Back To Par

Image courtesy of dailygalaxy.com

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

Five Reasons Athletes Should Consider MAT

Image courtesy of mcall.com

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!

Is The Maximal Effort Method Killing Our Athletes?

Image courtesy of zimbio.com

How strong is strong enough for the competitive skilled athlete?  Check out this article by Anthony Mychal, as posted on Bret Contreras' blog.

Is The Maximal Effort Method Killing Our Athletes? by Anthony Mychal

Your Body.  Your Training.

5/3/1 and Athletes

Image courtesy of http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com

I used to post articles and tell you why I thought they were worth your time to read, but as I am learning more and more, I am finding fewer articles that actually meet this criteria.  Instead, I will start posting articles that may look good to most and point out the flaws I see.

Case #1--5/3/1 and Athletes by Jim Wendler

So at first glance, many people would really like this article.  It is simple in its philosophies and verbiage and gives advice that is based on some of the more popular views in regards to sports performance and power lifting.  However, I see it differently.

First, Mr. Wendler describes the barbell and its available movements as "the best".  As soon as something is dubbed "the best" without applying it to a very specific scenario and individual the person making the claim is completely disregarding any variation of structural or neuromuscular ability between people.  In this article the goal was clearly defined, but if that wasn't the case, this would be another variable as well.  Clearly these variations exist, so to claim an exercise or a series of exercises or a piece of equipment "the best" is utterly ignorant.

"Choosing the correct assistance work is easy."  Yes, if you do not acknowledge that any variables exist which could possibly make it challenging, then it will be easy.  However, if you are actually prescribing exercises for the improvement of the athletes' performance instead of just giving them something to do, then it will involve some thought, and a fair amount at that.  Assistance work should be individualized based on an athlete's current ability.  Anything less is nothing short of malpractice and criminal.

"Remember that athletes have become explosive and strong long before fancy machines and equipment came into vogue.  You don't need much equipment, just the right coach and smart programming."  Two points here.  First is the Process vs. Outcome that I wrote about earlier.  This mindset of, "this is how it was done before for other people so this is how it should be done now for you" is clearly applied in Wendler's statement.  Second, he is completely disregarding any benefit that may be attained from the use of machines, which is just simply wrong.  Not only can machines be beneficial for increasing performance, but, based on some individuals' abilities, they may be downright necessary for increasing performance.  Now, Wendler doesn't flat-out say machines are bad or you shouldn't use them, but he is clearly implying a hierarchy of tools to be used without knowing anything about the specific scenario in which they are to be used, and that is a fatal error.

He continues on in the next two paragraphs to advise people on, of all things, training post-injury.  First he speaks in generalities listing areas of the body of possibly injury.  Then he follows this with specifics regarding what should be done to improve these general conditions, as if everybody's shoulder, back, hamstring, and knee issues are exactly the same.

"Don't coach what you don't know or don't feel comfortable with."  He clearly feels very comfortable with his view points, but it is equally as obvious that there are a TON of variables he is not taking into consideration when applying these concepts.  Actually, that's not a fair statement.  He may be applying these principles, but just didn't take the time to write them.  I mean, let's be serious, someone would have to write pages  upon pages of technicalities to appropriately cover all of the information that Wendler is trying to.  But, at the same time, perhaps this speaks to the importance of narrowing down the focus of what you are trying to write about and not going off on tangents when you have no intention of wrapping up the loose ends.  Still, it is certain he does not understand how to properly manipulate the variables of machines in order to create the exact training scenario you desire for that person at that moment in time.

Finally, his sign-off is killing me.  It is not about simple programming.  It just isn't.  It's about appropriate programming, regardless of how complex that is.

Your Body.  Your Training.

Get big or die tryin'.

Charlie Cates, MATs, CSCS
Self Made_®, Owner and Founder

Charlie Cates is a Muscle Activation Techniques _® specialist and a strength and conditioning specialist.  He is the owner and founder of Self Made_® (http://selfmadefitness.com/) in Chicago, IL.  He has worked with competitive and everyday athletes of all ages and ability levels, from 9-year-old kids to NFL MVP’s.  He can be reached via e-mail at charlie@selfmadefitness.com.
This article may be reproduced with biographical information intact.

A Bodybuilding Program for Athletes

Is bigger, better? Let me give you a hint...

A Bodybuilding Program for Athletes by Erick Minor

Get big or die tryin'.

Eccentric Training for Athletes

Need to mix up your current routine or break through a plateau? Check out this article by John Gaglione for more info.

Eccentric Training for Athletes by John Gaglione

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Isometric Training for Athletes

Check out this article for a quick and simple guide on how to use isometric training with your athletes!

Isometric Training for Athletes by John Gaglione

Get big or die tryin'.

This Past Week (5/23-5/29)

This past week was a short week for me. It was my deload week for my lifts, which was very much needed since both of my shoulders and my right hip were aggravated. It was also a short week because of the fact that Wednesday afternoon I left for Cleveland to watch my girlfriend run at the D3 Track Nationals. Because of this, I lifted Sunday through Wednesday. I also did plyos on Monday and Wednesday and I did hill sprints on Tuesday afternoon.

I recorded a couple videos as well. On Monday morning after my lift I shot a video for the Total Random X Challenge by Underground Wellness. The contest was to see who could use their TRX suspension trainer in the most random place. I shot my video in the library and was declared the winner for that week. Then, later that afternoon, I shot a video on how to get "squash quick".

I also issued a challenge via the Self Made Facebook Page, which stated "Find a hill that takes you roughly 6 seconds to sprint up when you're fresh. Sprint up and walk down as many times as you can in 20 minutes. Get at least 30 sprints in." This was my hill sprint workout on Tuesday. I got 32 sprints in.

Thursday, Friday, and Saturday were days that I took completely off to let my body heal and to enjoy my time at track nationals.

That's all for this past week. Now it's time to go live this one.

Get big or die tryin'.