There’s one huge problem with these claims, though…
These types of exercises only activate the muscles that are already activated.
Yes, these popular exercises are only able to fire up the muscles that are already fired up to begin with.
Why?
Because when you do any exercise or activity, your body only uses the muscles that are already active and working well.
Inhibited or “asleep” muscles are not used by your body; they are just compensated for by the muscles that are already firing.
What you have then is a situation where the active muscles get more active while the underactive muscles stay underactive.
In other words, these “activation exercises” make you better at compensating for underactive muscles but don’t actually do anything to “wake them up”.
So, is there any hope for activating inhibited muscles if the typical activation exercises can’t do the trick?
Fortunately, yes.
This is where Muscle Activation Techniques®, or MAT, comes into play.
With MAT, underactive muscles are stimulated without you having to use them. Then, once they are stimulated, your nervous system is taught how to access them again so you don’t need to compensate around them.
By stimulating the muscles first and then asking the muscles to work, it is like jumpstarting a dead car battery–first you send a ton of electrical input to the battery and then you keep it going by driving the car right away.
You can’t jump a dead car battery by just driving the car. That’s what activation exercises try to do.
And you can’t keep a dead car battery working by jumping it and then letting the car sit with its engine off. That’s what a lot of different body work modalities do.
You need both. You need to jump the car battery and then drive the car to have a car that is fully functional and continues to work well.
This is exactly what MAT does. By testing muscles, stimulating muscles, and then retesting muscles through the MAT process, your body is able to be primed for the activation, receive the input to the muscles, and then relearn how to access the muscles to lock the activation in.
If you would like to experience MAT for yourself, we would love to see you at our studio, Muscle Activation Schaumburg, in Chicago’s northwest suburbs.
At Muscle Activation Schaumburg, we have been trained in the highest levels of MAT–including MATRx, MATRx2, MATRx Stim, MAT Athlete, and MAT Athlete2–and are the most highly-trained practitioners in the Chicagoland area.
To try out Muscle Activation Techniques® for yourself, click here to schedule your initial consultation and assessment.
We can’t wait to see you on our MAT table soon!
In strength and health,
Julie & Charlie