Download Balancing the Body with Muscle Activation Technique (MAT)

Balancing the
Body with
aggressive exercise workout, or a traumatic injury.
MAT
®
Jeff Weber
Most of us have at one time or another
experienced severe pain caused by an
overly tight muscle. Conventional wisdom for dealing with such an ailment
tells us to treat the afflicted muscle.
This may be in the form of ice, a warm
compress, stretching, or massage. Quite
often, the muscle then relaxes over a
matter of hours or days, and the pain
disappears. These acute conditions are
generally caused by a sudden strain, an
But what about chronic pain? The
shoulder twinge that is temporarily
relieved with massage, but then returns
a day later like a bad penny. The stabbing pain when you turn your neck
that’s been there so long you’ve just
learned to live with it. People who have
had such recurrent pain creep into their
lives may be candidates for MAT.
“Like any
highly durable
machine, your
body has many
redundancies
built into it…”
Muscle Activation Techniques, or MAT
for short, is the brainchild of Denverbased physiologist Greg Roskopf, and
is a somewhat revolutionary way of
looking at, and treating neuromuscular
pain. To appreciate the MAT concept,
it’s important to understand that every
movement of the body, no matter how
simple, involves multiple muscles. Like
any highly durable machine your body
has many redundancies built into it, so
even if an injury takes out one muscle,
there are others that can make a close
approximation of the motion for which
the afflicted muscle would normally be
key. Those other muscles almost always
assist with the given motion to some
degree anyhow, so even with their star
player out they can still carry the team
forward.
According to MAT theory, a muscle
can stop carrying its share of the load
when its neurological connection is
weakened, possibly due to strain or
other injury. This means that other
muscles have to take on additional
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Balancing the Body with MAT
Managing Arthritis
High Time for Tea
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duties for which they normally
wouldn’t be responsible. Known as
compensation, this happens automatically and subtly so that often we’re not
even aware of the load shift.
To understand how MAT looks at pain
differently, consider for a moment that
you are the team leader for a business
enterprise. One of your team members
has quietly decided to no longer carry
out her fair share of the workload, and
the rest of your staff is beginning to
grumble over the extra burden with
which this has presented each of them.
Over time, that grumbling gets louder.
As the team leader, one option would
be to reprimand the grumblers. This
may quiet things temporarily, but the
problem is still simmering, and your
team’s productivity has likely not
improved. A good leader might instead
recognize the true source of the problem and work to strengthen the diligence of this inhibited team member.
When we experience pain or a restricted
range of motion associated with a
particular movement, it’s typically due
to an imbalance in the “team” of
muscles that are responsible for that
movement. One muscle has become
inhibited, or weakened, and the others
are taking up the slack. Since they are
being used for a purpose for which they
were not designed, the motion may be
restricted or awkward, and over time
pain will develop in one or more of
these muscles from the unusual strain
and overuse. Joint pain may also result
from abnormal stresses. Massaging
these hurt muscles may temporarily
relieve the pain, but it won’t correct the
imbalance. (It is even believed that
chronic conditions such as scoliosis and
osteoarthritis are due to such imbalances left uncorrected over many years.)
Stretching the overworked muscles may
seem intuitive, but could actually
worsen the imbalance.
Dr. Paul Ciske, an Oakland personal
fitness consultant and MAT instructor,
uses a simple model to illustrate this
biomechanical situation. A ball sits
fastened atop a flexible pedestal that is
in turn attached to a base. The ball is
also connected to the base by six taut
rubber bands, evenly balanced so that
the ball and its pedestal remain upright
and stable. Without the rubber bands,
the pedestal would flop over in whatever direction it was pushed, but with
the rubber bands the ball can be pushed
around and it will always return to its
upright position. Dr. Ciske then removes one of the rubber bands, and the
ball immediately becomes unstable,
listing to one side. It becomes clear that
attempting to correct the situation by
stretching out any of the remaining five
rubber bands would only exacerbate the
instability. The only possible way to
regain full stability is to return the
missing rubber band.
Muscle Activation Techniques, then,
are all about reactivating or strengthening an inhibited muscle. Roskopf
prefers the term “jumpstarting,” as it is
actually the neurological pathways that
are being reactivated rather than any
buildup of muscle tissue. The entire
process is surprisingly simple and
quick. Following an examination of a
client’s range of motion and a series of
resistance tests, a therapist or trainer
will identify the inhibited muscle and
reawaken its nerve pathways with a
short series of isometric exercises.
Noticeable results are often immediate, and full recovery may be
achieved through repetition of
simple prescribed exercises over a
given period of time at home.
Muscle Activation Techniques are
quickly becoming an important
tool, and even the method of
choice, for an increasing number of
qualified physical therapists,
personal trainers, and massage
therapists. Ask your fitness professional if MAT is right for you.
Jeff Weber is a certified massage
therapist in Brentwood, California and
former faculty member at the
American Institute of Natural
Healings. Find him online at
www.JeffWeber.MassageTherapy.com.