Brought to you by: MAT: Muscle Activation Technique
A multitude of factors such as trauma, stress, or overuse can contribute to muscle weakness. When you exercise, there is a period of exertion and then recovery. It is normal to feel fatigue. When there is trauma, stress or overuse, the muscle may not recover until properly rested. If this is habitual, (i.e. sitting at the computer for hours per day, over the course of many years) then the result can be muscle weakness.
The central nervous system detects various forms of stress and as a defense mechanism, inhibits the ability of muscles to contract. When a particular set of muscles contract or shorten, the opposing or antagonist muscles lengthen. In contrast, the lengenthing muscles may lose their ability to lengthen because the opposite muscles cannot contract.
Your body produces a protection mechanism to keep the body from moving into a position of weakness or vulnerability. A sudden trauma to the body may also cause a muscle to become weakened, such as slipping on ice and moving into an extreme range of motion suddenly. Our goal is to eliminate this “tightness” by simply restoring your muscle’s ability to contract.
At MAT® we say, “Muscle tightness is secondary to muscle weakness.” If you can correct the weakness, then most times you can eliminate the tightness
My client has weak: hamstrings, gluts and a core that cannot fire. She is aware that if she does not strengthen and work on these problem areas on the days she doesn’t see me, it will get worse. She has pain in her lower back often which means her deep abdominal muscles are not working or just very weak. She is scared to stretch and foam roll, because in her mind “if its tight it keeping things in place.” Of course this is far from the truth. Now muscle compensation has taken over and it will be a ripple effect of muscles confusion, unstable muscles ALL OVER and a stiff and painful body all over, causing muscle pulls, tear and repetitive injury.
Release tight muscles, strengthen weak ones… if you take care of your body, it will take care of you.