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3 Ways MAT® Helps Maintain Your Health and Function

When clients come to us for Muscle Activation Techniques®, they typically fall into one of three categories.  The first group is what we call the Progressors, which is made up of clients who have a health, function, or fitness goal that we get to help progress them towards. Another group is call the Optimizers.  These are clients whose body is already working pretty well but they are wanting to optimize their health and function for that last little edge.  The third group is called the Maintainers.  This group is made up of clients who are able to do the things they want to do and they want to make sure they are able to continue to do those activities for the foreseeable future.

Which group would you fall into?  You can take this short quiz here to find out.

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By Charlie Cates, ago

Shoveling snow? Make sure to stay safe with these exercise tips!

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 putting out some content for those of you who have been assigned the chore of shoveling snow.  Winter is on its way.  You may have already had a blizzard or two.  But, if not, we have got to get you ready so you can shovel the snow with zero injury and maximum efficiency.

 

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By Team MAS, ago

The Best Version Of You

It is common knowledge that exercising on a regular basis allows your body feel and function its best, but yet many people fail to incorporate exercise into their daily schedule.  Work, kids, social lives, managing a household, various interests and ambitions, and finding some time to relax all tend to take priority over physically challenging our bodies to improve our health and wellbeing.  However, this is not the case for everybody.

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By Charlie Cates, ago

Hip Ab/Adduction Machine – 3 Reasons You Need To Be Using This

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 about a specific machine.  In fact, this machine is usually just thought of as “the ladies’ machine”.  But, we need to explain to the fellas why you need to be using it as well.

The machine we are talking about is the hip abduction and adduction machine.  That is the machine where you sit down and you push your legs out or you sit down and you push your legs together.

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By Team MAS, ago

Barbell vs. Dumbbells – Which is better?

“Which is most effective to gain mass in my arms – the rod, the barbell, or the curly?”  This question was posted on Quora.com recently.  While there are many exercise and fitness questions that I choose to skip over, I decided to answer this one because I felt it highlighted a common misunderstanding in the fitness industry.  There is a notion out there that the results you get from exercise are somehow dependent on the tool (machine, free weight, cable, band, etc.) that is used while exercising.  And, if you use one tool versus another, that you will get better results (more muscle, less fat, increased strength, improved endurance, and so forth).

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By Charlie Cates, ago

3 Secrets of Working with a Personal Trainer

Imagine this.  You meet a new friend and this friend has never eaten a strawberry.  As you hear about this craziness, you realize that you must describe to this person what it is like to eat a nice, juicy strawberry.

Think about that for a moment.  How would you fully describe to someone what it is like to eat a strawberry?  

When I think about this, my ending thought every time is “well, you really just need to try it yourself.”  Were you thinking the same thing?  Probably.

This is because eating something as simple as a strawberry is an experience.  It’s not something that can be fully experienced by another person through a description of it.  You actually must experience the experience of eating a strawberry to fully understand and to fully relate.

Working with a personal trainer is like this.  It is an experience indescribable with words.  BUT, I am writing this blog post to share parts of the personal training experience that individuals that have never worked with a personal trainer may not consider…. Since they have never worked with a personal trainer.

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By Julie Cates, ago

How To Integrate MAT™ Into Personal Training

As personal trainers in Schaumburg, we strive to provide our clients with the most up to date exercise approaches to health, strength, and mobility.  This, undoubtedly, involves an integration of Muscle Activation Techniques™ with more traditional exercise.  We are often asked how we are able to blend the two–MAT™ and regular exercise–within a single personal training session and what information we are able to gather from the MAT™ assessment to help us make exercise decisions.  Well, MAT™ Headquarters just released a post giving a nice overview of how the two can blend.  And if you watch the associated videos below, you may or may not recognize the face on screen 😉

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By Team MAS, ago

The Gold Standard Of Exercise

When my personal training clients start working with me on exercise related tasks, they quickly realize that I am always preaching about moving slowly, moving with control, using as much support as possible, and lifting with significant weight. There almost always becomes a time when a client will ask, “Will we always train like this?”.  This is such a legitimate question for two main reasons.  1) I don’t know of any other fitness professionals (except my colleagues from my path of study) or gyms that endorse this, and 2) people always want to know that they are doing the best thing for their body to help with their goals.

Here is my answer: We will always have a significant portion of your training be like this (slow, controlled, lots of support, and significant weight).  Why?  This is the Gold Standard of exercise, in my opinion.  Let me tell you why. (more…)

By Julie Cates, ago