Friday, January 8, 2010

Stop Playing on My Emotions, Tony

A few days ago, Yacine posted in the Comments section about a blog post by self-proclaimed "Medical Exercise Specialist" J.R. Smith entitled "BEWARE OF TONY HORTON AND P90X." Ominous!

Smith is probably right to advise folks to beware of Tony. After all, it's altogether possible that douchiness is infectious.

But otherwise, I disagree with just about everything he says about P90X. I'm not exactly shy about criticizing P90X, and I've said that I don't think P90X quite matches the hype of its infomercials -- but I also don't believe that the program is a nightmarishly dangerous, sleep-sucking, sickness inducing program. P90X doesn't get everyone ripped, but it's helped thousands of people significantly improve their overall fitness. And although it's obviously important to make sure our bodies have enough time to rest and recover to avoid overtraining, there's nothing in P90X that runs counter to this. Smith's out-of-left-field claim that overtraining is a foregone conclusion because P90X involves "doing the exact same exercise, the exact same intensity day after day" doesn't ring true to anyone who's seen the variety of moves in each of the 12 different P90X workout routines.

My advice to Smith: Try it before you knock it.

Still, I have to give props to Smith for the best bit of bizarrely redundant and nonsensical P90X-related writing I've ever come across:
"So now I have identified Tony as doing the following:
1. Decieving [sic] you

2. Lying to you
3. Misleading you
4. Possibly injuring you
5. Playing on your emotions"
I'm not sure if this is sheer genius or utter lunacy.