P90X2: Recovery and Mobility

This is a light workout focusing on stretching and foam rolling. Clocking in at just under an hour, you will need a foam roller (optional but highly recommended)and a good padded mat for a variety of exercises.

The first part is a yoga-based warmup, where Tony leads a group of three backgrounders in a series of sun salutations. The first time through, he pauses and gives good form pointers on the basics (reaching up to the sky, plank, up dog and downdog). As the series progresses, it gets faster and more fluid but never enough to build up a sweat, more to get the blood moving.

Then follows a quick series of leg mobility exercises: front-back and side-to-side swings of each leg, using the foam roller to balance; slow rear lunges with torso twists; squats with overhead reach; and one-legged balance with an opposite-arm toe touch (HARD).

After that, Tony and crew move to the floor for foam rolling. This part of the workout is pretty unstructured: Tony encourages each exerciser to find his/her tight spots and work them out. He does give a brief demonstration in a few places, but he's counting on your either knowing how to foam roll or being a good follower and tracking the backgrounders' movements. You get approximately 5 minutes per body part (each lower leg, each upper leg, each side/arm, mid-back). One backgrounder does not have a foam roller and demonstrates more classic stretches - for example, instead of rolling out his lower leg, he puts a towel around the ball of his foot and does seated stretches for the calves/hamstrings.

After the foam roller stretch, you repeat the mobility exercises. Tony says you should have better flow, range of motion and form than you had before the foam rolling, and I found my balance and range of motion to be better.

The workout concludes with a few more yoga-based stretches, like pigeon and frog, and ends with some shoulder/chest opening on the foam roller, then corpse pose on the roller.

I was surprised by how much I liked this workout. It is very true to its name, recovery and mobility, and it feels much less strenuous than an hour-long yoga class. I feel both energized and relaxed when I'm done.