Sitting At The Table

Image courtesy of dangerouslyhardcore.com

Often times as a Muscle Activation Techniques™ specialist when it comes to trying develop a deeper understanding of how and why MAT™ works like it does I am often confronted by others with the question or belief of, "Why do I need to know that?" or, "How is knowing that going to help improve me as a specialist, serve my clients better, or make more money?".

After attending the Upper Body Masters weekend this past weekend I believe I have finally developed a reasoning I feel confident in as to why it is important to have an expert level of understanding of more than just how I as a professional do things (the tools that I use, ie CAM, AMCS MMT, PIC, DFAMAT) but why what I do has the effect that it does.

I think a lot of MAT™ specialists have been in the situation at some point where they will have a client invalidate or overrule what the MAT™ specialist thinks or is trying to do because it seems contradictory to what their doctor or chiropractor or physical therapist or even acupuncturist have told them.  Essentially what the client is saying is because we as both professionals and as a community have not earned the professional respect and confidence of these other professionals, our judgement, and subsequently our modality, are seen as inferior to theirs.

Image courtesy of austintotalhealthcare.com

So how do we earn the right to sit at the same professional table as doctors, chiropractors, and physical therapists if that is something that we as individuals and as a community want in some regard?*

Even though we are aligning ourselves with the exercise industry, if we want to develop the reputation as experts in muscle, we must hold ourselves to higher educational standards than what is presently accepted by the fitness industry.  In fact, it is my belief that we must hold ourselves to the same standards of understanding of our modality and what it could affect as those who have met the rigorous requirements of the various health and medical fields.

This means that in addition to having an expert level of understanding of the tools we use (CAM, AMCS MMT, PIC, and DFAMAT), we must also develop an expert level of understanding of joints, force, physics, mechanics, physiology, biochemistry, neurophysiology, and any other field of study that may possibly help to explain why we make the decisions that we do.  We must go beyond understanding methods to understanding principles and making decisions based off of those instead of defaulting to, "I do this because this is what Greg Roskopf said to do."  I believe this to go for the MATRx process as well.  There has to be some scientific basis and defense for what is happening, one that we as a community must continue to research and develop.

And here's the thing:  I believe that the responsibility of educating ourselves to develop this level of understanding of what we do and why falls on each of us as individuals.  If we want to have our profession and our community as a whole garner the same level of respect when it comes to a client's neuromuscular system as other professions garner for the rest of the human body, we must each accept the responsibility of doing what it takes to get ourselves there.  We cannot simply rely on only the best in our profession to advance our community.

Each of us must accept the responsibility of earning the right to sit at the table.

Be great.

Like this post?  Drop a comment below and “Like” Self Made® on Facebook!

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

*This is only part of the process of earning our seat, but a vital part nonetheless.

Where I've Been

Image courtesy of facebook.com

I have been completely inactive on my blog for the past two and a half weeks.

It's not that I went on vacation or needed a break from posting.  I didn't forget about my blog or not want to do it anymore.  What I needed was to find a better external environment to allow my internal environment to be healthy.

So I moved.  Not off the cuff--this had been in the works for months--but I needed to get out of the city and find the peacefulness of a place to call home.

Now that I am almost all settled in I can say that I feel more relaxed and calm than I have in the past three years.  And because of this I feel better able to post and articulate my ideas and thoughts that I have in equally as long.

What changes might you need to make in your life to better able you to do what you love?

Be great.

Like this post?  Drop a comment below and “Like” Self Made® on Facebook!

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

The Metabolic Typing Diet

Image courtesy of barnesandnoble.com

Self Made® Book Store

One man's food is another man's poison.

Imagine there were three different types of fuel that every car could run on, gasoline, diesel, and vegetable oil. However, rather than just running on a single fuel, a mixture of the three was needed for each car to run at full capacity. Every make and model had its own perfect ratio of gasoline to diesel to vegetable oil. If the ratio was off, the car would lose power and performance, suffer reduced fuel efficiency, and break down more rapidly. On the other hand, when the fuel ratio was perfect to the vehicles requirements, its performance would improve, fuel efficiency would be maximized, and maintenance work like inflating tires and changing oil would feel like a thing of the past. In other words, a station wagon would begin to look, feel, and perform more like a Mercedes-Benz. Wouldn't everyone want to find out their vehicle's perfect fuel ratio and make sure they stuck to that ratio as much as possible?

This month's book review is on William Wolcott's The Metabolic Typing Diet. If you have ever attempted to find, read, and understand diet advice, you have likely found it only leads to one thing, no not results, confusion. Not confusion because the material is too complicated to understand, but rather, confusion due to the fact that so many books, articles, and celebrity trainers either offer contradicting advice, or severely water down a single point or philosophy to the degree that their theory could, and in all likelihood, should, be expressed in a Tweet of less than 140 characters instead of an over-priced 'best seller' with a flashy cover and not one credible reference. However, the concern of this review is not with the abundance of misinformation. It is with the addressing one of the reasons why there are so many conflicting viewpoints regarding nutrition.

Going back to the hypothetical car situation with the different ratios of fuel, you can hopefully connect the metaphor of the vehicle as a human body and the gasoline, diesel, and vegetable oil as protein, fat, and carbohydrates. This means that, yes, every person has their own ideal ratio of protein, fat, and carbohydrates, also known as their metabolic type, and that yes, someone whose bodily systems are functioning like an old station wagon can improve them to that of a MercedesBenz with the right nutrient combinations, and vice-versa with the wrong nutrient combinations. This is due to the nutrients affects on what Wolcott calls 'fundamental homeostatic controls'. In other words, balances that keep the body functioning how it is supposed to function.

Applying this thought process to the mixed success rates on vastly different diets, it becomes clear that when people have success on a diet they are likely eating in accordance with their metabolic type. On the other hand, when people do not have success on a diet, or even take steps backwards, they probably are not getting in the correct fuel mixture their body needs. One person's food can literally be another's poison.

If you have ever been frustrated sorting through the piles of nutritional misinformation, have ever had trouble figuring out what to eat, how much to eat, and when to eat to achieve your goals, or have tried diets in the past but failed for any reason, then Self Made Nutrition is for you. Officially launching later this year, Self Made Nutrition will look to cut through the dietary myths and help people achieve real and sustainable results by figuring out their ideal nutritional requirements, maximizing function of the many systems of the body required for optimal health, and developing the habits to make it a life long change. Keep a lookout on SelfMadeFitness.com for more information and updates as the we get closer to the launch!

Enjoy this review? Get a copy of The Metabolic Typing Diet in the Self Made® Book Store!

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!

"Supertraining" and Machines: Part 3

Image courtesy of heroturko.me

There is a lot that could be said about the remaining six paragraphs of section 4.2.7.2 in Supertraining regarding "Non-Functional Resistance (NFR) Machines", but in an attempt to do more than debate every sentence, I want to pick out one concept that is brought up in these paragraphs.  Also, if you haven't already checked out Part 1 and Part 2, now could be a good time to do so.

What I want to discuss is this idea of "stabilizers".  I had an epiphany about this a few weeks back.  See, I used to be very anti-machine and pro-dumbbell and barbell.  And by "used to" I think I really started switching how I view things around February or March of 2012.  There are a number of ironies with this, not the least of which is that I would gladly use knee flexion machines (leg curls) but would stay away from chest presses, leg presses, and every other kind of machine like the plague.

Image courtesy of juranring.co.uk

Looking back, this selective bias towards knee flexion machines and away from everything else was completely void of reasonable logic, but regardless I thought I was sound in my reasoning.  Although until a few weeks ago, I couldn't recall exactly what that reasoning was.

I had multiple discussions with people where they were telling me the exact same thing that I tell people now and where they would use the exact same logic that I use now, but it wasn't clicking in my head at the time.  In fact, I was very against what they were saying.

Finally, after spending over a year trying to remember why I disliked machines so much, it finally hit me one day:  I was under the belief that if you exercised using machines you wouldn't work your "stabilizers".  In fact, for years before I got my first exposure to studying anatomy via the Muscle Activation Techniques™ internship, I thought there were muscles whose sole purpose was to "stabilize" and they would be neglected if I exercised on machines.

Here's the thing:  labeling a muscle a "stabilizer" or "prime mover" or whatever else you want to call it is essentially denoting a muscle's ability to produce or prevent motion around an axis.  Think of it as a continuum where a "stabilizer" has less of an ability and a "primer mover" has a greater ability, but each has an ability.  It's just that one is less than the other.

Image courtesy of iarfonline.com

And because each has an ability, each should have the mechanical opportunity to prevent or produce motion around the axis in question.  This means that when you sit down in a chest press machine, your shoulder "stabilizers" don't automatically shut off as I once firmly believed would happen.

Image courtesy of au.lifestyle.yahoo.com

So what is a possible difference that you may be feeling when doing, for example, a dumbbell chest press on a flat bench compared to a chest press on a machine?  Because of the restraint imposed by the architecture of the machine the amount of skill needed to successfully perform the desired motion is dropped way, way down to almost, if not right at, zero.

With increased passive restraint and decreased skill requirements comes the ability to challenge tissue to a greater degree.  Greater mechanical challenge to the tissue provides the opportunity to develop stronger muscles, which brings us to the question:

**Are you performing chest presses to improve the skill of pressing or to increase the ability of the muscles performing the presses to produce tension (force)?**

Your body.  Your training.

Like this post?  Drop a comment below and “Like” Self Made® on Facebook!

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

It Really Is This Simple

Image courtesy of dangerouslyhardcore.com

It really is this simple.

1. What is one activity that you like to do?
2. Do you want to be able to do that activity for as long as you live?
3. What are you currently doing to give yourself the best chance possible of being able to do so?

Ask yourself these three questions and then ask me how Muscle Activation Techniques™ fits into the picture.

Interested in finding out more?  Check out the Muscle Activation Techniques™ page!

Interested in setting up an assessment or discussing this subject further?  Leave a comment below or e-mail Charlie at charlie@selfmadefitness.com!

Your body.  Your training.

Like this post?  Drop a comment below and “Like” Self Made® on Facebook!

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