Every day on TV, in magazines, and online we see images of fitness thrown our way. Exercises to strengthen your legs, your back, your arms, your abs, and your butt are constantly being demonstrated. But, one area of your body that is often neglected during your workouts is your feet. Read more…
A couple weeks back I was having a conversation with a client when the topic of sports came up. This client was talking to me about some of the moves her sport was requiring and how she was finding it difficult to do the moves. While we discussed the role that Muscle Activation Techniques® (MAT®) and personal training at Muscle Activation Schaumburg can play in helping her achieve her goals, we also had to discuss some of the realities that her anatomy may be applying to the situation, as well. The great thing about this discussion is that it is applicable to everybody who plays sports, not just her. So, if you participate in sports, take heed. This post is for you.
If you want to improve your health, function, and fitness, creating more margin for your muscular system is a must-do. Last week, I discussed three ways that you can go about doing exactly this. But, there’s another way, as well, and that is to cut out the bad habits that are breaking down your muscular system. Specifically, you need to cut out the bad exercise habits that are detrimental to the health, function, and fitness of your muscular system. Here are the three most common ones I see:
Welcome back to this week’s edition of 2-Minute Tuesdays where we are talking about one exercise topic for two minutes and giving you three reasons why you should follow our advice. Now this week we are talking to those of you who are experiencing some post-workout soreness. How can you still exercise and what things should you keep in mind if you are feeling sore from your last workout?
When you think of creating margin within your life, what areas come to mind? Perhaps you would like to create more of a financial margin for yourself. Or maybe you would like to create a greater margin with your time. You may also want to create more of a margin with your responsibilities, delegating some of those to others so you can create more peace of mind.
When the topic of “how to decrease injury” is discussed, oftentimes ideas such as stretching, joint mobility, and core training come up. While these are all fine and well, an idea this is often not thrown around is that of improving how well your muscles function. However, improving this aspect of your health could be the missing link that you have been looking for to help you prevent injuries.
Before we talk about how improving muscle function could reduce your risk for injury, we have to answer a few other questions. First, we need to identify what muscles actually do. Second, we need to discuss how they do that thing they do. Third, we need to talk about how doing that thing will actually help you reduce your risk for injury. And finally, we need to leave you with some practical application steps of things you can do to start taking action now.
When you think of exercise, what is the first thought that comes to mind? It may be a specific activity, such as running or lifting weights. It may be a physical feeling, like fatigue, soreness, or strength. It may be a goal, such as weight loss or completing a marathon. It may be an emotion, such as excitement, happiness, or possibly dread. But, when you think of exercise, is the first thing you think of “health”? Likely not, and unfortunately this disconnect between exercise being an activity you do for the sake of the activity instead of something you do for your health is contributing to you skipping a vital form of exercise.
At Muscle Activation Schaumburg, we see a wide variety of clients for Muscle Activation Techniques® (MAT®). We see clients who are younger and older, clients who are more physically fit and those who are not, and clients who are highly athletic as well as those whose athleticism may be lacking. But, despite this variety, there is a consistency that we see regarding the differences between our clients who are professional athletes and those who are not.
At Muscle Activation Schaumburg, we generally have three categories of clients that come to see us for Muscle Activation Techniques® (MAT®). The first category we call progressors. These are people who have a health, function, or fitness goal that they are trying to reach and we help progress their body to being able to do so. The second category is called the maintainers. These clients are happy with their current health, function, and fitness and just want to maintain where they are at. They may come in less frequently than the progressor group (every 4-6 weeks) but are very consistent with their muscle system tune-ups.
At Muscle Activation Schaumburg, the clients that come to us for Muscle Activation Techniques® typically fall into one of three categories – maintainers, progressors, and optimizers. There are distinct objectives for each group, and MAT® can help our clients reach those objectives in different ways.
Related: Are you a good candidate for MAT®?
