Hi Friend,

Happy Friday to you!

Most Friday Nights

You made it. You got to the weekend. You get to chill out. Let your guard down. Have some time for yourself. You may want to stay up a little later past your bed time and catch up on your shows or watch a movie, or the Red Sox or maybe even the Celtics. You may want to get together with friends for dinner in or out, or maybe you want to have a family night. You may even want to participate in some fun liquid libations and some fun joy foods. Then of course because you stayed up a little later and possibly because you're running in a sleep deficit you may want to sleep in until your battery is 100%. Stretching with us on a Saturday would be nice and all, but it doesn't have quite the appeal as all of the rest does, or does it?

Truth About Friday Nights?

So maybe you stay up a little later because you want to and maybe you participate in fun libations and joy foods because it's Friday and you want to and maybe you sleep in because it's Saturday and you want too, but we all know if you go to bed closer to the usual and you sleep in a little later after the normal you'll get the best sleep vs. if you stay up later than usual, consume alcohol, liquid calories and high calorie joy foods before bed, you're going to have disrupted sleep (aka sleep apnea, snoring, restless turning), after your initial food coma, late night, exhaustive passing out, while you're body tries to choose between digesting it's food, calories and alcohol and recovering & repairing from the day before, let alone changing your body composition and transforming you into a high performing human.

Plus you're more likely to wake up closer to your normal time even if you stay in bed longer, so that kind of stinks. Sure, ... it is more restful if you stay in bed longer even if you wake up early and even if you have disrupted sleep, but then the rest of your day will start off sluggish and depending on your day (whether you have a lot to do or a little to do), you won't be getting the most out of it like you would if you wanted to peak for your special free day to do what you choose.

A Different Point of View

You enjoy all the fun things or not, that you might normally like to enjoy on a Friday night, but you have them with dinner, not after and adjust their stomach allotment accordingly. You stay up a little later, but not crazy or not, because you really want to get a great nights sleep and you sleep in, until 6:30-6:45am, leaving yourself enough time to slowly use the bathroom, have some water, walk the dog or take a quick walk around the block, and set up your mat to roll & stretch.

You show up crusty eyed w/ bed head, ready to gradually wake up with your peers and exchange light and fun banter as everyone wakes up for a great day. It starts off gentle with the rolling you know by heart. Then we lay on the ground and hold positions, while you day dream, or breathe or be still, or laugh or listen or just be. You get gently guided along from lying, to kneeling, to standing, from feet to head, internal organs to appendages and distal phalanges (fingers & toes). You say goodbye with a little burn & earn and then you pause and realize you feel fantastic. Awake, but not aggressive. Very chill. Peaceful. Alert. Happy. Loose. Relaxed. Good. You're ready for your day. You look at the clock and you realize you have so much of it ahead of you that you could even take a nap or go back to bed and you'd still have tremendous time, but most importantly you feel great. No sluggishness. No recovering from late night indulgences. Your metabolism, waistline and appendages appreciate it. Your nervous system is sharp. Your muscular-skeletal system is fine tuned and sharp. You're endocrine system is all systems go and you're exocrine system is ... also ready to go. ;-)

You're ready to present your best self to whatever your weekend has in store for you, and if it's something important you'll need it. And if it's something that's not important, you'll be grateful you captured the day with heightened, not numbed senses.

Is it worth it? I don't know. It's a tale of 2 points of views.

Saturday Stretch

7-7:45a, Sat, Oct 23

Join Zoom Meeting

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/83128707079

Meeting ID: 831 2870 7079

Passcode: gumby

See you tomorrow and/or see you next week,

Coach Mike

p.s. you can also find a pdf of the stretch routine, the old stretch recording and all the workouts in the P11 Zoom folder.