For optimal life and sports performance, your Muscle Activation Techniques Specialist will give you specific information on whether your muscles are “Activated”. Pain and tightness are signs of muscle weakness. Even if there is no pain, wouldn’t it be awesome to learn if your muscles were ready for the forces and physical demand your environment puts on you? Muscle Activation Techniques will help explain why athletes, working men and women, or even house wives have pain, tightness, and weakness which causes them discomfort, or worse, down time from activity. Even if none of the above problems exist, learn how MAT will give you the greatest chance to prevent injuries from ever occurring and give you the maximum opportunity to perform and train optimally.
What is MAT?
MAT has a systematic approach to evaluating and treating muscle imbalances that may lead to injury. MAT has a unique system of checks and balances which gives us specific information on which muscles may or may not be neurologically weak.
What is a MUSCLE’S # 1 JOB?
Muscles # 1 job is to be stable and to hold a position on Demand! When stability takes place, greater Range of Motion will occur for a joint. For stability, muscles are the first line of defense. The second line of defense is your joint’s connective tissue, like ligaments; and you do not want to stretch a ligament!
What is the MAT process? What is an unstable muscle and how can you tell?
Again, MAT specifically locates inhibited (weak) muscles by testing and treating muscular imbalances. In fact, if you have pain in an area you will have specific muscles that are neurologically weak. This means, you have muscle fibers not connected to the central nervous system, specifically a disconnection of your alpha and gamma motor neurons. MAT is interested in the gamma motor neurons, which regulates a muscles change in length. We need to find out which fibers in the body have the alpha / gamma disconnect. That is what makes specific muscle fiber testing so important. When we find a weak, unstable muscle position, it must be reactivated. The new stability gained will help muscles do specific functions. Pain and tightness are two big signs for weakness. Traditional weight training exercises Can Not strengthen the weak muscle fibers until the specific muscle fibers have been reactivated. Any exercise done in a weak area that has not been reactivated first will reinforce compensating muscle fibers. You do not want to do this! The strong fibers get stronger and the weak stay weak. The MAT process is to get rid of compensation by locating and reactivating the weak muscle fibers. It is really awesome to see how the MAT process works. I have seen one MAT session change people’s lives. The amount of treatment time needed depends on the individual and their lifestyle. The body will let us know.
1st Range Of Motion (ROM) exam.
MAT has developed over eighty range of motion position which gives us specific information on which muscles for a position may be weak. MAT ROM tells us where to start and is everything to us locating weak muscles. When you compare right side to left side for symmetrical ROM, the tight positions or possible pain positions will tell us which specific muscles need to be tested. The tight position is asymmetrical in ROM, meaning one position has greater motion than another. Tight areas should not be stretched. The brain will make an area tight to protect you. The process of the MAT ROM exam is to locate the tight area and reactivate all muscles that are in the tight area. When muscles fibers gain this neurological strength, the tightness may go away and it could be instant.
2nd How do you treat and reactivate a weak muscle?
Specific muscle weakness must be identified. To accomplish this, specific muscle testing (neuroproprioceptive response testing) is applied through specific planes of range of motion. We test a muscles position for two full seconds. If you get a weak test (positive), then that muscle must be reactivated and restore neuro feedback from that muscle to the brain.
3rd Reactivation of that muscle is done by palpating specific tendons of the muscle tested. Low intensity isometric exercise can be done in the same testing position to help reinforce the position. Once you have tested each muscle for a position and treated it, within seconds, the brain will sense stability and allow greater ROM and bones will move farther in ROM. Stretching alone may cause dysfunction and increase compensation patterns and this is not what we want.
How specific is the testing? In all, over three hundred muscle tests have been defined.
One muscle may have 4 tests to locate specific neuro fiber weakness. For example, the Glute Max has 3 muscle tests. There are 22 specific tests for abdominal muscles like your internal and external oblique’s, transverse abdominus, rectus abdominus, and this small, yet important, pyramidalis muscle. In the shoulder, there are 10 Rotator cuff muscle tests like the subscapularis which has 4 tests alone. There are many specific muscle tests for your low back / spinal erectors.
4th Retest and Recheck for new stability for the specific muscles tested. Also, throughout your treatment, your ROM will be the guide for improved mobility. The MAT checks and balances is the key in making this technique so unique. You will leave the table with greater stability and mobility. Next, this greater mobility and stability must transfer to real life situations and activity.
Mobility Vs Stability? Stretching Vs No stretching?
Again, MAT is great and powerful tool for anyone, especially those in pain and those who do not want future pain. MAT prepares your body’s ability to absorb shock, increases overall Range of Motion (ROM), and improves strength and stability. Within seconds and before your eyes you will feel and see your joints hold positional tests increase range of motion and stability. It is great to be “flexible” and have “mobility”, as long as you are stable. Mobility does not equal stability! Again, Mobility Does Not equal stability! However, when you have stability, you will have a greater chance for increase mobility. This is why traditional stretching may have a flaw. Traditional stretching, like the hamstring, quadriceps, IT Band, calves, or even the piriformis stretch, has no checks and balances for stability. Why? There are so many muscles involved in these positions that it is impossible to stretch a position and learn what is causing tightness and lack of ROM. MAT provides you with this information. Your MAT specialist can tell you which specific muscles in a position are stable and which muscles are not. After the MAT process and strong muscle function is restored, only then, on purpose micro progressed stretching may become a good tool. Remember, there are many forms of stretching. I recommend you pick the right form of stretching for you. For most, traditional stretching may not be needed. I recommend, regularly visiting ROM positions in the body actively. Be On Purpose with your training! Passive stretching should Not be done before a workout. For a person who regularly exercises and/or the athlete who participates in football, baseball, basketball, golf, runner, or any other sport and activity, you personally need no stretching, but you must do general and specific warm ups. General and specific warm-ups are critical! Your cool down will look like your warm up in reverse. Research supports this, stretching is not a good warm-up, but when used appropriately, stretching can be vital in many rehab situations when done by a trained professional. Do not just stretch something that is tight or it hurts. We have all done this. Lets get to the root of the tightness.
Will MAT help me? What if I am an Athlete, Will MAT® Help Improve my Performance and Keep Me Healthy?
MAT® is a technique that not only helps athletes to recover from injuries quickly, but also helps them prevent injuries from occurring in the first place. MAT® prepares the body to be more efficient in training and athletic performance. In order to reach optimal performance capabilities, an athlete is forced to train at a high level of intensity. Because of this, there is always the potential for injury. Some athletes may be predisposed to an injury, due to them having muscular imbalances that place increased stress on their joints and tissues. These athletes can be an injury waiting to happen. When they train at a high level, the imbalances are magnified, and the body can no longer handle the stress. It eventually breaks down. It is like driving a car with bad alignment. The faster you drive it, the faster the tires are going to wear out. The body functions the same way. If an athlete has muscular imbalances, the abnormal alignment results in increased stress on the joints and muscles. When an athlete trains at a high level of intensity, the stresses are magnified and injuries occur. The goal of MAT® is to correct the problem before an injury occurs… an injury is just a ‘symptom’ of a deeper issue. The symptom is not the problem; it is a result of the overstressing of an area of the body, due to muscular imbalances. Treating just the symptom may be a short term fix, meaning that the cause of the injury has not been addressed. The end result is that the athlete does not heal, or they go on to experience a more severe injury. MAT® not only helps to prevent injuries, but it can also speed up the rehabilitation process. By balancing the muscular system, MAT® provides an improved environment for healing. This allows the athlete to return to participation faster. The end result is improved athletic capabilities. “The benefit of MAT® is that the changes can be immediate” says Greg Roskopf, the founder and developer of MAT®. “A professional baseball pitcher increased his throwing velocity by 10 mph, immediately following an MAT® session. This was due to improved mechanics combined with pain free motion. We see these types of changes every day.”
About The Founder, Greg Roskopf
Greg Roskopf started his career in California as a strength coach for Fresno State from '85-'88, where he also received his Masters Degree in Exercise Physiology. While at Fresno State, he began to work with performance athletes. He started questioning why some athletes would breakdown, while others could work through fatigue and achieve higher performance levels. He knew there had to be a fundamental explanation. Greg began to focus on the biomechanics of the body and sport/training demands. He understood that each athlete had to be evaluated individually, with different muscle strengths, weaknesses, and adapted compensations. This is when he realized that the documented training programs could not be universally applied. He observed that once the unique mechanics of an individual's body were identified, his or her exercise program seemed to be making the strong muscles stronger and the weak muscles weaker; thereby emphasizing the imbalances. This led him to believe that protocol training might actually contribute to injury, rather than preventing it. In turn, Greg looked to the rehabilitation field. He was interested to see if similar underlying factors affected the healing process when dealing with injuries. There, he theorized that by ignoring the mechanics of the body, practitioners might be inhibiting the injured tissue from properly mending. The process of continually looking at "cause and effect" as they relate to pain, and of challenging traditional sports and medical theories, brought Greg to his current position. He has developed a unique approach for systematically identifying and treating muscular imbalances through noninvasive manual therapy. Because MAT is bio-mechanically based and designed to treat anyone affected with muscle weakness (and its associated pain) regardless of the cause, the MAT treatment practices are gaining recognition throughout all facets of the sports, health, and fitness industries. Greg has worked as a biomechanical consultant for various professional sports teams including: the Denver Broncos, the Utah Jazz, and the Denver Nuggets.
Greg is based in Denver Colorado and also travels from coast to coast treating high profile athletes of all ages. Greg is only one man, and he knew MAT needed more practitioners. In 2000, Greg created the MAT program, Muscle Activation Techniques. Since that time, Greg has produced MAT Specialists across the world. Physical and Occupational Therapists, Chiropractors, Sports Therapists, Athletic Trainers, Massage Therapists, Personal Trainers and others are enrolling in this new learning to become a MAT Specialist. Today, Greg has developed a MAT Masters team that meets regularly to continue to explore and learn more about our complex neuromuscular system.
Finally
If you are interested in a MAT Range of Motion evaluation and treatment, call me. We will locate and treat weak muscles in specific positions that are keeping you from maximally competing, training, and feeling your best. Let me show you how MAT can work for you.
John Foret, Jr. BS, RTS, MAT
Master Trainer / Resistance Training Specialist
Muscle Activation Techniques Specialist
337-540-1770
john.foret@christushealth.org
Also visit the MAT official web site at WWW.MuscleActivationTechniques.com Greg Roskopf’s
