Raising The Bar

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Dave Tate's Raising The Bar, the sequel to Under The Bar, is a quick and easy read that continues with the idea of expressing life lessons that have been taught in the weight room and through competition.

The biggest difference, in my opinion, between this book and the original is that Tate gets a lot more personal with his stories, moving from only things that happened in the weight room to really anything that has happened in his life and then relating those stories and lessons back to training and explaining how they made him the person he is today.

If you enjoyed the first book, I think you will certainly enjoy the second.  If you haven't read the first book, you can definitely start with the second and be just fine.  There may be a little referencing of stories in the first book, but this only happens maybe once or twice.

Raising The Bar shows a side of Tate that you would not otherwise get to experience.  From his words, it seems that those closest to him weren't even aware of everything he reveals.  This book is a very deep look inside a man's mind as Tate unveils episodes from his past that will have to be read multiple times in order to capture the gravity of what he describes.  The rereading of this book is vital in order for its words to truly sink in.  There are just too many events that evoke too complex of emotions to be able to read it once and really grasp the magnitude of what you read.  So, while it isn't terribly long and the words flow smoothly, expect to read it at least twice.

I recommend this book to anybody who is looking for a new appreciation or new perspectives on life and the world around them.

Your body.  Your training.

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

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Lab Time

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A concept that is discussed in RTS is, if you are a trainer, using your personal workout time as lab time to experiment with all of the different variables that comprise exercise.  Personally, I hadn't done much of this up until the past four weeks or so, opting instead to carry on with the programs I was writing for myself in order to improve my bench, squat, and deadlift and to just get physically stronger.

Funny enough, nobody was paying me to help them increase their bench, squat, or deadlift and maybe one of my clients truly cared about getting significantly stronger.  All of my clients, however, were coming to me because they enjoyed the way their body felt while they worked out with me thanks to the experiences I was able to create with exercise.  At least that's what I was telling myself.

The thing was, I was starting to get frustrated with myself and my inability to really create these experiences with a purpose.  I could break down the magnitude profile of a machine or exercise with little difficulty.  I could tell you what tissue was being challenged and where the approximate resultant was that was being created when I would apply more than one force to a point.

In other words, I could see the whole and break it down to the pieces.  I was struggling with the inverse, though--knowing what specific piece I wanted and creating an exercise for it--until I actually started using my own workout time as lab time.

There's nothing wrong with how I was training before, but if wanted to actually understand what I was doing and how to create it from scratch, I needed to experience it first-hand.  So that's what I've been doing for roughly the past month.  I practice figuring out different ways to challenge, for example, my elbow flexors at different points in the range, intentionally increasing the torque production demand of my tissue at some points in the range and decreasing it at others by manipulating moment arms and force angles.  I experiment with different things to focus on during the reps as well as use different tempos and use different tools to manipulate the resistance.

The result of all this has been a significant improvement in my ability to actually construct exercises as well as create an experience for my client.  Furthermore, it has forced me to think more creatively when it comes to designing exercises, which, when applied appropriately, has improved client experience.

If you don't already, I highly recommend substituting at least one of your regular workouts each week for lab time.  Do the things you have your clients do.  Create the awesome experience for yourself that you are trying to create for them.  Don't be the proverbial skinny chef of personal training!

How much time do you spend each week getting better at creating exercise experiences?

Your body.  Your training.

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Back To Par

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When I was first introduced to Muscle Activation Techniques™, one thing that stood out to me in my mind was the intent of the modality.  I saw it as a tool to, in a sense, get the client's body back to par or back to the way it could work under circumstances that are free from pathologies or structural deformities and are within the person's threshold to tolerate stress.  In reality, MAT is more trying to give the brain more options regarding what it has available to work with to produce specific motions and/or maintain specific positions, which I suppose may be seen as getting the body back to par.

Coming from a sports performance background, this was a drastically different idea than what had always been proposed to me. Previously, par had not been good enough. You had to train to be better than that. Suddenly, it seemed like par was what almost every person was failing to get to.  While the ability of contractile tissues to generate tension may have improved through the sports performance type of training, I'm not sure how much it was doing in terms of improving the ability of tissues* that were in a deficit regarding their ability to send enough afferent signal so as to have the opportunity to generate tension when needed.  Rather, this training may have just been improving the tension generation capability of the contractile tissues that were already working well, so any deficit of other tissues that was present to begin with may have remained.Perhaps a better way of improving the way the body functions and subsequently the way it performs may be to, at some point in the progression, just try to get the body closer to par, meaning having more of its options available for motion production and position control at a given point in time, and then improving upon what all of those options can do instead of taking a more limited number of options that are already working well and trying to build something bigger and better off of those.

If you had a building and wanted to make it bigger, would you just add more new structure to the top of it without going back and reinforcing all of the weak points in the current structure?

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!

*muscle fibers and their associated muscle spindles

Under The Bar

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Participation in sports can teach us some of life's greatest lessons.  In Dave Tate's Under The Bar, Tate discusses twelve lessons he has learned from years of participating in powerlifting and how those lessons apply outside of the weight room and have helped him succeed in business and in life.

Tate breaks things down simply, identifying a lesson, relating it to the gym, and then reinforcing it with stories from both inside and outside the weight room.  While his references and metaphors are often, as expected, geared towards the powerlifting/serious strength training demographic, his experiences, takeaways, and viewpoints can be related to by most people.

The powerlifting theme is certainly draped over the entire book, but even if you aren't in to powerlifting or don't know anything about it, there is a lot of valuable wisdom to be found within these pages as Tate discusses his life events.  If you are able to read through the context and to theme of what he is saying, this book quickly becomes applicable to many people in many different walks of life.

One of my favorite parts of this book is the quotes at the beginning of every chapter.  I'm a quote guy in as much as they sometimes help to take thoughts or feelings I have and put them into words instead of keeping them more abstract in my mind.  So reading through the chapters, it was always a pleasure getting to the pages of quotes and finding ones that resonated well with me and that I could connect to.

If you have ever attempted to perform something at a high level, particularly sports,  I would highly recommend this book.  If not, it is still worth reading, but some of the concepts may seem foreign to you if you haven't had an experience of sacrificing a lot of areas of your life in order to put forth everything you have towards achieving something great.

What is one life lesson you have learned from participating in sports and how has that impacted the rest of your life?

Your body.  Your training.

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

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Apples to Apples

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This past weekend I had the opportunity to retake a Muscle Activation Techniques™ Jumpstart class.  The last time I had taken one was in March 2011, a few months before I began the internship.  While some may see the Jumpstart courses as inferior to the internship for whatever reason (I say this because in my experience I have often seen specialists predominantly use the digital force application technique that is taught and developed in the internship over the positional isoangular contractions that are taught in the Jumpstarts when working on clients), I would suggest that there is enormous value for specialists to sitting through the Jumpstart courses.

The biggest thing for me that I was reminded of over the weekend was the importance of comparing apples to apples, meaning making sure the starting positions you are having the client set up in when assessing mobility are the same when comparing the right side to the left side.  If the client's hips are shifted slightly differently from one side to the other, the spinal position is different (ex: greater lordosis when assessing one side than the other), you allow the client to put their arms behind their head or change scapular position between assessing sides, or any of the numerous other reasons out there, you could be gathering tainted information, which may throw off which range you decide to test first.  Subsequently, you can see how this could take you down a road that you may not actually want to go down at that time.

This realization was great for me because with as much time as I have spent trying to improve the accuracy and quality of my digital force application, I had actually started to speed up my comparative assessments of mobility simply because I felt that I was able to see any possible asymmetries easier.  But I was not consistently disciplined in ensuring that the client was set up exactly the same in the first place, so the mobility assessments may not be giving me the information I thought they were.

If you haven't been to a Jumpstart course for a while or ever, I would highly suggest attending one.  It will only serve to enhance the skill that you have spent months/years developing and learning and may help improve the results your clients are getting from their sessions by having a more well-defined path to travel down regarding force application.

Click here for registration for the Jumpstart courses.

Are you making sure that you are comparing apples to apples when assessing mobility?

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!

The Traveler's Gift

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Andy Andrew's The Traveler's Gift is a story of decisions that can be taken from the book's pages and immediately implemented into your daily routine.

David Ponder has just lost control of his life. Financial troubles have grown into greater life and family problems. He has lost his job, his debt is piling up, and his family seems to be falling apart due to all the stress and uncertainty. It seems like one thing after another is going wrong and he has nowhere left to turn. Completely torn and desperate, he cruises down the highway at dangerous speeds seriously contemplating suicide when he loses control of his vehicle. As his car crashes, David is knocked unconscious, transporting him on a life-changing journey.

7 Places, 7 People, and 7 Decisions for Success 

David’s journey consists of seven stops, all in different places and during different periods of time. At each stop, David meets a new historical figure and learns a valuable life-changing lesson:

1.    The Buck Stops Here- Take responsibility for your actions and the situation you are currently in. All of the decisions you have made in your past have led you to exactly where you are right now. Blaming someone or something else is giving up control of your life.

2.    I Will Seek Wisdom- At any moment you are becoming more similar to the people you most closely associate with. Surround yourself with people you want to be like; habits, behaviors, and thoughts are all affected by those you spend time with.

3.    I am a Person of Action- Make a decision and act on it. Avoid suffering from paralysis by analysis. Imperfect action is far better than perfect inaction.

4. I have a Decided Heart- Follow your passion regardless of what those around you say or think. Decide you will do something and do it.

5.   Today I will Choose to be Happy- Happiness is a choice. Positivity and negativity are choices. Optimism and pessimism are choices. “When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.” –Max Planck. Choose the lens you want to see the world through.

6. I will Greet this Day with a Forgiving Spirit- Use the simple act of forgiveness to release unnecessary stress and resentment from your life. The past cannot be changed so be prepared to forgive and forget, and then move on.

7. I will Persist without Exception- Do not allow obstacles to slow you down. Anything worthwhile takes effort and struggle to accomplish. Your greatest power is the power of choice. You can always choose to keep going, to keep pushing when times get tough, and when things are truly not worth it, you can choose to stop and start something new.

David is given each full-length lesson in writing and is instructed to read them everyday for 21 straight days. These, according to Andrews, are the Seven Decisions for Success. Every day that you decide to read and live the seven lessons you take another step closer to being successful.

What decisions are you making today to become successful?

Enjoy this review?  Get a copy of The Traveler's Gift 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!

The Charisma Myth

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How could Marilyn Monroe go from being undetectable on a crowded subway train to being swarmed by screaming fans in a matter of moments?  How can one person convince masses of strangers to buy into what they say while someone else with the same or greater levels of understanding of the subject and skill not even be able to persuade those who should be most supportive of them?  How can one business executive always land big deals while another offering the same product or service struggles to stay out of the red?  Charisma.

Olivia Fox Cabane's The Charisma Myth argues that this often overlooked topic is not something that is reserved for a select few, but rather can be taught and trained.  She discusses this in great detail, covering the different types of charisma, which to use based on your personality, and which type goes best with your desired outcome.  She provides exercises to improve charisma that challenge how you view certain scenarios, how you think about yourself and the world around you, and the actions you take on a daily basis.

What I liked most about this book is that it made me look at a subject that has a huge influence in so much of what I do but that I really hadn't spent any time studying or reading about.  I always figured charisma was something you were either born with or not.  After reading this book, it is apparent that charisma, just like almost everything else, is a skill that can be improved with effective practice and proper training.

Cabane breaks charisma down into four types:  Focus Charisma, Visionary Charisma, Kindness Charisma, and Authority Charisma.  She discusses the body language, verbiage, tone of voice, actions, and mindset that goes along with each, as well as when to apply each type of charisma.  She also discusses the three behaviors that tend to go with any type of charisma:  presence, power, and warmth.

Each chapter ends with Key Takeaways that help sum up everything that was discussed in the chapter.  Because a lot of the information seems more natural or common-sense than in other behavioral improvement books, I found these takeaways to be more useful to ensure that I didn't miss anything that I may have only glanced over.

I recommend this book to anybody who wants to be heard and taken more seriously, who feels like they have something to say but nobody takes the time to listen, who wants to improve the feedback they get from others, or who wants increase the impact they have in their industry, whether by volume or density.

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

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Training for Centrification?

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One thing that I have been seeing on other blogs and websites and hearing from various people is that there are certain exercises or parts of their programs that train specifically for the centrification of joints.  To me, this statement falls somewhere between puzzling and just downright misleading, but let's explore it a little.

First, what is centrification?  Paraphrasing the RTS manual, centrification is the "recruitment of all of your muscles around a specific joint in such a way that the axis remains relatively fixed in the same position as the you move throughout a given range of motion" (RTS Science 1).  For example, when looking at the motion of humeral abduction, there appears to be an axis running anterior to posterior through the gleno-humeral joint as you move throughout the range.  There are other axes of motion to consider due to the scapulo-humeral rhythm that ideally occurs throughout humeral abduction, but for the sake of simplicity, I will just look at the gleno-humeral joint in this example.

So during the motion of humeral abduction, you have the six divisions of the deltoids, supraspinatus, and the superior fibers of the infraspinatus all concentrically contracting at some point in the range to help abduct the humerus.  Additionally, there are some muscles that are directly opposing this motion that your brain will have generate tension in varying amounts depending on the position of the humerus.  From the brain's perspective, the goal of this "some muscles generating tension some muscles generating not as much tension" scenario is to hold the joint together as efficiently as possible while still allowing for that motion to occur.  This, in turn, may lead to this relatively fixed axis.  Once again, I'm not taking into consideration everything that has to go with the scapula and the muscles that control its position in this example to keep it a little simpler.

I say relatively fixed axis because depending on the shapes of the contact surfaces of the bones and how they articulate with each other in addition to the tension-generating capabilities of the muscles at any given point in the range, the actual position of the axis may have to shift in order to allow for the most efficient movement to occur that is least detrimental to the joint.  A great example of this can be found in the knee.

So, what centrification seems to boil down to is the ability of the brain to command some muscles to pull harder and some muscles to pull not as hard in order to allow efficient motion to occur while minimizing the degradation of the joint.

I could go into the topics of force couples and co-contraction here, as well as bring up multiple other points about centrification, but I want to get back to the question at hand of whether centrification can actually be trained for in these exercise programs, as is being claimed.

In part, the centrification of a joint is dependent on the ability of the muscles controlling that joint to generate tension, but what is also important is the recruitment of certain muscles to generate tension at specific points throughout the motion in addition to how much tension they are required to generate.  Too much of one, not enough of another, or lag time between when that tension is needed and when it is generated can all lead to unfavorable joint mechanics and degradation of that joint.

While most exercises can certainly provide a stimulus that results in greater tension generation, the orchestration* of "some muscles generate this much tension right now, some muscles generate that much tension right now" seems to fall outside of the ability of most traditional forms of exercise.  In fact, the only form of exercise that I have experienced that appears to provide an opportunity for improved orchestration* is MAT.

It is certainly feasible that most exercise and programs that claim to improve centrification are able to build a bigger engine, but the question that remains is are they improving the ability of the driver to control the vehicle--steering**, accelerating, and braking appropriately.
Your body.  Your training.

*"orchestration" is an RTS term presented throughout the different course manuals as well as during the course lectures.
**"steering" is a term presented in the RTS Science 1 manual when describing the muscles' role in centrification.
The ideas found in this post were first presented to me during the RTS courses.

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Five Reasons Athletes Should Consider MAT

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If you are a seemingly healthy, well-functioning athlete, how can MAT be of benefit to you?

1) More tension-generation capabilities = improved ability to move = improved sports performanceMAT improves your muscles' ability to contract and generate tension.  More tension generation means more potential force that can be put into the ground, ball, water, etc.  This potentially allows for faster, more efficient movement and greater sports performance.

2) More muscles available for work = greater ability to work through fatigueIf you only have 75% of your muscles coming to work to their fullest capacity on game day, that may mean three muscles are trying to do the job of four.  While they may be able to handle this in the short term, if one of those guys gives out due to fatigue or stress, now you only have 2 trying to do the job of 4.  That's significantly harder.  Instead, if you have all four coming to work to their fullest capacity from the get go, you might not have any give out because they are able to distribute the work evenly over the course of the game.  When the game is on the line, would you rather have all of your guys working for you or only half?

3) More evenly-distributed workload = greater ability to recover from training and competitionIf everybody worked for you during yesterday's game, they will be a lot less exhausted the next day than if you would have only had half.  This means you can potentially recover faster from your training and competition, which means you can potentially get back to performing at a higher level sooner.

4) Inter-competition tune-upsWhat was the toll last night's game took on your body?  MAT's assessment process can figure out what positions you are having difficulty moving into, out of, and maintaining and potentially what muscles may have been inhibited during the previous competition.  More importantly, this information can be used to dictate your training and treatment process to give you the best chance to be firing on all cylinders by your next competition.

5) Injury preventionYou train hard, and you compete harder.  All of those hours can take a toll on your body, more so than you'd expect.  Even if you feel good, you could be one stressor  away from the proverbial straw that broke the camel's back.  Why risk watching all of your hard work and hours go down the drain with one injury when you could give yourself a little insurance?  Once again, more muscles contracting and doing their job at a higher level means a greater potential ability to control your joints and withstand potentially negative forces.  All good things.

As an athlete, do you want to improve your performance?  Perform at a high level when fatigued?  Improve your recovery time?  Feel good between competitions?  Prevent injury?

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!

Crush It!

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"There is no reason...to do sh*t you hate.  None.  Promise me you won't, because you can lose just as much money being happy as hell." -- Gary Vaynerchuk

Advertising and marketing that once cost corporations thousands and thousands of dollars is now free and at your disposal.  If you are willing to put in the hours, hustle, and be patient, you can kill it doing whatever you want.  This is the premise behind Gary Vaynerchuk's book "Crush It!: Why now is the time to cash in on your passion." 

Gary explains how he turned his parents' wine shop from a few million dollars per year business to a $50 million per year company over a seven-year period.  He talks about the steps he took to monetize his passion by constantly interacting with people and making each and every one of those interactions meaningful.  He discusses how he built up Wine Library TV every single day, but most importantly he provides take-home messages that are actually applicable.

A good part of the book is dedicated to making sure the reader understands that through Facebook, Twitter, and other social media website, all of the marketing and advertising you ever needed to make a massive impact in your business are all in place for you.  He goes through guidelines of how to effectively use these platforms to effectively advertise your brand to interested audiences and discusses some (at the time) up and coming social media sites.

All of this information is incredibly useful, especially if you are unfamiliar with these platforms, but to me the most valuable part of the book is when Gary discusses the two P's:  Passion and Patience.

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Passion:  What makes you feel alive?  What makes you so freaking happy and stimulated that you could do what you do for hours upon hours, working on little sleep and even less stress because all is well when you are doing your thing?

An excerpt from this book that I love exemplifies this point really well:

"Anything insane has a price.  If you're serious about building your personal brand, there will be no time for Wii.  There will be no time for Scrabble or book club or poker or hockey.  There will be time for meals, and catching up with your significant other, and playing with the kids, and otherwise you will be in front of your computer until 3:00 AM every night.  If you're unemployed or retired and have all day to work, maybe you knock off at midnight instead.  Expect this to be all consuming.

The thing is, if you're living your passion, you're going to want to be consumed by your work.  There's no room for relaxation in the flop-on-the-couch-with-popcorn-and-watch-TV kind of way, but you won't need it.  You're not going to be stressed or tired.   You're going to be relaxed an invigorated.  The passion and love for what  you do will enable you to work the hours necessary to succeed.  You'll lose track of the time, go to bed reluctantly, and wake up in the morning excited to do it all over again.  You'll be living and breathing your content, learning everything you can about your subject, about your tools, about your competition, and talking nonstop with other people interested in the same thing you are."  -- Gary Vaynerchuk, "Crush It!"

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Patience:  This is where the hustle and the grind come in, putting in hours day after day after day and going months and months without monetizing or getting paid for the content you are producing.  His message with this is keep at it.  If you are being true to yourself in your actions, authentic in your words and content, and the content you put out of higher quality than everything else out there, it is only just a matter of time before people catch on and you are able to make a killing doing what you love to do.  But it's not a matter of just building it and the right people happening to come across it.  You have to connect with as many people as you possibly can, get as much exposure as you possibly can via Twitter, Facebook, etc, and you have to be willing to put time into making that happen ever single day.

The following video is unrelated to the book in the sense that the talk was not intended to be about the book, but Gary brings up some ideas that are presented in the book.  The other great thing about this video is you can see and hear his passion.  And in the book, you can feel it radiating off the pages.

**Warning:  Strong Language**

Crush It! is a short, easy read that I highly recommend to anybody who is needing a different direction in their life, who is looking for some help in the social media game, and anybody who just loves being around passion, like I do.

What makes you feel alive?  Are you getting paid to do that?  Do you want to?

Your body.  Your training.

Enjoy this review?  Get a copy of Crush It! 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!