Day 7 X Stretch 1/27/12

Day 7 X Stretch -
Today of all days was the hardest to get up out of all of them so far. Today is considered a "rest" day in the P90X program, where you aren't doing any intense exercise, but rather just focusing on stretching out your body. I had such a hard time sleeping last night, for a number of reasons, and was waking up every hour or two. Each time I'd wake up, my mind would be telling me, "you dont have to go, its a rest day" - each time I woke up this was the thought that popped into my head, and I almost succumbed to it. At around 330am though, I was like you know what, I cant do that to myself. I AM going, I am going to follow through wiht my commitment, and I am going to go no matter how litle slepe I get, or how tired I am.

Now I have started (and never finished) this P90X program many times, and never before durign ANY of those times, did I ever do this X Stretch DVD. Why? I would say to myself. I dont need to stretch, I'll take the rest day, and do nothing. Well, you know what, I never finished, and maybe looking for rest days was one of the reasons. So today was my first day actually going in, at the same time, even after a shitty night of sleep, and doing the X Stretch DVD. I'll tell you what, it was amazing. I was able to work through all of the parts of my body, from my neck down to my feet, and really just take my time getting a really good stretch out of everything. They say on the DVD, that stretching helps your body to recover, it helps your muscles to heal and grow, and it helps your overall performance. So when I would say to myself, why do I need to go, well those three things sound like pretty darn good reasons to me.

Week 1 review: Well week one is in the bag, its done, I did it, and I even got of the routine a few times (ab ripper) and stil did it at night. I had shitty sleep one night, and still got up and went. It was cold, and dark outside, I still went. The workouts were absolutely brutal, they kicked my ass. I almost threw up after day 1, I was tired after 20 minutes on day 2, I could only do 14 reps of the required 25 on the legs day, and regardless of all that, I kept on going. The way I see it, this week was the start. It set the benchmark on which to improve. Now every week, every day moving forward, I will be able to push myself a bit harder, do a few more reps, take fewer breaks, increase my ab exercises to the 25 they ask me to do, and just keep getting better. I dont think you can see much of a difference in my body, not yet, but I can say that I FEEL VERY different than I did last week, before I started this thing. I am sleeping deeper, I am more conscious of what I am eating, I am not drinking soda, I have a better attitude, my energy levels are up, and I am excited about doing this. All of these things help me to feel good about this project, and know that this start is a good one, and I am super excited to see where the remaining 11 weeks take me.