F.A.S.T. Conditioning

Happy Monday to You!

I hope you had a lovely weekend doing what you LOVE.

In my blog today, I’ll be sharing:

1. F.A.S.T. Conditioning, my current video blog and a short written overview of the contents of my presentation.

2. CHEK Institute Advanced Training Program Completions

3. My thoughts on “smart textiles”, which are electronically embedded clothes being developed now…so smart its not so smart…

4. A fantastic music/spirituality documentary called “What About Me?”, and the art I created while watching it.

F.A.S.T. Conditioning

F.A.S.T. is an acronym I created to encapsulate a method for getting more effective conditioning done in less time.

Typically, in professional exercise and rehabilitation settings, general exercises are used for the prime mover muscles, and specific isolation exercises are done for stabilizer muscles.

For many people, doing both their regular gym training, and a specific stabilizer training routine results in less time for general movements; you only have so many minutes you can spend in the gym.

Additionally, if people do stabilizer training and the end of a workout, when tired, they are far less likely to pay attention to the specific details that must be adhered to for optimal stabilizer conditioning.

Today, I’ll share a fast way to do both for those that are healthy enough.

A large percentage of orthopedic injuries in the public, and among those using gyms for conditioning are due to inadequate stabilization of the working, or supportive joint structures.

Though there is a real tendency to assume that such injuries come from or are linked with weakness in the stabilizer muscles, and that they must be specifically conditioned, there are other essential factors that are often overlooked, such as organ and gland influences.

As I show in my book, How To Eat, Move and Be Healthy!, the functional status of your internal organs has a huge influence on muscle functions.

This is because the nervous system is constructed such that preference of blood flow and resources is always given to glands and organs whenever there is competition for (healing) energy and resources with muscles on the same neurological pathways.

For example, most any woman will inform you that there is a change in the function, strength, and even looks of the lower abdomen, back, and often legs when premenstrual; the energy and resources being sent into the sex/reproductive organs causes reflex changes in associated muscles, and they get less blood flow.

We are all familiar with the fact that when someone is having a heart attack, they don’t feel the pain in their heart…they feel it in their left arm and chest region; these muscles would be significantly weakened during a heart attack.

If you test yourself with the health appraisal questionnaires in my book, How To Eat, Move and Be Healthy!, and your total scores are in the green for all organ/gland systems, you are probably healthy enough to effectively apply F.A.S.T. Conditioning.

Breaking It Down

F = FORM: In my video blog, I explain the importance of having, and maintaining optimal form during any exercise, particularly when lifting external loads.

When our form is correct, our static and dynamic muscle functions, and their working ratio of contribution to the movement are optimal. I elaborate on these concepts in my book, Movement That Matters.

By holding optimal form, we can easily appreciate which muscles in any working chain of muscles (involved in the movement) become fatigued first.

For example, it is most commonly the low back muscles, and lumbar stabilizers that fatigue first with squats and deadlifts.

With the use of mirrors, trainers, or coaches for effective feedback, we can consciously correct our form during the exercise (set).

If, for example, you are doing deadlifts or squats and your back starts fatiguing before the rest of you, you may not be aware that you are losing optimal spinal alignment, increasing your risk of both injury, and faulty motor learning.

If you have good feedback, you can correct your form during the movement. The real “weak link” training begins then and there.

As long as you can hold optimal form, and with conscious awareness of activating the muscles that are fatiguing, you can finish, or extend your set, taxing the weak link.

This approach used consistently can accomplish both movement specific stabilizer training, and improve your overall strength and performance in the exercise.

A = Activation: As I shared above, we must be very aware of what muscles we are targeting with our awareness. This way, we can use the power of our mind to direct energy there and enhance performance.

S = Stabilizer: Stabilization is a process that occurs generally, or globally, and locally. Even large strong muscles crossing many joints, such as the latissimus dorsi (lats) participate in essential general stabilization in movements where they are needed.

If you were to look at EMG studies of the activity of the rotator cuff muscles in throwing athletes, you’d see a combination of short burst activities coupled with background contractions being largely generated by Type 1, slow twitch (aerobic) muscle fibers.

Stabilizing the body during movement, particularly high-speed movements with external loads common in gyms today is particularly true with kettlebells and cross-fit style training.

Stabilization is a complex neurological process that happens naturally in a healthy, normally functioning body.

If we stay aware of what is occurring within us, have good feedback, and focus on the weak link in the working muscle chain(s), we can enhance performance, prevent injury, and save time.

T = Tempo: Tempo describes the pace that each repetition is executed at. When we know the tempo we are adhering to (such as three seconds up and three down), we can calculate the total time under tension per set.

This essential information allows us to determine which muscle fiber type we are targeting with any given exercise.

When our intention is to improve stabilizer functions, particularly intrinsic (joint to joint) stabilization, we need adequate time under tension.

In my vlog today, I explain all the essentials you need to understand to get the right tempo for targeting the stabilizers.

Using the F.A.S.T. method, we are not performing clinical stabilization, which requires a lot more technical training, we are targeting the weak link – the point in the working muscle chain(s) that is breaking down first, leading to instability and/or loss of form.

Breathing

In my video, I also share some tips on breathing and loading that I think you’ll find useful. If you’d like to know more about the science of breathing and movement to enhance your training, feel free to check out the DVD titled, “Heavy Breathing” by CHEK Instructor Dan Hellman, CP4, PT.

I hope you enjoy exploring the simple but powerful concepts I share in my vlog today!

Resources:
1. How To Eat Move & Be Healthy! – Book
2. Movement That Matters – Book
3. Scientific Core Conditioning – online or correspondence course
4. Scientific Back Training – online or correspondence course
5. The Gym Instructor Series DVDs

CHEK HLC 1 Chicago With Angie Lustrick

Above, you can see our new HLC 1 students who attended training with Angie Lustrick, Nutritionist, CHEK Instructor, and Shaman. Angie informed me that her students were motivated, eager to learn, and fun to teach! I love hearing that.

I’m very excited to have a new group of CHEK HLC 1 students in the world getting healthy, leading by example, and getting ready for HLC 2.

HLC 2 is where we get deeper into the art and science holistic health and healing through natural diet and lifestyle approaches.

I find the students that effectively apply HLC 1 training for a good six months in their lives are much better prepared for HLC 2 training.

In the past couple years, we’ve been getting excellent students from around the world and I’m excited that the CHEK Tribe is GROWING at a time when the world really needs conscious leaders and change makers.

Thanks to each of you students from my heart.

Thank you Angie for another amazing event. I love reading the critiques and seeing how many people (especially the ladies) say, “I want to be just like Angie!” Very cool!

Electronic Clothes That Connect and Control ….

David Dodart of www.AiresTech.com forwarded today’s CEA SmartBrief newsletter (Consumer Electronics Agency), which announced that Google and Levi Strauss are partnering on a project to make clothes with electrically conductive fibers embedded in them.

According to the news briefs, they aim to create “smart” textiles — clothes that could control mobile devices, monitor health and fitness or even switch off lights in a home. The companies envision small, lightweight, touch-sensitive Jacquard yarn that will facilitate communication with digital devices.

Is this a good idea?

The human body is both surrounded by, and saturated in nested energy fields, often referred to by healers as “energy bodies.”

Current research shows that these energy fields are instrumental in guiding and directing cellular functions. This isn’t new news though…

In my studies on healing, I found reference to the fact that 900 years ago, the Tibetan monks identified that when the human egg is fertilized and gestation begins, an energy field shows up well before there is any noticeable body developed.

They also indicated that what we now know of as the acupuncture meridian system is also present in this energy field.

These fields range in frequency ranges, which are depicted in the light spectrum by the seven colors of the rainbow, as commonly seen associated with the chakra system.

You can learn much more about these fields and the meridian system by studying Cyndi Dale’s excellent book, “The Subtle Body – An Encyclopedia of Your Energetic Anatomy.”

There is now plenty of good research showing that cell phone use can, and does cause brain cancer. I have also been informed of a number of cases where people developed cancer in the body area where they carry their cell phones as well, which isn’t surprising to me at all.

When we have electronic devices, or are in areas where there are wireless networks, or are using Bluetooth devices, we are exposing ourselves to “fields” that carry energies that are disruptive, disharmonious with the energy fields and cells of our bodies.

When these energies are chronic, they create stress responses in the body-mind, increasing global stress.

When you consider how many “Global stressors” we are dealing with in the world today (soil, water, air, industrial, commercial products…) and the fact that the average person’s vitality is very low, adding electronic stress factors can “push Humpty Dumpty off the wall!”

In the image above from one of my HLC course manuals, I’m showing what happens when cells in key glands, organ systems, or tissues loose their ability to regulate themselves.

Distortions can be seen (by clairvoyants and specialized cameras), measured, and felt by both instruments, and healers; for scientific explanations of such instruments, see, “Life Force” by Claude Swanson, PhD.

If you want to get a quick demonstration of how powerful the negative effect of a cell phone can be on your body, simply stand or sit and extend your arms as you see in the photo below.

Then, have someone test either your strongest arm, or both by pressing down progressively until they reach the point that you can no longer stop them from pushing your arm down; you don’t need to hurt anyone, just be sensitive to how much effort it takes to resist the push and keep the joints stable.

Then, take any cell phone that has the power on and put it in the pocket of the person being tested and do the same test again…pay attention to how much effort you apply to keep your arms from being moved (are you weaker or stronger?).

if you are the one doing the testing, pay attention to how much of your effort it takes to overpower the muscle (gently) and make the joint move.

I’ve never met a person yet that wasn’t significantly weakened during this test.

The degree of weakening is a functional measure of how stressed the body is by the presence of the energies, and field generated by the phone.

Another test I developed to help my patients and students “feel” the energy from a phone and its negative effects uses water. Water molecules are exquisitely sensitive to energy/vibration in a vast range of frequencies.

To do the test, get a glass bottle of water. Set it on a table or in your lap and hold it with your left hand (receptive/yin), and take an live cell phone in your right hand; start by keeping it as far away from the water as possible.

Pay close attention to what you feel in your left hand that is in contact with the bottle of water as you move the phone progressively closer to the bottle with your right hand.

If your energy field and body are not already too imbalanced and clogged up energetically, you will notice that as the cell phone approaches the bottle, the water molecules literally start buzzing.

It is as though they are being rapidly boiled by a high energy that is so fast you can’t “see the agitation”, but you can “feel it”.

Imagine what that is doing to cellular functions and communications? Well, we know what it does…it causes cancer and all sorts of other illnesses and diseases…

That said, I really don’t think it is wise at all to wear electronically embedded “smart” clothing!!

If you would like to read the article discussing this new concept, go to:

Google and Levi’s team up on smart clothes – Your jacket or pants could soon control your phone or home security. By Sharon Gaudin
https://www.computerworld.com/article/2928605/wearables/google-and-levis-team-up-on-smart-clothes.html

To protect yourself and your family members from your existing “smart” electronics, contact [email protected] or phone in your order: +1 (435) 674-5500 to receive your 10% discount. 

What About Me?

The producers of my all time favorite documentary, “One Giant Leap” have produced their second masterpiece titled, “What About Me?”

This awesome musical documentary like movie is an incredible fusion of cinematography, spiritual wisdom teaching, music, dance, and truth seeking that explores “the big questions of life.”

I doubt you’ll ever see a program with this much raw, amazing, incredible music talent and music woven into important life themes. I’d recommend watching it somewhere you can combine good stereo sound with a great TV.

I had a hard time purchasing the 2 DVD set in the US format and could only buy them from a UK source via Amazon.com.

I have a worldwide DVD player, so it worked out fine. Just be aware of where the order is coming from so you don’t get stuck with a program you can’t enjoy.

The sound track is available on CD through Amazon.com, just in case you’d like to have the music without the video for listening purposes.

That said, a buddy of mine found it on the web and you can watch it (but not download it) for free! Plug in some great speakers or quality headphones and ENJOY!

You can view it at: https://topdocumentaryfilms.com/one-giant-leap-what-about-me/

I had the urge to paint this weekend, so I selected a canvas, plugged in my TV/DVD player, and this is what came through me as I just let the music move through me, and move my brush.

This is a very powerful, moving viewing experience and I’d love to see what comes through you if you decide to “listen and paint!”

I hope you enjoy my blog and have a lovely time living fully this week!

Love and chi,
Paul Chek