MAT is a Process

Image courtesy of morethanmuscles.com

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.*

Image courtesy of joeybergles.wordpress.com

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.

Image courtesy of nlm.nih.gov

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.

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