Muscle Tutoring

Image courtesy of hkn.ucsd.edu

When you exercise, you are going to be using the muscles that are already working well.  This is done in order to provide the most efficient means by which to accomplish the task at hand.  Whether you are lifting weights, running, playing a sport, participating in a group fitness class, or performing any other means of physical activity, you are programmed to do so as efficiently as possible.  This means if muscles that should have an ability to help perform the task are not able to be used, we will naturally compensate and use other muscles in its place to still achieved the desired outcome.


While these compensatory patterns are vital in allowing us to continue on through our daily lives despite certain muscles not working at 100% efficiency, continuing to perform physical activities that would ideally require the use of these inefficient muscles may not be helping to bring them back up to speed.

In fact, all these physical activities may be doing is further strengthening these compensatory patterns while muscles our bodies would like to use begin to fall further behind.

Think of it like this:  If you were a teacher and you wanted to raise the average test scores of your class, you could do a few different things.  First, you could continue to teach and assign work as you have been and the students who are doing well will continue to do well while those who are struggling will continue to struggle.  In this case the test scores would probably remain the same.

Second, you could pile on more work and give more instruction to the students who are excelling in hopes of bringing their scores up to as close to perfect as possible.  If their scores raised, this may raise the average scores of class, but the added attention towards them means you have not been able to give the same attention to the students who are struggling, in which case these students' scores may drop.

Third, you spend part of your time providing additional attention and tutoring to the students who need it most.  This would raise their scores while still providing enough stimulus and challenge to the students who excel for them to at least maintain their scores.  Overall, it would be a net increase in the average test scores for the class as well as get more students up to speed with what is going on.

Muscle Activation Techniques™ is a means be which to get the muscles that are lagging behind back up to speed.  It is like an individual tutoring session for specific muscles and is an adjunct to your regular workouts.

Not only will improving the efficiency of these struggling muscles help you to exercise and move more efficiently, it will also allow you to get more out of your exercise, as well.  Just like the chain with weak link, improving specific areas that are not up to par will allow the entire system as a whole to work more efficiently and achieve higher outcomes.

Which of your muscles need an individual tutoring session?

Interested in finding out more about MAT™?  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.

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