Insanity: Max 30 Journey Day 26 - Friday Fight: Round 1

During the course of two months, I'd like to take you into my journey as I strive to retain a healthy lifestyle through a healthy balanced nutrition program and Beachbody trainer extraordinaire -- and Men's Health cover man -- Shaun T's brand new workout regimen Insanity Max 30.

Day 26: Friday Fight: Round 1

With a new day comes new found motivations. Today, for my final fight of the first month of my Max 30 journey, I got up bright (actually it was kind of dark) and early. Fired up the DVD player and off I went with Friday Fight: Round 1.

Yeah, I was tired, but all that was on my brain was 30 minutes and I'm clear through the weekend -- of course with Pulse and probably a yoga routine on my Rest day. As usual, when the clock starts to tick, I start off slightly sluggish as I work out the kinks. I don't even get through a full revolution of the warmup moves before I am moving at full speed.

One thing that has always caught me off guard from the Friday Fight compared to the rest of the workouts is the length of time between the water breaks. In this routine, you bang out a solid five minutes of warmup and follow it up with 10 minutes of hardcore cardio-based moves before you can get a small swig of water. Thanks Shaun T for killing me.

After that, you go hard for another 10 minutes before a brief taste of H2O and then you go sprinting to the finish line.

Of course, for me, in my shape, Friday Fight is like that first time you played Mike Tyson's Punch Out on Nintendo and you got knocked out in the first 10 seconds. I could barely compete with this workout the entire month. But today, I managed to get past the 10 minute mark before hitting my limit. My official Max Out Time clocked in at 11:24, which compared to last week (and really the whole month) was a huge jump in the right direction.

 The next 18-plus minutes, if you were watching from home, were me going hard; taking a break; going hard; taking a knee; and so on and so forth. It wasn't pretty. But I didn't quit and kept going through the end. And, more so, I didn't hit a Weep Time. The mini breaks during the moves were enough.

I typically would push to go for the whole move and use the transition to the next move as my mini break, but each move in Friday Fight: Round 1 is one minute long and it's extremely difficult to do some of the moves -- plank ups, I'm talking about you! -- for an entire 60 seconds.

But I finished. I hit 30 minutes and, although it hasn't quite hit me, I completed the first month of this monster of a workout. And I'm still alive! I have a weekend of recovery, but I can officially begin looking ahead to the Max Out Month 2 of my journey. Next up: Pulse.

Recap

Workout:               Friday Fight: Round 1

Max Out Time:    11:24
Weep Time:           30:00

Weekly Weigh-in:   Stay tuned for Day 29 of the journey

Monthly Photo:       Stay tuned for Day 30 of the journey