I’ve done them both, along with several other beachbody programs, and I am here to help you pick the program that will best get you to your goals!
First, before I compare the 2 programs, let me tell you which program — if I were to have only 1 program to do for the rest of my life — I would choose:
Well, that’s an easy one — P90X hands down!
P90X is definitely the best all-around fitness program available, anywhere! It’s stood the test of time, and has led to changed lives all over the world. It has resistance days, cardio days, and a complete nutritional approach to help people succeed in all areas of their fitness. So if you are trying to decide which program to start with, I would recommend P90X over Insanity. However, that does not mean that I love everything about it or that Insanity doesn’t whoop it in certain areas! And since I’m not locked into having only 1 program for the rest of my life, let’s look at how P90X and Insanity stack up (in my opinion) in the following categories:
On a scale from 1 – 10 (10 being best)
Muscle Building =This is where P90X blows Insanity away. The Insanity deluxe came out with an Upper body weight training, which provides Insanity users a resistance day — but Insanity doesn’t claim to be a muscle building routine, so this isn’t so much a knock on Insanity as it is for my particular fitness goals. I always prefer workout programs that involve resistance to build (or at least maintain) muscle mass. Muscle burns fat, helps your physique look and feel strong, and keeps you healthy as you age.
Fat Burning = This is where Insanity is at its best. It is all-out, super-intense, sweat till you drop … and it makes P90X cardio look like a joke! P90X gives a good calorie burn as well, but the cardio portion of P90X is definitely inferior to Insanity.
Variety =P90X gives a big variety of workouts between lifting, yoga, cardio, and plyometrics. Insanity workouts start to seem very similar after a while. Although the Insanity Deluxe kit adds a good bit of variety with the Max Sports Interval, and the Insanity Ab routines are crazy intense and add variety. But if you are looking for variety, you will get it with P90X.
Nutrition =The P90X nutrition plan is very complete, highly adaptable, and able to be used long-term as a complete lifestyle change. My only knock is that the guide keeps the calories too high for fat loss in my opinion. Their calorie numbers are better for maintaining, but not for shredding fat. Insanity nutrition is really focused on maximizing the workout program, so it’s not as sustainable as a total lifestyle change. For this reason, I still recommend people going through Insanity to follow the P90X nutrition because I feel like it’s more complete. And as most of you know, I’ve developed a lot of tips on how to take the P90X nutrition guidelines to the next level for max results (see my tips in the “nutrition zone” tab for more).
So in conclusion, we see that the strengths of P90X correspond to the weaknesses of Insanity. And the strengths of Insanity correspond to the weaknesses of P90X. You see why these 2 extreme fitness programs make such a perfect pair for a hybrid! You just can’t beat a P90X / Insanity hybrid to get the most from your muscle building, cardio conditioning, body fat burning workouts. And the variety just gets better when you mix and match so that you aren’t looking at Tony every day, or Shaun T every day! LOL!
And for even more variety, you can implement additional lift days (from the Tony Horton 1-on-1’s) and additional cardio days (from Insanity Asylum). The options are endless! We have no excuse for getting bored!
Need a coach?
My email: coachwayne@teamripped.com
IG: @wayne_wyatt
