As fear grows about extreme workouts, Borders Sport and Leisure Trust has defended its promotion of the latest American fitness fad.
Created by US exercise guru Shaun Thompson, Insanity workouts, like the more-popular CrossFit routines, involve high-intensity interval training which puts the body under a large amount of stress for short periods, then resting before quickly repeating.
However, there is growing concern in the sports medicine community over a possible link to a potentially-harmful condition called rhabdomyolysis that can be caused by intense exertion.
This sees skeletal muscle damaged, releasing proteins into the blood, with possible harm caused to the kidneys.
Borders Sport and Leisure Trust recently announced that eight of its instructors had been trained to deliver Insanity.
Trust chief executive Ewan Jackson commented: “Our fitness instructors are fired-up to deliver Insanity sessions across the Borders as part of our aim to offer new and interesting ways for people in the region to get active.”
Quizzed over what research the trust did into Insanity before deciding to promote it, a spokesperson told us: “Whilst all forms of exercise carry a potential risk of injury, our highly-trained instructors do their best to minimise this and any injury risk has to be balanced against the proven benefits in terms of health, wellbeing and life expectancy associated with becoming more active.”