FAQs About MAT (Part 2)

Image courtesy of elementsofmotion.com

Part 1

How long will this hold?
Once again, this a very scenario-specific question.  With some people it will hold for 6 minutes; with others a treatment will hold for 6 months.  Like the answer to "How long does the process take?", how long a treatment will hold depends largely on your lifestyle outside of the gym as well as what you do when you exercise.  If you get worked on and then exercise shortly after, the treatment probably will not hold for as long as if you would have taken it easy for 24(+) hours and then started to exercise.

Some of the metabolic characteristics of the tissue(s) in question may have changed since the last time they were contracting properly, and because of that you need to be careful with them until you are told otherwise.  If you lead a high-stress lifestyle, it may be more difficult for treatments to hold, as well.  Likewise, if you eat foods that disagree with your body, there may be issues associated with that.  So there are a ton of factors that come into play, but, speaking in gross generalities, what you tend to see is people who initially get MAT™ treatment more frequently tend to have the treatment hold longer than those who get treated less frequently.  As things start to hold better and better, you may be able to get treated less frequently and still have things hold just as well.  This is just a general pattern, though, and should by no means be taken as a guarantee for exactly what you will experience.

This is a stimulus to the body, not a permanent fixing.  Just like any stimulus, if you remove it, eventually the adaptations that occurred will diminish.  Take running, for example.  If you are not in very good aerobic condition, you may need to run a few times a week in order to improve your conditioning level.  After you have reached a desirable level, however, you can run less frequently and still be able to maintain most, if not all, of your ability at that level.  However, if you were to stop running all together you would not be able to keep the benefits and ability of your previous level forever.

What is the science behind MAT™?
For an in-depth explanation behind what is going regarding the science of MAT™, check out this information here.

Why can the treatment areas be so sensitive?

Nociceptors are sensory receptors found in skin and muscle, among other areas of the body, that send signal to the CNS (brain and spinal cord) that is typically perceived as pain.  Normally, these signals are only sent to in response to stimuli that is potentially dangerous or damaging.  However, when tissue has been injured or there is some type of inflammation, the production of certain chemicals can increase the sensitivity of the nociceptors within that tissue.  This can lead to even very light amounts of an applied stimulus to cause pain. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nociceptor)

A reduction in the activity of the mechanoreceptors (muscle spindle, GTO, etc.) can enhance the signal of the nociceptors.  Likewise, an improvement in mechanoreceptor function can dampen the signal and decrease the sensitivity of the nociceptors.  Generally speaking, what this means is, the more sensitive an area is during an MAT™ session, the greater the probability is that the tissue and the neuromuscular system as a whole are suffering from greater levels of dysfunction. (http://www.neurophysiology.ws/receptors.htm)

Stay tuned for Part 3 of FAQs About MAT!

What other ques­tions do you have about Mus­cle Acti­va­tion Tech­niques™?  Drop a com­ment below so I can address them in future posts!

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!