Round 3 / Day 84: P90X X Stretch

This morning, I couldn't decide whether to stay in bed to catch up on some Zs or to get up and squeeze in a much-needed hour of stretching.

So I split the baby in half: I did X Stretch in my garage with the lights off, in my pajamas, and with my eyes closed.

Round 2 / Day 84: Insanity Max Cardio Conditioning + Cardio Abs

During Right Kicks / Left Kicks, Shaun T walks over to Tania, who's flying through the moves. "If you can go as fast as Tania," he says to the camera, "keep up with her. If you can go faster, go faster."  I tried my damnedest, but in the end, I had to opt for Plan C: Going (much) slower than Tania.

One more week. Just one more week.

P90X Day 84: X Stretch

Stretching feels damn good. I woke up feeling a little achy and creaky, and was happy that X Stretch was scheduled for today.

But does stretching actually do any good? I dug up yet another New York Times piece by Gina Kolata, concluding that "[t]he truth is that after dozens of studies and years of debate, no one really knows whether stretching helps, harms, or does anything in particular for performance or injury rates." Yes, stretching can make you more flexible, but there's no evidence of its benefits.

As I've mentioned before, Kolata also recently wrote an article explaining that cool-downs are unnecessary. Assuming her reporting is accurate, by skipping both X Stretch and our daily cool-downs during P90X, we could save an hour-and-a-half per week -- almost 20 hours over the course of a single round of P90X -- without adversely affecting our overall athletic performance.

Like I said earlier, stretching feels damn good. But sleeping in feels even better.