Life Without Limits

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With the right attitude and faith in God, you can do anything.  That is the premise behind Nick Vujicic's self-help auto-biography Life Without Limits.

"Balance Exercises": Skill or Specific Tissue Challenge?

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I was talking with my dad this past weekend about what is commonly referred to as "balance exercises" and in particular its implementation post-injury early on in the rehab process.  For context, if you don't know, my dad practices sports medicine so he's not your average dude off the street when it comes to discussing the human body and rehabbing injuries, etc.  Point being, we are often able to discuss things in fairly great detail and challenge each others thoughts in that regard.

Men's Fitness: 5 Reasons to Try MAT

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Check out this article from the online edition of Men's Fitness featuring Muscle Activation Techniques™ and why YOU should give it a try!


5 Things Muscle Activation Techniques™ (MAT) Training Can Do for Your Body by Jennifer Cohen

Inter­ested in find­ing out more? Check out the “Mus­cle Acti­va­tion Tech­niques™” page.

Inter­ested in set­ting up an assess­ment time or dis­cussing this sub­ject fur­ther? E-mail Char­lie at charlie@selfmadefitness.com.

Your body.  Your training.

The Total Money Makeover

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“If you will live like no one else, later you can live like no one else.” –Dave Ramsey

Take the steps to become financially free and start building wealth today, and tomorrow you will be able to live the life you want to live. In other words, practice delayed gratification. This is the basic premise of Dave Ramsey’s The Total Money Makeover: A Proven Plan For Financial Fitness.

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Instant Gratification
In today’s modern world, technology has made many things in life nearly instantaneous. Instant food, instant entertainment, instant information, instant energy, instant health and physical fitness… all contribute to building a strong addiction to instant gratification. The problem with this is that not everything can, or even should, be achieved in this manner. Weight loss, for instance, is a promise many companies use to prey on the uninformed. Slogans like, “Lose 10 pounds in 10 days” or “Get ripped in 90 days” are certainly catchy, however their methods are often unsustainable and unhealthy. In much the same way, impulse buying of unnecessary material possessions, combined with the use of credit, gives consumers a “quick fix” of that good feeling you get after you buy something new.

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Make A Plan
Before driving across the country, it would be wise to plan the best route using a map or GPS. This way there is constant feedback of the progress being made and reassurance that the car is heading in the right direction. If you are looking to get out of debt and become financially free, you need to make a plan of how to go about doing that. Plan out the monthly incomes and expenses ahead of time. Decide what you will spend money on and how much it will cost. Keep track of everything so that there are no “surprises”. Look at what percentage of the net income is going to various expenditures and decide if anything should be adjusted.

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Become “Gazelle Intense”
In order to survive the day, a gazelle must outrun the fastest lion. If it ever trips or stumbles it will be killed.  If it ever decides to “take a day off” it will be killed. Every single day of its life, the gazelle must remain focused on survival. Ramsey suggests that before you can be financially free, you must become gazelle intense, putting all your time, energy, and focus into it until you have succeeded. Doing anything halfway will only end in the same results you have been getting all along. Commit to improving your financial situation and stick to your plan to make it happen.

Check out Dave Ramsey’s The Total Money Makeover to learn the specific steps needed to get out of debt and become financially free. I recommend this book to anyone interested in getting help with their finances or just looking to learn more about creating a budget, planning for retirement, and/or managing personal finances.

Want to use this arti­cle in your blog, newslet­ter, or other plat­form? You may, but be sure to include all of the bio­graph­i­cal infor­ma­tion found in the yel­low box below!

Protein Bar® and Self Made® Featured in Crain's

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Check out this article in this week's online and hard copy issue of Crain's Chicago Business featuring Matt Matros, founder and CEO of Protein Bar®, as he trains with Charlie Cates! 

Matt Matros of Protein Bar® Shows Us His Workout by Crains Chicago Business

Your body.  Your training.

MAT and Aging

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Last Monday I talked about raising the set point of the neuromuscular system in terms of its ability to have greater magnitudes of force placed upon it without having a decrease in its contractile efficiency.

One thing you tend to see with people as they age is the set point of their neuromuscular system begins to get lower and lower.  Activities that they used to be able to do day after day may now cause them to feel sore or achy.  They are not able to recover as quickly from these activities, which in turn may lead them to doing them less often or stopping altogether.  If enough of their physical activities are ceased, the opportunities to have appropriate forces placed upon their system in order to provide a positive stimulus may become infrequent enough that their set point begins to lower at a more rapid rate.  This, in turn, may feed the cycle of doing less than they previously could.In other words:

• As your body ages and is able to tolerate less physical activity, you may do less in order to keep feeling good

• As you do less, you may end up exposing yourself to lower amounts of appropriate and positive stimuli

• Less exposure may mean less positive responses and, ultimately, fewer positive adaptations gleaned

• If these responses and adaptations become few enough and infrequent enough, your physical decline may become more rapid

As discussed last week, one way to possibly raise your set point and potentially combat this regressive neruomuscular process is by participating in Muscle Activation Techniques™ sessions.  Since your body tends to physically regress as you age, having a means by which to not only potentially slow this regression, but also possibly improve upon your current status, can be a valuable asset in allowing you to:

• Continue doing the activities you enjoy

• Slow down the feeling of "getting old"

• Feel less "beat up", tired, sore, or achy on a day to day basis

• Return to activities you haven't done in years

Do you want to continue to engage in physical activities that feel good and that you enjoy as you age?

Inter­ested in find­ing out more? Check out the “Mus­cle Acti­va­tion Tech­niques™” page.

Inter­ested in set­ting up an assess­ment time or dis­cussing this sub­ject fur­ther? E-mail Char­lie at charlie@selfmadefitness.com.

Your body. Your training.

Want to use this arti­cle in your blog, newslet­ter, or other plat­form? You can, but be sure to include all of the bio­graph­i­cal infor­ma­tion found in the yel­low box below!

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Take RTS™.

*Filmed atPrecision Human Performance.

Your body. Your training.

Want to use this video in your blog, newslet­ter, or other plat­form? You can, but be sure to include all of the bio­graph­i­cal infor­ma­tion found in the yel­low box below!

Experiencing the Details

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When it comes to improving a client's exercise experience as well as your value in their mind, I think one of the biggest things you as the exercise consultant and professional can do is to put a huge amount of focus and energy into the little details of each exercise.  In fact, being a real stickler when it comes to enforcing what exact positions you want your client to hold while performing precise motions under control (assuming both the positions and motions are within their abilities) can completely transform the sensations they are experiencing and may actually allow you to stimulate the tissue(s) you are intending to.

Look, most people can perform elbow flexion on their own.  If you put a dumbbell in somebody's hands, as long as the weight is less than the torque-producing capabilities of their elbow flexors, most people will still be able to perform the motion of concentric elbow flexion while holding that dumbbell.  So how much value are you creating in yourself if you just allow the client to move the dumbbells as he or she pleases?  Additionally, how is your value going to be perceived by the client if what they do with you feels exactly the same as what they do or could do on their own?

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I've written before how sensation and experience can be altered through cuing, which can be improved by you experiencing the cues, as well.  I've also written about the importance of experimenting with different resistance profiles for yourself so you are better-able to provide different experiences for your clients.  All of these things can be influenced by where a client's mind is at, what they are focusing on, and their intention with each exercise.  And all of these things can be amplified by focusing on the details.

What are the precise words and phrases you are using with you client?  What is it exactly that you want them thinking about, and  how are you communicating that?  And now, after you yourself have experienced different resistance profiles for similar motions and/or in an attempt to stimulate the same tissues, how are you going to create one that is absolutely specific your client's needs and abilities that not only feels good, but feels like nothing else they have done before?

In order to effectively enforce the details, you have to have a detailed picture in your head of exactly what you want.  You have to be confident enough in yourself to be able to regress a client when necessary, not just allowing them to continue on with the exercise with uncontrolled and/or imprecise motions and an inability to maintain positions.  Also, you have to be able to effectively communicate with your client, whether it be visually, verbally, via tactile stimulation, or some combination thereof.

How much are you enforcing the details of exercise?  How much is your client experiencing them?

Your body.  Your training.

Want to use this arti­cle in your blog, newslet­ter, or other plat­form? You can, but be sure to include all of the bio­graph­i­cal infor­ma­tion found in the yel­low box below!

The Art of the Start

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Guy Kawasaki's The Art of the Start is a must-read if you are an entrepreneur.  This no-nonsense guide for start-ups covers all of the essentials without overloading you with information or filling its pages with repetitive statements.  It is an easy to read, easy to follow text that is bursting with resources and ideas to help you take the necessary steps to get your business idea up and running.  From pitching the ideas in your head to meeting with investors and raising capital to branding, this book hits on all of the major points with realistic and sound suggestions on taking action and getting results.Kawasaki lays out this book by more or less the different components of starting a business.  While it appears to be mapped out somewhat linearly, you could certainly focus on the chapter that you feel most applies to you without being lost due to having not read the earlier chapters.  As stated above, there are resources for additional reading at the end of every chapter as well as reader-submitted FAQ's, which, for the most part, are fairly helpful.

It is not a thick text by any means--217 pages not including the index--and to be honest I finished it in just over three hours.  I'm not a fast reader by any sense of the phrase but the concepts are very easy to digest and flow smoothly.

I recommend this book for anyone interested in business or entrepreneurship, anyone thinking of starting a business, or anybody already in the process of starting and/or running a business.  Even if your business is already established, this book will be very useful if you ever need to pitch to investors, raise capital, or make any other moves again in pursuit of expanding your current business.

Your body.  Your training.

Enjoy this review?  Get a copy of The Art of the Start in the Self Made® Book Store!

Want to use this arti­cle in your blog, newslet­ter, or other plat­form?  You can, but be sure to include all of the bio­graph­i­cal infor­ma­tion found in the yel­low box below!

"Lifting weights IS boring..."

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"It's funny how a couple modalities think they have the market cornered on training the mind. The only reason people think doing a leg extension is mindless is because most people do it mind-less-ly." -- Tom Purvis

Near the end of RTS® class this past weekend Tom Purvis had one of his profound moments where he says something that you have more or less always known or assumed but haven't ever actually verbalized it so finally hearing it for the first time makes you stop in your tracks for and just think about things. He said

"People think lifting weights is boring. Lifting weights IS boring. Training your body is not."

I think many of us have felt both from time to time; we've had days where our workouts were fun and invigorating and other days where they were more of something to get through than anything else. Until going through RTS®, however, I didn't really know what to do about this.

One of the things I had to spend a fair amount of time on this past weekend was getting it out of my head that lifting weights was about the outside--"completing" the motion, moving the weights "full range"--and more about the inside--what each individual fiber was doing and how much tension you wanted them to generate, the exact direction of force you wanted to apply. I thought I had been doing a better job of this as of late but I realized that what I had been experiencing compared to what I could experience once I let go of this old mindset were completely different. Curls, rows, presses, shrugs--everything felt so much different than it ever had before.

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Yesterday I had a client who I have been seeing multiple times a week for just over three months now. We have been progressing appropriately and yesterday we had two exercises that we had seemingly done multiple times before--seated hip abduction and prone knee flexion. Now these are not this person's favorite exercises by any means, but by getting them to focus on lifting from the inside they experienced sensations that were completely new to them. All of a sudden these exercises, my consultation, and the sessions in general became a totally different type of experience for them.

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Are you lifting weights for the sake of moving a mass from point A to point B or are you lifting to train your body? Are you lifting weights from the outside, focusing solely on moving that weight? Or are you lifting from the inside, with your focus on exactly what your body is doing and what you want it to do?

Your body. Your training.

Want to use this arti­cle in your blog, newslet­ter, or other plat­form? You can, but be sure to include all of the bio­graph­i­cal infor­ma­tion found in the yel­low box below!

Raising The Set Point

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In last Monday's post I brought up the term "set point" in regards to a potentially intended outcome of Muscle Activation Techniques™ sessions being to raise it.  I never really explained what the term "set point" means, though.

Set point is an idea that I was first introduced to during the MAT lower body mastery course back in November.  Essentially, it was explained as more or less the current maximum level of force that can be applied to a contractile tissue and not have that tissue's contractile efficiency decrease.  An example of exceeding the set point would be if somebody had a passing AMC&S test for the straight head of rectus femoris and then they performed seated knee extensions, only to retest that position and then no longer be able to hold it.  However much force the tissue had to handle between the two tests exceeded that tissue's set point level and subsequently the person was unable to maintain the corresponding testing position.

As I discussed last week, MAT is part of an exercise process of stimulation and potential response, ideally leading to desired adaptation.  One of these adaptations may be the ability of the tissue to tolerate greater and greater levels of force without diminishing its contractile efficiency, i.e. raising its set point.  In fact, this is one of the most common week by week changes I see in clients.  In terms of where a client is on any given day, a lot more goes into this than whether or not we met the previous week, but in general, from one session to the next I have tended to see upward trends of clients being able to have greater quantities force applied to them and still be able to hold the AMC&S testing positions.

Side note:  By greater quantities of force I am talking about both in terms of magnitude and duration of application.  The tissue's ability to tolerate inertial effects as well as different levels of positive and negative acceleration should also be included in this.

Compare this to a tissue's maximum threshold, which, as explained to me by Greg Mack, is more indicative of the material qualities of the tissue rather than it's contractile efficiency.  In other words, exceeding a tissue's threshold for force tolerance ends in rupture of that tissue.  Tissue threshold will more than likely always be greater than or equal to the tissue's set point, simply because if the tissue itself ruptures, it is highly unlikely that it would still be able to contract efficiently if more force was applied.  Quite frankly I'm not sure how that would be measured anyways, so I guess unless I find out otherwise I'll say that threshold will always be greater than or equal to set point.  That being said, both values can be raised through appropriate force application and not necessarily raised in a linear fashion or by relatively equal amounts, either.

So, why is this important?  For one, whether you are a regular exerciser, competitive athlete, weekend warrior, wanting to get back into exercise, or just need your muscles to help you get through your everyday life, having somewhat of an objective marker of what your neuromuscular system can actually tolerate at this moment in terms of force can be valuable information.  Do you really want varying levels of discomfort, illness, and lethargy to be your only indicators that what you are doing might be too much for you right now?

Second, by establishing a baseline of where you are at now, you can a) plan your workouts and life accordingly so you aren't constantly playing a game of digging yourself into a hole and then scrambling to get out before it is time to start digging again, and b) have a positive marker by which to measure improvement and progress.  In other words, instead of noting that you are experiencing less of a negative (soreness, fatigue, being worn down, etc), you will be able to put things in terms of a positive (able to hold more positions, able to tolerate greater magnitudes of force and for greater durations without compromising contractile efficiency) at a frequency that may be greater than your ability to notice increases in gross torque production capabilities or changes in appearance or improved conditioning levels, etc.

Third, having a means by which to potentially raise the set point of your contractile tissues means you potentially have a greater ability to do what you want to do, when you want to do it at more frequent intervals and higher levels of performance.  Plain and simple.  Whether you enjoy running, gardening, recreational sports, walking your dogs, home improvement projects, or whatever else you can imagine using your muscles for, this is a way to potentially improve your ability to do that as well as do that later and later into your life.

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What activities do you enjoy doing?  Do you want to be able to do those better?  Do you want to be able to do those as you continue to age?

Inter­ested in find­ing out more? Check out the “Mus­cle Acti­va­tion Tech­niques™” page.

Inter­ested in set­ting up an assess­ment time or dis­cussing this sub­ject fur­ther? E-mail Char­lie at charlie@selfmadefitness.com.

Your body. Your training.

Want to use this arti­cle in your blog, newslet­ter, or other plat­form? You can, but be sure to include all of the bio­graph­i­cal infor­ma­tion found in the yel­low box below!

In Pursuit Of Excellence

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Terry Orlick, PhD's In Pursuit of Excellence is a great resource for people who are looking to improve upon their skill or trade.  Orlick takes on the mental aspect of excellence and success in this book, looking at the ways in which elite sportsmen and sportswomen mentally approach training and competition as well as how they view success, failure, difficulties, slumps, hot streaks, and numerous other aspects of competition.

The main idea of this book is focus--be able to control your focus and you will be better able to control your actions.  Also tied in are the ideas of commitment, mental readiness, positive images, confidence, distraction control, and ongoing learning.  All of these areas are explored in detail with suggested exercises of how to improve in each area as well as pages upon pages of documented interviews with some of the best-performing Olympic athletes and how they approach these topics.

This book is great to skim for topics and information that are relative to yourself and then read those sections in greater detail.  There feels to be a fair amount of repeat information if you actually try to read it cover to cover, so you may just want to skip to the areas that are most applicable to you.

As far as books on elevating performance both in sport and life are concerned, I think this one has to be up there in terms of its immediate applicability to your daily life and routines.  If you are feeling like you aren't getting the most out of your abilities, it may be time to starting working on what is happening inside your head.  This book would be on my list of possible places to start.

I recommend this book  to anyone who wants to be better at what they do.

Your body.  Your training.

Enjoy this review?  Get a copy of In Pursuit of Excellence in the Self Made® Book Store!

Want to use this arti­cle in your blog, newslet­ter, or other plat­form?  You can, but be sure to include all of the bio­graph­i­cal infor­ma­tion found in the yel­low box below!

Process vs Program

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*The premise for this entire post comes from material and ideas presented in the RTS courses and through discussions with other exercise professionals.

In yesterday's post I described how MAT is a process, saying that it is a form of exercise. By association, you could then reason that exercise in general is a process. In fact, this is one of the ways exercise is described in the RTS courses (RTSm Science 1 4:4), as a process.

A process denotes some level of trial and error, of figuring out what is appropriate to do at each step in order to reach a specific end goal. A program, on the other hand, may have that same end goal, but each step in getting there is more solidified and the progression in general is less malleable based on ability level. A program is more or less a choreographed routine (idea courtesy of RTS).

One of the issues that arises with the latter is that of appropriateness. Because there is some type of preexisting structure to a program, there are automatically assumptions being made and physical prerequisites that must be met in order to begin and progress through an exercise program. An exercise program therefore cannot be based off of the individual on a moment by moment basis, but rather the individual must fit him or herself within the constraints of the program. This in and of itself may limit the effectiveness of each exercise to stimulate the desired response and adaptation.

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I grew up doing programs. That's how I was first introduced to weight lifting and exercise. Three sets of ten for all of the machines in the circuit at the Y. When I was in college, everything was programs. Post-season, off-season, pre-season, in-season. All programmed. You knew exactly what you would be doing for the next six to eight weeks the moment you were handed those sheets of paper. From a time efficiency standpoint, it seemed like the easier (and more feasible) option when you are talking about one strength coach and hundreds of athletes. The tradeoff to this was undoubtedly sacrificing the appropriateness and effectiveness of each individual's training.

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Then I started writing programs for others. Friends, teammates, coaches, people who would contact me via e-mail--if someone wanted an exercise program, I would write it. Eventually it got to the point where I was spending hours writing programs each week. Additionally, I would write out pages of descriptions for each exercise so the person knew what the names I assigned would denote. Not long after that those written descriptions turned into videos, as did the programs themselves, but I was still spending hours editing and uploading those videos in addition to writing the programs.

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Those videos became the Exercise Index and most of the programs were posted to the Programs page. While both are convenient for others, I have been questioning whether either or both should remain public on this website as they are essentially in direct conflict with the ideas I am trying to promote. If they do, there will undoubtedly be a revamping that takes place to better align them with my current viewpoints and ethics.

There is also the subject of periodized programming or periodization for both those training for sports performance and not. To me, periodization still has its place and makes sense, but I now implement a much looser form of periodization than I would have used in the past. To me, periodization is simply a form of progression, but the question is how constricting is that progression. Do you have to work at those exact percentages, weights, reps, sets, etc this week or is there more wiggle room with what you do?

I can say for certain that I am trying to progress** every client of mine in one form or another, but how this happens makes all the difference in the world. Are your and/or your clients' workouts structured in strict phases or are you allowing what they have available before, during, and after each rep to influence what happens while they are with you? Are you open to changing on a moment by moment basis as well as possibly scrapping all together any predetermined plan you constructed for your client, depending on their abilities and what they have available to give at that moment?

**At some point in our lives, being able to maintain what we are currently physically able to do may be seen as a form of progress. Additionally, slower regression may be seen in a similar or the same light. In the context of this blog post, all of these meanings are to be taken into consideration when I say I am trying to progress every client of mine. I will dive deeper into this subject in a future post.

Do you approach exercise as a process or a program? When you think of your end goal, are there clearly defined steps that are set in stone and must be taken in order to reach that goal or are you open to a myriad of different possible steps that will be determined as you go along?

Your body. Your training.

Want to use this arti­cle in your blog, newslet­ter, or other plat­form? You can, but be sure to include all of the bio­graph­i­cal infor­ma­tion found in the yel­low box below!