Insanity Cardio Abs vs P90X Ab-Ripper X

Let me preface this by saying I’ve been doing the P90X workouts for 70 days (it’s a 90 day program) and have only recently purchased Shaun T’s Insanity workout. I bought Insanity to add a little more variety after 90 days in P90X was up, but just had to take a sneak peek into the Insanity Workout by doing the Cardio Abs DVD.

While neither workout does traditional Ab Crunches, P90X is more of an “active” workout compared to Insanity’s focus on isometrics… of course Shaun T does have includes cardio segments like “Plank” run (Plank is like the top position of a push-up), but a good portion of the brief, but intense, workout is comprised of very subtle moves design to make the muscles “burn”. P90X on the other hand, has the philosophy of pushing your muscles to the limit. to exhaustion through repletion. Ab Ripper-X packs a lot of repetitions in short amount of time… Tony Horton even states 311 moves in 15 minutes. Each of the twelve exercises, has a focus on different set of Abdominal muscle groups, and believe me works them hard.

The exercise novice will not be able to complete all the reps of either program first time through, and both Tony Horton and Shaun T tell you that’s OK… becuse doing as much as you can, and pushing yourself to your own limit will give you one hell of an Ab workout. I may be biased because I’ve spent more time doing Ab Ripper-X, but I find the P90X Ab Ripper-x workout a more complete stand alone workout. Cardio Abs on the other hand while a great stand alone workout, I believe it is more designed to be part of the Insanity program that has a heavy focus on “core” workout. You can’t go wrong with either workout, but in my opinion Ab Ripper-X is the king of abdominal workouts