-40 Over 40 is outstanding. The recovery rate is important because this is a measure of the soundness of our cardiovascular system and not just our heart health. A recovery rate of greater than 35 BPM indicates almost no risk of sudden death from heart disease! 12 or less increases the risk dramatically People with this issue need to consult with their Doctor before exercising! While this can be used to monitor changes in a person's aerobic fitness, it is an unreliable indicator for comparing the aerobic fitness of different people because individual factors other than fitness can influence the heart rate recovery period.