Insanity: Fast and Furious

Fast and Furious: 22 minute cardio/interval workout; 6 minute cardio warm up, 3:30 stretch, 11 minutes of training time and 2 minute cool down/stretch. There are various ways to get this Insanity workout. It is offered as a bonus workout when you purchase the Insanity program through Beachbody.com, or you can purchase Fast and Furious separately (as a stand-alone workout) through Beachbody or on Amazon. For that reason this review is being featured both in the Insanity program review (still a work-in-progress) and as an individual workout on the blog.

Fast and Furious is the best stand alone short cardio workout you will find. It is an incredibly intense 22 minutes. For people short on time who want a short effective workout—you’ve come to the right place. For someone who wants an add on workout that will kick your butt—again, this is the workout. And finally, if you are considering purchasing Insanity, but not sure if it is for you—this workout is a preview of what to expect. It is just as intense as any of the Insanity workouts, however it is a condensed version. So keep that in mind. If you can’t handle 22 minutes of it, then Insanity is definitely not for you—because Insanity gives you 40-60 minutes of the same treatment.

Fast and Furious starts with the signature Insanity “warm up”—hard cardio! The warm up circuit consists of a jog, jumping jacks, 1-2-3 Heisman, jump rope with high knees, fall squats and plank squats (basically a burpee but instead of coming to standing you come up into a deep squat position). Since this is a condensed workout you only repeat the warm up circuit once, but faster, of course! You get a 30 second water break then move into the stretch. Then it’s on to training time. For those familiar with Insanity, Fast and Furious can be compared to Insanity’s Pure Cardio—no breaks—11 minutes of non-stop hard work. But don’t worry, Shaun T cannot even make it through the workout without stopping. It is that hard. There are two other exercisers with him, a female and a male. The female is a trooper, but the male crapped out constantly. It is a hard workout and even I had to stop for 5-10 seconds several times, but this guy seriously couldn’t hack it. Even Shaun T seemed to be getting irritated with him. The training time consists of drills that are done for approx 60 seconds each with no breaks between moves.

1^st drill: high sprints/low sprints/floor sprints (mountain climbers)/moving pushups.

2^nd drill: power knees/diamond jumps.

3^rd drill (in plank): ski abs/in and out abs/oblique push ups.

4^th drill: high knees with oblique twist.

5^th drill: burpee with push up jacks.

6^th drill: power jumps.

7^th drill: football rolls (sprints)/tricep plank hold.

8^th drill: plank punches.

9^th drill: 100 meter dash.

It ends with the lovely cool down/stretch.

I adore this workout. It is advanced but is over and done with fast—just like the title—Fast and Furious. Shaun T is an awesome trainer. I’ve only done Insanity (so far that is—I own Asylum but have not done it yet) but he is motivating and his cuing is excellent.