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.

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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.

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MAT is a Process

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One of the biggest challenges I have faced so far as a Muscle Activation Techniques™ Specialist is getting the clients I work with to buy into the fact that MAT is a process.  I am certainly to blame for most of this difficulty as I think early on I may have been promoting it as something else.  So let me take this opportunity to say that MAT is not a quick fix, one and done type of modality.  It is not a form of treatment or therapy or healing intervention.  It is a form of exercise; an applied stimulus--force into tissue--attempting to create a response and adaptation--improved contractile efficiency and increased set point.*

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Just like any other form of exercise, the adaptations that are created will not be maintained if an appropriate stimulus is not provided at appropriate time intervals.  Let's say you build your squat up so you can lift 4oo pounds.  After you hit that weight once, you get to keep those strength levels forever without lifting again, right?  Not likely.

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Or let's say you are a runner and you run a sub five minute mile.  After you do that once you don't ever have to exercise again and can continue to maintain that level of conditioning, right?  Improbable.

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Or what about in terms of weight loss?  After you work really hard to drop twenty pounds you don't ever have to exercise again in order to keep that weight off, correct?  Eh, not exactly.

The same holds true for MAT.  You expose yourself to a stimulus, which may create a response.  If you expose yourself to that stimulus frequently enough, an adaptation may occur.  If that initial response does not hold or last forever, does it mean MAT didn't work?  Well, if you lose the weight you want to but don't continue with the process and put the weight back on, does it mean exercise didn't work? (Idea courtesy of Matthew Bernier)

There may be some relief of discomfort that comes from participating in a Muscle Activation Techniques™ session.  If so, awesome, but that doesn't mean anything has been "fixed".  Fixing implies a level of permanency, which is not exactly the case when dealing with a tissue or material that is able to adapt.  Additionally, as explained by Jacques Taylor, there may be some adaptations that have occurred to the tissue in question over the period of time when it was not contracting as efficiently.  Despite any relief of discomfort or change in sensation, there is still a process that may have to occur of providing a greater and greater stimulus in order to condition the tissue to contract efficiently after being exposed to higher intensities and/or greater volumes of force.

If this process is not allowed to occur, potentially because somebody experiences initial relief of discomfort from MAT and then does not return to it, there may be a greater likelihood that the initial discomfort is experienced at a later point in time.  Just like the examples of more traditional forms of exercise given above, this does not mean that the stimulus was not effective at creating a response, but rather that continued exposure to that stimulus (or other stimuli) may be necessary in order to create an adaptation that lasts a bit longer.

MAT is a form of exercise that does not look like traditional exercise.  If you stopped exercising forever, would you be upset that exercise didn't work because all of the positive adaptations that were created started to diminish?

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!

*I'll expand on these ideas in future posts.

What I'm Thankful For Today

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People I love

• Family and friends
• Both near and far
• Being able to spend time with them and communicate with them when I can't see them
• Their health, happiness, and well-being

People who love me

• People who don't care what I do but love me for me
• People who support me in any way shape or form
• People who allow me to live my passion
• Their health, happiness, and well-being

Doing what I love every single day

• The freedom to do so
• The desire to continually progress and improve
• The environments and situations that afford me the opportunity to learn and grow
• The happiness and fulfillment that comes from working with others and positively impacting their lives
• The health and discipline to continue to push further

What are you thankful for today?

Happy Thanksgiving everybody!!  Thank you for reading! :-)

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 Power Of 4

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Paula Owen's book The Power of 4 is a comprehensive overview of steps that may be taken to improve your well-being.

The b0ok, while only six chapters long and a mere 256 pages, is jam-packed with information to try to get you on the right path to accomplishing many wellness related goals.  It's an easy read in as much as it isn't terribly difficult to comprehend.  It is nicely laid out and the subsections within each chapter make stopping after a few pages easy to do if you only have a few minutes at a time to read.

Now, when I say it is jam-packed with information, I mean there are pages upon pages that are written with each sentence being a new statement of wellness information.  To be honest, if you sat down and actually read the book word for word, it could very easily be overwhelming because there isn't much discussion that takes place for each point.  It is more like a handful of important topics and then as much information as possible about each topic packed into a reasonable area.

Pros and cons to this:

Pro:  If you are looking for a reference with many possible answers that isn't a bulky encyclopedia or text book, this would be a reasonable place to start.

Con:  If you are looking for the "why" or "how" of almost anything that is presented in this text, you aren't going to find it.

**Disclaimer** I read the first edition of this book.  Since it's publication, a second edition has been released.  It is very possible that any issues I see in the first edition could be eradicated in the second and I would be none the wiser while writing this review.

Here are my two main issues with this text:  While I feel a lot of the information presented is high-quality and I believe to be true, almost everything in the book is written as an absolute, meaning there isn't room for the interpretation that maybe the information presented just isn't quite right for your body and your situation.  When dealing with the human body, it is very very very difficult for me to speak or write in absolutes.  It is just too highly individual of a subject for statements written or spoken as absolutes to actually be accurate 100% of the time.

Second, while I do believe the information to be quality, I cannot say for certain whether that is true.  There is a long list of references at the end of the text, which is great, but it does not allow me to know which reference belongs to which statement.  And because the book the comprised of statement after statement of alleged facts with little to no discourse after each, it is difficult to dig deeper than what is immediately on the page at that moment in time.

Here is my suggestion for reading this book: skim it.  Find areas that seem pertinent to your inquiries and use the statements presented as a starting point for digging further into the information.  I think there really is a lot of good information presented, but the book is essentially a composition of sound bites, so it is very difficult to get much more from it than sound bites.

One final thought:  If you want to read the section on exercise, go ahead, but lead with caution.  There is some good stuff, but then there are some statements that make me question how much Ms. Owens has explored the subject herself as opposed to simply repeating what others have told her, in particular when it comes to the use of machines while strength training.

Once again, I read the first edition of this book.  The second one may be completely revised so as to eliminate all of the concerns I brought up in the post, making this edition more or less of a rough draft to the current one.  So do not judge off of someone's rough draft, but rather go in with the understanding that that is what this edition may very well be.

I recommend this book to someone who is looking for a solid start of possible topics to research further concerning their health and overall wellness.

Your body.  Your training.

Enjoy this review? Get a copy of The Power Of 4 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!

Training With Others

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Last Friday during study group at Precision Human Performance we had the opportunity to work out with each other.  Now, personally, I almost always train by myself.  In fact, I can distinctly remember three times over the past 13 months that I trained with another person.  Otherwise it was just me doing my thing.

Now, what made Friday particularly interesting was not that we had training partners but that those partners were also trainers.  We used it as an opportunity to practice cuing and creating different experiences for each other than we would normally create for ourselves.

I tell you what, having someone there who was focused on cuing me made SUCH a huge a difference in what I was experiencing during the exercise.  Similar to when I was at RTS class, it gave me a better understanding of the importance of cuing and the impact it can have on both what the client is feeling as well as the adaptations that are trying to be created with each exercise.

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One thing that was different about this past Friday than RTS class is that cues that I often use with my clients were used on me.  A couple cues in particular really stood out to me.  The first was being verbally guided along the arc that I was wanted to move while doing biceps curls.  I have used this cue with my clients in the past, but to be honest I didn't think too highly of it.  It just seemed like a so-so cue to me.  But I hadn't experienced it before.  After Friday, I realized that for me, it was a much more effective cue than I had imagined in terms of creating a different sensation than I had ever felt while doing biceps curls.

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Another cue I had been using often without first experiencing is providing a little manual guidance for how I wanted my client to move, such as having him push his elbows into my hands while performing a row, for example.  When this cue was given to me, it wasn't a huge restraint to my motion by any means, but it sure felt that way.  So much so that I didn't have to really think about which way to move myself any more and could almost completely focus on generating huge amounts of tension.  In a sense, it felt a little bit like I was rowing on a machine in that my path of motion felt much more fixed than it did without that little cue.  And that was with using two relatively light bands that were well within my ability to row with so it wasn't like a virtual restraint was the main contributing factor to that sensation difference.

One of my main takeaways from this study group was the benefit that can be provided by training with other trainers from time to time.  I know it is really comfortable and really easy to keep to your own schedule and do your own thing each day, but I realized that sometimes lab time should be done with other exercise professionals so you can better-understand what you are subjecting your clients to in terms of the exercise experiences you are trying to create for them.

Do you ever workout with others or always by yourself?  If you do workout with others, are they there purely for motivation and accountability purposes or are they actually allowing you to practice and get better at your craft through providing experiences that you are trying to create for your clients?

Your body.  Your training.

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MAT and Diabetes

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I do not have any scientific backing for what I am about to say, but rather this claim is made purely off of first-hand experience and observation.

As a Type 1 diabetic, managing my blood glucose levels is something that is never far from my conscious stream of thought.  Since I began participating in Muscle Activation Technique™ sessions on a regularly (weekly) basis, this task has been much easier to perform.  My blood glucose levels are noticeably lower and more stable when I make it a point to participate in an MAT session at least once per week.  Previously, if I would go more than a week without participating in an MAT session, my blood glucose levels would begin to fluctuate more throughout the day.  After having MAT sessions regularly for the past 8 and a half months, I can now go longer without a session and still my blood glucose levels remain easier to manage.  Admittedly, I rarely go a week now without MAT so I cannot speak to the exact threshold level, but certainly after a week I'm still good to go.

Also, when I would participate less frequently in MAT sessions, I would still notice a lowering of my blood glucose levels, it just wouldn't remain for the entire time between sessions.  Just like most other forms of exercise, most benefits or adaptations that may occur as a response to the imposed stimulus may diminish over time if you are not exposed to a relatively similarly challenging stimulus on a somewhat regular basis.

Like I stated above, I cannot explain why this lowering and easier management of my blood glucose happens.  It is just something I have observed and experienced.  However, from what has been reported to me by other specialists, other diabetics, both Type 1 and Type 2, have experienced similar improvement in control and overall lower blood glucose readings after they have an MAT session.

Speculation/Thoughts from this:

1)  Lower blood glucose levels for me means I have been using about 14% less insulin since I began being regularly worked on.  Which means less man-made chemical I am putting into my body.

2)  If blood glucose levels become easier to manage for myself and (apparently) other diabetics after regularly experiencing MAT, I can't help but wonder if the same holds true for non-diabetics, where their blood glucose levels become more stable as well.

3)  If MAT actually does help to create more stable blood glucose levels as a by-product of making muscles contract better, I wonder if the more stable blood glucose levels will also contribute to the effectiveness of each MAT session.  Meaning by presenting a potentially less-stressed system, will that actually improve the ability of the MAT session to get muscles to contract better as well as for those muscles to stay contracting better for longer periods of time post-session.

I am by no means making an argument that MAT improves diabetes.  I want to make that clear.  MAT provides an opportunity for muscles to contract more efficiently.  That's it.  There may be very beneficial by-products of muscles contracting more efficiently, but that is not the focus of MAT.  Nevertheless, I find it very interesting that I have noticed this pattern of more consistently stable and lower blood glucose levels within myself after regularly experiencing MAT.

Are you participating in Muscle Activation Techniques™ sessions on a regular basis?  How might it be of benefit to you?

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!

Exercise and Your Bank Account

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Here's an idea that was brought up by Matthew Bernier this past weekend during the Muscle Activation Techniques™ lower body mastery level course:

Let's play a game. Stop looking at your bank account. Forever. You don't have to alter your spending patterns, but you cannot look to see how much you have left in terms of available funds ever again. You don't know exactly how much money is being deposited into your account with every pay check. Additionally, you don't know exactly how much you are spending, either. You cannot look at bills, receipts, or price tags. You just have to make purchases blindly.

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A lot of what you purchase will probably be what you see other people purchasing, but you won't know how much money they make or how much it is costing them. You may even make some purchases because your favorite magazine calls this product a "hot new buy" or a "must have if you want to be happy".

Eventually, if your funds get too low or you run out of money altogether, you'll probably be contacted by the people to whom you owe money. But you won't know how much you owe them or when you'll actually be able to pay them back, so they may be on your case for a few days or for years.

Sounds kind of silly, right? In fact, the thought of someone actually handling their money this way sounds downright ludicrous. And yet, this is the exact mindset people often apply to their exercise.

How much does your body have available each day when you exercise? How are you measuring that? Are you making too great of withdrawals on a daily basis? How do you know?

Image courtesy of livestrong.com

People may slow down their exercise when they start to hurt, or they may keep pushing. Imagine only slowing down your spending when you bank account started to hurt, or deciding to keep spending even then! Wouldn't you want to know long before then if your funds were starting to get low?

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Muscle Activation Techniques™ is a systematic biomechanical assessment of your neuromuscular system that can potentially detect if your metaphorical funds are getting low, i.e. if the forces and stresses you attempt to handle with your exercise routine and daily life are currently exceeding what your body is able to handle. While some people see an MAT treatment as similar to a tune-up for their car, it could also be seen as a way to look into your body's "bank account" so you can receive a little financial guidance in order to maximize your current investment opportunities.

Do you want to make the most of the current funds you have available, both monetarily and physically? Why would you not check in on both from time to time to ensure that your net worth is growing?

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!